Part 23

On returning to the States we spent some time with our old friends in El Paso. In recognition of the part we had played in the development of the city, the city council changed the name of St. Louis Street, in front of our building, to Mills Street, a monument to our name which will outlast the building.

CONCLUSION

Our last visit to El Paso was on March 3, 1917, when Nannie, Constance and I went there to meet Captain Overton, who had been in San Francisco on business. We stayed for a few days with our good friends, Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Stevens. While in El Paso I had ptomaine poisoning, and was in great pain and very miserable for most of the visit. Nannie was greatly distressed, and worried about me both there and on the journey home. I completely recovered, but only seventeen days after reaching Washington Nannie was taken suddenly ill with angina pectoris, and, after a month's suffering, died on May 14, 1917.

Until this last illness she had always been well and very active, taking great interest in her home and spending much time and thought on doing good to her many relatives and friends. She had no inordinate love of life, but often expressed the fear that she might outlive her health and strength and become a care to others. Among her last words to me were, "Anson, I wanted to live four or five years more, as there are some things I hoped to do."

THE END

"How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on."

APPENDIX

The Organization and Administration of the United States Army

Address before the Society of the Army of the Cumberland

Address before the Order of Indian Wars, on "The Battle of the Rosebud"

THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

JANUARY 22, 1897

A partial course at the Military Academy, four years' experience as a citizen of Texas--there in contact with the Army during its sorest trials--and a service of thirty-six years as a commissioned officer both in the Cavalry and Infantry (in the field without leave or sickness during the War) and at twenty-five separate and independent posts during the subsequent years, with a fair share in Indian campaigns of this latter period, has convinced me--against my will and inclination--that the Army is not now and never has been organized or administered in its own interests, the interests of the people, nor in harmony with the other institutions (national, state, or corporate) of the Republic.

These pages are written with a view of making as full and free criticism and exposition of the faults and errors as they have occurred to me, and the remedies as they have suggested themselves, as is proper for me to do under paragraph 5 of the Army Regulations, with the full knowledge that the rôle of the innovator or reformer is generally obnoxious to mankind, so given to the worship of ancestral methods in all the affairs of life, but more markedly, perhaps, in the profession of arms, the very mission of which is to maintain the order of things as they exist, so that at present I can hardly hope to have the support of perhaps even a majority of my brother officers, for the reason that they are supposed (erroneously, I think) to be the beneficiaries of the system and methods here assailed.

With this prelude and the faithful promise to "Nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice," I will proceed with my theme without apology.

A careful study of the history of our country will show that neither the great patriots and statesmen who founded and secured our liberties, nor those who have followed and maintained them, have ever at any time seriously considered the subject of _a permanent military establishment_, save to declare in the Constitution "_That Congress shall have power * * * to raise and support armies_," and that "_a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State_," and providing at various and sundry times to this date by legislative enactments for the enrollment of "_every male citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five_" as the well regulated militia, and that each citizen so enrolled "_shall within six months thereafter provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of the musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain the proper quantity of powder and ball; or, with a good rifle, knapsack, shot pouch and powder horn, twenty balls, suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed and accoutred, and provided, when called out into exercise, or into service; * * * that commissioned officers shall, severally, be armed with a sword or hanger,[1] and a spontoon; and that from and after five years from the passage of this act, all muskets for arming the militia, as herein required, shall be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound_," and "_for making farther and more effectual provisions for the protection of the frontiers of the United States_."

[1] See Cullem's "Art of War," page 26, describing the "Frank" soldier of the Sixth Century.

In carrying out these projects they adopted for the government of the troops so authorized, with very little alteration, the Articles of War, Regulations, Pay and Allowances, and Systems of Organization, with the Laws, written and unwritten, then in force in Great Britain; and in the main the military establishment of the United States for both Regulars and Militia so remains to the present day.

Jefferson and his contemporaries had busied themselves assiduously before, during, and after the Revolution, in erasing from the statute books of the Colonies and the Congress, all vestige or semblance of support of a personal and despotic government, such as titles of nobility, established church, primogeniture and the entailment of estates, all of which had played so great a part in upholding cruel and despotic governments of the great nations of civilization, to the end that freeing the people from the all-powerful influence of these ruling classes, they might establish a free and permanent government, where all just powers should be derived "_from the consent of the governed_"; so that by the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 they had not only destroyed all these privileged classes, but had established a government so unique in all its leading characteristics that it differed in every feature save one, _the War Department_, from any great nation known to history; complicated, yet symmetrical; its executive, legislative, and judicial powers blending--both Federal and State--in harmonious whole.

From its Supreme Court at the Nation's Capital down through its inferior auxiliaries in the districts of all the States and Territories, and in each State and Territory on down through their Supreme Courts with their auxiliaries, and still on down through the county, corporate and justices' courts in the counties and cities, there is no cause of action, civil or criminal, possessed by any party--individual or corporate--but there is a well-defined and easily accessible remedy in original, appellate, and final jurisdiction; so simple that the young lawyer just entering upon practice can, without hesitation, file his complaint in the proper direction; when once filed, though it may proceed to that of last resort--the Federal Supreme Court--there is no confusion or conflict between the judges, marshals, sheriffs, or constables, county, State, or Federal. But when these legal authorities have exhausted their power to suppress the lawless and make their call upon the executive of the nation to protect the lives and property of the law-abiding (their dearest and most sacred rights), neither the President nor the Governor, the Marshal nor the Sheriff, the officer commanding the Federal troops nor the officer commanding the State troops have any rules of law for their mutual and common guidance and government; too often local passion and political prejudice blind a just conception in otherwise good men and endanger the public safety. The Army (and its supplement--the Navy) being the only unimproved inheritance left us from Great Britain.

This Organization and Administration for the British Army was developed during the four of five centuries preceding our Revolution, for the purpose of maintaining the alleged God-given right of dynasties to rule the people without "The consent of the governed," to support large royal families, a large line of nobility with attendant trains, entailed estates, a numerous line of army officers--the latter supplanting the knights errant--who together constituted the ruling classes, distinguished from tradespeople and toilers as were the patricians of Rome from plebeians.

Earlier the armies were raised by the knights and barons; the officers from sons of the nobility who were admitted to the pomp and circumstance of regal courts; the men from the lowest class (often foreign mercenaries) hardly any of whom could read, or had any conception of individual, much less political rights, just emerging from barbarism and trained for wars where plunder was the main incentive to courage in battle.

These were men to be governed by fear alone, and not by the love of order and personal interest in its maintenance as Americans now govern themselves. With such people, rigid personal government and rules of discipline were necessary and accepted; with Americans, they are not only unnecessary, but abhorrent.

To comport, then, with the surroundings in the ruling classes and with the necessity for discipline among men so base in mercenary wars for the benefit of the ruling classes alone, the Organization and Administration were made to consist of two classes--officers and men--as widely separated as master and slave; the officer became by laws, written and unwritten, despotic and supercilious, with power even to take life without responsibility; the man servile and blindly obedient in the most abject sense, without remedies against his cruel wrongs.

It is true that at the time of our Revolution popular liberty had greatly advanced in England, but as the pay of the men was very small and the most of the service required in distant colonies, many of which were barbarous, and few equally advanced with England in civil liberties, few but the idle and vicious could be induced to surrender the rights then dawning upon them at home, and separate themselves for years from civilization, friends, and kindred; so, of necessity still, the unwritten laws were maintained, and those written did not keep abreast with those pertaining to civil liberties at home. To the officer, though a stripling, the soldier, though aged and battle-scarred, was always "My man," and he, in servile response, considered it a privilege if not an honor to black his master's boots. He was made to spend much time in acquiring a knowledge of the proper dress, manner, and deportment necessary to approach the presence of any one holding a commission. All this we inherited--much is unnecessarily perpetuated.

Until recently a similar unfortunate condition has confronted our army since its organization, in the fact that nine-tenths of it was compelled to abandon civilized association, going to the wilds to war with the North American savage, more dreadful than any with which the British Army has had to contend; only the poorest material could be induced to enlist, and the officers had at least a partial justification in maintaining the written and unwritten laws inherited from the British Army. But the cessation of these wars--now never to be resumed--and the transfer of the greater part of the army to the East, near the great cities, bringing both men and officers in contact with the people of the greatest civilization and also in direct association with the National Guards of States, who are directly from and with the people, has, within the last ten years, induced a great change in material of the enlisted men, so that now there can be no just reason why they should not be placed on a level as to pay, government, and promotion with other public employees in similar service, such as letter-carriers, city policemen, and others.

Right here it should be said, however, that the faults do not lie with the officers; as a rule they are blameless in these matters, as it is their sworn duty to maintain the unwritten laws, the customs of the service as they find them--which they have done, often knowing themselves to be the sufferers in alienation from the sympathies of the volunteers and the people in our greater wars--and at times impairing their usefulness for larger commands, by prejudices thus engendered. The material in officers is as good as any in the world, but there is little incentive to ambitious effort. The too certain tenure of office and the legal right to promotion by seniority are destructive of individuality and self-reliance (the distinctive characteristics of the American people) and subversive of ambitious efforts in time of peace, and in another decade the Army will degenerate into that state of imbecility and helplessness in which the great emergency of the Rebellion of 1861 found it. Neither is it the fault of the enlisted men.

Nothing, however, in our Republic, is so un-American as the great gulf that is maintained by laws, written and unwritten, between the commissioned and non-commissioned; a similar unfortunate gulf has also heretofore separated the Regular Peace Establishment from the Militia. Neither was intended by the Constitution nor its framers. The fault lies with the legislators, who should have perceived that our Government, founded on principles the reverse of those cited above, without classes, save as graded by worth, required an essentially different organization and administration, and they should have provided it, but they did not and have not to this day. They have practically kept up a small Army, generally qualified, however, by declaring the purposes temporary, but never seriously attempting a remodeling of its organization and administration, as was done in all other branches of the Government. They had suffered so much from the British soldier in Colonial times and had been able to vanquish him in battle with their citizen soldiery on such memorable occasions as "Saratoga" and "Yorktown" that they had contempt and hatred for anything in his semblance, and afterwards probably feared a permanent organization as menacing to the liberties they had wrested with such great sacrifice from its like, and repudiated it in spirit.

There are, however, two other alleged reasons which may have had a leading part in preventing politicians and statesmen from entering upon the necessary legislation. The first is the hazard or imagined peril to the safety of the Republic from "The Man on Horseback," a military leader placed officially at the head of a large body of well organized troops. This might be briefly answered with the truthful statement that at least two such men--Washington and Grant, and perhaps a third, Jackson--have had it clearly within their power to become dictators, and that the Republic as long as it survives will always regard them as the very safest of the many custodians of its liberties, while other leaders in the forum have attempted in vain their destruction.

The second is the great and lapsing question of "State's Rights," which at first had much force and reason, but is now fast losing all possibility of maintenance, and must eventually give way to the changed conditions and the much greater mutual interests of the States involved.

This doctrine had much right and reason in the earlier days of the Republic, because the States then, by reason of the comparative non-migration of their citizens and the transportation of products and commodities from one to the other, and the distinct characteristics of their people in habits and customs of business, might almost be said to differ from each other as did the baronies of Scotland in the Middle Ages, and required almost as autonomous laws for their government. But gradually their wonderfully increased population, the unparalleled advances in steam transportation, the great multiplication of their products and commodities (in one part or another of the Republic almost everything useful being produced) have so stimulated travel and commerce that they have so far lost their original individuality, that the individual citizen of each State in his daily wants and affairs, is quite as much interested in the laws, customs and business of other States, as in those of his own. Judging by the past, within the next half century the Republic will contain over 200,000,000 people and scores of cities of over a million inhabitants; greater and broader-tracked railroads with easier grades and curves and swifter speed, interchanging swiftly and cheaply the commodities of Florida with Alaska, and California with Maine; great ocean ship-canals with single locks connecting the Great Lakes with the ocean via the Hudson and Mississippi rivers.

The humblest citizen of the Republic will then have a daily interest in the protection of these great properties and the lives of the men who maintain them in operation, which can only be accomplished by a strong, united and well-sustained Federal force supported by the States.

The Regular Army is now smaller in proportion to the population and wealth of the nation than it has ever been at any period since the organization of the Government; the number of the lawless, the facility for their organization, armament and concentration has on the other hand largely increased, with greater power to do harm by reason of the newly invented destructive and terrible explosives.

An organization and administration after the skeleton plan which is briefly outlined below would modify much that is evil and bring the military in harmony with the other democratic institutions of the Republic:

PROJECT FOR A PERMANENT MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES

1. That the permanent Line of the Regular Army shall consist of one company for each district represented in the lower House of Congress, and one company for each Senator in the upper House, to be organized into regiments and corps as nearly as practicable as now authorized by law. Companies may be expanded to double their strength in time of war, at the discretion of the President.

2. That the permanent Line of the Militia of the United States (in the several States) shall consist of one regiment for each district represented in the lower House of Congress, and one regiment for each Senator in the upper House, a company of the Regular Army, when requested of the President by the Governor of the State, to be one of the companies of the Militia regiment, the captain its lieutenant colonel, the second lieutenant its adjutant, and the first sergeant its sergeant major; the regiment to be otherwise organized, armed and equipped as the Regular regiment to which the Regular company belongs. In the assignment of the Regular companies to these Militia regiments, to avoid sectional prejudices as far as practicable, but one company of any regiment shall be assigned to any one State.

3. That whenever there may be money appropriated for that purpose by Congress, the President may, at the request of the Governor, order the Regular company to join its Militia regiment, and report to the Governor, for mutual familiarization, instruction, and discipline, under his command for a period not exceeding two months annually.

4. That upon application by the Governor, the President may order the Regular company to join its Militia regiment, for the suppression of riots and insurrections within his State, under his command, and the President may upon proper application call the Militia regiment "into the actual service of the United States," with or without its Regular company, to "execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrection, or repel Invasion" within or without the State to which it belongs.

5. That on request of the Governor, on the recommendation of a board of officers of the Militia regiment, the President may order a lieutenant of the Militia regiment to duty with its Regular company, for a period not exceeding two years, to receive, after taking the oath, the rank, pay and allowances of his grade in the Army, during his service for that period; _Provided_, That but one officer in the regiment is so assigned, at the same time, and that while so assigned, one of the lieutenants of the Regular company may, on the application of the Governor, be assigned to duty with its Militia regiment, by the President.

6. That it shall hereafter be the duty of Regular officers detailed to inspect Militia regiments to report the four officers in each regiment who are, in their judgment, best qualified for court-martial duty, and thereafter they may be detailed on courts for the trial of Regular officers; no court, however, to have over twenty per cent of its members of such Militia officers so recommended; the Militia officers so detailed to have the rank, pay, and emoluments of their grade in the Army while serving on such detail.

7. That it shall hereafter be the duty of colonels of regiments of the Regular Army to report annually six of the sergeants of their respective regiments in their judgment best qualified for service on courts martial, and that thereafter they may be detailed on courts martial convened for the trial of enlisted men of the Regular Army; no court, however, to have over twenty per cent of its members of such sergeants so recommended.

8. That hereafter the finding and sentence of courts martial shall be publicly announced, in open court, to the accused, immediately after its determination.

9. That it be the duty hereafter of the committees on Military Affairs in both the Senate and House of Representatives, to send a sub-committee, the Chairman of the Senate sub-committee to have, during this duty, the temporary rank of Major General, and that of the House Brigadier General, and each sub-committee to have an officer of the Inspector General's Department for its Recorder, to visit and inspect, as far as practicable during the recess of each session of Congress, the principal points of interest, both in the Regular Army and the Militia, and submit their reports with recommendations--the Senate Committee through the Senate to the President for his information, and the House Committee to the Speaker for the information of the House.

10. That hereafter there shall be ordered before examining boards for examination for commissions as second lieutenants in the Regular Army, a number of enlisted men then having served at least two years (if there be so many applicants), equal to one-half the vacancies created in the Army during the preceding year, and if they pass the required physical, mental, and moral qualifications, they shall be commissioned; the other half of the annual vacancies to be filled from the graduates of the Military Academy.

11. That in each Congressional District where a Militia regiment may be organized, the cadet to the Military Academy from that District shall be selected from the members of the regiment including the Regular company, within the prescribed age, who have served in it at least one year, at a competitive examination, of all who choose to enter, by a board of officers of the regiment, convened for that purpose by the Governor.