The daily commonwealth. (Greenwood, Leflore Co., Miss.) 1916-1919, 1919-05-02
DEMOb|L|z|NG An
. ARMY ALWAYS HAS
BEEN SLOW WORK
REQUIRES TIME JUST AS IT DID
TO ARN AND TRAIN THE
FIGHTING MAN.
AND COST c MONEY
History Reveals Long Periods OF Re-
adjustment Following For
mer Conflicts.

When We nfSt entered the war
against Germany a lot Of misguided
but well-meaning patriots thought the
best thing we could do would be to
tax every man we could raise. Uni:
form him, give him a rife and ship
him across to France and set him up in
the trenches, where he would have
An early try at the Hun. Training
was something that was sneered at
1t would taxi too long to get an army
raised and trained, according to these
hot-headed but uuwise gentry.
Now that the wal is over, so far as
fighting is concerned, these folks or
others as like them as two b~lack-eyed
peas, are insisting that the thing TO
do is to turf every man in uniform in
this country back into civil life with
out any fuss about medical examina-
lions, discharge papers or anything
of the sort
They argue that, the war being over,
every man should be turned loose ana
told to go home or elsewhere and thai
all wal work, such as buying Liberty
Bonds and rehabilitation and recon
struction, should be forgotten.
It's a grand theory, but a nightly
| poor idea, in practice. Wars are not
fought, hat is successful wars, by
unframed troops. n first class
states do not demobilize troops like a
gang of fox hunters would demobillze,
In fact, it can't be done unless you
want to urn the whole country ove-
to chaos. Rehabilitation is well nigh
as slow a process as raising and tram
ing IN rmy
Back in the Civil Wal days in this
country when the job of demobiliza
ton was not nearly as complicated as
it is now in modern armies, it toos
the United States II months, practical
ly a year and a half to demobilize the
armies. And the haste with which Il
was done and certain of the methods
used unquestionably added very
greatly to the enormous pension rolls
that this country has been taking car
of for the last so years.
Slow Generalization.
When the French and German!
fought the Franco-Prussian war bacl
in 1870, the period of rehabilitation O
the armies that were concerned lastet
for two years and. four mo nths. 0
course a part of this slowness was iu'
to the fact thai armies of occupation
were maintained by the Prussians.
In the Turko-Russian wal a full yea
and a half elapsed after h fghtin'
ended before the fighting forces ha'
been absorbed into civil life. And th
numbers Of men involved were no
large compared with recent armies.
In our own Spanish-American wa
of 1898 it required 16 months to pu
the volunteer American armies bacI
into civil life. And We all know tina
our armies of those days were insi.
nidcant compared with those of tn
great war.
When England and the Beers wer
at war, troops were transported fror
: England to South Africa by the Bri
ish. At the end of that struggle En-;
land spent 10 months in demobiliz.
, ton.
The history of the Russo-Japanes
{ wa was about the same, demobiliz;
| ton extending " a period of a fu
> ear.
During the period of dem, .bilia ATTIC
soldiers must be fed, sheltered, clothe
and given the usual car given
> armies. The conditions are about til
{ same in those respects as Though W.
: were still going on. Wastase is
: no means a. great and supplies al
. more carefully conserved, but the e
I penses are only lessened, lot ended.
. The United States still has hundret
of thousands of men in the milita1
, and naval services. 1t is easy to 6.
. why the Victory Loan, the last Of ii
series, must be raised. The ~,nevitap
q sl6wness Of demobilization is a powe
9 full reason why you should support
Q Just as enthusiastically ana just
> periodically as you did the others