Deep-chested, square-shouldered and active, Erect and with twinkling glance, Straightforward and true, we return them to you, These boys but needed the chance. And this be our answer, you mothers, Please read it, then read it againJust lend us your boy, we'll dissolve the alloy, In our Army, "the builder of men." The above is the text of a poem that is going the rounds of the press. It puts a big job up to the Army. Now that recruits are coming into the service in greater numbers than ever before, in time of peace, the Army and especially the Infantry must make good at the task of making them into clean, upstanding, one hundred per cent Americans, imbued with the Army spirit and boosters for the Army that made them. Our noncommissioned officers are the men who will come into closest contact with these new men. It is they, who will have the big opportunity to render the Army and the country a great service. The dominant feature of the Geneva meeting seems to be, not exultation over all of those present, but regret and dismay over the one that is absent. Motor Transportation The extensive use of motor-truck transportation in the Army has demonstrated time and again that it is one of the very cheapest and efficient kinds of transport. When the proposition has been thoroughly tested out and demonstrated in commercial life and when our roads are constructed of material that will stand truck traffic (concrete) we may expect to see this class of transportation far more extensively used. At Akron, Ohio, a manufacturer running his trucks between that city and Cleveland had a careful cost analysis made. This was compared with existing freight rates with the following results: Motor trucks cost 361⁄2 cents a hundred pounds; railroad freight, 80 7-10 cents a hundred; railroad express, $1.044 a hundred; and electric trolley express 87 4-10 cents a hundred. Motor-trucks costs include all direct and indirect charges. The average time for motor-truck delivery is 4 hours and 9 minutes-for the other three methods, 12 to 48 hours. With proven results such as these we may expect a great development of the "Ship by Truck" idea in the next few years. The point is this: The Army is in position today to give a young man a complete course of training in the care and operation of motor trucks. A course that would cost him several hundred dollars in a school. A course that will fit him to get into this big transportation game on his return to civil life and insure him pleasant and remunerative employment. The infantry vocational training schools offer such a course to any young man who desires it. This fact is one of the best recruiting arguments. If you wish to have an accurate picture of the physical benefits of military training, compare in your mind the shuffling, stoop-shouldered, hollowchested, pale-faced mob that went to our training camps with the clean, upstanding, alert, ruddy-cheeked soldiers who came home from Europe. Britain's Mystery Towers Speculation is rife over the probable use of the gigantic towers constructed by the British Government. One of these has been launched and towed to Spithead. It is expected that the other will be completed ready to be launched during the high tides which occur in March off the coast of Southwick, where it is being constructed. Mr. F. Rawlinson, in the Scientific American, speculates on their use as follows: One of the many theories advanced is that they will be used for raising the shipping sunk during the war by the German submarine campaign. By means of these towers, it is suggested, sunken vessels lying in water too deep or to rough for ordinary salvage could be raised. By "dragging," hawsers might be passed underneath the sunken vessel. The towers would be sunk, one on either side, and the hawsers made fast. The two towers (which may be submerged to a depth of 180 feet) would be simultaneously pumped empty of water, thus raising the vessel. The whole flotilla, with the vessel cradled between the two towers, could then be towed away to shallow water, where the vessel could be beached. By repeating this process it would be possible to salve vessels now lying far too deep for recovery. Such is the theory. Another suggestion is that had not the armistice intervened in November, 1918, some five or six of these towers would have been sunk in the Straits of Dover, made tight on the sea-bed with concrete grouted in, and pumped clear of water. The gigantic caissons so formed would have enabled work on the Channel Tunnel to be carried out with great rapidity. By sinking shafts in the interior of each tower, and driving headers in each direction from its foot, a dozen working faces would have been secured; whereas, if the tunnel were to be driven from each end in the usual way, two only would be available. Moral Obligations and Liberty In justice to the 21,000,000 individual subscribers and the banking and fiduciary institutions which hold its obligations at a loss, the Federal Government is morally bound to employ the most effective means to restore and maintain the price of the various issues of Liberty Bonds and Victory notes at par. It is a leading question in this connection whether the Treasury is pursuing a wise course in handling sinking fund operations and in the manner in which it is making market purchase of Liberty Bonds. There are those who contend that the treasury in making its purchases through brokers actually assists in depressing their market value. Treasury officials have recently rejected suggestions that sinking fund operations should be carried on publicly instead of secretly as at present and that the Government advertise for tenders of the public issue at frequent intervals. intervals. The objection is made that such change of procedure would leave the market unprotected during intervening periods of such redemption; that publicity would introduce the psychology of selling rather than holding bonds and that it would tend to create bank expansion. On the other hand, it is maintained that the Treasury reserve 25 per cent of its contemplated $1,000,000,000 annual purchase of Liberty Bonds for emergency use and that publicity, such as effectively used in connection with operation of the sinking fund to redeem Civil War bonds, would create a psychology of "buying up" and holding Liberty Bonds. It is furthermore maintained that brokers be eliminated and that the Government should deal directly with the public in the redemp tion of the bonds, as it dealt with the the next few years may bring forth no public in selling bonds. The number of men required to undertake successfully any military enterprise stands in inverse ratio to the skill and efficiency of their training. A most insignificant people can, by a high degree of military capacity, force the entire male population of a vast nonmilitant country into the field and then destroy them. The Tank of the Future Since the signing of the armistice tremendous strides have been made by the British Army in the matter of the design and construction of fighting tanks. A great many experiments have been conducted with a view to producing a tank that is capable of high speed and having a great radius of action. These experiments have produced the tank known as the "Type D," the powers and limitations of which are reported by the Journal of the Royal Service Institution to be as follows: Radius of action, 200 to 300 miles. hour. Average speed across country, 17 to 20 miles per hour. Weight, about 15 tons. Gasoline consumption, less than one mile to the gallon. Ditch-crossing capacity, 11 feet 6 inches. Climb slope, 45 degrees. The above shows that the Type D is as far ahead of the original tank, as the modern locomotive is ahead of the old-time wood burner. It has taken only four years to effect this wonderful development. What man can state. Suffice to say that the American Army must keep abreast of the times in tank development. Funds must be supplied for the purpose if we expect to enter the next war on a par with the enemy. The tank section of the Infantry is busily engaged in progressive develop ment work. The tank school and training center at Camp Meade is a hive of industry and are really accomplishing wonderful results which they will be able to demonstrate to the service in the near future. Do You Know? Do you know the young man who works for $25 a week and is wearing a suit that cost him $80? Do you know the wage earner who loafs because he is afraid if he does too much he will work himself "out of a job"? Do you know the housewife who is ashamed to be seen with a market basket on her arm or to carry home a brown paper bundle? Do you know the girl working for $18 a week who is wearing a fur coat that cost $300? Do you know the man who lets a fresh clerk sneer him into buying a $12 shirt for fear he will seem "cheap" when he can get a satisfactory one for $3? Do you know the shopper who says "wrap it up" instead of "how much"? Do you know the man who thinks it is not necessary to save? Do you know the manufacturer who, when the prices of labor and raw materials go up 5 per cent, charges 25 per cent more for his goods? Do you know the investor who traded his Liberty Bonds for stock in some wildcat scheme that promised 100 per cent dividends? If you do, you know pretty well what is wrong with the United States today.-National Warriors' Magazine. To Regimental Commanders In the past few months there have been many changes in the officer personnel on duty with our regiments. These changes in some cases operated to affect the officials of the branch associations. Following the text of the Reserve Officers' Department in each number of the INFANTRY JOURNAL, we publish a list of the branch associations, giving the address, the name of the president of the branch, and the secretary. It is essential that this list be kept up to date as far as practicable. It is requested that the commanding officer of each regiment examine the list referred to above and send in information that will correct it up to date. * The Victory Medal In your November issue, under the heading "Victory Medal," you ask if anyone knows the reason why the exsoldiers are not applying for the medal. I shall try to give you some reasons as they appear to me. The average ex-soldier does not wish to be concerned with filling in forms, but this is not the main reason. Many do not know that the medal is being issued. If they do, they do not know how to get it. Some are under the impression that the medal is only allowed to men who served overseas. Again, the ex-soldier does not want to part with his discharge, which he has to send to some recruiting officer, either this or an extract to which he has to be sworn before a notary public. This is surrounded with more or less trouble and some expense. There are a number of reserve officers scattered throughout the country. If these officers were authorized to O. K. the forms supplied by the War Department, the distribution of the medals would be greatly facilitated. I have secured a number of the blank forms from the recruiting officer at Dallas and distributed them to the ex-soldiers in this vicinity. If other reserve officers would do the same and assist the soldiers in preparing the forms it would help a lot. to see that the ex-soldier gets what he I believe it the duty of the ex-officers has so nobly earned. |