586 Presidential Addresses 



filled by details from the line, the men so detailed 

 returning after a while to their line duties. It is 

 very undesirable to have the senior grades of the 

 army composed of men who have come to fill 

 the positions by the mere fact of seniority. A sys- 

 tem should be adopted by which there shall be an 

 elimination grade by grade of those who seem unfit 

 to render the best service in the next grade. Justice 

 to the veterans of the Civil War who are still in the 

 army would seem to require that in the matter of 

 retirements they be given by law the same privileges 

 accorded to their comrades in the navy. 



The process of elimination of the least fit should 

 be conducted in a manner that would render it 

 practically impossible to apply political or social 

 pressure on behalf of any candidate, so that each 

 man may be judged purely on his own merits. 

 Pressure for the promotion of civil officials for 

 political reasons is bad enough, but it is tenfold 

 worse where applied on behalf of officers of the 

 army or navy. Every promotion and every detail 

 under the War Department must be made solely 

 with regard to the good of the service and to the 

 capacity and merit of the man himself. No pres- 

 sure, political, social, or personal, of any kind, will 

 be permitted to exercise the least effect in any ques- 

 tion of promotion or detail; and if there is reason 

 to believe that such pressure is exercised at the insti- 

 gation of the officer concerned, it will be held to 

 militate against him. In our army we can not 

 afford to have rewards or duties distributed save on 



