eighty acres of land, under shallow water which lay south of Governor's Island. You made us an appropriation of $260,000, for a starter and we are at work dredging to make wharfage on the north side of the Island.

We double the area of the Island by the additional land we are filling in, and abandoning the separate ordnance depot there, the arsenal, and we are proposing to put up a series of storehouses in which can be stored all the imperishable supplies necessary for a large expedition. There will be room on the Island for troops in case we want to send out such an expedition. We can put troops on the Island and transfer them to transports of the deepest draft, which can come up to the wharf on the north side. That is utilizing our property.

Now, I want to know what is necessary for the fitting out of such an expedition. To whom do I go? I cannot tell. Military authorities have got to work it out, and it has got to be worked out in detail. That is necessary in order to determine how the money that Congress has voted, and has put in my discretion to expend in the construction there, shall be expended.

There is no single officer who could answer these questions. Indeed, I hardly know how to put the questions in detail. They should go to some military man who will say to this one, work out this part of the problem, and to another, work out that, and to another, work out that. First consider what are the ranges of possibility as to what an expedition being fitted out there would have to do, how long a time it would have to be absent, what kinds of supplies it would want, and then have the amounts of the different kinds of supplies worked out and the amount of storage room necessary for them. We must also be able to have worked out the other things for our ordinary uses that it will be necessary to do at that point. There is not anybody whose business it is to do that sort of thing except the Secretary.

THE GENERAL STAFF

STATEMENT BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 13, 1902

MR

R. CHAIRMAN and gentlemen, this bill covers but a single subject, and has but a single purpose. It is the establishment of a general staff corps, to be composed of officers detailed from the army at large, under such rules as may be prescribed by the President.

The duties of the proposed general staff corps are described in the bill as follows:

To prepare plans for the national defense and for the mobilization of the military forces in time of war; to investigate and report upon all questions affecting the efficiency of the army and its state of preparation for military operations; to render professional aid and assistance to the Secretary of War and to general officers and other superior commanders, and to act as their agents in informing and coördinating the acts of all the different officers engaged in carrying out their orders, and to perform such other duties as may be from time to time prescribed by the President.

The bill provides that the general staff corps shall consist of one chief of staff of the army, with the rank, pay, and allowances of a lieutenant-general, one major-general, one brigadier-general, who, while so serving, shall have the rank, pay, and allowances of the grade to which detailed, all of these three to be detailed by the President from the officers of the army at large.

Mr. HAY. Would it interfere with you, Mr. Secretary, if I should ask some questions as you go along?

Mr. ROOT. Certainly not.

Mr. HAY. I want to ask if that clause would not create two lieutenant-generals of the army?

Mr. ROOT. There would be two lieutenant-generals provided at any time the officer detailed by the President to be

chief of the general staff were another officer than the permanent Lieutenant-General. There would then be the same situation which existed in the latter part of the Civil War, when General Grant was in command of the army in the field and General Halleck was chief of staff conducting the administration at Washington. If, however, the President did, as he undoubtedly would do under this bill at the outset, detail the Lieutenant-General of the Army to be the chief of staff, then there would be only one lieutenant-general. That is to say, the provision affords an opportunity for adjustment to meet the exigencies of the times. .

The bill provides further that there shall be in the general staff four colonels, six lieutenant-colonels, twelve majors, and twenty captains, these to be detailed from the officers of the army at large, the captains to be detailed from officers of the grades of captain or first lieutenant, the details all to be for a period of four years, unless sooner relieved; and it provides that while serving in the general staff, corps officers may be temporarily assigned to duty with any branch of the army. That is the outline of the general staff corps.

Other provisions of the bill are designed to adjust the working of that corps to the working of the present organization. A portion of the members of the corps would be stationed in Washington to conduct the general business falling under the heads enumerated in the description of duties, which I have already read, and a portion of them, the larger portion of them, would be assigned to the different departments to serve under the direction of the different commanders, but maintaining their relations to the general staff corps, and reporting to the chief of staff now in Washington, very much as the assistant inspectors-general now report to the inspector-general, with the difference that the chief of staff and his assistants in Washington would be charged with advising the President or the Secretary of War of the matters in regard

to which the reports showed action ought to be taken, and, under the direction of the President or the Secretary of War, seeing to it that those matters received attention.

Let me call your attention for a moment to the reason for asking you to authorize the formation of such a body of officers. We have an army excellent in its personnel, not surpassed, I believe, anywhere, in the intelligence, capacity, and devotion to duty of its enlisted men and its officers. We have the various departments of administration organized each within itself, and well enough organized for the performance of its specific duties, and we have at the head of those departments men of capacity and fidelity. The Quartermaster's Department is engaged faithfully and efficiently in conducting the transportation of the army, in supplying clothing and forage and doing construction work and a great variety of other duties. The Subsistence Department is engaged, with ability and fidelity, in furnishing the food of the army. The Signal Corps is in like manner and with conspicuous ability performing the duties of maintaining communications, building telegraph lines and operating them, and training men to do signal work.

I can go through the different branches of administration and make the same statements regarding each particular corps, department, and bureau organization. We have a nation with great wealth, willing to spend its money freely for the procurement of arms and munitions of war and supplies of all kinds. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that there has been in the past, in the administration of the army, something which was out of joint. It is not necessary for me to go into the specification of details; for every one of us knows that whenever an exigency has come, confusion has come; and that confusion, while it is not so prominent, while it does not attract public attention to such a degree as in the days when the newspapers were full of scare headlines about