§§280-281] MILLION VOLUNTEERS 291 August 29th, 1916? Under such conditions we should see sound technical progress rapidly made by manufacturers of a solid sort, experimenting toward the hope of participation in a known business. Probably nobody in the United States has studied this wholefield more uninterruptedly or more intently than Henry Woodhouse of the Aero Club of New York. I asked him directly whether or not, if the conditions named were met, the United States could produce 5,000 aeroplanes by January 1st, 1918, and then renew all breakages and losses among those five thousand to the end of the war. He replied that in his judgment there was not the slightest doubt that the answer was totally, without reservation of anay kind, "Yes." Will our government try it? Is our government trying it now? Here we walk in the shadow of the Censor, on darkened territory. Yet there are certain footprints discernible even in that gloom and mentionable even under that oppression. Civilians, commercial civilians, engineering civilians, are taking hold; and the government is letting them take hold. Who they are, and what they are about, it will not be wrongful for me to say if I say it, as I shall, without impinging on immediate statistics. They seem to me to prophesy that happy day when the general principle will be accepted that we do not run West Point to produce manufacturers and buyers and accountants of motors and bridles and socks. The function of the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps is to drive aeroplanes into the teeth of German aeroplanes on the western front. The function of fighters is to fight. Let the fighters give us the specifications of what they need and let the rest of us get it and carry it to them. That is what we are for. That is what we can do and do better than the fighters can. (New Republic, X, 367-369, April 28, 1917.) (c) [§281] A Million Volunteers Between Sunrise and Sunset. BY AN ARMY OFFICIAL. A striking object lesson is being afforded of the unpreparedness of the United States to-day to outfit a large army by the difficulties which foreign military commissions are encountering in obtaining small arms and ammunition in this country. One foreign nation has been endeavoring for weeks to place an order for 500,000 military rifles, and this number of guns cannot be obtained in America in much less than two and onehalf years' time. Every small arms works in the United States long ago had their working capacity contracted for by foreign orders, and even the aggregate of these private works is not more than 400,000 rifles per year. For commercial manufacture of military rifles the work in this country is confined to three plants. GOVERN MENT ARSENALS. The military rifles for the United States army are constructed at the government arsenals at Springfield, Mass., and Rock Island, Ill. The total capacity of these two plants does not exceed more than eight hundred rifles each eight hour day. at the Rock Island arsenal. The total reserve supply of arms on hand is about seven hundred and fifty thousand. This reserve is sufficient for the militia, it is estimated, but does not allow of the reserve which the experience of the present war in Europe is showing is necessary for troops actually in the field. The United States government arsenals are not open to private or foreign orders, and such guns as are now wanted abroad must be made in private establishments. PRIVATE MANUFACTURERS. The main difficulty in the construction of military rifles is the equipping of shops with the necessary rifling machines, jigs and gauges, and it is estimated that the cost of equipping a plant capable of turning out five hundred guns a day will exceed $1,200,000. Private manufacturers have been chary of heavy outlays in the past, especially since in the United States the policy for many years has been to manufacture all military arms in government shops. This is in direct contradiction to the German policy, which has always aimed to develop private plants so that the latter might be in position in war time to undertake military orders on large scales. For the United States only one private firm has made a specialty of manufacturing arsenal tools. This includes rifling machines, gauges and the entire gamut of equipment to fully equip new works for turning out military small arms. In July last this one plant received an order for $1,200,000 worth of arsenal tools wherewith to fully equip a small arms arsenal for the Chinese government. The contract made with the Chinese government is sufficient to keep these works steadily employed for two years. Such was the situation which confronted military buying commissions when, shortly after the outbreak of the European war, efforts were made to obtain in the United States equipment with which to enlarge the established plants of Europe. The equipment so much desired was not to be had. In the United States the popular fallacy has long existed that in the event of a sudden war it is only necessary to issue a call for volunteers and several million men would be available. In view of the situation as developed in this country by foreign military commissions in their quest for arms it would appear as if this country could not possibly put a million men under proper equipment in less than two years' time. Money is available to-day just as it would be in time of war if the United States were a participant, and there never was a time when orders could be placed more readily in the United States than now provided shops were in shape to produce the material demanded. But shop after shop has had to turn down bids simply because the necessary tools were lacking and because tools were not to be had at any price. RESERVES OF MEN AND MATERIAL. The European war has developed that a reserve of one gun for each man is almost necessary for the proper equipping $281] MILITARY MATERIAL 293 of an army. The loss of arms on the Continent by destruction, due to service conditions, has been so great that the arsenals abroad are unable to keep up with the demands both of the troops in the field and the recruits being brought forward. To such an extent has this routing off, as it were, of arms taken place that commissions over here, it is said, are buying military rifles of every type obtainable, and not less than twenty thousand single shot Springfields of the 45-70 type were sent abroad in one consignment. Arms are being sought for in all parts of the country and are being gathered in in bunches of one hundred and two hundred from far Western points. The greater number of the twenty thousand Springfields shipped abroad were obtained, it is learned, on the Pacific coast and in the Northwest. If the situation outlined above could exist in the United States now, what might be expected if this country were suddenly called upon to equip several large armies? The civil war furnishes no criterion, since at that period the North was confronted by force and a section of country in practically the same shape as itself. The South soon found, as its armies grew and as it became necessary to impress into service all able bodied men, that the resources of the South were inadequate to equipping the forces in the field. The navy of the North blockaded the ports of the South, and recourse was had to blockade running. The entire power supply used by General Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh, it is known, was supplied by the cargo of one steamer which successfully ran the blockade into the Cape Fear River. LESSONS OF THE CIVIL WAR. At the outset of the war the South was able to avail itself of much military equipment captured in forts and army storehouses in the South, but this supply needed constant replenishing and of itself was insufficient for the great armies which afterward assembled in the East and the West. Until the blockade closed every southern port the South was dependent on Europe for the great bulk of its war munitions, and all the really effective heavy guns, save only the Broke rifles, made at the Tredegar Works in Richmond, came from England. These latter were more especially Whitworth and Armstrong guns. The military efficiency of the North only commenced to come into existence early in 1863, and in the beginning of 1864 the North was producing military material on a scale commensurate with its strength. By 1865 the United States was in condition for the first time in its history to have undertaken a great foreign war, and this strength was typified when the two veteran armies of Generals Grant and Sherman marched through Washington. The country then beheld the United States of America at the zenith of its military strength, with the veteran armies in the field, troops skilled in the actual practice of war and commanded by officers of tried value. At that time the navy of the United States comprised more than 50,000 men afloat. POSSIBILITIES OF INVASION. It should not be overlooked, too, that more than one million men had fallen through battle and sickness on both sides, and this fact must not be forgotten when the pacifist of to-day or the "little navy" man declares that after the present war in Europe ends all those engaged will be so exhausted that they will not be in shape to fight any one. The vanquished will be exhausted, it is true, but the victor will be like the North of the United States in 1865, hammered into a fighting shape capable of confronting any nation in the world. The capital of the United States was captured and burned on one occasion by an invading force, and the records attest that during 1812 the total British forces in America never exceeded 16,000 men. This contingent represented trained troops, and perhaps the most orderly sitting ever recorded in the House of Representatives at Washington was when one of General Dale's British officers mounted to the Speaker's chair, and, with the floor of the House full of British troops, used the hilt of his sword for a gavel and called the House to order. It is better to impress upon the youth of the country the actual facts of history, ignominous and humiliating though they may be to our national pride, rather than to quietly acquiesce in the fallacy that a million men can be raised over night, and then assume that arms and equipment will fall into their hands like manna from heaven. (National Defense, 40-44.) E. [$282] MEANS OF SAVING LIFE. 1. Specific References on the Section. Soutta, H. S. A Surgeon in Belgium. (London, Arnold, 1915.) (London, Arnold, 1915.) Cross at Home and Abroad. (Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1915.) Howe, M. A. DeW. The Harvard Volunteers in Europe; Personal Cushing, Harvey. The Harvard Unit at the American Ambulance in Keen, W. W. The Contrast Between the Surgery of the Civil War Under Three Flags With the Red Cross in Anon. "Wonders of War Surgery," in N. Y. Times Current History, V, 905-907 (Feb., 1917). Surgical Experts. "Ordeals of the Wounded," in ibid, VI, 129-130 (April, 1917). Anon. "Red Cross in War Time," in Survey, XXXVII, 549 (Feb. 10, 1917). Anon. "Red Cross and Its Plans," in ibid, 416 (Jan. 6, 1917). §§281-283] SAVING LIFE 2. Doctors and Surgeons in Great Numbers. 3. Experienced or Trained Nurses. 4. Preparation of Comforts, Etc. (a) Involving much home work. 5. Red Cross Organization. (a) Everybody should join and support. 6. Modern Surgery. (a) Hospitals, surgical dressings and apparatus. 7. Care of the Wounded After They Return Home. 8. Documents and Extracts on the Section. (a) [§283] The Medical Corps in the Defense Plans. BY LIEUT.-COL. WILLIAM S. TERRIBERRY. 295 It is a remarkable thing that in all the interest aroused on the subject of preparedness and in all the speeches and articles appearing in the public prints we see little or nothing to indicate that any steps are under consideration looking toward providing proper surgical and hospital care for the sick and wounded. We have seen in the last year and a half how vitally important a part of modern warfare is preparation in this respect. The truth of the old adage, “The river passed and God forgotten," is nowhere more plainly exemplified than in our attitude toward the medical profession. The lessons which should have been taught us by our past experience are calmly ignored. The ghastly experiences of our concentration camps in 1898 have apparently quite passed from mind. At any rate, in the eighteen years which have elapsed, almost nothing has been done to correct the defects in the medical department organization which existed at that time. The Dodge Commission, which investigated the conduct of the war of 1898, made as its first and most important recommendation regarding the improvement of the medical service that an adequate corps of trained medical officers be provided. SMALL PERCENTAGE OF SURGEONS. The Surgeon General of the Army recently testified before both Military Committees of the Congress that there should be seven trained medical officers to each thousand of combatant troops. In the report of this hearing before the House Military Committee is appended a statement of the needs in the way of trained medical officers for an army in the field of 200,000 men. This statement showed that 2,035 medical officers would be required. The army is allowed at the present time 444 medical officers. The House bill, as originally written, provided for a maximum of 178,000 men and 695 medical officers, or slightly less than four per thousand. To the lasting credit of the House Military Committee it is to be noted that this defect in the Hay bill has been corrected, and the recommendation of the Surgeon General accepted. The Senate bill provides for an army about 200,000 at peace strength and 236,000 at war strength, and a total of 897 medical |