Omaha daily bee., 1918-12-07
Warnings for Civil Life
Washington CORRESPONDENT Philadelphia Ledger.


quit the Job now that the war has been SO gal.
lantly won Uncle Joe Cannon once said OF
some of these officers that they wore spurs to
keep their feet from slipping off their desks.
1t is said no fewer than 800 officers in the
! ordnance department stationed IN ana around
Washington have rendered their reslgnations
since the signing of the armistice last Sunday.
A great many of these officers, expert IN their
line gave up iigh-salaried positions to don the
khaki when the war was the only thing in lie
worth considering and when the uniform car
ried with it the homage of grateful people.
Now the men who make up the ordnance de-
partment are deSirous OF getting back INTO
civil life as fast as they can go. But they are
up against a snag, None of the designations has
been accepted and none will be until the con-
struction plans have been thoroughly digested
and until the need for the officers no longer
| exists.
In other words, no officer of the army is to
be allowed to quit at THIS time just because he
wants to. Most of the officers taken on the
stats here in Washington used every sort OF
pull to get their commissions, and now that
they have them they are finding it not an easy
matter to let them go. The ordnance depart
ment has much work to do in the next six
months or year. 1t is almost as difficult
matter to get away from the routine OF war as
it was to get into it.
Officers of the newly formed motor trans
port corps are likely to be among the very last
discharged from the army. Transport work is
in full swing in France today as the American
army sweeps forward to the Rhine to occupy
the territory given up by the Germans under
the terms of the armistice. The supplySupport
of the army must be maintained at a high state
of efficiency. not only while the men continue in
the field, but until the very last unit is EN-
barked for home.
Even then the motor transport corps may
hold a very large detachment of men and trucks
in France and Belgium for the reconstruction
period. France and Belgium depending
upon the United States for physical as we'll as
financial assistance in rebuilding those devas-
tated countries, and transport facilities will be
needed for a long time to come.
Many officers in other branches of the serv-
ice applied only recently for transfer to the
motor corps, for they saw in II chance to get
early service abroad. In this they right,
but hear now that some of them may be kept
in the army as long as four five years after
the signing of the treaty of peace There will
be many who wish to remain however, and it
is probable the problem of letting the unwilling
go as early as possible will be worked out in
due time to the satisfaction of everyone
There is no chance al this time, however, for
the blanket acceptance of designations, espe
cially among the young men who were in the
first and second drafts and were commissioned
without serving any time in the ranks.
Senators, representatives, cabinet officials
and War department officers have been fairly
deluged the last few days with requests for the
early discharge of individual enlisted men from
the army, especially those who have seen SER
vice abroad.
Many requests are extremely reasonable
They came from dependent mothers, fathers or
sisters, who for patriotic reasons waived their
dependency when they left the country needed
every available man to fight back the Hun and
bring victory to the American and allied peo-
pies But now the war is over they are anxious
to get their sons, husbands and brothers out of
the army and back into civil life, where they
can earn sufficient money to bring back some
of the pre-war comforts to their homes
1t is impossible, however, the War depart
ment declares, to grant these individual re-
quests, for the moment such a policy was
adopted the pressure for discharges would be-
come so great that units would have to be
broken up abroad and men brought home as
passengers on ships without any sort of organi-
cation to keep them together. In bringing the
army home in orderly fashion it is necessary
that companies battalions regiments brgades
and divisions be kept as nearly intact as pos
sible This will mean an organized return of
the forces from overseas. To adopt any other
program would mean disorganizaton and dis
order.
Every mother or father who has made
request for the return of son naturally re-
CARDS it as a very small matter to grant their
particular request. 1t is true the early return of
one or two men would not disrupt the general
scheme. But there are thousands of such re-
quests already and likely to be thousands more
and the department feels it would be folly to
embark upon such practice.