ARMY & NAVY: Secy Weeks Reports, Sir

The Secretary of War submitted his annual report on the affairs of the Army. It was at once a report and a warning to Congress not to take another slice off the War Department’s proposed allowance for next year—an allowance already pared by the Budget Bureau.

Mr. Weeks’ chief recommendations:

1) Increase the maximum enlisted strength of the regular Army from 125,000 to 150,000.

2) Increase the commissioned strength of the regular Army from 12,000 to 13,000.

His reasons and justification:

¶Our foreign garrisons are cut to a “dangerously low limit.” The regular Army at home is strained by the effort to furnish instruction to civilian training camps. “As a result the morale of the regular Army . . is below what we should demand of it”

¶”Since 1921 the total number of individuals under military training or in military organizations has decreased from 519,041 to 504,010.”

¶The cost of maintaining our Army is about $2.34 per capita of the population.

¶The total cost of Army, Navy and Marine Corps is only 14% of our total budget; the actual expenditures of the Army only 6%.

¶”In one year we spend six times as much for soda and confections as we spend for military purposes, for tobacco nearly four times, for perfumery, jewelry and other items of adornment nearly five times, and for theatres, cabarets and similar amusements more than three times. Military preparations cost us, roughly, one-eighteenth of what we spend for luxuries, amusements and mild vices.”

¶If every taxpayer “purchased each year for his own protection any Army “automatic pistol the total expenditure would be more than the cost of the Army.”

¶Estimating our national wealth as $400,000,000,000, we have only one soldier for each $2,500,000. The following nations maintain one soldier for the following amounts of their wealth:

Great Britain $250,000

France $133,000

Italy $120,000

Japan $90,000

¶Considering our Army and Navy expenditures as “defense insurance,” the premium rate is only $1.50 per $1,000.