Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-05-06


ment of the highest man."
WAR PREPAREDNESS.
= ENERAL PERSH1NG in max
~ ing an argument for a larger
army and more war preparation il
quoted as saying. mo doubt the
Civil war never would have hap
pened had the Union been equippec
with an army Of reasonable size
and ready for immediate use." Gen
eral Pershing would do we'll to
avoid treading on such treacherous
ground as he has to travel over ir
predicting what would have hap.
pened in a war half a century age
If the United States had gone into
war preparation on a more extern
sive scale just prior to the out.
break of the Civil war. Had they
done so, it is quite possible that
there would have been no United
States today. for such war prepar.
edness as we had at that time, fell
in the hands of the rebels against
the authority of the United States
largely. General Grant in his me.
moirs says:
"Floyd, secretary of war, scat
tered the army 50 that much Of II
could be captured when hostilities
should commence and distributed
the cannon and small arms from
northern arsenals throughout the
south so az to be on hand when
treason wanted them. The navy
was scattered in like manner. The
president did not prevent his cab
met from war upon their govern
ment either by destroying its re-
sources or storing them in the south
until a de facto government was
established, with Jefferson Davis
its president"
IF the United States had been
possessed of an army and navy ten
times az large as it had in 1861,
with equipment in proportion, it
would not have prevented the seces
sion of the southern states and the
Civil war, but it might we'll have
given the south such a preponder-
ance of artillery and war material
at the start that the Union would
have been destroyed. At any rate,
in view of what happened at the
beginning Of the war, it is certainly
rather reckless on the part Of Gen.
eral Pershing to cite the Civil war
as proof of the cost of lack of pre-
paredness on the part of the United
States. It is true, that General
Pershing leaves a back door open
to retreat through when he quail
flies his statement by the phrase
ready for immediate use" That
is good strategy no doubt. But the
fact is there would have been no
army ready for immediate use"
against the south under President
Buehanan's administration, no mat
ter how much taxpayers money had
been spent in increasing its size
and providing military equipment.
Everybody familiar with the history
of the times just prior to the out
break Of the Civil war knows that.
With 4 president in sympathy with
the shareholders of the south and
state sovereignty as then under
stood, elected by a majority vote
of the nation, the Civil war was in
evitable. and no amount of wal
preparedness in the nation could
have prevented it.
The advocates of vast military
and naval expenditures on prepare
for future wars often seek to
prove too much when they unlim-
Der the heavy artillery of their
Woodrow Wilson wal severe
ly criticised by the republicans be-
cause he did not spend vast sums
of money which congress had not
appropriated in making prepare
tons for war before the United
entered the war. But now
the republican party is fully
responsible for war preparedness
we find that they are not so keen
about it. Even President Harding,
who used to be a great advocate
of war preparedness is now moved
to refer to the subject in terms that
indicate q change Of mind. He