II

T

BY

HE Secretary of War believes in peace. To his mind, the very name of his department is an anomaly. He believes that the great nations of the world can get together and agree to settle their differences amicably.

But until they do so agree he believes that we need an army. He is very positive that if we need an army at all we need a good one, concentrated, trained, and equipped. He does not want a larger standing army but he does believe in a reserve and in the better use of the National Guard as a supplement to the regular forces.

The appointment of Mr. Lindley M. Garrison to be Secretary of War came as a complete surprise to the public. It was an equal surprise to the great department over which he now presides. Probably not one of the people now under him knew that he existed. piece of "inside information" reached them that a man named Garretson was to have the war portfolio. That little they knew, and that was wrong.

A

When the announcement was finally made and the

public learned that Mr. Garrison was a judge from New Jersey, it was taken for granted that he was a friend of the new President. This was hardly true, for although they had met formally, both being officers of the state of New Jersey, their personal knowledge of each other really began when the President offered Judge Garrison the war portfolio. The President had become convinced that this post demanded the services of an able lawyer (the five preceding Secretaries were lawyers: Taft, Root, Wright, Dickinson, and Stimson) and Mr. Garrison's reputation and achievements marked him as such a man. The President offered him the post. Mr. Garrison was disposed to

refuse it. It would interrupt his judicial career. It meant inconvenience. From his own personal point of view he did not want it. The President explained that the same objections would occur if he should ask any first-class lawyer, and said that he did not think it fair to the party nor to the country that he should be forced to take a second-class man because the better men already had work in which they were vitally interested.

"How long will you give me to think it over?" Mr. Garrison asked.

Twenty-four hours, was the President's

reply.

Mr. Garrison decided the case in that time and accepted.

His first great task is to get hold of the organization of his department and make

MEETING HIS FIRST BIG PROBLEM

SECRETARY GARRISON, WITH GEN. LEONARD WOOD AS AIDE, DIRECTING THE WORK FOR THE RELIEF OF THE FLOOD SUFFERERS FROM THE HEADQUARTERS AT DAYTON, O.

it work for him. His second task is to know his department and his plans well enough to lay them before the committees of Congress so that even the busiest men may read and understand. The coöperation and understanding of Congress is particularly vital to the successful administration of the War Department. Of course,

Mr. Garrison has hardly time to do the first job thoroughly, and until the long session of Congress meets he will have no opportunity to try the second. But in the first two months he has done a very striking act:

The first criterion of any man in a position of power in the first six months of an administration is his treatment of the job-hunters and other patronage seekers. It is a thermometer of political and moral courage. Any one who knows anything about the army knows that the most demoralizing influence upon the conduct of officers is that political influence which is used to obtain promotions, transfers, and desirable details. Mr. Roosevelt when President issued two executive orders intended expressly to stop this abuse. But the abuse continued. Senators, Representatives, and other people with political influence were constantly bombarded with requests from army officers or their friends, and in many cases they carried the requests on to the War Department. This condition existed when Mr. Garrison took office. The incoming of the new Administration made it particularly acute. This was the form in which the question of patronage the conflict between the personal interest of influential people and the welfare of the Government servicecame up to Mr. Garrison. It was an insidious form. The regulations were clear that prohibited an officer using political influence for his advantage, but the War Department could not prohibit an influential friend from voluntarily exerting his influence.

While he has not prohibited it, the Secretary has found a way to prevent it. He has issued a general order that whenever a request for an officer's promotion, transfer, or detail comes to the department, except through the proper military channel, the request shall be referred to the officer and the officer be required to state whether it was made "directly or indirectly by his procurement, and whether he avows or disavows the request as one on his behalf." If he admits that he instigated it the law provides that he is disqualified from the service that he improperly tried to get. If he disavows the act the department

merely has to forward the disavowal to the person who made the request. Since this order went forth not a single improper request has reached the department, and a member of Congress whom I asked about it told me that in one week it had put an end to nine requests that he was asked to make upon the Secretary of War. The army is delighted. Even the officers who instigated improper requests under the old conditions would, most of them, rather trust to merit than

WITH HIS DOG, "TRIX

AT HIS SUMMER COTTAGE AT SEABRIGHT, N. J.

"pull" if they only felt sure that everyone else was on the same basis. With few exceptions Congressmen will welcome the end of an onerous burden which wasted time on undignified, embarrassing errands that received much censure and little thanks. In one particular at least the new Secretary of War has divorced politics from the army and the army from politics to the great relief of both.

Mr. Garrison had no military training. He has no military

whether from revolutions on the border or catastrophes at home. The army's Mexican work the Secretary sees at second hand. The army in the stricken field of the flood the Secretary saw for himself.

Major J. E. Normoyle and Capt. James Logan were in charge of the relief operations on the Mississippi in the summer of 1912. During the four months the army cared for 272,752 refugees and 54,525 head of live-stock. On Thursday, March 27, 1913, these two men went to the War College in Washington armed with daily papers containing full accounts of the floods in Ohio and Indiana. They got down their maps and began to plan, for they thought that they might be needed. In a little while a telephone message from

MR. GARRISON AS A JUDGE

IN THE EQUITY COURT IN JERSEY CITY, OVER WHICH HE PRESIDED BEFORE HE BECAME SECRETARY OF WAR. JUSTICE MAHLON PITNEY, NOW OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, AT MR GARRISON'S LEFT

tendencies. He is a Quaker by descent. Most of his time is quite properly taken up with the other responsibilities of his department the river and harbor work (though this is done by army engineers it is not military work), the Philippines, Porto Rico, the Canal Zone, etc. Yet the army has at once taken hold of his imagination. He sees the records of the soldiers along the Mexican border who for two years have handled a most difficult situation almost perfectly. There was one complaint from the Mexican Government of an American officer who had crossed the Rio Grande. The investigation proved that he had done so and more that he had risked his life to save the lives of the remnant of a Federal garrison. The Mexican Government changed its complaint to a request that the officer's bravery be rewarded.

The Secretary confessed that when he first took up his responsibilities he was a little fearful that some of our fighting men along the border would let provocation lead them into a fight. But he has come to view the border patrol as the chief guarantor of peace in that troubled district. The army has come to be the handy instrument to restore normal conditions