cruits of one locality all go at once, on account of the too great depletion of the workers; as little inconvenience should be caused as the purpose-best training in the shortest time— will permit. After this training service, the recruits would return home and be put on the register of their home battalion with which they would drill and maneuver in the future and they would be civilians again for a year. Their next service is the following year in the fall, after the harvest, when the fields are bare and maneuvers do little or no damage to agriculture. During recruit service, the officers and subofficers would have their eyes open to discover those that would make likely subofficers and officers. About one-tenth would be so picked, and the same year, or as soon as possible, these would in a short course of say four weeks, be made corporals. This corporals' course would take place either in the same barracks or in some other army post and a unit would again be formed. After this course a test would determine their merit-not too severe and they would all be made corporals; about one-fifth of the more apt pupils in this corporals' course would be asked to become lieutenants. In going home they would be assigned to "corporalcies" in their home battalion. The next year these corporals who had not been asked to become lieutenants would have two services, a recruit-course of two and one-half months as corporal-instructors in a recruit battalion and a maneuver service with their home battalion. Hereafter these corporals would only serve once a year with the battalion, till they go to the reserve. Those corporals however who had been selected to become lieutenants would go to a lieutenants' course of perhaps three months duration and after they had attained a certificate of efficiency, would be assigned to a lieutenancy in their own home battalion, or one of the other ones short of officers. They too would have two services in the following year, one as lieutenant-instructors of a recruit course of two and one-half months and one of two weeks in the fall maneuvers of the battalion in which they would have a command. This battalion would not maneuver alone but with two or three others in a regiment, two regiments forming a brigade, two or three

brigades a division; in addition to the infantry officers and soldiers there would be in every battalion a number of litter carriers and male nurses who take courses from the medical department under their officers, the two doctors; drivers from the train service with the battalion and company ammunition wagons and field kitchen on wheels and the wagons with the entrenching tools; the infantry regiment would have its staff wagons and wagons for the wounded. And the division would be a combination of all the arms, cavalry, artillery, engineers, signal corps, medical corps, field hospital and supply department, with their commanders and their staffs, which all work from the top down, transmitting and coordinating the orders given by the commander of the division. This would be a complete entity standing on its own feet, ready with officers, staffs, men, horses and material (guns, wagons, supplies, bakeries) to take the field. Below the division unit there should be no combination with other arms. And these maneuvers would be not only for the training of the men, they would be just as much, even more a test of the officers and the working together of all units. The two or more divisions of any army corps may maneuver together against an imaginary enemy or against each other as the case may be and as is done in Europe, even in Switzerland. Not before we have attained this stage of annual mobilizations for peace maneuvers can we say we have an army worth having ready to take the field. We must learn to think in army corps, not men.

To return to our lieutenant; he would serve as such for some years, then become a first lieutenant and as such, before becoming a captain (at the age of about thirty), he would take a special course for captains, after which, his certificate attained, he would receive a company and advance further, as far as his aptitude, judged by his superiors, will permit him.

The simple soldier after a few years (say eight), would go to the reserves and swells that important body. Reserves are of immense importance; I regret that space does not permit me to dwell on this subject—too little appreciated and understood in America.

It is sufficient to point out, however briefly, the importance of reserve officers; it is said, and probably with truth, that the lack of such in sufficient numbers has played an important rôle and had a detrimental influence on the success of Russian and British arms. It takes longer to train an officer and his training must be thorough, for only in this way will the men in the ranks have sufficient confidence in the wisdom of their leadership and will the officers easily enforce that discipline in their men that balks at nothing. When the lieutenant says to his men: Now we have to advance to die together, come on boys," they will have to have the discipline born of supreme confidence. Germany, France and Austria seem to have sufficent officers to fill the gaps and their warfare has not failed them on account of a lack of them.

The material should be stored within the army corps or division district complete, so that on mobilization nothing would have to be ordered from Washington or elsewhere, perhaps with the exception of the flying-machines attached to the highest command. All this requires the building of barracks and store houses and the selection of their location.

This is what the territorial organization of the army means and the division of the country in (say twenty-five) districts means. (If less than twenty-five they would become unwieldy.)

Sixth. Utilization of the officers of the present regular standing army to command the new-formed units of the universal army until the latter can furnish its own lower grades. The officers of the standing army to be the first to advance to high command. Of course there would be a period of transition which would present a number of difficulties. Units would have to be formed from which qualified officers would first have to be trained: regiments, brigades, divisions, army corps. For these the West-Pointers should be taken from the standing army and be given the command of these new units. These new units of course would not be under arms all the time, only during annual maneuvers. For the rest of the year, the officers of the standing army would return to their commands in the latter. The regular officers and subofficers, and even

some of the privates of the standing army, might be used to help train the recruits of the new universal army. After the first year, the universal army would begin to produce its own non-commissioned officers, and officers, and these would gradually advance until in a few years the whole machinery could be put into thorough working condition. Until that condition will have been attained the present standing army would form chiefly the complicated technical branches, flying corps and the horse services (cavalry, artillery), etc., and also be used for service in our few colonies. The question whether we should give the full equipment to the men and intrust it to their care at home, as the Swiss have done with such success, for almost lightning-like mobilization, is a question of detail.

And what would be the result of the above simple proposition. In the military sense, we would get an annual contingent of about 900,000 young men of the age of nineteen. If we assume that 60 per cent would be fit, we would have an annual crop of about 550,000 men to be given training and to be organized into the national defense forces. It would give us in a few years a few million men, and after we had attained a sufficient number we could then reduce the number of years during which the men could be called out, or increase the standard of bodily fitness in recruiting, give exemption to widows' only sons, etc., and mobilize part of the men for socalled industrial preparedness by securing their services for ammunition factories. We would not lack men.

In a larger sense, we would gain infinitely by such a training. Every man would get physical, moral and intellectual training, which would be a benefit to him outside of purely military considerations. The preparedness of body would make for the preparedness of the soul and the spirit, as it does elsewhere.

(624)

ORGANIZED LABOR AND MILITARY SERVICE1

I

JOHN P. WHITE

President United Mine Workers of America

AM asked to discuss, from the point of view of organized labor: (1) The obligation of citizenship to the common defense; and (2) compulsory or volunteer military training, as to fundamental principles and methods.

Another question is raised by mere statement of the subject. To organized labor, this is the question of immediate importance: What constitutes the "common defense"? If we can agree on that point, it will be much easier to agree on the others.

Labor accepts nationalism as a fact and as a necessary expedient for the progress of the race. Labor is patriotic. It sees these 100,000,000 people of ours as a nation, bound together by our devotion to certain ideals. These ideals are liberty, justice, education, and equality of opportunity for every child. They are the same for every American; but whereas a part of us have actually attained these ideals, the great majority of us are still striving to attain them. For the great majority of wage-earners, they still are only ideals.

There are between 20,000,000 and 30,000,000 wage-earners in America today, and the United States Public Health Service tells us that hardly more than half of these earn enough to maintain a healthful, decent existence. Of these, less than 3,000,000 have freed themselves from industrial tyranny and feudalism so far as to enjoy the right to bargain collectively and to interpose a strong organization between the individual worker and the employer, for the worker's full protection. Of the children of the workers, only a small percentage go out into the world equipped, as they should be, with an education fitting them to win in the struggle for

1 Read by title at the afternoon meeting of the Academy of Political Science on May 18, 1916.