to feel some scorn of the term esprit de corps. But there is such a quality; it is meritorious and deserves cultivation. Perhaps it would be better to describe it by another name. Let us speak of the development and maintenance of an enthusiastic spirit. It is, so far as concerns us, a form of patriotism. The American believes his country is, or he would make it, the best in the world. To the army man our army is, or should be, the best. To the infantryman his arm should excel all others in the army, his regiment be the best in the service, his company the best in its regiment. He may, perhaps, not always feel that his organization is the best, for that belief may take the form of failure to improve, and so result in dry rot. But he must be on the lookout for opportunities to lend his aid to put it at the front and, thereafter, stand ready to keep it there by meeting and vanquishing all comers. There are a thousand methods for promoting such a spirit that will occur constantly to one who is observant. Scoff as we may at tradition, it produces effects that are attainable in no other way. It is right for us to know and take a pride in the accomplishments of those that have gone before us. The hardships endured, the battles fought and the victories won by our regiments and companies in the past have been endured and fought and won by our forefathers in arms. Let us make them our forefathers in sentiment as well as in fact. We will rapidly do so if the opportunity is given us. Every regiment in the service should have its history written in such a way as to make plain that of each company that composes it. Not as a mere dry, dead tabulation of facts, printed in a pamphlet and laid away as soon as off the press, to molder among official reports; but as a history is written to secure readers and to interest and arouse in them a pride that they are heirs to the fruits of great deeds. Let there be not one copy nor half a dozen, but so many that every officer of the regiment can and must possess one, and every company at least five or six. Let officers and men be encouraged, even compelled, to read and to be well versed in the story that it tells. Let us possess it as our own. It is not a matter of boasting, but one of honor, to know and be proud of the men and the deeds that have been done before our time.

Our volunteer forces have always, in one way, possessed an advantage in the pride of locality-usually of a state. They looked to friends and relatives at home for praise and encouragement, and they did not look in vain. The people at home looked to them to perpetuate and increase the name and fame of their community. Looking again to illustrations from Japanese experience, we see this and something more. There is not only a local pride of the Sendai men, of the Osaka regiments, but we hear of the Twelfth division, of the Tenth regiment, of the Fourth company. In the veteran reserve which I have proposed these sentiments will also be combined, for it will be localized by regiments and also closely attached to the regular army by origin. The regular army man takes a quiet pride in the regular army. Let his pride be nurtured. Help it increase, not only in the army, but in his regiment, his company, and in himself. Away with a makeshift uniform whose characteristic is uniformity, and give him a permanent, attractive one that will help him to feel that a soldier should look the part of a soldier and not that of a slouch and a rake. His warlike work will not be the less well done for his having been able to feel before it begun that he was truly a soldier.

Give him, when he has done this work to which his life is, for the time, dedicated, an emblem to show what he has done. The navy has, for many years, given its officers and men campaign medals which they are proud to receive. After the Spanish war it was proposed to do as well by the army. Why has it not been done? Is it thought the army does not desire these tokens? If so, some one has sadly misconstrued its spirit and its wish. They are, to the soldier, a source of pride and satisfaction, and they will be to his posterity a priceless legacy. It is not in the public school, but in the home, where the sword or the rifle of the father and the grandfather first awaken the glowing fires of patriotism.

The possession by regiments of coats of arms is neither snobbish nor un-American. They are emblems its members should be able to wear with pride, as everywhere distinctive of the regiment and indicative of its history. To the soldier they have the sanction of generations of his fathers who went forth

bearing arms. Help him to look back, now and then, in order that he may better look forward. Emblazon on the colors of his regiment the names of its battles, that all may see and note what manner of men once fought under them, and we may be sure that a like manner of men will fight under them once again, when there comes the call to battle.

THE GENERAL STAFF.

BY ELIHU ROOT.

[Elihu Root, secretary of state; born Clinton, N. Y., February 15, 1845; graduated Hamilton college, 1864; taught at Rome academy, 1865; graduated University Law school, college of City of New York, 1867; United States attorney southern district New York, 1867, March 1883 to July 1885; delegate at large state constitutional convention, 1894; and chairman judiciary committee; appointed secretary of war, August 1, 1899; reappointed March 5, 1901; resigned August 1903.

The important military event of recent years affecting the regular army has been the reorganization of the system of military control under the general staff act approved February 14, 1903. This act abolished the separate office of the general commissioner of the army, provided for a military chief of staff to the president, who, acting under the directions of the president, or of the secretary of war representing him, should have supervision not only of all troops of the line, but of the special staff and supply departments which had theretofore reported directly to the secretary of war; and it created for the assistance of the chief of staff, a corps of 44 officers, who were relieved from all other duties. The function of this new corps is described by the statute in the following words:

"Sec. 2. That the duties of the general staff corps shall be to prepare plans for the national defense and for the mobililization of the military forces in time of war; to investigate and report upon all questions affecting the efficiency of the army and its state of preparation for military operations; to render professional aid and assistance to the secretary of war and to general officers and other superior commanders, and to act as their agents in informing and coordinating the action of all the different officers who are subject, under the terms of this act, to the supervision of the chief of staff; and to perform such other military duties not otherwise assigned by law as may be from time to time prescribed by the president."

Although, by its terms, the act was not to take effect until August 15th, 1903, it was obvious that this radical change in the administration of military affairs and the adjustment of the new machinery to the old machinery which had been in oper

ation for many years, would require a vast number of details to be worked out experimentally and upon full consideration by all the officers whose duties were affected. A board was accordingly convened in March to recommend selections for the new corps. It consisted of Generals Young, Chaffee, John C. Bates, Carter, Bliss, and Randolph, and Major Henry A. Greene, as recorded. The board was required under oath to recommend 42 officers for detail upon their merits as exhibited by their military records. The order which convened the board also provided that vacancies occurring in the general staff corps, after its organization, should be filled upon the recommendation of a permanent board consisting of the chief of staff and the three senior officers of the general staff corps on duty at the war department, operating in a similar manner. The three general officers of the staff were selected by the president without action of a board.

Upon the report of this board its recommendations were approved without change, and the officers selected were ordered to Washington to report to General Young, who was to be the first chief of staff. They were then organized as an experimental or provisional general staff, and directed to work out a permanent organization and distribution of duties for the general staff corps, a draft of new regulations, and a revision of the old regulations made necessary by the new departure. This work was done upon full consultation with the chiefs of bureaus and taking the opinions of general officers commanding departments, and was accompanied by reference to the provisional staff organization of many tasks and problems to be worked out which were appropriate for general staff action, in order that they might become familiar with their work, and test by experiment the best methods of accomplishing it. In this way when the act took effect the general staff was ready to enter upon the discharge of its duties with a fully considered organization, distribution of duties and regulations, and a considerable familiarity with the new duties which its members were to perform.

The regulations which govern the operation of the new corps divide the corps into the war department general staff and the general staff serving with troops (that is to say, in time