Fuel (kitchen and incinerators). Crude oil (incinerators and latrines). General camp sanitation..... Hire of camp sites and damage claims. Office supplies, clerical force in camps.. Medical supplies and maintenance of equipment.. Transportation of supplies...... Camp and maneuver transportation (repairs, gasoline, oil). Total...... Allowing a reasonable amount for unforeseen contingencies, in 88,000,000.00 The above estimates are based largely on the limited data available from our training camps. As numbers increase and experience improves administrative methods the cost should decrease. EXPENSES OF TRAINING THE 21-YEAR CLASS FOR A PERIOD OF 15 OR 30 DAYS. No cantonments or permanent camp equipment will be required. The training will be entirely in field maneuvers, using the transportations supplied for the six months' men. Officers and men will have only the equipment authorized for individuals in field service. Allowing the same cost for transportation to and from concentration points we should have for 500.000: Any appropriation made should, of course, be expendable for any purpose not inconsistent with the intent of the law. That is, the appropriation should be expendable for the various items entering into the estimate at the discretion of the Secretary of War. This will be necessary for efficient administration, especially at first. It is believed, also, that railroad rates should be fixed at not to exceed one-third normal rates, and it is thought the railroad companies will be willing to do this as their share in the preparedness movement. A large percentage of the cost, especially for the 21-year class, is for transportation to and from the rendezvous. If this can be done, the cost for 15 days' training will be reduced to $8,750,000 and for 30 days' training to $15,000,000; while the larger estimate for the 6 months' training will be reduced from $88,000,000 to $83,000,000. BASE PAY FOR OFFICERS. It is believed that the base pay for officers should be smaller and the increase for longevity greater. This in view of the large number of reserve officers to be trained in time of peace and the volunteer officers necessary in time of war. As a general rule the present base pay is greater than should be given untrained officers, while the increase for service is not commensurate with the increased value of an officer of long experience. 1 To this must be added replacement of cantonments once every 10 to 15 years. 2 As a comparison the National Guard pay is $27,000,000. Act approved Aug. 29, 1916. Based on experience at Plattsburg. One-half Field Service Regulation allowance. The following tables show the present and the proposed rates of pay: It will be observed that, except for the general and the junior officers, there will be little change for officers of the Regular Army, due to the average length of service in each grade. If the proposed base pay were put in effect the reduction in the estimates for six months' training of 500,000 young men amount to $3,818,200. For the repetition course at 21 years of age the reduction would be $320,000 for 15 days' training and $640,000 for 30 days' training. In this connection the effect of the proposed change in case of war is noteworthy. The pay of each division of volunteers called would be $452,700 less per annum; and if the usual 10 per cent additional pay for war service were given it would be $498,770 less than at the present rates for each division. As stated, the pay is ample for inexperienced officers, and the amount saved in each division would purchase nearly 30,000 high explosive shell, 4.7-inch caliber. We should all bear equally our share of this burden of service for the Nation. I am confident that from the discipline, habits of regularity, and promptness will result a great increase in our economic efficiency as a Nation, a great improvement in morality through discipline and its resulting respect for authority, for law, and the constituted authorities. I believe that our murder rate will be divided by 10. It is about 126 per million now, as compared with 12 to 13 in Switzerland. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Walter Fisher testified here this morning, and read from an English writer to the effect that there is more crime committed in Germany of various kinds-the book tabulated them-with its military-efficiency system, than under Great Britain's, with its volunteer service. Gen. WOOD. Great Britain has probably the best system of justice. in the world, and the most prompt. If you take the arrests and trials for crime, you will find that they are very prompt, and they are effective. Great Britain is exceptionally efficient in that respect. I can not vouch for the excessive number of crimes, but certainly the prompt arrest and punishment under the English law are such that the more serious crimes are reduced to a minimum. Great Britain has a remarkably low criminal rate, so far as capital crimes are concerned. The murder rate of the United States is approximately 126 per million-the heaviest by far of any of the great Christian nations. The average in Europe is anywhere from 12 to 20, Switzerland representing the lower figure. I think that we can account very largely for this low murder rate by the discipline which a man gets during his period of military training. It produces respect for the flag, the law, and the constituted authorities, and it results not only in better men physically, but in greater economic efficiency. You have a better physical being, better coordinated muscles-in a word, a better all-around man, from the moral standpoint and from the standpoint of citizenship. This training tends to build up a spirit of national solidarity and a sense of the obligations of citizenship: the obligation for service in war as well as in peace-a sense of obligation which is very largely lacking in our population. I think universal training, service shoulder to shoulder, in which newcomers and our native-born citizens participate will have great weight in welding together these various and divers elements and making good Americans of them. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Fisher takes the position that we have the cart before the horse; that we take military training as the principal thing and make efficiency the by-product. He says we ought to reverse the method of procedure and adopt industrial training and efficiency with military universal training as a by-product. Gen. WooD. I think he is entirely wrong. He does not understand the value of military training from the economic standpoint. The CHAIRMAN. Would it be possible, in your opinion, to train men in civil life and at the same time make them proficient as units? Gen. WOOD. I think we could train men to be efficient soldiers while we are training them along industrial lines, but it would take a great deal of time. It would mean that we should have to hold men probably two or three times the period I am recommending, and it would also mean the equipment of the plants at training camps which would be enormously expensive, and the maintenance at these plants of instructors in all lines of industry, and it would, in a way, amount to failure to take advantage of the opportunities for this training which are offered in the industrial field, where the boy has a chance to learn his trade under conditions more favorable on a whole than the Government could afford to maintain. It would cover an unnecessary long time and would dissipate his interest in military training. I do not think it would be either practical or desirable. The actual situation in this country to-day is that we have no defense in any way adequate to meet an attack by a great power. We are without supplies, organization, officers, or trained men. In this project of general training, we are dealing with a proposition which is vital to national life. We must place something in the way of a trained force behind our little Regular Army, and we can only do it on lines consistent with the ideals of democracy through adopting a system of universal military training. Universal military training is absolutely opposed to militarism. It is the only purely democratic method. It exemplifies the basic principle of democracy; that is, that equality of obligation goes hand in hand with equality of opportunity and privilege. This principle is the very foundation of the Republic. We must get this training and get it quickly if we are going to have an adequate military defense in emergency. The CHAIRMAN. Why do you say that we are practically without defense? Gen. WOOD. You have an Army of what? Taking it all, at home and abroad, some 109,000 men. I think we are up to that now. In this country, a mobile army of perhaps 43,000, roughly speaking; about two divisions at war strength; about 14,000 Coast Artillery. In all, say a total of 57,000 men within the continental limits of the United States. That is all you have in the way of regular troops excepting a small number of auxiliary troops. We can not depend on the militia. You have seen the mobilization on the border. A more complete demonstration of the entire unsuitability for actual service could not have been given. It has been very expensive, but if we have profited by the experience it will have been money used to advantage. I will secure a full statement as to strength of the Army at home and oversea and insert it. Actual strength of the Regular Army, based on the returns for November 30, except for organizations in the Philippine Islands and in China, which are based on returns for October The number reported absent are those on furlough, and while most of them are in the United States, they are not counted as being in this country because they do not belong to organizations stationed here, and they are not included in the strength outside the United States because they are not a part of the effective strength on the date the returns are made. The CHAIRMAN. It was better than none, was it not? Senator THOMAS. As compared with the mobilization in the Spanish War, it has some points of superiority, has it not? Gen. WOOD. It has and it has not. As a promptly available efficient military asset, taken as a whole, it was of little value to meet trained troops on either occasion. Of course, there were organizations of carefully selected men who would have done their best, but it would have been a wanton waste of human life to have sent these men against moderately good troops. Again, it should be remembered that only a very small number of the organizations could be started until after weeks of delay, and that even then they were imperfectly equipped and filled up with men the bulk of whom were untrained and absolutely unfit for combat. Our own staff departments were lacking in efficiency, and, in my opinion, left much to be desired in their performance of duty. This will always be the case as long as the bureau heads are permanent fixtures in Washington and the General Staff is not in full coordinating control. The efficient work of mobilization was done, as a rule, by line officers filled with the spirit and knowledge which comes from service with troops. The sanitary work was far in advance of that of 1898. Camp diseases were less. Equipment in the way of transportation was sadly lacking. I do not know of an organization on the border to-day which is at full strength and properly and fully equipped for war service. I include in this statement the great bulk of the regular organizations. They are short of men, practically all of them, and they lack much which modern war considers of vital importance under combat conditions. The Militia are, of course, much worse off. Their situation as a fighting force was and is hopeless. The Regulars, what there is of them, are good well trained men and under Regular officers, which means well-trained officers. The CHAIRMAN. Is that due to the Militia system or due to the fault of the Army itself? Gen. WOOD. It is due to both. To inefficiency and shortages in our supply department, but the principal cause of deficiency is found in the Militia itself. This is not due to faults in personnel but to unsurmountable faults in the system. In the Eastern Department we have 56 per cent of the militia. There is no criticism to be made of the officers or men; they are a good lot of individuals and they have done the best they could. It is the system only that I am criticising. We found that 20 per cent, and a small fraction-I think it was 20.5-but 20 per cent is near enough of all men in the militia, and it should be remembered that when I say all men I mean men who are in the militia whose presence in it made it possible for them to draw Federal pay-20 per cent of them were physically unfit for service and had to be dropped. In the average Infantry regiments you have about 820 men. If you drop 20 per cent of them you would be down to the neighborhood of, say, 650. The governors dropped a great many of the old men upon the call for mobilization; that is, men who were obviously too old to go, but whose presence in the regiments added much to the strength and |