ent, as in the past, efficiency is being sacrificed to economy. There are various ways in which the shortage of officers could be remedied. For instance, the vacancies caused with organizations by the withdrawal of officers detailed for duty on the general staff should be filled as is done in the similar cases of officers detailed to places in the department staff. A portion of these needs will be thus looked after, perhaps, but it is scarcely to be expected that anything like complete relief can be soon provided.

As for the general staff, it appears now to be satisfying the needs of the service as rapidly as circumstances will permit, and must be allowed to prove its future usefulness. There is no doubt it will go far to provide adequate plans for organization and preparation for war conditions, but in order that these should be complete and thorough in every respect requires an education of the people to an appreciation of the real needs of the military branch of the government that only time and constant effort can bring about.

That the old volunteer system will take its place in the background, to provide a final reserve, must be insisted upon, but will meet with such resistance as to long delay its accomplishment. While the national guard has been strengthened, it possesses such inherent and apparently ineradicable weaknesses that its usefulness is seriously impaired. It is not truly national, and no state force can well become immediately effective for the prosecution of a war. We may congratulate ourselves that the material of the army is, in the main, well up to date. With the close touch now in existence between the line and the departments, the interest of each in the other is likely to keep it so and, probably, improve it rapidly, unless a reactionary spirit again secures the upper hand. In this very improvement the detail system has already demonstrated its usefulness and, possibly after some modifications, will continue to do so unless the reactionaries should succeed in upsetting the whole system, or details be allowed to repeat themselves again and again until the real good to the army at large is lost. That the departments will still lose some officers at the outbreak of war is to be expected, but it is to be hoped the evil will not again be so great. At least, if the

detail system is allowed to carry out the original intention of its creation, there will always be a much greater number of experienced officers in the army who will be able to take up the work at once, when called upon to do so, instead of merely doing the best they can until costly experience has been gained.

While every one, civilian and soldier alike, will admit the desirability of keeping the army clear of politics, and political and social influence, it is not to be expected that it will ever be completely so. There is this to be said, that the more nearly we are prepared with our plans, and the less confusion we can have at the outset of war, the less will be the influence of the politician at that critical moment. Finally, the time lost in training, at the next call to arms, will depend upon how well we have organized and laid our plans beforehand. In other words, how much we shall learn of what we have yet failed to learn, and to what extent we shall be able to enforce the application of these lessons.

At the very threshold of inquiry lies the most serious problem of all, for which, as yet, no satisfactory solution has been adopted. That is, how to have ready, at the beginning of hostilities, a sufficiently large force to oppose to that of any power with which we would probably find ourselves at war. It is one of the conditions of our national life that we are now precluded from maintaining, in peace times, an army of anything like sufficient strength to take and keep the field, alone, against that of any other real power. Barring this solution, therefore, it is an imperative duty to find another that will provide us with some adequate force that may be quickly added to the regular army when necessary, and that will prove to be immediately effective. The value of a volunteer force, as an adjunct to the military arm of our country, is indisputable, but we have made the mistake of regarding it, not as an adjunct, but as the first and main reliance. We need not prove that it cannot form the first line, which will have to meet the shock of combat with troops of modern military training, or that it cannot be regarded as the backbone of our army. That has been proved, over and over, by experience. In any international disturbance we must stand ready to meet the shock of battle at a very early period. We

must be prepared to look upon the preparations or the mobilization of troops as the immediate forerunner of action. The war between Japan and Russia is no isolated case. In all wars of recent date, acts of hostilities, often amounting to actual combat, have taken place before a formal declaration was made by either side. Volunteers, as we understand the term, cannot be called upon until war is assured or, in other words, until war has begun, and then the mobilization, organization, and training of such an absolutely raw force is slow and laborious. Before they can be put before the enemy in the field, with the slightest hope of accomplishing anything with them, several months will have elapsed; but several months will not have passed before we shall be forced to meet and engage an energetic and ready foe. What other force, then, can we use?

The national guard has now been placed by law on a seminational footing, and has been stiffened and better provided for. If it could be really nationalized, careful and diligent handling might create a force of considerable potentiality that should be able to take the field much more quickly than volunteers. Yet it must not be forgotten that it is subject to many decided limitations. It is and always will be a state force. It is essentially a popular organization and must remain so, for it depends upon its popularity for its strength of numbers and apparent success. We may pass over its minor faults, such as the popular election of its officers, as matters permitting of remedy. But there are fundamental weaknesses that do not permit of any remedy. Its members, men with no other military training, are habitually engaged in various civil employments that were first, and must remain first, in their consideration. To weld them into a homogeneous and effective force demands that they be compelled to devote a considerable part of their time to the work of the soldier, and as the guard is further nationalized and improved, this demand will become more imperative. But step by step with this growing demand grow civil conditions that will make it more and more onerous and difficult for the guardsman to comply with. The use of the guard as a police force brings it into conflict with a section of the population that

resents and threatens its very existence. As this section is growing in strength through the powers of trades unions and the immense weight with which they are beginning to be credited in politics, their opposition may well be considered serious.

The experience of recruiting officers, inspectors of the national guard, and particularly of those who have examined and mustered in volunteer troops, shows that guard organizations find it necessary to accept a large number of men who, judged by service standards, are of inferior physical quality, and whom therefore the government must reject at the last moment, when they are called into service. Another large class who can and do serve well enough as guardsmen, find, when called upon for service in war, that they cannot comply with the summons, and no number of laws and regulations will prevent the necessity of excusing them. Owing to these causes, the strength of the guard, when most needed, is greatly and unavoidably diminished.

In view of these objections to the present methods of raising a supplementary force, there is a vital necessity for organizing a true reserve of men who shall have enough training to be immediately available at the outbreak of war. I am not for the first time proposing the formation of a veteran reserve, but the necessity seems to me so great that the idea and the plans for its organization should be kept constantly at the front. There is now a splendid force of trained and disciplined men, consisting of those discharged from the army upon expiration of term of service, literally going to waste for want of the attention and the small amount of legislation and expense necessary to conserve it. Under our system, since all service is absolutely voluntary, it is not possible to form from these men a compulsory reserve unless we are willing to adopt some form of conscription. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable that a large part of the men who have had from three to nine years of service and know what the army really is would voluntarily enroll themselves as members of a reserve whose exactions are but a fraction of those demanded by constant service with the colors, for a cash compensation which, though small, would be an inducement for them to keep the war department informed of their whereabouts and to be pre

pared for the few duties they would be called upon to perform between the dates of their discharge from and re-entry into active service. It is probable that a very few years would be sufficient in which to thus enroll a reserve of such numerical strength that, making allowances for all necessary deductions, it would be able to take the field with at least the strength at which the regular army had been previously maintained. Of course its members could not remain reservists the rest of their lives but, within reasonable age limits, they would have the advantage over all other reserves of having been once thoroughly trained in a system as complete as any of its kind in the world, the effect of which would never be lost upon them. With proper plans for their mobilization, stores for their equipment in readiness, and capably officered according to a rational system, they would be ready to take the field with very little delay.

Within the limits of this article it is not practicable to go far into the details of plans for the organization and handling of such a force. It will not be amiss, however, to say that its higher officers should come from the officers of the regular army, according to a fixed scheme which will keep them always in readiness and will put the seniors at the head, so that all grades throughout the army will be equally benefited. The lower grades should be filled by duly qualified enlisted men of the army, and by civilians who have received training at a military school or in in some similar manner. In this way the proper ambitions of all officers will be stimulated and the men will find themselves under officers who are fitted for command and in whom, from the first, they can feel complete confidence.

For the regular army itself, some reformation must be made looking toward keeping the various commands more nearly intact, and at such a strength that their training may be a real preparation for war service; otherwise they cannot be brought to that state of readiness expected of them. And when the critical time comes, if we are in any wise lacking, it is we who will bear the blame, no matter who may be really at fault. The wish to cut down the strength of the army to its lowest possible figure in order to produce a favorable political