Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1921-10-07
enough in zero weather mere to keep
the political pot boiling.
War Department Saves Money.

Lie WIFI uGpd1 tIIiFut IL Ia ms
/ to save money. The ward from
Budgetman Charles G. Dawes is
that Secretary Weeks has succeeded
in slashing things. Perhaps | am put
ting it somewhat rudely, and perhaps
| Secretary Weeks may not like it if
he should happen to see it, but | am
convinced that he wishes he had not
been compelled to save money along
certain lines, although perfectly will
! ing to save it along other lines.
! Congress has cut the American army
force to 10000 men by an act of leg
| islation OF course here is a big saw
/ ing and the credit for it cannot go to
/ the secretary of war, because it IS
what might be called a perforce saw
/ ing, but it is said that the secretary
has saved money in other ways and
| believes that he has done it without
hurting what is left of the service.
The American army today has. about
10000 officers, possibly 1880. Seem
ingly this number is disproportion-
ate to the number Of enlisted men,
but the word of the War department
is that there is work enough for all
these officers to do, and that there is
no necessity of cutting down the COM
missioned personnel. Your CORE
| spondent has reason to think that
Secretary Weeks is strongly opposed
to any decrease in the army officer Llsf
| Many May Lose Commissions.
There is fear, however, in the serv-
| ice that when congress gets through
with Mr. Fordney's tax and tariff
| legislation it will turn its attention
to the army and will legislate some
hundreds and perhaps thousands Of
men out of their commissions. A
great many Of the young officers en-
tered the service Oh the plea that
they were needed, and it was patri-
! otto duty to serve their country.
Some of them left good paying posi-
1 tions in private business with assured
/ futures to answer the call. The proc
ess of sending them back to civil life
| by legislative act might be called
something worse than heartless. 1t
probably would be bad business any
way.
There are some ranking officers of
the army who think that a decrease
in the commissioned personnel is pos
sible without working an injustice
to the younger officers. Probably the
means for securing a reduction which
is being thought on by some of these
ranking officers may seem a bit heart
less also, but if their method of reduc-
ton in the officers lists is adopted no.
body will suffer heavy pecuniary loss,
although they may suffer somewhat In
soul.
There are military men who think
that there should be lot of COM
pulsory retirements in the service.
Officers who have served 80 years can
be retired by executive order. but al
ways in such case there necessarily
must be a suggestion that the officer
/ has outlived his usefulness, or that he
better than others can be- spared from
active duty.
There are also good many officers
who voluntarily can retire because of
the length of their service, but who
have some years to go before reaching
the age limit when retirement is COM
pulsory. The suggestion has been
that some of these men might be in
duced to retire to make room at the top.
Creating the Reserve Corps.
General Pershing and his staff are
hard at work trying to create real
reserve corps for the army. There
are something like 10000 reserve Off
GERS who already have been commits
stoned. This seems like large num-
Der, but it is not enough in case the
United States should be compelled to
raise another army like that which
went to the front, or was ready to go
to the front in 1918.
The real need of the reserve corps
today of course, is enlisted reserve
strength AS yet there are few en-
listed men in the reserve corps. It
will be difficult to bring the young
Americans into the reserve unless in.
ducements are offered. Just what
course will be pursued is not yet
known, but it is said that the gem
eral staff hopes to have real re-
serve army.
It is claimed that the work of re-
constituting the National Guard and
of conducting citizens training camps,
has been carried on with energy. All
the, great combat divisions which won
such high distinction during the World
war, are to be reconstructed. It is
known that the strength of all the
National Guard units which the War
department has recognized since the
first of the year is $4,000. Last
March there were only 1852 federally
recognized National Guard officers.
Today there are virtually twice that
number and this is marked and sat
isfactory Increase. of course.
The work of organizing and local
izing the reserve corps units into staff
corps areas is now in progress. Off
GERS have been selected in each area
and a small number of enlisted men
have been turned over to each corps
area to help in the work Of organization.