any Volunteers of that arm or branch of the service should be raised, and the militia law contained a similar provision.

Is it possible to make of the National Guard a dependable firstline force as a supplement to the Regular Army? That is the question in so far as it relates to the National Guard. It is my judgment that the National Guard can never be made an effective first line without unified, coordinated Federal control for training in time of peace as well as for service in time of war.

This can not be accomplished under the present provisions of the defense act, for the reason that under the defense act the National Guard is included in the militia definition, and being so included, government of the force, until actually called into the Federal service, must remain with the States.

I do believe it is possible, by an amendment of the national-defense act, to exclude the National Guard from the militia definition, and then the Congress would have unlimited power to enact any law which it might deem proper covering its training, discipline, its use, and control.

That brings up a lot of great big questions. If you are going to take this force out of our hands, right away there is the consideration of whether the States would continue to support them. We have in the State of New York $26,000,000 invested in armories. We provide each year a military fund at the rate of $8 per man. We provide headquarters and officers' allowances; for the mounted organizations sufficient funds to hire animals are provided; so that there is a considerable expense about it.

Senator THOMAS. Do you think that is true of all the States-that that proportion is provided?

Gen. STOTESBURY. No; it is not true. It varies very much, and in some States the amount contributed to the support is very small. At the same time, that is one of the parts of the system; up to this time the forces maintained vary so largely, too.

But the question is, assuming that these contributions of large sums are necessary to the continuance of that force, would the States be likely to continue the support in the same measure if the Federal Government took over complete control in the manner I have suggested?

The reason the States support them now is because there is the right to use the troops in case of civil disorder. It has been urged frequently that it would be much better for the force if they were relieved entirely of the obligation of service in civil disorders. Only last year we cut down the right to call out the force for service in civil disorders by limiting that right to the governor. We eliminated about 435 State and county officers who up to that time had had the right to call forth the force, and now the governor alone has the right to call for the force upon presentation of a case which shows that, with the power at his command, the civil officer is unable to afford adequate protection to life and property.

I believe that the Congress has the undoubted constitutional authority to provide that this force, although purely Federal, may be used in case of civil disorder within the State. There is a constitutional limitation, however, which provides that the Federal force may only be introduced into the State or used at the request of the

legislature when the legislature is in session or of the Governor in case the legislature is not in session and can not readily be convened. I do not think that would be an embarrassment. I think, in view of the amendment we made last year and the tendency to limit this right to call out troops, that the States would not change their disposition of support for a long time to come. States that are giving the support now would continue that support, and where they are not giving it the Government would not lose anything anyway. The States would have the use of a force, we will assume, better trained and better adapted for the purpose. If the policy of permitting the States to call upon the President for these troops should not work out satisfactorily, by that time you would have defined your policy and might decide whether you are going to buy armories or hire them, or whether you will support the force, and you will know just what you want to do in regard to it. In the meantime, the States could have supplied some other force for use in civil disorders.

If the National Guard is to be constituted a part of the first-line force, if the theory of federalization is to be given a fair trial, the efficacy of the system should not be judged by its operation under the call for Mexican border service.

There had been no opportunity between the approval of the national-defense act and the call for Federal service to adapt the old forms to the new theory. Many of the causes for criticism relate to matters of policy.

It ought to be accepted as a fundamental principle that any first line must be maintained in time of peace at the strength at which it is to be used in time of war.

The President's call required that the organizations of the National Guard be increased to war strength. This meant the introduction of from 30 to 50 per cent of untrained raw material.

The man who joins in such an emergency is of a different character than the man who is willing in normal times to subject himself to military training and discipline.

The greater part of the criticism of the mobilization may be traced, directly or indirectly, to the introduction of this war-strength incre

ment.

It was the war-strength increment that was unprovided with equipment, and the delay in supplying the uniforms and equipment has been the subject of universal condemnation.

It needed no great amount of wisdom or experience to anticipate that if the policy of the Government was to increase the strength of the National Guard organizations after the call for Federal service delay, confusion, hardship, complaint, and just criticism were bound to result unless the necessary equipment for that increased strength could be placed where it would be readily get-at-able when it was needed.

It was the policy of the War Departmnt to hold this so-called warstrength property in storage at Philadelphia or the Rock Island Arsenal. So necessary did it seem to the military authorities in the State of New York that this property be within the State, subject to immediate issue when the emergency arose, that we offered to provide storehouses in every armory, to be designated as a United States storeroom and set apart for such a purpose under the control of and

accessible only to a Federal officer, so that in an emergency the Federal officer could turn over the key to the supply officer of the organization, take his receipt for the property transferred, and the business of supply could be initiated at once.

While this proposal had the approval of the Eastern Department, there were reasons which persuaded the War Department to disapprove, and so the property remained on storage until after the call for Federal service.

While original plans contemplated that in such an emergency the organizations would be sent to the State mobilization camp, and the property would be sent from the Federal storehouses to the mobilization camp for distribution, conditions did not work out as anticipated. The emergency was of such a character that many organizations were sent directly from their armories to the trains which were to transport them to the border. This required a complete change in the scheme of distribution of the war-strength property. It had to be separated, assorted, and diverted to meet the new conditions, and this at the period of greatest stress and confusion.

Statements have been made to your committee in regard to the difficulty of recruiting the National Guard to its prescribed war strength. I would like to tell you something of our experience in New York State in regard to that: We had provided, in the State of New York, for the organization of depot units to take the place of every organization called into the Federal service. The depot unit assumed control of the armory and took charge of the recruiting for the parent organization. It carried out the plan of territorial recruitment; that is, the obtaining of recruits for an organization from the home station or territory covered by the parent organization.

From the nature of the service it is far more important that recruits for National Guard organizations be obtained from the territory covered by the organization than it is in the case of volunteers, for the men enlisted in the National Guard after muster out of the Federal service must continue their training and serve at their home stations, while in the case of volunteers the organization is broken up and disappears after its muster out.

So we had worked out a scheme of recruiting through the depot unit. It had the advantage of the support of the veterans of the parent organization and the patriotic support of the community.

This plan of recruiting worked with reasonable satisfaction and was producing good results, but it was not according to the Federal plan, and the recruits enlisted by the commanding officers of the depot units could not be recognized by the Federal authorities. A Federal recruiting rendezvous was established. Officers were mustered into the Federal service especially for recruiting duty. Offices were established at various cities and towns throughout the State, and the work of recruiting was conducted according to the usual Regular Army plan.

Officers of the depot units who had been active in the work of recruiting soon lost interest and withdrew their support. Local interest and community sentiment no longer prevailed, and recruiting did fall off, but it was largely due to a policy which failed to recognize and failed to make use of the machinery which had been established in the State for that purpose.

So the criticism about the loss of interest and the falling off of recruiting is not altogether fair. The method employed was not well adapted to the end in view. It was a defect in policy rather than any defect in the law.

The CHAIRMAN. Was the same system adopted in other States?

Gen. STOTESBURY. I was told by the officer assigned by the Eastern Department, at the time he organized the recruiting-depot system, that the Federal system had worked well in other States. It could not have had very long tests at that time, because that was only about a month after the call.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that was any part of a scheme on the part of the Regular Establishment to discredit the National Guard?

Gen. STOTESBURY. Not at all, Senator. I believe it was a lack of appreciation of conditions and an attempt to apply to the National Guard, a branch with which they seemed to be unfamiliar, a method which was thought to be perfectly natural and normal and well adapted to the regular service.

The CHAIRMAN. The suggestion has been made once or twice during the hearings that the Regular Establishment undertook to do things that would handicap the National Guard for the purpose of bringing them into discredit. I would like to have your views about that.

Gen. STOTESBURY. I would like to go on record emphatically as against any such belief. I do not believe there was that attitude. I saw no evidence of it whatever.

The CHAIRMAN. How was it on the border as between the enlisted personnel of both forces and the officers as well?

Gen. STOTESBURY. When you come to a discussion of the border, my visit there was a very short one, and I was engaged while I was there in paying the New York troops the difference between the Federal pay and the State pay. As to that feature, I think Gen. O'Ryan will be much better able to advise you.

But I did see evidences all along of a system that tended to discredit the National Guard, but it was not intended to do so. This matter of equipment I have already referred to. All our efforts to get the war-strength equipment in the State failed. It was not because the officers of the Eastern Department or of the War Department opposed it, but it was urged that there was a legal obstacle which prevented the deposit of this property in the State. There was no provision of law, so far as I know, that made it necessary to maintain organizations at one strength and then to disorganize them by the introduction of an untrained element just when you wanted to use them; but that was the policy and that is what was done.

Of course, it operated to reduce the efficiency of the organization at once. No matter how well trained the original organization might have been, the introduction of an untrained increment of from 30 to 50 per cent necessarily lowered, if it did not destroy, the efficiency of the whole.

The CHAIRMAN. That would have the same effect on the Regular Establishment as well?

Gen. STOTESBURY. Absolutely. It should be taken as a fundamental maxim that any force that is to be used as a first-line force

must be used at the strength at which it is maintained for training and that no other element should be introduced into that force until it has had a sufficient amount of preliminary training.

The War Department does not permit men to participate in encampment and maneuvers who have not had at least 60 days' training, and that on the principle that until a man has had at least 60 days' training it does not pay even to take him into a camp for a limited period of 15 days. Yet in this enterprise of actual service, to repel or to prevent an invasion, men were taken in overnight—men who had had no training and no discipline whatever and with no opportunity for training were moved off to the border.

The States were not to blame for these conditions, the nationaldefense act is not responsible, and assuredly it was not the fault of the National Guard.

Senator BRADY. The fault was with the law and the conditions rather than with the National Guard?

Gen. STOTESBURY. I will agree with you that it was not with the National Guard, and in only a few respects was it with the law. It was, rather, a matter of policy, the attempt to apply a system which had been worked out for one condition and one kind of a force to entirely different conditions and a wholly different kind of a force.

Senator BRADY. Do you think this law we had at the time could have been applied in a manner that would have caused more efficiency on the part of the National Guard?

Gen. STOTESBURY. Absolutely, Senator, absolutely. This act went into effect only a short time before the call. Little, if anything, had been done in respect to putting the law into operation before the call.

The method of carrying out this call and mustering the forces into the service was applied under a system which was intended for a volunteer organization; the whole scheme of this defense act is that organizations of the National Guard should be called into the service as they are. Yet they were required to go through all the forms of preparing muster rolls and conducting physical examinations and transferring property and doing all of those things required of new units. They were treated as volunteer organizations rather than as National Guard under the scheme contemplated by the national-defense act.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not probable, too, that they did not have time between the date of the enactment of the national-defense act and the call to have gotten all these appliances ready under any system? Gen. STOTESBURY. Yes; it may have been. Of course, there was a good deal of pressure between those dates and a good many things to be attended to.

The CHAIRMAN. The call was about the 18th, was it not?

Gen. STOTESBURY. Yes; on the 18th of June.

The CHAIRMAN. The act was approved on the 3d?

Gen. STOTESBURY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. So there were only about 15 days to get all this done?

Gen. STOTESBURY. There was not the opportunity to work out the plan of mobilization under that defense act.

Senator BRADY. A great deal of confusion was caused on calling out the troops so soon after the bill was passed?