Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1919 — INVESTIGATE ARMY NOW [ARTICLE]

INVESTIGATE ARMY NOW

ADMINISTRATION ATTACKED FOR ITS TREATMENT OF ROOSEVELT, Washington, D. C., March 4.-rr-In a farewell speech to Congress,"delivered after 2 o’clock this morning, Captain Victor Heintz, of Cincinnati, demanded an investigation into the conduct of the war, denounced the failure of the regular army as a war suggested umversaT military training as the solution and vigorously hammered the administration for its failure to permit Colonel Roosevelt to enter the war. Captain Heintz was warmly applauded at every point he made. “The time to investigate is now,” he said, “and those who do the investigating should be civilian soldiers who have had wide experience in business and other affairs of life, who have been in touch with the war situation from the beginning and who went through the fighting in France.” “There are a few things so patent,” he asserted, “that no investigation is necessary to prove them, and the one most outstanding-is the failure of the regular army. Seventy per cent of the regular army officers were not in the zone of advance. Of those who were many learned noth"tfig and never will. Of course, there are capable men among them and they should be retained an the service, but the others should be released and make way for the bright civilian officers who made good at the front and who- desire to remain in the regular army.” He placed the responsibility for failure not so much on the officers as on the conditions created by those who “effectively prevented our officers from learning the methods of modern, warfare before it was thrust upon them.” “There is only one solution,” Captain Heintz continued amidst applause, “and that is universal service, not only military service, but vocational training as well. Our first purpose should be, not to develop a nation in arms, but to develop our citizenship. Every man, rich and poor, should be subject to a course Of universal service for possibly one year, during which time he will be made physically fit and confident, be given proper military training, and will learn the work he is best suited for.

“Most of our present Brigadier Generals in the regular army never comhianded more than sixty-five men before the war broke out and never were in battle. These men were placed j at the head of a business that practically represented over a hundred million dollars in cash, outside the immeasurable personal value of human life. Such men can not have the confidence of the men and that is one thing that was woefully lackmg iir this war*. The man they- all wanted was denied them. Naturally, all the fighting men wanted Roosevelt In the field. On that whole front there was not an eye that would not have brightened, a pulse that would not have quickened had ‘T. R.’ been out there with us. There can be nothing so selfish, so mean, and so unworthy as politics being allowed to deprive fighting men of the comfort, support and inspiration they so hungered for. “It was one great thing our men yearned for and Congress had granted them, yet it was coldly snatched from them and they were given 14 points and making the world safe for democracy instead.”