Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1916 — GENERAL WOOD ASKS ARMY OF 210,000 [ARTICLE]

GENERAL WOOD ASKS ARMY OF 210,000

Says Mines and Forts and Submarines Do Not Form Barrier to Foes—Utterly Unprepared. ""“*■*■*“ Major-General Leonard Wood told the senate military committee Wednesday that the United States is utterly unprepared to repel a foreign foe and that the ocean although lined with forts, mifies and submarines, formed little barrier against the aggression of a determined enemy. He said that in our present condition of unpreparedness a force no larger than 150,000 could inflict incalculable damage before we could get organized and equipped to contest its advance. Events of the European war have clearly demonstrated, he said, that the sea is the best medium for the movement of troops and he pointed out that an army of 126,000 troops, fully equipped, had been landed at Gallipoli from a single expedition of 98 ships against submarines, mines and an undersea screen of barbed wire that fringed bvery available landing place.

General Wood said that there w.ould ibe no weakness abroad at the end of this war, that more male children will be bom than are killed in the war and that the United States will have all the gold it won’t do any good unless it is stiffened up with iron. General Wood said that the immediate needs were for a regular army of 210,000. He said that 20,000 should be kept in the Philippines, 20,000 'in Hawaaii, and 15,000 in Panama. He said that 2,000,000 men would be needed in the event of conflict with a foreign power and that at present we have but 700,000 rifles and 300,000 old style ones. The capacity of the plants to produce rifles was only 32,000 a day and England alone wanted 65,000, while France called for two rifles in reserve for every man in the field. He advocated taking the militia entirely over by the government and severing it entirely from the states. If this is not done he advocated that not a dollar of government money be spent upon it Senator Chamberlain asked General Wood: “Could an untrained army have resisted Genriany in France,” General Wood replied: “They never would have known what hit them.”