Needs Of The Army.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 26, 1913:
    Secretary Garrison in his speech at the banquet given in his honor by the bench of New Jersey Saturday night said that if our present active military force, apart from the troops detailed for coast defense, was equally distributed among the 157 army posts there would be 222 soldiers at each post. Every American citizen knows, or ought to know, that many of these army posts are kept up needlessly for various political reasons. Secretary Garrison is as strongly in favor of abolishing the useless posts as his predecessor was.
    The Secretary has great faith in the efficiency of the army, in the high quality of its officers and men, and he needs it all if he is to pursue his arduous labors cheerfully and reach any good results. He has undertaken a big job to look after the army, the Panama Canal, the river and harbor improvements all over the country, and the Government of the Philippine Islands. Probably the problem of how to keep 90,000 men and 5,000 officers, scattered all over this country and its island possessions, in such a state of efficiency as to get from them prompt and good service in an emergency is the one that troubles him most. The concentration of troops on the Mexican border has been an excellent thing for the army. Many defects in the system have been discovered and corrected, and the men have had excellent training. Training as good could only be obtained for the whole mobile continental force by concentrating the soldiers at a few well-chosen posts. This obvious fact has been urged in Congress many times and to no avail. Abolition of useless posts is made impossible through the exertion of political influences. As long as the people permit the politicians to meddle with their army there is no chance of getting it on a firm foundation.