ARMY & NAVY: Moseley’s Day Off

George Van Horn Moseley is a military freak. While in service most army officers feel obliged to bottle up their opinions, but he has not hesitated to announce his belief that more money should be spent on syphilis prevention and less on national defense, that immigration of Austro-German refugees should be facilitated but they should be sterilized before being admitted to the U. S. Last week tart, leathery Major General Moseley, having passed 43 years in the service and two in command of the U. S. Third Army, retired, as all army men must do at 64. News editors were made aware of this routine event by the receipt of four mimeographed sheets.

His remarkable document was in the tradition of Brigadier General William (“Billy”) Mitchell, who kicked the complacency out of the air service; of the Marines’ General Smedley Butler, Navy’s Rear Admiral William Sims, Army’s Major General Johnson Hagood, who brought on premature retirement by his reference to “WPA stage money.”

“… I wish,” wrote General Moseley, “. . . to talk, as a private citizen, about the problems that you and I and every other loyal American must face. . . . Make no mistake, the world drift is away from democracy . . . and America is caught in that drift. There is much encouragement, however, in the results of the September elections, where the integrity and the independence of the American voter has been shown.

“We do not have to vote for a dictatorship to have one in America. . . . We have merely to vote increased government responsibility for our individual lives, increased government authority over our daily habits, and the resultant Federal paternalism will inevitably become dictatorship. . . .

“In a democracy it is fundamental that every citizen have full confidence in the integrity and fair-minded impartiality of his government. . . . But today in America we often see class marshalled against class and unfair preference is sometimes shown.”

Citizen Moseley’s concluding paragraph reminded readers that the army has a “White Paper” plan for fighting civil wars if & when civil government ceases to govern. “Today,” he wrote, “when doctrines subversive to American constitutional government are being preached and civil authority is often openly flouted, the Army . . . stands firm as the one stable element. . . . The Army of the United States, unlike certain other armies, will never march for any leader except one lawfully appointed and acting fully and lawfully in the interest of all citizens and holding high the Stars and Stripes forever.”

With outraged vehemence, Secretary of War Harry Woodring retorted that Major Generall Moseley “was disappointed in his ambition to become Chief of Staff. . . . As to the reasons why General [Malin] Craig was preferred for the important post, I do not think anyone needs to look farther than to read General Moseley’s flagrantly disloyal statement.”