Norwich bulletin., 1918-01-29

organized. as you know in France, pur- suant to the suggestion of MT. Lloyd | George, the Rapello conference of the l supreme council, and the United States is represented on that by the chief of staff of the American army and the major internal arrangements in regard to the military worked out there, while General Pershing and his staff of experts are working out these other questions.
 That is a picture of what has been going on over there, gentlemen. On this side much of that has had to be done and in addition to it all the things we have done, and 1 ask you to remember among the achievements on this side is the building of this army, not of 10000 or 100000 or 800 900 bue of substantially million and one-half men.
 Quickest Army in History. And now let me be frank with you and let your judgment be frank with me about this. Has any army in his | tory ever. since the beginning of time, been so raised and, cared for as this army has. Can the picture be dupli- cated We have raised this army, talk l ing the regular army and the national
 
 supplementing it by the operation of a draft, and there are senators in this room who said to me with grief when | we proposed that that form of raising l the soldiers should be had they shock l their heads and said MT. Secretary it 1 can't be done. It is too sudden to ad- dress to the American people that mode of selecting soldiers. And yet, | has any great enterprise within the knowledge of any man in this room ever been carried out with more un- failing justice, with more intelligent explanation and con1mendation to the | good sense of patriotism of the Ameri- 1 can people, and has any great and revolutionary change in our mode of practice ever been accepted so splen- didly as the operation of the selective 1 service system?
 we have got those young men in i camp and they are surrounded from the day they left home until the day l they come back to it, if in Gods prov idence they can come back, with more agencies for their protection and com fort and health and happiness, physi- cal. spiritual and mental, than any army that ever went out on a field. Classified by System. j..
 They are classified by a system under classification so that men who have mechanical instincts and train i ing will be given mechanical oppor- tunities in the army. The round ma l is not sought to be put into: the i square place. The '. NJ. CA, the Knights of Columbus, the Young Wo- mems association. the trMning camp activities committee, the training camp athletic committee, the Red [ h0x oil h,-nr rI,4 %@ 1;x.4 with the soldiers, and by virtue of activities started in the war depart ment, the communities which surround | these camps have been instantly got l ten away from the notion which used 1 to be prevalent of a certain alienation 1 between civilian soldier group and 1 these soldier boys in these, ca mps have been adopted into the homes and hearts of the people among whom they l live. No such relation has ever exist | ed between an army and a civilian population as exists with regard to these.
 And then, with your aid, the army has been able to practically stamp out intemperance and vice among the sol- diers, by the establishment of zones, by the establishment of patrol systems of one kind and another, by the training of these young officers in these train ing camps, young men of experience
 and fine feeling and all that, we have gotten into this great army the idea that it can be, a strong and effective
 military army and still be free f.
 things which have hitherto weakened
 and sapped the vitality and virility of armies.
 T have gone. from camp to camp among these cantormerts and my first l y~io|o o1xy tn
 camp commander What about your disciplinary problem?'
 Wonder of Veterans.
 "Old men in the army, men whose
 lives have been spent in it from their
 boyhood, and who have been all over
 the continental United States and
 through it's insular possessions wher-
 ever our armies have been, who know
 the life of the soldier and, the camp
 and the post, all say with one accord,
 and no exception, that they have never
 seen anything like this; that the dis culinary problems of the army are reduced to a negligible quantity and instead of the melancholy and pathetic
 parade through the secretary of war s office of courtmartial after courtmar- tial. of men who have. fallen down and yielded to temptation under these un- usual circums stances, which used to obtain, have an infrequent case now ,of courtmartiaI by reason of such Weaknesses" ! Here, at the request of the chairman,
 MT. Baker put into the record a state ment showing the number of hospitals
 the Red Cross established in France,
 with the number of the personnel of | each. f.-. I The secretary then resumed his tes-
 timony. ec-c | "When Lord Nortbcliffe returned to
 England he was invited. as I recall it, by Lloyd George to accept a position in his cabinet. He wrote a letter which
 was printed in the papers. and in
 that he made this casual reference to
 the United States. He spoke of his I,visit here, and spoke of our war prep arations in this fashion:
 Praised by Lord Northcliffe. "'War preparations proceeding ir Eth eviri1e atmosphere of the United . States and Canada with a feryor .ant r enthusiasm little understood on thil g side of the Atlantic g He was then in England. I lkappel Q to have a copy of confidential in t struction issued by the German gov V ernment in June, 1917, to the German