The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-25

The end of the war has meant noth-
 ing in particular to enemy aliens in in-
 ternment camps.
 | # @* .*
 King Alfonso expresses his friendship for France Isn't Ali trifie lateg x # $
 Self-determination depends largely on
 nation finding out what it wants l
 HOW OUR GUNS GOT THERE
 P, M. Hollister. in Leslie's.
 When the war ended the war depart ment was sending General Pershing the finest motor artillery equipment with
 which any army in the world is blessed. i Ten thousand speedy tractors had ar rived or were on their way lover there, land with them the thousands of repair, supply and transport trucks, the ob- Iservation and dispatch cars, necessary | to maintain. supply and control an army's guns in action
 The idea of motorized artillery is not entirely new. But it has been real ized largely through the recent great
 commercial development in motor trucks and track laying" tractors, l The ordnance department began as
 early as 1903 to tackle the problem of motor transport. A combined battery
 and supply truck took several trial trips, in which it behaved we'll, but the six-ton outfit was too heavy to keep up with it's battery under the stiff
 conditions of varying terrain" After this early test the ordnance, quarter master and other corps kept almost lconstantly at their first problem, the working out of suitable motor trucks for transport service, Until ordinary lmule supply trains could be dispensed with there was, of course, little hope
 of applying motor power to such im- lportant units as the guns themselves. The success of an army depends largely upon its artillery vehicles, If Ithe guns are not brought up promptly after a victorious rush, the advant- iage may be lost Conversely, retreat
 may become disaster if the guns can- ,not be moved back out of the hands iof the enemy. The enormous increase in a modern army requires that the ordnance department furnish 8 tre- |mendous quantity of vehicles, a quan- tity which may not be published, but (which makes even the, historian's TO- mantle conception of the hordes of iCyrus look like a one-ring circus pag- Ieant.
 From demonstrations of strictly com imercial cars the field artillery board calculated that on a 1 4.7-inch gun or 6 inch howitzer battery the replacement
 of horses by trucks and tractors would
 effect a saving of $40,o00 in horses alone. scS.000 in caissons, $11,000 in iharness and $2ooo in miscellaneous
 equipment, as against an expenditure To S4o.ooo for trucks and tractors, in- icluding spare parts, or net saving Y of &36,ooo. per battery in initial cost An annual saving of close to $so,0o0 per battery for maintenance was also
 estimated, All these nSures were based
 On homo prices of sthat date, which I were even less favorable to motor transport than those of today Add to this the tactical advantage of ability
 so take guns across country where horses could not travel, the great sav- ling in road space on the march, the saving in man power. the gain in en- durance and the increase in speed, and there is small wonder that ordnance officers saw visions of wonderful ef- laciency in. motor equipment.
 The ease with which the tractor per- formed the work of two eight horse teams under conditions where horses could not be used convinced the of- l ficers present that a motor battery could safely depend upon such Q tractor to handle complete section of a 4 .7 or 6-inch material anywhere under war conditions.
 | But an army needs more than big gun batteries. There were 3-inch field guns to handle as we'll. The United States engineer corps in Texas has been testing out a smaller "tractor' of high lspeed for pontoon bridge work rustling heavy pontoons. fording streams and taking bulky material into favorable locations quickly without the. back muscles of the enlisted men. This IS, horse power model in an ordnance test took a gun and caisson through muddy ponds, over railway embankments and across piles of rocky debris at rate that threatened to leave nothing of the cannon to interest even a junk dealer. Here was a tractor travelling at the road speed of motor truck and still trailing gun. A new vista of possi- bility opened. This model and a small Ter brother, 12-horse power. were taken as a basis for motive power to super sede the dashing six-horse teams of the old regular army.
 0uYING DOLLARS AT 60 CENTS From the New York Herald.
 i've all as rule have our personal ob- legations to those whose livelihood and