The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-04-15
WAR DEPARTMENTS
 VIEWS ARE GI Y [ N ON PREPAREDNESS
Congress Must Provide For 150,000 Men or ReState Mission of Army, Har-
 board Declares
By Associaten rress

ton or military preparedness arose today in the Senate appropriations committee during its consideration of the army appropriation bill Discuss sior of the subject was brief but senators said the question of a na- tioral policy had grown out of the fight over the House reduction in the size of the army.
 Major General J. c. Harboard. dep- uty chief of staff. and Brig. Gen. WiI- liam Lassiter, in charge of military operations and training, appeared be- fore the committee to present the war departments views on the sub ject of the House cut, the former in- sisting that the organization was strained to the breaking point now under the forced reduction of a year ago, and the latter describing the plan adopted by the department for building up at low expense the forces required in a national emergency.
 TT the provision Is not made for i5O,000 men" said General Harboard, then we who are charged with oper- ation and maintenance of the work must ask Congress to restate for us the mission or the army"
 Questioned by Hitchcock
 The statement followed a series of questions by Senator Hitchcock, dem- ucrat, Nebraska, who contended that the European idea" of preparedness had been proved wrong by the World war. General Harbeard declared that ha T,Ff Ia much money upon which it is now erly prepared for the war. The work done by the American army. he con- tended, was at extraordinary ex- pense, "and would have availed noth- ing had not gallant little France held the line until We got our machinery going"
 MT. Hitchcock argued that the Unit ed States had "fooled'' all Europe in getting actively and effectively into the fray in less than a year. To this, the gener Il answered that the prepar- ation taken place ahead of the declar- aticn of war Germany might have felt different about engaging us."
 We did it in a year, true" con- tined General Harboard, but had we lived up to the national defense act,
 
 we certainly would have saved im- inense sums that now enter into the public debt upon which We are paying Ss51, 100000 interest annually"
 Presses Need for Soldiers
 General Harboard pressed the need for officers and men to do what the public expects of us.f It Is the work of the actual army functions that re- quire the extra personnel he declar- ed adding that Congress by Its ap- propriations and otherwise had shown that it believed that such work was worth while and thus the army had come to reguard 1t as "our mission" He reiterated that to cut down the House meant that sometime, some- where would have to crack. would have to go undone' In connection with the army reduction. General Harboard said that 1t had been neces- sary to "close" nine military attache offices. He included among those closed. Norway, Sweden. Denmark. Czecho- Slavakia. Hungary and Ecua- dor, not naming the others. He also told the committee that the war de- partment was again seriously con sidering the abandonment of some or the army posts and the concentration or the forces lDtO lnOSe TttdlHtus
 To Scatter Forces
 It was disclosed also that the de- partment contemplates an early scat tering" of the First and Third divi- sions, now stationed at Camp Dix, N. J., and Camp Lewis. Washington, re- spcctively. The troops of the first division will be distributed around the New York harbor posts. General Harboard said. while those at Camp Lewis will be placed in various of the posts of the Pacific northwest. One of the reasons given for the transfer of the eetroops was that the barracks of the two wartime camps were "literal- ly going to pieces and in some in- stances were in such condition that men, discharged. would not re-enlist-
 potential army of 100000 men is the goal set by the war department in laying it's plans for national de- fense. according to General Lassiter- The 2,O00.00O men army would De composed of three forces, he said, one-sixth being assigned to the regu- lars. two-sixths to the national guard and three sixths to the organized re- serve As In the World war, in time of hostilities these forces would be at once merged into a homogeneous en- tity under the unified federal control.