THE

UNITED SERVICE

Edited bY L. R. HAMERSLY, Jr.

JANUARY, 1905.

THE POLICY OF THE ENDICOTT BOARD FOR COAST DEFENCE.

THIS policy was declared by the Endicott Board of 1888, and accepted by Congress, the first appropriation thereunder being in 1890. Previous to that year there had been no specific appropriation for modern fortifications for fifteen years.

Appropriations have been made for armament, but these had in view not modern guns, but were for carrying out of an extremely unwise policy of adapting the old and worthless smooth bore guns by conversion to rifle guns, which also proved to be worthless and the money thrown away.

Since 1890, when the present policy was distinctly accepted by Congress the projects defined by it, which embraced twenty seven of the principal ports of the United States, and a part of the northern boundary, and mounting 356 breech-loading heavy guns, 544 mortars, 1,294 smaller rapid firing guns, and submarine mines and mobile defences, at an estimated cost of $126,000,000, and requiring a personnel of 87,000 artillerymen to properly man the defences, has, up to the present time (1904), been carried to about two-thirds completion as respects fortifications and armament. But the personnel then deemed sufficient and of which we then had only 3,200 coast artillerymen in service, has been increased by only 10,782 men, while the armament actually in position and ready for service requires, for a single relief for such service, over 40,000 men. The 14,000 men now in service is hardly sufficient to care for, and to keep in an efficient condition for use the enormous amount of this costly arma

ment, much less being capable of efficiently using it against an enemy in war.

At the present time the original project of the board has been changed to embrace thirty-one harbors in the continental United States exclusive of Alaska, upon which work is being completed, besides others upon which work has not yet been commenced. These changes, together with those in the number and kinds of guns, etc., has so changed the number of the required personnel, that there is now required 57,000 regular artillerymen to furnish a single relief for service in peace, and in war not less than two such reliefs will be required, and in many cases at least three; so that the absolute minimum. of personnel will be 57,000 regular, and 57,000 militia artillerymen, or 114,000 instead of the original 87,000 men for the service of the completed armament in the continental United States, exclusive of Alaska. Furthermore, to serve the armament provided for Alaska, Porto Rico, Panama, Cuba, Hawaii and the Philippine Islands will require, to begin with, 6,989 men for one relief, and as we cannot have a second relief of militia for these important places, the above number must be doubled, and consist of regular artillerymen, or 13,978 for practically "foreign" service. In other words there will be required, when the present projected armament is completed, in, say fifteen years, 71,000 regular, and 57,000 militia artillerymen, total 128,000; besides 2,170 regular, and 1,720 militia officers; aggregate 131,890.

To provide the militia contingent of these artillerymen, it is quite evident that each State having seacoast defenses within its limits, must organize a militia, or National Guard Artillery Corps, consisting of a suitable staff and a duplicate of the artillery garrisons as specified by the manning tables for the projected (or completed armament to begin with) armaments in the respective States. As a matter of course this military artillery should be organized as conveniently as possible to the vicinity of the fortifications-generally in or near the large cities found at the various harbors to be defended so that this militia may have ready access to the armament for encampments, drills and instruction.

To complete the policy for coast defense which Congress has already accepted and consistently followed for the past fifteen years, will, so far as it now appears, require 73,170 officers and men in the Army, and this number should be entirely EXCLUSIVE OF THE 100,000 NOW FIXED BY LAW FOR THE ARMY PROPER; a FIELD Army, with which Coast Artillery has no more connection than has the Navy of a country.

When the personnel of the Navy is under consideration that of the Marine Corps is never considered as a part thereof, although the crew of war ships include a proportion of marines, who are included in the Station Bill, and who are assigned to service with the Secondary Batteries. So in the Army. By that term is meant a "Field Army," mobile, and consisting of the Infantry, Cavalry, and Field Artillery arms of the Service, together with the usual and necessary staff, with which a Coast Artillery has no connection whatever-not in anywise as much as the Marine Corps with the Navy. Consequently the personnel of the "Army"-a mobile field army-should no more include the Coast Artillery, than does the personnel of the Navy inIclude that of the Marine Corps.

It seems probable that another fifteen years will require to complete the projects now in hand, and altogether possible that at the end of that period the natural changes in the armament, and the increase in the number of harbors in Alaska and in our so-called "foreign" possessions to be defended, will call for a very material increase in the personnel above what now appears to be adequate; just as has been the case within the past fifteen years. If such proves to be the fact, all that will be necessary will be to continue for a period of years the annual increase which must now be made in the personnel of the Coast Artillery, until such deficiency has been made good. In order to make good within the next fifteen years this deficiency as at present existing, it will be necessary to annually add to the personnel of the Artillery Corps for coast defense 100 officers, and 3,582 enlisted men, proportionately in the several grades in this corps, at a cost of $5,556,000 for the first year (namely: pay, $2,630,000; barracks and quarters, $2,925,000, the former amount an increasing, and the latter. a fixed appropriation during the fifteen years). At the end of fifteen years the cost of the entire corps will be about $32,000,000 per annum.

At first sight, to continue the policy of the Endicott Board to its logical conclusion in the face of such sums of money might appear wild and impracticable, especially from a POLITICAL point of view, but the wisdom of which no statesman can doubt for a moment, and after all it is not the soldier, but the statesman whose sole province is under our form of government to make adequate provision for the defense and security of the nation. From a business standpoint it is simply the cost of insurance that will insure peace and security in which to pursue our usual avocations; the want of which in 1861 has entailed not alone the loss of hundreds of thousands of the lives of our best citizens, but billions of hard gold dollars' worth of National and

personal wealth, and a pension list of a million persons at a cost of $145,000,000, annually.

If the finances of the country will permit of the expenditure, the stateman will find no hesitation in making provision for so necessary, and so secure a defense.

This very pension list with its present cost of $145,000,000, is the key to the position. It is the boast of the unwise politician that we maintain a SMALL army at a reasonable cost. But the statesman readily sees that the cost of our pension list is due altogether to this policy of maintaining a wholly inadequate army, and when this $145,000,000 paid for pensions is added to the ordinary cost of our inadequate army, we are paying out a greater amount for a purely National defense account, and for a wholly inadequate army, than is paid by the greatest of military nations for the maintenance of more than haff a million of regular soldiers, with several millions of trained soldiers in reserve. We are held to be the world over a people among the best, if not the best, as a business people upon the face of the globe; but in this matter, as compared with any other people except possibly the Chinese, we don't even size up with the proverbial "thirty cents."

As has already been stated, the pension list is really the key to the present situation; as it is in fact an expenditure for military purposes, and an exceedingly unprofitable and unnecessary one from a purely military, and a National point of view as well; there can be no valid objection to continuing this expenditure, but for adequate, profitable, and purely military purposes of urgently demanded national defense.

The mean period of the Civil War, to which is due nearly the entire pension list, was April, '63; forty-two years ago in 1905. The average age of entrance into service during that war was about twenty-three years, hence the average age of the soldier pensioners of that war will be sixty-five years in 1905, and all but a very few must, if they so desire, be on the list or will be thereon at that date, numbering about 700,000 in all. At the age of sixty-five the death rate is forty-four in a thousand (American Actuaries Mortality Table), and in fifteen years, age 80, this rate will be 140 per thousand. In 1920, after fifteen years, the pension cost will have been reduced by deaths, remarriage of widows, soldiers' orphans passing the pensioning age, etc., to about $68,000,000 at most, a reduction of $77,000,000 in a single year from the present rate, or an average reduction per year during the fifteen years required to provide the Artillery Personnel heretofore indicated, of nearly $40,000,000. At the end of the period the $77,000,000 or more reduction per year will not only pay the annual cost of the Artillery increase, and $4,000,000 a year for the

militia, but will leave a surplus of $21,000,000 for the year 1921, and an increasing amount per year until the list reaches its minimum.

During the sixteen years to 1921, the number of soldier pensioners will have been reduced from 700,000 to less than 192,000; the corresponding reduction in pensions will be $589,000; the total cost of the increase of the Artillery Corps, and including that of an increase of the Field Artillery to twenty regiments, with $67,600,000 expended for barracks and quarters, stables, etc., and $64,000,000 for pay, etc., of 57,000 Militia Artillery, will be $489,000,000; leaving as net surplus at the end of the period in 1921, of $138,000,000, or enough to construct, at $7,000,000 each, twenty battleships or armored cruisers, or to pay for a large increase in the personnel of the Navy, and all of this without calling upon the ordinary income of the Government for a single cent of expenditure, except in the first four years; all of which will be made good. If a law were enacted before 1905, providing for the scheme of increase indicated, and the entire expenditure were commenced at once, within the first four years there should be a deficit of about $15,000,000, but all of this would be made good within the next four years, after which the surplus savings would go on with ever increasing rapidity.

From a purely political standpoint, this slight pinch for the coming Administration might be considered serious. But such will be far from the case. The required legislation could not be secured before January or February, 1905, and the total number of men for the first increase could not be enlisted much before June 30, 1906, and the cost of this increase would thus be considerably reduced; again, before the organization of the Militia Artillery could be perfected, and for which $4,000,000 has been allowed, action by the various State Legigislatures must first be had, and after this it would again be some time before the maximum number could be organized and made ready to go to the fortifications, so that, all things being duly considered, the reduction of the pension cost during the next administration will about cover the entire cost of the carrying out of the policy indicated during that administration.

Aside from this view of the conditions, by 1921, the population of the country will exceed 100,000,000, and its wealth will be more than doubled. Its income will be enormously increased, and, with a constant decrease of its debt and the interest incident thereto—in a greater ratio than will be the natural increase in expenditures. Constantly, even after all of the expenditures incident to the completion of the policy of the Endicott Board, the surplus will pile up to such an extent that no reasonable expenditure can keep it down, and the TARIFF