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Show Size of tho United Statri Army. The array of the United States consists con-sists of 2,107 commissioned officers and a sufficient number of enlisted men to keep them in practice. This number is fixed by a general law at 30,000; for several sev-eral years congress has been in the habit of appropriating for only 23,000. The adjutant general of the army reports re-ports the actual strength of the army as 20,145. So there are not ten real private soldiers for every officer. We have no fighting for our array to do. But the organization of an army is not an easy thing, and so we obey the injunction, in time of peace prepare for war, just far enough to keep up a military mili-tary organization of 2,000 officers and the smallest number of enlisted men that will permit the officers to keep in military practice. A regiment of infant- rywith thirty-seven officers and hardly 400 enlisted men seems pretty topheavy, but the thirty-seven officers form a regimental regi-mental organization around which 1,000 enlisted men could bo arranged as easily as 400. Fred P. Powers in Chautauquan. |