Part 15

The War Department on June 6 permitted publication of reports to the Acting Chief of Ordnance (Brig. Gen. C. C. Williams) showing that since the United States declared war 1,568,661 rifles had been produced for the army. This total was made up of 1,140,595 modified Enfields, 1917 model; 176,796 Springfields, 1903 model, and 251,270 Russian rifles. The last named are used for training purposes and to equip home guards. There were also the equivalent of 100,000 Enfields and 100,000 Springfields made up in spare parts. With the rifles already in hand when war was declared, and allowing for the fact that only one-half of the soldiers in an army carry rifles, the Ordnance Department had enough rifles for an army of about 2,000,000 men, after making allowance for one year's wastage.

The organization of five new regiments and nineteen battalions of Railway Engineers, to be used in addition to the regiments already working in France, was announced by the War Department on June 6. The work was carried out by the staff of the Director General of Military Railways, Samuel M. Felton, in conjunction with the Engineer Corps. This brought the number of Americans engaged in railroad construction and operation in France up to 50,000.

A total of $160,000,000 has been spent on railway materials alone, not including supplies provided and used by the Engineer Corps proper. Director General Felton, describing the growth in personnel and the increase in the size of the task confronting his staff, beginning with the organization of the first railway regiment, said that early in 1917 the Chief of Engineers decided to organize a railway operating regiment. Mr. Felton, who had acted as his railway adviser in 1916, was asked to take charge of the work. Six railroads having headquarters in Chicago were called on to recruit one company each. The regiment formed the nucleus of the present railway organization. While it was being formed, the United States entered the war. One of the first requests transmitted to this Government by the French Mission was for assistance in strengthening the French railway systems to meet the increasing war strain. This request was made in April, 1917, and early in May Mr. Felton was called to Washington to organize nine railway regiments, including the Chicago regiment.

War Finance in Canada

Income Tax Begins at $1,000--New Taxes on Luxuries

The new Canadian taxes in the budget for the fiscal year 1918-19 show marked increases, especially in income taxes. Exemption in the case of unmarried persons is reduced from $1,500 to $1,000, and for married persons from $3,000 to $2,000, the rate being 2 per cent. from $1,000 to $1,500 in the case of the unmarried and the same amount from $2,000 to $3,000 in the case of the married. The present rate of supertax is continued upon incomes up to $50,000, and above that there is a gradual increase, reaching 50 per cent. on incomes over $1,000,000. In addition there will be a war surtax upon incomes over $6,000, running from 5 per cent. on incomes between $6,000 and $10,000 and 25 per cent. on incomes over $200,000. It has also been decided to grant an exemption of $200 per child. The total war tax on incomes over $1,000,000 reaches 77 per cent.

The tax on tobacco is increased from 10 to 20 cents per pound; on cigars from $5 to $6 per 1,000; on cigarettes from $3 to $6 per 1,000; on foreign raw leaf tobacco from 28 to 40 cents per pound, and on foreign leaf tobacco stemmed from 42 to 60 cents per pound. It has also been decided to place a tax of 10 cents per pound on tea, and it is proposed to increase the duty on coffee to 5 cents for British coffee and to 7 cents for the general tariff. There will be a tax of 8 cents per pack on playing cards and a specific rate customs duty of 5 cents per lineal foot on moving-picture films. A special war excise tax of 10 per cent. is to be imposed upon the selling value of motor cars, jewelry, gramophones, phonographs, mechanical pianos; imported into or manufactured in Canada.

The Minister of Finance stated that $258,000,000 was the revenue for the year ended March 31, 1918, with civil expenditures of $173,000,000. The increase in interest and pensions for the coming year was estimated at $25,000,000. The Finance Minister stated that the war expenditures of the last year approximated $345,000,000, of which $167,000,000 had been spent in Canada. Up to March 31 the total outlay on the war was approximately $878,000,000, which included all expenditures at home and abroad. During the last two years they had applied $113,000,000 toward war expenditures, in addition to expenditures on interest and pensions. The net debt of Canada was now approximately $1,200,000,000.

He pointed out that trade was annually increasing, and that exports were now much greater than imports. The total trade had increased since 1913 from $1,000,000,000 to $2,500,000,000 last year, the balance of trade in favor of Canada being $625,000,000. Exports to Great Britain totaled $860,000,000, while imports were only $81,000,000. On the other hand, the balance of trade against Canada with the United States was $350,000,000.

Referring to immigration, the Minister of Finance said that, in spite of the war, over 200,000 people had entered Canada in the last three years, largely farmers from the United States. He anticipated large immigration into Canada shortly after the end of the war.

* * * * *

War Record of the United States

An Official Summary of American Activities During the First Year of Belligerency.

By CHARLES POPE CALDWELL

_Member of Congress from New York_

[DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 22, 1918]

At the outset, let me say frankly that we have made mistakes--yes, grievous mistakes--and had our foresight been as keen as the afterthought of our critics we might have accomplished more. But, notwithstanding these mistakes and omissions, America has done her share--indeed, more than her share--for she has done many times more than any of our allies suspected that she was capable of doing and more than the greatest enthusiast in America hoped she could do. She has confirmed our friends and confounded our enemies. Or, let me put it in another way: America has raised and equipped a bigger army in shorter time and now holds a greater section of the fighting front, transporting her forces 3,000 miles across an infested sea, in ten months, than England was capable of doing in twelve months across the English Channel of less than thirty miles. We began with less, went further, and arrived with more in shorter time. Yet their motive was necessity and ours only desire.

When war was declared in April, 1917, the standing army of the United States consisted of 136,000 officers and men, many of whom were in the foreign service, and the National Guard consisted of 164,000 officers and men, many of whom were too old for active service, and a large part of them physically unfit to perform the duty for which they had volunteered. Our experts told us that it would take two years to raise an army of 1,000,000 men and five years to train the commissioned personnel. It has now been about one year since the first legislation was passed authorizing the increase of our army for war purposes. The strength of our military forces is now as follows:

ARMY STRENGTH, MAY, 1918

Officers. Men. Regular army 10,295 504,677 Reserve Corps 79,038 78,560 National Guard 16,906 411,952 National Army 33,894 510,963 On special and technical duty 8,195 Drafted in April 150,000 Drafted in May 233,742 ------- ------- Total 148,328 1,889,894

Grand total, 2,038,222 officers and men.

So we have today an army of more than 2,000,000, of which 500,000 have already been shipped to France and 1,000,000 more have had the necessary training to fit them for foreign service. These are now waiting for the boats to carry them over. Our critics now complain that we have not done more, yet we have done in one year twice as much as they thought we could do in two years.

When war was declared, each of our allies sent commissions to America to advise us what to do and to assist us wherever possible in our preparation. The English told us that they did not need men, but they did need money and supplies; the Italians that they did not need men, but that they did need material and money; the Russians that they did not need men or material, but did need money and ammunition; the French told us that they needed raw material and money, and asked that a small expeditionary force be sent to hearten their people and as an earnest of our intention of seeing the war through.

Under this tutelage and squaring our conduct with the requests of our friends, it was thought by many to be inadvisable to attempt to raise an army of more than 1,000,000 men. Congress was therefore requested to pass military legislation limiting the army to the 136,000 regulars, the 164,000 National Guardsmen, and 500,000 drafted men, with authority to call an additional 500,000 in case they should be needed. Under the legislation that Congress passed, in spite of the recommendation from the Allies, we have already raised more than 2,000,000 men, and early in the year 1919 will have 3,000,000 men in the army. We have lately taken the "lid off" so that the President may have as big an army as necessity requires and our man power permits. Notwithstanding the fact that the appropriation measure now pending before the House is drawn with the view of supporting an army of only 3,000,000 men, I am confident that before many months deficiency appropriations will be necessary. The army is growing so rapidly and its needs are so urgent that the efforts heretofore made will be small in comparison with those of the next twelve months. We will probably have between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 men before the end of the next fiscal year.

TWENTY MILLION FIGHTING MEN

When we were considering legislation in the Spring of 1917, it was thought that our largest task would be getting men. Experience has shown that this is easy of accomplishment, made so by reason of the fact that we have left open the door for a reasonable amount of volunteers in the National Guard and regular army and passed a draft law under which all men of military age may readily be mobilized. The justness and fairness of the scheme as worked out by the Provost Marshal General have obtained the earnest co-operation and enthusiastic support of our people as a whole.

As I have said, our military law has been amended giving the President authority to call additional increments of men from time to time as needed. It has also been amended to permit him to register and classify all men that reach the age of 21 years. We now have 2,000,000 men in the army. The men between the ages of 21 and 31 years in 1917 have been classified, and there remains in Class 1 approximately 2,000,000 men physically fit not called. The class of 1918, which will be registered this Summer, will add another million, making a grand total of 5,000,000, without calling Classes 2, 3, 4, or 5, containing nearly 6,000,000, and without calling the boys from 18 to 21--3,000,000 more. If the war lasts until 1924 there will be added 6,000,000 more men. The potential man power of America for a seven-year war, therefore, may be conservatively estimated at 20,000,000 fighting men of recognized military age. This out of a population of 125,000,000.

Not because I think that all of our man power will be needed, but in order that we may get a view of the task that is in front of us and understand the necessity for the large army we are calling and the huge expenditures we are making, let me recall these facts.

THE ENEMY'S STRENGTH

The Central Powers at the outbreak of the war had a population of 142,250,000, in round numbers, of which 26,310,000 were males between the ages of 18 and 44, and if 70 per cent. of them were available for military service their man power would be approximately 18,360,000. Since the Russian fiasco Germany has occupied a territory greater in area than both Germany and Austria, in which there live upward of 51,000,000 people. And if the reports that we get are to be believed, the Kaiser has compelled the boys between 18 and 21 in this occupied territory to enter the German training camps, and he hopes in a short time to have them on the western front, thus augmenting his man power to approximately 21,000,000 fighting men.

This is the job we have on our hands. The newspapers tell us that the Kaiser has only 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 soldiers, but it would be wise for the members of this House in passing legislation affecting the conduct of the war to keep in mind the figures that I have just indicated. To meet this Great Britain--the British Isles, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand--France, Italy, and the United States have a combined population from which they can draw 30,000,000 or 40,000,000, and in addition to these numbers there is an enormous reservoir from which to draw further man power in the colonies and possessions of the Allies and the twenty-three smaller countries now allied with us in the war. To show something of the relative strength of the contending forces I will read the following capitulation, which is believed to be substantially accurate and has been compiled after very careful inquiry from the best sources available:

MAN POWER OF CENTRAL POWERS COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE ALLIES

A. B. C. Est'd avail. Estimated for mil. Males 18-44 serv. of all Population inclusive, kinds--70% 1914. 1914. of B. CENTRAL POWERS Austria-H'ary 51,000,000 9,360,000 6,500,000 Bulgaria 4,750,000 800,000 560,000 Germany (Continental) 68,000,000 12,850,000 9,000,000 Ottoman Empire 18,500,000 3,300,000 2,300,000 ---------- ---------- --------- Total 142,250,000 26,310,000 18,360,000

ASSOCIATED GOVERNMENTS Australia 5,000,000 850,000 595,000 Canada 7,500,000 1,275,000 892,500 France 39,000,000 6,630,000 4,640,000 Gt. Britain 46,000,000 7,820,000 5,474,000 India 320,000,000 54,400,000 37,800,000 Italy 36,000,000 6,120,000 4,284,000 Japan 54,000,000 8,180,000 1,390,000 New Zealand 1,200,000 204,000 142,800 Portugal 6,000,000 1,020,000 714,000 Serbia 2,800,000 476,000 333,200 South Africa 6,000,000 1,020,000 714,000 United States 100,000,000 17,000,000 11,900,000 ----------- ---------- ---------- Total 623,500,000 104,995,000 68,879,500

The casualties resulting in death, permanent injury, or incapacity in the German Army have amounted to admittedly about 3,000,000 men during the four years of war, or approximately the same number as have been supplied by the young men who have reached military age during the same period. From this statement it would appear that from the point of man power Germany is no worse off today than when she started the war. The weakening of the German forces is represented, however, by the lack of nourishment for her workers, her women and children, and the discharges which must necessarily follow the reaching of advanced age by the old men called to the colors, both of which will be felt more keenly as time goes on, as well as the disease which must necessarily accompany conditions such as the war has produced. America will not begin to discharge her men on account of advanced age for twenty years. In other words, the man power of America will get stronger and the man power of the enemy must get weaker for the next twenty years, if, by any chance, the war should last that long. We have nothing to fear from this source.

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED

The first war difficulty encountered came when we looked for shelter for the vast army being assembled. Much to the surprise of every one, it was soon discovered that there was not cloth enough in the world to put tents over an army the size of the one we were organizing, and there were not mills and machinery enough to make it. Therefore wooden cantonments were constructed. We built thirty-two cantonments with a floor space of 640,000,000 square feet, with the necessary water, sewers, lighting plants, storehouses, ice plants, hospitals, and recreation centres to take care of 1,280,000 men, in which undertaking there was used in ten weeks' time more human labor than went into the building of the Panama Canal. Besides these, we have constructed aviation fields, ordnance schools, and training schools for officers--herculean tasks in themselves. We have also put up at the ports of embarkation, and throughout the country, supply depots, and storage warehouses with a combined floor space of 24,220,000 square feet for the army, in addition to what the navy has done in that respect, and have constructed the enormous buildings erected for administrative purposes in Washington and elsewhere. Verily, your Uncle Samuel is a modern Aladdin, who, when he wants a thing devoutly, rubs the lamp of American patriotism and the genius of America produces overnight all that he requires.

When we entered the war we had practically no surplus clothing for our army, our reserve supply having been used up in the Mexican expedition. Our allies were using practically the full output of all of our mills capable of producing cloth of the character used for uniforms. To take over these factories would have discommoded our allies. We met the difficulty by a change of the machinery in carpet factories, ducking mills, and kindred industries, and have been able to, during the last year, make Summer and Winter clothing enough for 2,000,000 men, and have a reserve supply of every article of wear for our soldiers sufficient to take care of the authorized increase.

TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT

England trained her first million a whole year in citizens' clothes and top hats, with walking sticks for guns, because she could not do otherwise, and this in spite of the fact that she was the greatest textile manufacturing country in the world and had all America to help her. Notwithstanding this shortage, our first 1,500,000 men were trained in uniforms and taught the manual of arms with a rifle. When England went into the war she had shortly before adopted a new type of gun, but her factories were not equipped to supply it. She abandoned her new type of gun, and has fought the war thus far with an admittedly inferior type of rifle, a large portion of which were made on order in the United States.

There went up a hue and cry that America adopt a foreign type of rifle, notwithstanding the facts that the rifle is the most necessary weapon of warfare, and we had the Springfield rifle in substantial quantity, admittedly the best rifle then being used in the world, shooting the most powerful and efficient ammunition ever prepared. In the face of this criticism, we adhered to our own weapon, adopting a modified and rechambered Enfield, which differs from a Springfield in such a small way that it is not worthy of discussion, now known as the United States rifle, model of 1917, resulting in some delay but now being produced in sufficient quantity.

When General Joffre made the request for a small expeditionary force, the critics of the Administration demanded what they thought was the impossible--i.e., that we ship to France during the first year 50,000 to 100,000 men. During the first ten days of May we shipped 90,000. Within one year after the first shipment America will have an army of 1,000,000 men in France, with their necessary arms, equipment, and supplies. It will be the best-fed, the best-clothed, the best-paid army of its size that the world has ever known, speaking the same language, worshipping the same God, and following the same flag. Its personnel will have the quickest perceptions of any soldiers in the world, and will have been trained under modern conditions, surrounded by the best moral influences, with the lowest percentage of disease, and will be nerved by the highest motives that actuate men.

Victory for our cause is therefore certain.

Italy's Third Year of War

Other Anniversaries, With Official Greetings Exchanged by the Allies and the United States

The third anniversary of Italy's entry into the war was the occasion of an address by Prime Minister Orlando, delivered in the Augusteum at Rome on May 24, in which, in reaffirming the unity of the Allies, he said:

For this unity, so solemnly consecrated again today, I express in the name of Italy my deep gratitude to all. To England, which could not send a more noble or more agreeable messenger than your Royal Highness, who brings to us a message reaffirming friendship with our country, a friendship which was shown at a time which was painful to us, and which has been strengthened by the intimacy of affection in the days of grief still more than in those of joy. To France, to our great sister toward whom with a feeling of renewed admiration our hearts are turned. To the United States, to this young people, powerful in its strength and already rich in glory owing to the wisdom of its leader and the numerous virtues of its men. To the peoples conquered by the enemy because of their smallness, for which reason their heroic sacrifice and admirable bravery are all the more apparent. To those nations from the Baltic to the Adriatic which the common enemy has oppressed. To the oppressed nations in the interior and on the frontiers of enemy States which heroically rise in rebellion with the cry "Long Live the Entente!"

In the royal box were the Prince of Wales and Prince Peter of Montenegro. The vast audience contained the official representatives of all the allied powers and the United States, and the leaders of all political and social groups of Italy, with representatives from all the important cities. The Prince of Wales in his address said:

I come to you to assure you of the constant friendship and sincere affection of the British people for your nation, whose enlightened and precious sympathy is a proof of the creative unity of arms which nothing can again dissolve. In the city of Rome, the ancient capital of the world, the source of social order and justice, I proudly proclaim my conviction that the great object for which our two nations are fighting against the forces of reaction is inevitably destined to triumph, owing to the union of which our meeting this evening is symbolic.

The King of Italy addressed the following Order of the Day to the army and navy: