ARMY & NAVY: Regulars to the Rear

ARMY & NAVY

Few general officers of the U. S. Army have any serious fault to find with a military system through which they have worked their way to the professional peak. An exception is Major General Johnson Hagood, commander of the 7th Corps Area with headquarters at Omaha, Neb.

Last week, somewhat to his surprise and embarrassment, General Hagood found himself testifying before the House Military Affairs Committee as a critic of his own establishment. His views were the product of 40 years of thoughtful military service (he once taught philosophy at West Point) and his plan for the reorganization and improvement of national defense represented an estimated saving of $50,000,000 per year for U. S. taxpayers. “The Army has become so complicated.” declared General Hagood. “that an archangel right out of Heaven could not operate it. … The War Department has always collapsed at the outbreak of every war and the present organization will collapse at the outbreak of the next war because it is too topheavy, contains too many conflicting agencies, has too much divided responsibility.”

General Hagood’s plan:

1) Order the regulars to the rear at the outbreak of war to train a citizen army and throw the militia immediately into the first fighting line. Explained General Hagood: “This is the manner in which the Confederate Army used the regular army officers it got at the outbreak of the Civil War. It is the plan recommended for future wars by Grant in his memoirs. It is the plan the British wished they’d had after they lost the flower of their army in the first few battles in France.”

2) Reorganize the General Staff into five categories: Administration, Supply, Tactics. Militia, Air Corps. All military functions would be consolidated under these five heads.

3) Demilitarize the War Department and return it to the status of a civil bureau.