The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-13
BAKER SAYS HE Is
ANXIOUS TO RETIRE
Will Retain Post, However,
Until Certain Duties Are
Accomplished.
PRAISES q. 8. SOLDIERS
Says Many Return Equipped
for Better Jobs Than They
Formerly Held.

Secretary of War Baker said at q
luncheon In the Hotel Biltmore yester-
day, given by Grosvenor Clarkson of the
Council Of National Defence, that he was
anxious to retire to private life, but that
he feels there are certain duties incum-
bent upon his trust as a Cabinet officer
which he wishes to see fulfilled before he
ment
Mr.. Baker told Of the unusual elias
ticity of mind Of the American soldier.
which had enabled him to be fitted for
HIS task in an unusually short time and
which after the cessation of hostilities
enabled him to turn to study which will
Mt him to MI q much higher place in in
dustry when he returns than he had
when he left. 1t Is this which Mr.. Baker
believes will complicate the labor ques-
ton when the men all get home.
He spoke of how Marshal Joffre urged
that this country send division abroad
az soon as possible and how the Marshal
made a great point of saying:
When your great army comes you
will have 100000, perhaps as many as
100000 men, and you will have to have
moro port facilities for them"
And when the armistice did come"
said Mr.. Baker. I'VE had 100000 men
in France. and our casualties on the
western front are pretty nearly as great
as the maximum expectation Of the Mar
shall for our entire army.
THE problem which the general COM
mand over there faced then was some
sort of occupation which would keep the
Idle soldier from being a discontinued
soldier. At the very outset the reaction
OF the military man was highly absurd.
The answer OF practically every COM
handing general on the western front
was to drill his men until they were 30
tired they couldn't think OF anything
else. And finally the boys themselves
gave the answer. They said. We don't
want to drill. The war Is over. We
want education"
The result was the formation OF the
Expeditionary Force University, in
which were eleven colleges. teaching
many subjects, and where privates
might be found giving lectures on law
or astronomy or integral calculus to a
class in which were privates. Lieuten-
ants, Captains and Majors. Mr.. Baker
then told some stories OF the way in
which the Americans carried on an Of
fensive, and said:
ITO the French and British the war
had taught the lesson of limited OBJ
1ectives. and they had formed all their
military plans on the basis of action
by limited detectives. But that was in
! consistent with the American idea. We
had to learn that lesson In war IL we
were going to learn 1t at all. Our army
commanders when told to proceed on
the limited objective theory simply
couldn't understand that
Gen. Billiard told me yesterday at
West Point that when he got his first
order for limited objective he told the
French corps commander that he didn't
know how to translate that into English.
And as consequence when his first or
der was written for a coup de main, as
he phrased IL he left that out, and the
division commander next to him sent
word: You are not following the order
of the corps commander. You have left
out the last part
Gen Billiard explained that his men
would not understand that. II they go,
| there and the going was good they would
keep on. ! throw that in only because OF
its interest and because 1t shows that
the genius of American institutions is
such that education does not enfeebe
and that liberty and the freedom which
we have had for the development of the
individual do not palsy the robuster vir-
tues needed for the prosecution of a
great national cause"
Mr.. Baker emphasized the need of the
[, War Department to Withdraw from its
abnormal dominance of the affairs OF the
country, and said that 1t had practically
done so.
Secretary OF Labor Wilson and Col
Arthur Woods also spoke.