with any usefulness left in her entirely out of commission. The active reserve is the answer.

We have fitted out and in many cases we have built from the ground up, complete and costly schools. If we revert to pre-war conditions, the majority of these will have to be abandoned, either by sale at a tiny fraction of their cost or by closing and turning over to deterioration and rats. And again the active reserve is the answer which will preserve and utilize the NAVY'S property and earn solid dividends for the country at large.

We cannot make a rolling, tar-and-rope-yarn sailorman in six months, or in two years; but we can make a very passable electrician, carpenter's mate, machinist, oiler, signalman or gun-pointer who can keep himself and his kit clean, know his way about a ship or a yard, and understand the discipline regulations. We can teach him enough in six months to make a very valuable war reservist indeed, and the knowledge thus gained will continue to make him of potential value to the NAVY for at least three years and of actual value to his community for the rest of his life. Think it over. Four months of intensive setting-up and school followed by two months of cruising along the coast in the back channel ships to fit the newly acquired school theory to sea-going practice-just straight business and no dressing ship or shore parades-will go a long way toward making a man fit to go right to work in wartime.

Now, take the case of the boy with a fair education at eighteen and the desire and ability to get more. Perhaps his father is sending him to college, and perhaps he is going to work his way through himself. He is going to have during his college course three summers to spend in loafing or working, or otherwise inviting his soul. This boy puts in his six months in the active reserve, gets the taste of salt water in his mouth and likes it. He does not want to enlist in the regular NAVY, for he intends to make more of his future than that. He has the brain and he is going to acquire the knowledge which will put him in line for a more lucrative profession. What can we do for that boy?

This is the easiest question in the whole catechism to answer. If that boy has done well during his active reserve service, has shown pluck and brain and perseverance, he may have the whole

of Annapolis to play with during the summer in the absence of the midshipmen. The NAVY will not pay him, but at his own charges he may come and grind through an intensive three months. in navigation, in ordnance or in steam. He can take one course each summer. If he has completed one course he is eligible to a warrant in that line in case of war. If he has finished two, he can be made a reserve ensign; or if he has taken all three, the NAVY will muster him in as a lieutenant, junior grade, at the outbreak of hostilities. To start the war with a higher rank in the reserve, he must put in a year or more as a deck officer or an engineer actually serving at sea in the merchant service. Of course, during the war, he may be promoted as often as the law allows and his abilities and conduct warrant; but to begin as a lieutenant or higher, he should be able to show practical as well as theoretical officer qualities. Service as an officer in the merchant service for three years should counterbalance the Annapolis courses in this respect; and a legal requirement that a first officer's license carry with it the necessity of taking the oath and accepting a naval reserve commission would simplify our mobilization problem a great deal. It is also believed that the merchant service would gain a great many of these college- and Annapolis-trained youngsters as well. Similarly, a boy who has the normal educational requirements and who has satisfactorily served his six months in the MARINE CORPS active reserve, may spend two summers at Port Royal or Quantico to obtain a reserve commission as second lieutenant or three summers for a commission as first lieutenant.

Boys who have thus qualified as reserve officers, NAVY or MARINE CORPS, would remain thus qualified for a period of five years after completion of courses. Boys who have merely put in their six months in the active reserve remain liable to call in the Class I Reserve for two and one-half years after discharge.

IV. A NEW TENON IS NECESSARY

One lesson of the great war which has become so trite that it is liable to be forgotten is that flying is no longer an experiment and a novelty, but is here to stay and cannot be omitted from any sane reorganization of our defenses. Every corps in the NAVY has begun hazily as a sort of supernumerary adjunct, another additional

duty; if not in our own NAVY, at any rate in the experience of others. Even the line itself, the center, backbone and real body of every NAVY in the world was once only a sort of civilian staff corps whose duty was merely to place Edward III's MARINES in an advantageous situation to fight. No corps, in this web-footed status has ever given complete satisfaction or real return for money invested. Flying is here, and flying cannot be properly attended to by watch and division officers. Sooner or later we have got to form the NAVAL FLYING CORPS on a permanent, recognized basis, and thus make it possible for a man to throw his whole energy into flying work without losing professional ground and prejudicing his future and value as a seagoing officer. When the country and the NAVY demand service, its performance should be put on an equality with any other service in point of permanence and future for the public servant engaged therein. Let us have a NAVAL FLYING CORPS, with a personnel of its own charged with all the aerial activities of the fleet and the beach. Only by making flying a main line instead of a side issue can we insure proper development and progress, and thus only can we insure ourselves of a decent supply of reserve aviation pilots, mechanics, quartermasters and gunners.

Flying is perhaps readier to receive and care for our six months active reservist than any other branch of the service. The schools are admirably equipped and ample, the balloons, dirigibles and planes are here in quantities. Six months in the schools; and thereafter boys with the present educational requirements to spend their summers qualifying as ensign-pilots-what vacations for live, adventurous boys! And what a flying reserve we could soon have!

Let the possibilities of the FLYING CORPS gradually unfold before your mental eyes. Can we afford to let our opportunity slip? The country cannot. What we have established at a cost of millions, we can preserve at a cost of thousands. Otherwise, another emergency will oblige us to spend millions again, and probably, since we cannot again count on so long a period of immunity in which to spend them the number of millions will be multiplied many times.

V. THE FINished Key

A BILL to promote the efficiency of the armed naval forces of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and to establish a naval reserve,

and for other purposes:

Be it enacted, etc., That from and after the passage of this act the total authorized, enlisted strength of the NAVY of the UNITED STATES shall be one hundred thousand men.

That there be, and is hereby established the naval reserve, the total authorized, enlisted strength of which shall be three hundred thousand men, divided into the active reserve and the reserve. The active reserve shall consist of fifty thousand men and the term of service therein shall be six months. The reserve shall consist of two hundred and fifty thousand men who have completed their service in the active reserve, such service having terminated in an honorable or an ordinary discharge. The period of service in the reserve shall be two and one-half years. The active reserve shall consist of two classes annually, which shall be mobilized on April 1 and October 1, respectively. Each class shall consist of men who have attained their eighteenth birthday during the six months preceding date of mobilization, and shall be chosen from the semi-annual draft under the Universal Service Act.

The men of the active reserve shall, while in service, receive pay at the rate of twenty dollars and ninety cents per month, and shall be furnished with a clothing outfit consisting of one clothes bag, two suits blue uniform, three suits white uniform, four suits. underwear, four pairs socks, one neckerchief, one blue cap, two white hats, one jersey and one overcoat, and a further outfit of one hammock, one mattress, two mattress-covers and two blankets. Upon discharge, the overcoat, hammock, mattress, mattresscovers and blankets shall be returned, but the balance of the clothing outfit shall be retained by the man himself, and he shall be responsible for its preservation during his term of service in the reserve.

The men of the reserve shall receive no pay during such service unless called to active duty. They shall be required to keep the Navy Department accurately informed of their whereabouts and are subject to call into active service at any time during their

reserve service of two and one-half years, at the discretion of the President of the UNITED STATES. At the termination of service in the reserve all clothing furnished by the NAVY will be returned to such depots as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Navy for renovation and reissue. Any damage to such clothing other than reasonable wear and tear or such as can be shown to have been incurred without blame to the man concerned shall become a debt to the UNITED STATES, and in the sum necessary to repair or replace such damaged clothing, and the Secretary of the Navy shall notify the proper officials at the residence of the man concerned in order that such amount may be added to the next levy of taxes. Charges of returning clothing outfits to receiving depots shall be borne by the NAVY, under the appropriation PAY, MIS

CELLANEOUS.

Be it further enacted, That the total authorized, enlisted strength of the MARINE CORPS shall be fifteen thousand men.

That there be, and is hereby established the marine corps reserve, the total authorized, enlisted strength of which shall be forty-five thousand men, divided into the active reserve and the reserve. The active reserve shall consist of seven thousand, five hundred men and the term of service therein shall be six months. The reserve shall consist of thirty-seven thousand five hundred men who have completed their service in the active reserve, such service having terminated in an honorable or an ordinary discharge. The period of service in the reserve shall be two and one-half years. The active reserve shall consist of two classes annually, which shall be mobilized on April 1 and October 1, respectively. Each class shall consist of men who have attained their eighteenth birthday during the six months preceding date of mobilization, and shall be chosen from the semi-annual draft under the Universal Service Act.

The men of the active reserve shall while in service receive the pay and allowances of a private in the marine corps.

The men of the reserve shall receive no pay during such service unless called to active duty. They shall be required to keep the Navy Department accurately informed of their whereabouts, and are subject to call into active service at any time during their reserve service of two and one-half years, at the discretion of the President of the UNITED STATES.