"In time of war the civilian as much as the soldier is responsible for defeat and disaster. Battles are not lost alone on the field; they may be lost beneath the Dome of the Capitol, they may be lost in the Cabinet, or they may be lost in the private office of the Secretary of War. Wherever they may be lost, it is the people who suffer and the soldiers who die, with the knowledge and the conviction that our military policy is a crime against life, a crime against property, and a crime against liberty. The author has availed himself of his privilege as a citizen to expose to our people a system which, if not abandoned, may sooner or later prove fatal. The time when some one should do this has arrived."
In 1912, Admiral Kane said: "They told me in London, 'You are living in a fool's paradise. Some day you will wake up with a fight on your hands, and you won't be ready for it.'"
Not only must the United States solve the great problem of shaping a military policy that will enable us to establish an adequate force for national defense in time of war, to build up and man our Navy, construct and man coast fortifications, and enlist, arm, and train an adequate army, but also there must be faced the far more difficult problem of enlisting the co-operation of the American people in the enterprise.
The fathers of our country, believing that a large standing Army would be a menace to the liberties of the people, ordained that our Army, in time of peace, should not exceed twenty-five thousand. Since then, Congress has several times raised the limit until we now may have an Army, in time of peace, of not more than a hundred thousand men. As a matter of fact, we have a regular Army of 93,016, both staff and line.
As this Army has to be spread out over our entire continental and outlying possessions, the sight of an American soldier of our regular Army is about as rare an occurrence as the sight of a sea-serpent.
Within the actual limits of our forty-eight states we have but 48,428 regular troops. Of these 17,947 must be kept in our coast fortifications, even as a pretense of garrisoning them. This leaves only 30,481 mobile troops, including engineers, cavalry, infantry, and field artillery. We have a militia on paper numbering 127,000, men and officers. Only 60,000 of these, however, are in readiness for service.
Therefore, we have in the United States to-day a regular Army of 48,000, and 60,000 militia ready for duty, or 108,000 men and officers altogether. In time of war not a man of our militia could well be spared for military service to repel an invader, for in such troublesome times they would all be needed for police duty to maintain order and obedience throughout the country.
General Wood recently told us that it would take a month to mobilize even our little Army of thirty thousand men.
Out of the 127,000 officers and men of the militia which we have on paper, only 60,000 being available, and only 30,000 of our regulars being available, we could place on the firing-line only 90,000 men and officers, and there would be no reserves.