Evening star., 1936-02-27
ny the Associated Press,

FOLLOWING is the tert OF Gen.
Nalin Craig's memorandum to the
War Department in which, as chief
OF staff. he recommended that Maj.
Gen. Johnson Hagood be With
drdDn from duty and ordered
home:
Memorandum for the Secretary of
War:
Subject: Testimony of Maj. Gen.
johnson Hagood before subcommittee
of House Appropriations Committee.
on December IT, 1885.
/. deem it necessary, for the good
of the service, to invite your attention
to the testimony given by Maj. Gen.
johnson Hagood, now commanding
the 9th Corps Area, before sub
committee of the House Appropria-
tions Committee, on December II,
1885. as reported in The Washington
Star of February 10, 1886, and to
Maj Gen. Hagoods reply, by first
Endorsement, to letter of inquiry ad-
dressed to him under date of Febru-
ary 10, 1886. in which he admits that
the statements attributed to him
"are substantially correct" The
clipping. letter and Endorsement are
attached hereto.
2. According to this account, Gen.
Hagood told what he thought of
some of the New Deal relief spend
ing" A part of the account reads as
follows:
The general said he was not
familiar with the various pockets in
which Uncle Sam keeps his money,
but that he understood there is budg-
ct money which is very hard to get:
there is P. w. A. money which is not
so hard to get, and then there is q
vast quantity of w. P. A. money
which is very easy to get for trifiing
projects, but almost impossible to get
for anything worthwhile
He said he called w. P. A. funds
stage money because you can pass
It around, but you cannot get anything
out of it in the end 1t is harder
for me to get cents to buy lead
pencil than to get $1,000 to teach
hobbies to c. c. C. boys Hagood told
the committee. do not like the
Government standard lead pencils and
I cannot get by the controller with
the kind of pencils I like. But c. c. c.
hobbies are exempted from the con-
trollers decisions They do not have
to come up to Government specifca-
tions. One man can be taught to
collect postage stamps while another
man can be encouraged to take an
interest in butterflies. Under the
w. P. A. can get 5000 to build a
gravel walk to the garden house. but
I cannot get $40 to repair busted
steam pipe"
Urging appropriations for perma-
nent housing of the Army. he is fur
ther quoted as saying: "I am sug-
gesting that you do it now, there is
a lot of easy money floating around
and not to wait until you are skinning
the budget to the bone in order to
make up for past extravaganza.
got s45,0O0,O00 last year for the
C. c. c., and I got lot of this stage
money from the w. P. A"
3. These quotations speak for them
selves. When a general officer who
within some two months, will be, ex-
cept for the chief of staff, the rank
ing officer on duty with the Army
refers to the work which the Cover
ment is seeking to do in training
young men to useful and gainful oc-
cupations as &C. C. C. hobbies" "col-
lecting postage stamps" taking an
interest in butterflies" etc, and to
expenditures made under the direc-
tion of the Works Progress Admins
tration as money almost impossible
to get for anything worth while" and
as stage money" the writer OF a
telegram of protest addressed to you
is certainly justified in characterizing
Gen. Hagood's statement as CON
temptuous reference to policy ap-
proved by the head of the state. who
Is also his commander in chief"
4. If this were the first offense OF
this nature, some measure of excuse
might perhaps be found for an officer
whose 'eccentricities" were noted by
Maj. Gen. F. w. Coe in an efficiency
report made as early as 1919. But Maj
Gen. Hagood's 18 years as a general
officer have been marked by repeated
examples of lack of self-control, ire
sponsible and Incorporate statements
and references to War Department
policies in which his opposition and
contempt have been very thinly veiled.
There have been reprimands and ex-
plantations to little avail. In 1927, for
example, without any apparent effort
at securing authority or acqualnting
his superiors with the nature OF his
comments, he published book entitled
''The Service of Supply" in which he
commented very freely on the defects
and shortcomings of officers who head
ed important branches during the
World War. specifically naming them
and describing their supposed unf1tness
and incompetency. The inspector gen.
eral described the book as containing
''tactless, ill-advised and doubtful
statements of fact and opinion" and
'unmilitary in tone and tenor and at
times Incorporate in both If the cir
culation is extended it will do con-
siderable harm; among the uninformed
it will bring ridicule upon the War
Department; among the informed it
will bring down ridicule upon the au-
EDUCATIONAL.