THE CITIZENS' ARMY

ADDRESS OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR AT JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS, MAY 2, 1903

HE only reason why I obey the order of the Commander

THE

in-Chief to speak while you are wishing to hear him, and to stand before you while you wish to see him, is that now 1 am before a community composed of the friends of the army whose welfare I have so deeply at heart. The post of Fort Riley, the great cavalry post of the United States, I know has friends among you. It was founded as a heritage to his country from the great cavalry general of the Civil War. It is a monument to Philip Henry Sheridan. I believe it is and always will be worthy of that great name. I am glad to have the soldiers of the United States come out upon the great rolling plains of Kansas and breathe the same air that makes the volunteer soldiers of Kansas. I wish nothing better for the regular army than that it shall have the spirit of the 20th Kansas when it goes into battle.

I beg you all to remember that you also are a part of the army of the United States. These men in uniform are but the committee of the citizens of America appointed to organize the army which will fight the battles when war comes, as war always does come sooner or later. You will be the army. You women will be looking out eagerly for news from camp and field where your brothers and husbands and fathers are fighting the battles of our country; and their health, their lives, their successes, their victories, their glory, will depend upon the way in which this organizing committee of war and they stand together in the relation of brotherhood and good fellowship. All citizens are members of the

same great army of the future, and so when I pass by the post of Fort Riley and come to Junction City, I see but two branches of the military post- the organizing committee and the body of the army itself. I bespeak from you kindliness and good fellowship with the men of the regular army, and I enjoin upon them the cultivation of the duty of citizenship, of kindly relations with their fellow-citizens, in order that when times of trial come all Americans - regular and volunteer and militia shall stand together in unity, strength and efficiency, to fight the battles of our beloved country.

I thank you for your patience in listening to me. I go away with pleasant recollections of your strong typical American faces, gladder than ever that the soldiers whose welfare I am charged to promote are among so sound and wholesome and true American people as are the people of central Kansas.

THE MILITIA ACT OF 1903

ADDRESSES AT THE FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE INTERSTATE NATIONAL GUARD ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES, COLUMBUS, OHIO, MAY 4, 1903

The Act to promote the efficiency of the Militia was approved January 21, 1903. On May 4 and 5 following, the Fifth Annual Convention of the Interstate National Guard Association of the United States was held in Columbus, Ohio, and the Secretary of War was invited to address the convention. The president of the convention was Major-General Charles Dick, of the Ohio National Guard, then a member of the House of Representatives (subsequently United States Senator) and chairman of the Committee on the Militia. General Dick reported the Act to Promote the Efficiency of the Militia, which is printed in this volume, page 470. General Dick introduced Mr. Root to the convention in the following address:

The National Guard never had a better friend than Secretary Root. He has done great things for the army, but he has done as much for the National Guard. His whole purpose in the administration of his office has been patriotic and above criticism.

Realizing and appreciating what the sentiment of the country would sustain, and in what the people seemed to believe, he sought by such recommendations as he was able to make and such influence as he might exert, to bring about their accomplishment. That he has succeeded all men who know will attest.

In the legislation that has been accomplished for us, - I refer now to the National Guard and speak largely for it, we have had no more efficient helper, no stronger or better influence, no more helpful and guiding judgment than that of the Secretary of War; and if as a result of it we have received more of recognition; if we have been elevated a little higher in the plane of merit and respectability; if more is to come to us in the future, it is largely due to what the Secretary of War has done for us and what he will do for us in the time to come.

The legislation that Congress has passed would be useless indeed if it were not well administered. It lies now largely in its administration to accomplish the results proposed; but while he is Secretary of War we have every reason to believe that its greatest success will be accomplished.

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It is a matter of great pleasure, and I esteem the privilege a great honor, one to which this Association will gladly respond, to present to you the Honorable Elihu Root, Secretary of War.

Mr. Root then spoke as follows:

AM very glad of the opportunity offered by your kind and

courteous invitation, to say a few things to the officers of the National Guard collected from all parts of the country in this convention, nothing particularly new or original, but things which I have from time to time said to individuals.

I am not going to undertake to teach you your business, for I do not know much about it. I am going to speak to you, however, in full recognition of the fact that we are engaged in the same undertaking; that what my duty imposes upon me as Secretary of War, is the very thing which you are making sacrifices of time and effort and money to accomplish, and that is to place our country in a position where it is able" to enforce the laws, suppress insurrection, and repel invasion."

Some of my friends, both in the National Guard and in the Regular Army, have given evidence of expectation that immediately upon the passage of the Militia Act, to which your president has referred, there would be published a code of rules and regulations, and a series of decisions upon the numerous questions which arise under that law, as questions always must arise under every law. I think nothing could have been more unfortunate than an attempt to formulate a system of rules and make a series of decisions under that law, in advance of patient and careful inquiry and conference.

It is a very broad and general statute; designedly framed in very general terms, because it is to be applied to a great variety of conditions, conditions in large cities and conditions in rural communities; conditions in many different states, in widely separated parts of the country, and applied to the National Guard in different stages of development,

and in communities some of them very rich and able to do a great deal, and some of them comparatively poor, and able to do but little. In determining the questions that arise, -as they arise this law must be adjusted to these varying conditions with just as much liberality and as sincere an effort to get at the rights of things and to get at what is reasonable and fair and will promote the purposes of the law, as is possible.

In endeavoring to apply such a law, the important thing is to get at its controlling purpose, and to make every decision and reach every determination under it in such a way as to conform to that purpose and promote it, instead of frustrating it.

In determining what is the leading idea, the controlling purpose of this law, it is necessary to go into the condition which the law met into the history of the militia of the United States. It is familiar to us all that the original idea of the founders of the Republic was, that the entire body the male population of the country-should constitute the militia; that we should rely very little upon a standing army, but that the able-bodied male citizens of the United States between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, - each one of them should be a member of the militia; each one of them should keep in his own home the gun and the powder horn and the bullets and the various accouterments necessary to enable him to go out and defend his country when he was called.

We all know, too, that the expectation failed to be realized in practice. We know that almost immediately after the passage of the original militia bill, in 1792, the Presidents of the United States, down, seriatim, commenced to ask Congress for further legislation regarding the militia; that Washington asked for it; Jefferson asked for it; Madison asked for it; and almost every administration since has sought to strengthen it.