The Bucyrus Evening Telegraph

GENERAL WILL BE GIVEN THE DUTY OF DEVELOPING ALL THE RESERVE FORCES.

In Keeping With His Rank War Department Will Thus Solve Perplexing Problem and Assure the Carrying Out of Task Necessary for National Defense.

By EDWARD B. CLARK.

Washington.—The question of what to do with Gen. John J. Pershing in peace time has given concern to two administrations. I believe that I can tell today definitely the place that is to be given to Pershing, one which will be in keeping with his rank as general of the army, and which will give him a wide field for commanding service.

With the present temper of the people as they and their legislators view a great standing army, it is necessary that the United States shall have a reserve force which shall be able to give men and officers promptly to the government in case of need.

Congress is to authorize a standing army of not more than 175,000 men. The reserve, which consists of the National Guard of all states and the reserve officers and enlisted men of the regular army, must be brought into a state of effectiveness, and must be developed to the full in personnel.

The army thus represented is greater than the standing army, and it can be said today without much fear of contradiction that General Pershing is to be charged by the government with the special duty of developing all the reserve forces. It probably will not be long before he will enter upon this new and enlarged field of duty.

National Guard Needs Attention.

The National Guard of the states of the Union is not recruited up to anything like its proper strength. It is out of touch with the regular army, and to some extent out of sympathy with it. The officers of the reserve army number about 80,000 men. The number of enlisted men in the reserve is not known definitely. General Pershing's high duty will be to use his influence and advice in securing the cooperation of the state authorities in the work of bringing the National Guard up to full strength, and in the work of bringing the guard and the reserves into sympathetic touch and action with the War department and with the regular army.

This work for Pershing will remove him from the anomalous position in which he finds himself today. He is the commanding general of the United States army and yet he is under the direction of the general staff. The ranking officer, therefore, is outranked in influence and in actual authority, and today he is little more than a figurehead whose chief occupation in life is to represent the service at various official and private functions throughout the United States. If Secretary Weeks does for General Pershing what your correspondent believes is to be done, the act will solve one of the perplexing problems of the War department.

Some New Army Policies.

It is the belief of your correspondent that he can speak advisedly on present and future army policies in addition to those which affect General Pershing. There have been some few complaints from recruits who have entered the regular army recently that some of the promises made were too glittering to be real. The belief is that hereafter there will be no attempt to induce foreigners who cannot speak English to enter the regular army for purposes of teaching them the English language and Americanizing them while they are being taught their drill and their duty to the new flag.

The new administration of the War department has called a halt on the sale of government ammunition and supplies. It can be said today that the administration does not intend to allow the country to drift into the state of unpreparedness which was its fate in a day of unhappy memory.

The present administration of the War department believes in the necessity for the maintenance on a high plane of efficiency of the gas service, known officially as the chemical warfare service. Secretary of War Weeks believes that gas as used in warfare is a barbarous weapon, but he knows that, if an enemy uses it, our army must use it too, or else lose whatever war it enters into.

There seems to be a feeling in the War department that there may be an agreement among the nations of the world never again to use gas, but as the world knows that this promise once before was broken, there never can be any assurance that some nation entering into war will not break it again. Secretary Weeks has just reappointed Brig. Gen. Amos A. Fries as chief of the chemical warfare service.