For such a conflict the country relies, and justly relies, for its main strength upon the volunteers who will always be available for its defense. We should arrange our regular army so that it shall be the strongest where volunteer forces are the weakest, so that the combined army of regulars and volunteers may be symmetrical, well-balanced, and properly distributed among the different branches of the service and properly trained and disciplined for every kind of military operation.

Wars, of course, always come unexpectedly, and modern wars proceed with great rapidity from the very outset.

Those elements of war, therefore, which require the longest time for preparation should receive special attention in the formation of a regular army, and those which can most speedily be made ready should be supplied by the volunteer. These considerations lead to the conclusion that the regular army should be made particularly strong in its engineering force and material; in its artillery, which cannot possibly be improvised and which cannot be handled by untrained men, and in its cavalry, which requires far greater time for selection, equipment, and training than does infantry.

I do not lose sight of the fact that there are some admirable bodies, both of artillery and cavalry, among the National Guard organizations, but their numbers are so comparatively small as not to affect the conclusions stated, and the expenditure of time and money necessary to acquire and maintain proficiency in artillery and cavalry service is so great that the numbers in those branches of the National Guard must necessarily continue small.

The same considerations also lead to the conclusion that a full supply of officers, both of the line and of the staff, should be provided for the regular army.

The problems of subsistence, clothing, equipment, transportation, sanitation, the vast and complicated business of

supplying and transporting an army, of caring for the health and strength of the men, as well as the actual command of troops in battle, require long and active and devoted thought, study, and training. To send volunteers into camp or field under inexperienced officers is simply to educate the officers at the expense of the lives and the efficiency of their men.

The regular army, as now constituted, and the National Guard, both put together, can furnish only a small portion of the trained officers necessary for the performance of the duties which I have indicated, and in any volunteer force a large proportion of the officers must necessarily come from civil life and have but a small degree of the knowledge, experience, and training necessary to prevent great and needless loss of life and efficiency at the outset of any campaign. The regular establishment should include a sufficient number of officers particularly of officers trained in the duties of the staff and supply departments to permit of their being detailed to service in every part and organization of the combined army of regulars and volunteers, so that their training and experience may give instruction, method, and efficiency to the whole organization.

The present force has far too few officers. Notwithstanding the most painstaking effort to cut off all unnecessary details, we have now 469 officers absent from the line of the regular army—233 as officers in the present volunteer force and 236 upon necessary detached service-leaving the regular regiments without the number of officers which they ought to have for the maintenance of discipline and effectiveness.

Having in view especially the duties to be performed by regular officers in connection with the volunteer force, I urgently renew the recommendation of my last annual report for the substitution of a system of details from the line in place of the present permanent staff and supply departments,

and for the training of as many officers as possible in the variety of experience which will fit them for the duties of the staff and of general command in the combined force of regulars and volunteers.

A bill to provide for a reorganization of the army in accordance with these views has been prepared and submitted to the military committees of Congress.

It is to be hoped that the people and their representatives will realize that the surest safeguard against war is reasonable preparation for the use of the great powers of which this nation is possessed, and that while the maintenance of any army is expensive, the support of such an establishment as I have described will involve but a moderate payment for insurance against the loss which we are sure to suffer if we leave ourselves impotent for defense.

RETIRED OFFICERS

The retired list of the army is now constituted as follows:

Number retired upon age limit, 64 years.

Number retired, 62 years.

Length of service

Number retired under special acts.

Disability on account of wounds.

Disability on account of disease.

Total..

180

11

133

7

22

413

766

I recommend that as to this last class there be further legislation to cure the evil which now exists because of the fact that retirement under the provisions of the present law is irrevocable. It not infrequently happens that officers are retired for disability arising from diseases and subsequently entirely recover, and in some cases they continue for many years in the possession of full health, engaging in ordinary vocations of life, in business and the professions, receiving at the same time a handsome income from the Government without rendering any return for it.

I recommend that in the case of officers retired for disability arising from disease alone, authority be given for a reëxamination at such time as the Secretary of War may direct, and that in case upon such reëxamination the retired officer be found fit for duty, the President be authorized, in his discretion, either to restore him to duty with the rank which he held at the time of retirement or to retire him wholly from service.

The uncertainty as to what conclusion Congress will reach as to the proper size of the army during the next fiscal year has occasioned some question as to the basis upon which the estimates for that year should be prepared. In the absence of any guide, justifying me in any assumption as to what Congress will do, I have directed that the estimates be prepared with reference to the now-existing condition for an authorized force of one hundred thousand men. In case Congress determines upon an army of a smaller number than we now have, the sums allowed for those expenditures which depend directly upon the number of troops, such as pay of the army, cost of transportation, clothing, and equipment, can readily be reduced correspondingly.

PROGRESS OF REORGANIZATION

Extract from the Report of the Secretary of War for 1901 1 The act of February 2, 1901, entitled “An act to increase the efficiency of the permanent military establishment of the United States", provided for an increase of line organizations from twenty-five regiments of infantry to thirty, from ten regiments of cavalry to fifteen, from seven regiments of artillery, including sixteen field batteries, to a corps of artillery, practically equivalent to thirteen regiments under the old organization, and including thirty field batteries, and from

1 Page 7.

one battalion of engineers to three. Minimum and maximum numbers of enlisted men for the different organizations were established by the same statute, so that the total number of enlisted men might be varied by the President, according to the exigencies of the time, from a minimum of 59,131 to a maximum of 100,000, without any change of commissioned officers or in the number of organizations.

The improvement of conditions in the Philippines during the spring and summer of this year made it unnecessary to provide the maximum number allowed by the law, and on the eighth of May an order was made fixing the enlisted strength of the several organizations in such a manner as to establish the aggregate enlisted strength of the army, including staff departments, but exclusive of hospital corps men, at 77,287..

The new organizations authorized were recruited upon the basis thus prescribed, leaving the organizations in the Philippines and Cuba, which had been temporarily increased to greater numbers, to be reduced to that basis by the ordinary expiration of enlistments and by casualties. The new organizations have been completed.

The regular establishment now consists, according to the latest reports which have been received, of 3,253 officers and 76,084 enlisted men. There are also 4,336 men of the Hospital Corps, 172 volunteer surgeons in the Philippines, appointed under section 18 of the act of February 2, 1901, 4,973 native scouts under the command of 98 officers in the Philippines, and 25 officers and 815 men of the Porto Rico Provisional Regiment.

The distribution of the force is shown in the table on the opposite page.

The recruitment of the new organizations and the maintenance of the old have been accomplished without difficulty, and the material obtained appears by the reports to be of the