Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1919-05-01

, speeches.
Just figure it out; IA plane coming
a hundred and twenty miles an hour
sweeping, swerving, dipping, curr-
ing, like swallow; q heavy cannon
manned by crew. They must get
direction, height, range accurately
on that moving target by means of
machinery moving 4 heavy cannon.
They must set the clockwcrk on the
shrapnel to burst at the right NOM
ent, One seconds difference in burst
ing times makes difference of over
fifty yards on the target even if it
were stationary. And one second in
the shell itself, the velocity of the
| shell as it sweeps up makes a differ
ence of over five hundred yards in
| the place where it bursts and this
| complicated and rapid shooting must
be done, not with q light gun in the
hands of one man, but with a cannon
handled by crew.
If you want a fair example, try Il
gun heavy enough to need two men
to fire it, and try to shoot ducks on
the wing with it. You will soon rea-
lie how much training and practice
it needs. And when you have tried
that-load your gun with shell that
! must be timed right to burst and
you have the problems o. the anti
aircraft gun; also the reason why so
few planes are hit by them
Doesn't that throw some light on
the necessity for the little military
education?
A trained army in a month or in
six months
You who doubt the necessity of
military education turn this over in
your mind; our anti-aircraft guns
have killed and wounded more of our
own men than they have of the enc
my-and when l speak of our | mean
the Allied aircraft guns. "What goes
up must come down. we used to saw
when l was boy. And this rapid fire
of shrapnel back of the lines, at
speeding aircrafts, necessary as it is
to keep the raiders high up, is rather
hard on the boys at best and when
you have half educated gunners--it
is something more than a joke. I'd
like to put our "great statesman"
who thought we could get million
fighters in the field in month, and
his applauding audience under fire of
his own anti-aircraft guns-not out
of malice but just for lesson in
the difference between theory and
fact Raw soldiers firing rapid salvos
Of shrapnel after one months train
ing whileSyou sit under the dropping
fragments and the raider sails away
untouched One learns very quickly
and thoroughly when put in that sort
of a school.
And there are literally scores of
departments in a modern army where
each department needs men as thor
oughly trained as are skilled mechan-
ics-at least that much
To believe that all these will spring
into co-ordinated, equipped and
efficient army inside of a month,
when need arises, is as foolish as to
believe that bumper crop of pota-
toes will spring up without planting
and get themselves harvested.
The Front priesthood has scored
largely during this war; the Allied
clergy have lost. Why? Because we
have been stop-gaps for the most
part while they were trained men
able to go where the boys went and
do what the boys did. They had a
military education many of them.
None of us had. The French, having
a little military education not only
went with the boys, but had the foun-
dation for an intelligent grip and I'M
derstanding Of the whole war. We,
even, those of us who went, had to go
as unframed and unskilled men, as
ignorant of military affairs as a
moss-covered backwoodsman; we
could not give even an intelligent
leadership.
Also, for the most part, we glor-
led in our ignorance. We 'hemmed"
and "hawed" in the days when opin-
ions were being moulded. we lodged
and doubted when we should have
been clear-sighted leaders-and why?
Not because we were less brave and
neighbors, but because we were so
less red-blooded than our French
hopelessly ignorant of military mat
tiers that mere hint made no i'm
preston, we had to be kicked in the
face with a plain fact before we
recognized it. And so, some of us
have had to stand in blind, helpless
rage, not able even to poke the bust
ness of machine gun wNss'e it
would do some gooda nay, not even
seeing the necessity for getting a
machine gun. How bitterly some of
US have repented, God only knows.
But we had to stand aside out of it,
locked up indoors on board ship while
our boys defended us, washing pots
and pans. and serving back of the
lines while our BOYS, that we ought
to have shepherded under fire, went
and died for us-the shepherd. Big
able bodied, scolarly men. patriotic
and loyal as any, yet, God forgive
US, so ignorant of military education
that we couldn't even matriculate for
an awkward squad or see the need
of getting our nation even as far as
the awkward squad stage.
Talking about that machine gun, we
who were there that day, resting
where the shells burst about us, had
the chance of seeing a machine gun
position that stands out
among thousands. For among the