War will wonder whether reform is altogether what it wanted. There will be more saddle galls and less fatty degeneration of the heart.

We want an army of 150,000 regulars and 200,000 reservists, all fit and well trained, and a navy second in numbers to none but England's and superior to all in efficiency, composed largely of coastdefense vessels. Then we need fear no invasion from either Europe or Asia. Very truly yours,

JAMES B. LATIMER.

Mr. Eric Fisher Wood.

December 7, 1915.

My dear Mr. Latimer:

I acknowledge your letter of November 27, which is easily the most sensible among several scores that I have recently received from anti-preparationists.

I find that the vast majority of those who, like yourself, oppose the attainment by the United States of adequate military preparedness do so only because they have not yet given the matter careful thought, and have not taken pains to examine the facts and statistics bearing upon the subject. Nine anti-preparationists out of ten abandon their cause and become firm advocates of adequate preparedness as soon as they have put aside sentimental prejudices and dispassionately considered the facts. To-day thousands are preparationists who yesterday were anti-preparationists. I myself am one of the converted. I hope that you also will modify your conclusions when I have proved to you that every one of the premises stated in your letter is incorrect.

I have never intimated that England or Germany are on a parity as regards either number of ships or total tonnage of merchant marine. I am quite aware that Great Britain has four times the ship capacity that Germany possesses. I did state that either nation would be able to land 450,000 troops on our Atlantic seaboard within two weeks' time, using only half its merchant ships. This is true, as will be seen below. Great Britain could perhaps do better than that, or, on the

other hand, her larger number of ships might not more than balance Germany's more thorough preparation and her wellknown efficiency in the movement of troops.

You state that at the outbreak of the present war Germany possessed only 2,350,000 tons of ocean-going ships. Lloyd's Register for 1914-15 credits her with 5,090,331 tons of steel merchant ships. The regulations of the German army do not, however, permit the use of steamers of less than 2000 tons for the transportation of troops; of such ships Germany possesses, according to Lloyd's Register for 1914, 4,018,185 tons.

The Japanese Field Service Regulations specify that three gross tons are sufficient to transport a man and all necessary equipment and supplies, no matter what the size of the ship. In the United States Field Service Regulations for 1914, page 208, we find the following:

On this basis it is plainly seen that half of Germany's marine ships of over 2000 tons displacement could easily accommodate 450,000 men.

Before the present war there were many theories as to how long it would take Germany to mobilize after she had declared war on France. In point of fact, inside the German border and ranged parallel with the boundary of Belgium a large German army was marking time before any declaration of war, and at that moment needed only to be given the word to step across the border. It is certainly not unreasonable to suppose that Germany 1 According to the exigencies of the situation

might embark her men before she chose to declare war against America.

The speed of a transport fleet is not controlled by the slowest unit, since transports travel in groups according to their speed. Moreover, Lloyd's Register for 1914-15 shows that there is not a single ship of over 2000 tons in the entire German merchant marine which does not possess speed enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean in twelve days.

You state that Germany has found it impossible to maintain an army in Russia three hundred miles from her own frontier. Even the daily newspapers show that she has not only done so for three months past, but continues to do so at present.

It is interesting to note that you imply that three thousand miles of water was all that has kept the kaiser from "having at us." Five times three thousand miles of water did not keep him from "having at" China.

I cannot agree with you that General Wood is a political general. He has been for twenty-nine years an army-officer, having received his commission in 1886, at which time he was made lieutenant in the medical corps. He showed great ability during campaigns against the Indians, and for his services in the Apache campaign was awarded the medal of honor, which is an equivalent of the British Victoria Cross and is the highest military award in the gift of the United States. In 1898 he had reached the grade of captain, the same rank which Ulysses Grant held at the beginning of the Civil War. Officers in the medical corps of the army have in war-time the same right to win promotion to the higher ranks as have officers in other branches of the service. At the beginning of the Spanish War, General Wood was by President McKinley appointed colonel of volunteers. He won promotion to the rank of brigadiergeneral of volunteers while in the field in Cuba. Five months after he was made major-general of volunteers by President McKinley for efficient and meritorious

service. Later President McKinley made

him brigadier-general in the regular army, and in 1903 he was made major-general of regulars by President Roosevelt. He is considered by fellow-members of his profession to be the most capable general officer in America.

A large part of the liberal appropriations made by Congress has been spent by congressmen and civil secretaries on useless pork-barrel army-posts and useless pork-barrel navy-yards. West Point was not rebuilt; it was enlarged. Lord Kitchener says that West Point is the greatest military school in the world.

on

As to the quarters of the captains and first lieutenants serving at West Point, it is incomprehensible that any one who has ever seen them should compare them to "a high-grade apartment-building Riverside Drive." Last Saturday, when I went to West Point to lecture to the officers and cadets on the Battle of the Marne, I was a guest in the quarters of First Lieutenant R. E. Lee. His quarters are typical of those occupied by the bachelor officers, and consist of a small sittingroom, bedroom, and bath, together with a small office. I have Lieutenant Lee's permission to be explicit. His bedroom is 10 by 11 feet; his sitting-room 10 by 17 feet; his office 10 by 9 feet; the bath-room 7 feet wide. The finish of all the rooms is simple to the point of severity.

So called coast-defense vessels are now obsolete. One reason for this is that the super-dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers possess greater speed and heavier guns. An enemy attacking our coast would with their more powerful guns be able to outrange those of our smaller coast-defense vessels, and with their greater speed they could easily choose and maintain a range outside of the latter's fire-zone. The battle-ships could then, without danger to themselves, pound to pieces the coast-defense vessels, which do not even possess the requisite speed to escape.

I do not know a single army-officer who has fatty degeneration of the heart. Nor do you.

Very sincerely yours,

ERIC FISHER WOOD.

IN

which appeared in the January number, Mr. Creel undoubtedly points out that which would be ideal both from the point of view of the alien coming to this country and from that of the Govern

ment.

The article blames the Government, however, for the failure to work out these ideals without allowing that a part of the failure may be due to the age and character of the immigrant.

The point is made that the immigrant is discouraged in his first reception, and delayed and discomfited beyond reason, but the fact must not be lost sight of that it is neither economical nor good management to provide quarters and an inspection force sufficient to handle in a few hours the widely separated rushes, when these same quarters and men will be idle for months between the chance arrival of several ships at the same time.

It is true that a very large percentage of the uneducated aliens crowd into colonies of their own race. Those who come here for the first time generally come alone for the purpose of making enough money to repay their borrowed passagemoney, to support those left at home, to provide a little capital, and finally to pay for bringing their families to them. That is the primary reason why so much of the alien's money is sent abroad, and why they go to the community where they can exist at the least expense. If our millions go abroad, we receive full value in labor here, and that labor is to a great extent of the sort that our own people are not physically or mentally fitted to do.

For years, while superintending construction-gangs of Italians, Poles, Hungarians, and Bohemians, I was admitted to their friendship and a knowledge of their troubles. Among other things, they came to me to send their remittances home, and in few cases was it sent out of this country for other than the reasons given above. I often asked the older men why they came to our work instead of go

ing to the farms, and their answers were always the same. They were too far along in life to learn a new language quickly, and if one must be away from home, why be entirely alone on a farm when one can make more and spend less, and have many friends who speak your tongue and think your thoughts, by living in the colonies or camps? And the work with shovel and a hoe was much the same whether in a foundation or a field.

Many go back to the old country in the end, but they are the older men who have no families or children with them. It is the nature of all of us to want to spend our old age in the place we remember with the most pleasure, and the alien of more than middle age naturally thinks back to the scene of his younger days as the best place to pass his final years. It is the young and the second generation who will take up citizenship; but those who come to prepare the way for the rest of the family cannot be hurried into this advance either by law or outside effort. If, as Mr. Creel suggests, the Federal Government will adopt a system by which a large number of one race may be given land in the same locality and monetary help, there are thousands who may be benefited, and the land will be in the hands of some of the best intensive farmers on earth.

With the German and English races it is quite different. Few of them come to us who are of the peasant class or are uneducated. They make good citizens in that they are sober and industrious, but comparatively few of them have become citizens, and such a crisis as the present quickly shows that the welfare of their adopted country is a secondary consideration when compared with the interests of the country of their birth.

If our Government fails to make over aliens into good citizens, the failure is not with the poor and uneducated, but with the well-to-do and well-educated foreigner who comes into our business world, taking all and giving nothing.