The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 12, 1903, Page 13

o Personnel of the New Organization That Will Begin Its Existence Next | August on the Re- | tirement of Uen- eral Miles as Com- i mander. R ER—— | | <+ HE public at large is puszzied to know the meening of Uncle Sam's asked, is the newly appointed ral staf, anyway? How are its . finally, will be its rela- tary of War and to the wbo fight the country's way to answer these ques- at the general staff will d of directors for the . ment, having ol ever all its fairs t only to the authority of e President. It will y of all detalls of . beyond this, the laying use in ss establishment, through which lions of dollars are ex- It comprises many bu- s chief who must de- sively to the of the think- un@ pended eus te eds of € g of plans for - egemegt e department goes, as had to be do herto by the Sec- & Job o0 big for one ? War be = directing brais, in t the ermy may work success- vy Root the other day, shed by any sin- nts. It requires rely separate from aff (adjutants, quar- etc), which 1 staff.” FORTY-THREE MEMBERS. ust been created, hree officers. At the r General Samuel ve assoclated ers, Major Gen- Brigadier Gen- colonels, six majors and te the personnel & staff, w ps will be chief of He will act as . to the Secre- o the chiefs of e War Depart- worked , often e of energy they will be har- rection of the gen- work together. ace the general staft will r It will arrange in ad- e mass of details having the transportation and f armles and the establish- depots, 80 as to effect 3 men end material. Buch v time and consideration e given by men burdened official business of the is obvious, in- sce has shown that on for war shortens the hostilities and thereby immense economies of WORK OF GENERAL STAFF. g al staff will prepare all infor- ma esirable for a Its value military com- taking a campaign. Its signed to serve with , to furnish them in the prepara- d orders and to relieve labor as possible, in et generals may be enabled to devote thel on exclusively to mstters of the highest importance. The work of the general staff will in- clude the preparation of maps, the draw- fng up of schemes for the organization or he el and concentration of troops and the in- formation of plans for national defense. It will make a study of military sclence, in order to keep the army up to date In all respects and if possible a little ahead of foreign armies. Ir short, it will put the American a1my on & proper basis for the successful conduct of any war, so that there may be none of the bungling which made so much scandal in the Spanish War and the Civil War. There is to be no favoritism whatever in the selection of officers for the general staff. They will be chosen for ability and efficiency only. Furthermore, they will not be permitted to degenerate into bureau machines, through long retention of such duties as those here described. At the end of four years they will go back to service with the line. Thus all possibility of jealousy will be avoided, and there can be no danger of criticlsm in Congress directed agalnst a system which picks only the best men and which is con- stantly offering vacancies to capable can- didates. ‘With the creation of the general stafr THE SUNDAY CALL. lieuT-Con. MAJOR GENERAL. YOUNG— CHTEF OF THE NEW GENERAL STAFF Yajor MONTGOMERY M- MACOMD = the office of commanding general of fha army passes out of existence. There will be & leutenant general, who may or may not be chief of staff, the assignment being optional with the Presi- dent, but he will be a bird of an entirely different feather. He may be placed In command of & part of the army. The President, it should be explained, appoints the chief and the other two generals; other vacancies in the staff will be filled by the staff itself. Little Real Authority. The position ef commanding general of the army has always been an anomalous one, the incumbent baving & high sound- ing title and wearing a gorgeous uniform, but possessing little real authority. He has had no control whatever over the funds and it has been almost impossible for him to escape friction with the Sec- retary of War. ‘When George Washington was appoint- ed to the place he came almost immedi- ately into conflict with the War Secre- tary, Mr. McHenry. Every commanding general since then has had the same sort of trouble, and General Sherman found his situation so exasperating that he moved the headquarters of the army to St Louls. As for General Miles, he has hardly been on speaking terms with either Alger or Root and has been prac- tically ignored. The project for a general staff was ve- hemently opposed in Congress by mem- bers who clalmed that it was an attempt to Germanize our army. But the fact is that German military methods are up to dats, while ours, so far as administrative arrangements go, are not. In reality, the organization of our general staff will be quite different from that of the general staff of the German army. It signifies an entirely new departure, but is likely to bring most important and beneficial re- sults. The system we have had hitherto did very well for the war of 1813, but mil- itary methods have altered somewhat gince then, and it was high time that we dld something to wipe out an outworn and obsolete condition of affalrs, ‘War Plans. The general staff will make complete plans for war with every forelgn power, and these will be stowed away in pigeon- noles so es to De readily accessible at a moment’s notice. Thus, in case of an cut- break of hostilities, no matter against whom directed, there will be no delay in the formulating of methods and projects. It will be a question stmply of going to the proper pigeonhols, taking therefrom a package of papers and putting into op- eration the directions they contain. The staft will have & complete knowl- edge of all means of transportation avail- able for the mobllizing of troops. It will make arrangements with the rallroads so that & certain number of cars, both pas- senger and freight, shall be placed in- stantly at the disposal of the War De- partment in the event of war. Plans will ‘be made, for example, by which regiments may be shipped from Oregon, California and Washington to & common center, from which they may be forwarded to New Orleans or New York, and in like manner the whole of the United States will be divided into districts for mobili- gation. Similar arrangements will be made with steamship lines so that a cer- tain number of powerful vessels may be available as transports at the briefest no- tice. This is & big country, and In case ; Mavor FENRY A-GREENE — of war a serious problam will be to col- lect the regiments and forward them promptly to the points where they are mo#t needed. As for equipping and provisioning them the staff will bave knowledge of all the ordnance stores, arms, commissary stores, clothing and quartermaster’s stores on hand and will be able to make the read- fest and most economical use of them. The staff will see that the bureau of the quartermaster general is at all times In a thorough state of preparedness, and likewise the commissary bureau and other branches of the War Department. No such thing as being taken by surprise will be possible. It is probable that this governing body will take incidentally the place of the General Fortifications Board and will su- perintend the erection and manning of our seacoast defenses. In this way it will act In an advisory capacity toward the ordnance bureau, just as it does for the supply bureaus of the commissary and quartermaster. These are only a few suggestions of what the general staff will do, but they serve to {llustrate its complicated and all- LieuT - Gon. TRED.A.. SMITH, > Duties and Pow~ ers of the New General Staff of the Army Will Be Similar to Those of a Board of Di=- rectors for the De- partment. e > pervading functions. For one thing, It will make it a business to know just how many horses there ars in the country available for military service, whers they may be purchased. and how feed for them may at a moment’s notice be obtained in adequate quantities. It will be the same with all other kinds of supplies, such as beef and canned vegetables for the sol- diers. The general staff, which probably will absorb the present bureau of mill~ tary information will assemble all possi- ble data relating to foreign armies, thelr arms, equipments, etc. Its regime will begin in August, on the retirement of General Miles, whom Con~ gress refused to legislate out of the office of commanding general of the army. PP N e A Give the Best That Is In You. The best lesson in culture is to learn te give the best that is in us under all cir- o cumstances. He who B master of himself ‘will be able to command his powers at all times. No matter how distracting his sur- roundings, how unfortunate the conditions under which he works, he wil be able to focus his powers completely and to mar- shal them with certainty. If things go hard with the self-mastered man he will be able to trample upon difficuities, and to use his stumbling-blocks as stepping- stones. If a great misfortune overtakes him he ‘will simply use it as & starting point for & new departure, a turning point for more determined endeavor. He may even be weighed down with sorrow or suffer- ing under discouragement, but he always starts anew with redoubled determination to do the thing he has set his heart upon. The power of self-subjugation of a de- termined soul is almost incredible Im- prison him and he writes a “Pligrim's Progress’”; deprive him of his eyesight and he creates a “Paradise Lost.” ————— Books That Read Themselves. In a device Invented many years ago, but never utilized commercially, a beam of light is made to produce a sound in & telephone; and a beam caused to vibrate by human speech, as by reflection from a telephone disk, may reproduce that speech in a distant Instrument, unconnected by wires. This is effected through the agency of the substance called selentum, whose resistance to an electric current is sud- denly decreased when light falls upon it, #o that it is thus extremely sensitive to all light vibrations. The same principle has now been utilized in the construction of books for the blind on what is called the “photophonic” principte. The leaves are of transparent paper, and the printed characters resemble those of the Morse telegraphic alphabet. A pilece of card- board with a hole In It is passed along the printed line, and light streams through it into a “photophonic” apparatus, where, through the Intervention of a eircuit con- taining selenium and a telephone, the dots and dashes are translated, as it were, Into sounds separated by longer or shorter intervals of silence. ———— Paper can be split into two or even three parts, however thin the sheets. It may be convenient to know how to do this sometimes; as, for instance, when one wishes to paste In a scrapbook an article printed on both sides of the paper. Get a plece of plate glass and place it on a sheet of paper. Then let the paper be thoroughly soaked. With care and a lttle skill the sheet can be split by the top surface being removed. The best plan, however, 1s to paste a plece of cloth or strong paper to each side of the sheet to be split. When dry, quick- ly, and without hesitation, pull the twe asunder, when one part of the sheet will be found to have adhered to one and part to the other. Soften the paste in water, and the pleces can be easily re- moved from the cloth.