

CONGRESS. (THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.) 



151 



make an infinitely heavier demand than ever 

 before upon the individual character and capac- 

 ity of the officer and the enlisted men, and to 

 make it far more difficult for men to act to- 

 gether with effect. At present the fighting must 

 be done in extended order, which means that 

 each man must act for himself and at the same 

 time act in combination with others with whom 

 he is no longer in the old-fashioned elbow-to- 

 elbow touch. Under such conditions a few men 

 of the highest excellence are worth more than 

 many men without the special skill which is only 

 found as the result of special training applied to 

 men of exceptional physique and morale. But 

 nowadays the most valuable fighting man and 

 the most difficult to perfect is the rifleman who 

 is also a skilful and daring rider. 



The proportion of our cavalry regiments has 

 wisely been increased. The American cavalry- 

 man, trained to maneuver and fight with equal 

 facility on foot and on horseback, is the best 

 type of soldier for general purposes now to be 

 found in the world. The ideal cavalryman of the 

 present day is a man who can fight on foot as 

 effectively as the best infantryman, and who is 

 in addition unsurpassed in the care and manage- 

 ment of his horse and in his ability to fight on 

 horseback. 



A general staff should be created. As for the 

 present staff and supply departments, they 

 should be 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 system 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 veter- 

 ans of the civil war who are still in the army 

 would seem to require that in the matter of re- 

 tirements they be given by law the same, privi- 

 leges 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 polit- 

 ical 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 pressure, political, social, 

 or personal, of any kind, will be permitted to ex- 

 ercise the least effect in any question of promo- 

 tion or detail; and if there is reason to believe 

 that such pressure is exercised at the instigation 

 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 the 

 simple ground that those who by their own mer- 

 its are entitled to the rewards get them, and that 

 those who are peculiarly fit to do the duties are 

 chosen to perform them. 



Every effort should be made to bring the army 

 to a constantly increasing state of efficiency. 

 When on actual service no work save that di- 

 rectly in the line of such service should be re- 

 quired. The paper work in the army, as in the 

 navy, should be greatly reduced. What is need- 

 ed is proved power of command and capacity to 

 work well in the field. Constant care is neces- 

 sary to prevent dry rot in the transportation 

 and commissary departments. 



Our army is so small and so much scattered 

 that it is very difficult to give the higher officers 

 (as well as the lower officers and the enlisted 

 men) a chance to practise maneuvers in mass and 

 on a comparatively large scale. In time of need 

 no amount of individual excellence would avail 

 against the paralysis which would follow inabil- 

 ity to work as a coherent whole, under skilful 

 and daring leadership. The Congress should pro- 

 vide means whereby it will be possible to have 

 field exercises by at least a division of regulars, 

 and if possible also a division of National Guards- 

 men once a year. These exercises might take 

 the form of field maneuvers; or, if on the Gulf 

 coast or the Pacific or Atlantic seaboard, or in 

 the region of the Great Lakes, the army corps 

 when assembled could be marched from some in- 

 land point to some point on the water, there 

 embarked, disembarked after a couple of days' 

 journey at some other point, and again marched 

 inland. Only by actual handling and providing 

 for men in masses while they are marching, 

 camping, embarking, and disembarking, will it 

 be possible to train the higher officers to perform 

 their duties well and smoothly. 



A great debt is owing from the public to the 

 men of the army and navy. They should be so 

 treated as to enable them to reach the highest 

 point of efficiency, so that they may be able to 

 respond instantly to any demand made upon 

 them to sustain the interests of the nation and 

 the honor of the flag. The individual American 

 enlisted man is probably on the whole a more 

 formidable fighting man than the regular of any 

 other army. Every consideration should be 

 shown him, and in return the highest standard 

 of usefulness should be exacted from him. It is 

 well worth while for the Congress to consider 

 whether the pay of enlisted men upon second 

 and subsequent enlistments should not be in- 

 creased to correspond with the increased value of 

 the veteran soldier. 



Much good has already come from the act re- 

 organizing the army, passed early in the present 

 year. The three prime reforms, all of them of 

 literally inestimable value, are, first, the substi- 

 tution of four-year details from the line for per- 

 manent appoints in the so-called staff divisions; 

 second, the establishment of a corps of artillery 

 with a chief at the head; third, the establishment 

 of a maximum and minimum limit for the army. 

 It would be difficult to overestimate the improve- 

 ment in the efficiency of our army which these 

 three reforms are making, and have in part 

 already effected. 



The reorganization provided for by the act 

 has been substantially accomplished. The im- 

 proved conditions in the Philippines have en- 

 abled the War Department materially to reduce 

 the military charge upon our revenue and to 

 arrange the number of soldiers so as to bring 

 this number much nearer to the minimum than 

 to the maximum limit established by law. There 

 is, however, need of supplementary legislation. 

 Thorough military education must be provided, 

 and in addition to the regulars the advantages 

 of this education should be given to the officers 

 of the National Guard and others in civil life 

 who desire intelligently to fit themselves for pos- 

 sible military duty. The officers should be given 

 the chance to perfect themselves by study in the 

 higher branches of this art. At West Point the 

 education should be of the kind most apt to 

 turn out men who are good in actual field serv- 

 ice; too much stress should not be laid on 

 mathematics, nor should proficiency therein be 

 held to establish the right of entry to a corps 



