Show PROSPECTS IN TIlE ARMY Lieutenant JAMES A SWIFT of the Ninth United States Cavalry is before a general court martial for the nonpayment of debts and the prospects are that as a result he will be dismissed from the army The officer does not deny his guilt but pleads in palliation of it that he has a largo family and being moved about tho country quite i frequently ho could not meet his expenses out of hit salary Once before and not long ago Lieutenant SWIFT was tried for conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman gentle-man in borrowing money from enlisted men but be was acquitted of the charge This case brings up the question whether in time of peace it pays a young man to remain I re-main in the army Certainly some of our foremost captains like GIIANT and SHEB MAX did not think so for they resigned their commissions and entered the civil walks of activity Of course after the war or after the best years of an officers life have been devoted to the service it is different dif-ferent While the army assure one a moderate competency life it doe not on the other hand afford one in tho tedium of gvriN 1Ife be a i i L chances for a conspicuous success suc-cess Aad yet there are among the graduate of West Point many bright men who with the proper incentive woujd climb to the topmost round of the ladder of fame The training in the military academy is well calculated to bring out whatever genius may be latent in the student but the routine duties in times of peace do not give him scope for its display From a financial point of view the condition condi-tion is still more unsatisfactory What maybe may-be regarded as a fair salary for a young lieutenant just assigned to his regiment becomes wholly inadequate in later years when the increase for service is slow pro ttion still slower and the changes of station sta-tion especially to a married man an irksome irk-some tax Compare a number of Harvard men with the same number of West Pointers Point-ers and the former while not educated like the latter at the expense of tho government gov-ernment nor yet assured of a position immediately im-mediately upon graduation will still average aver-age higer in what is called the success of life than the latter Lieutenant SWIFT though not a West Pointer was an electrician before he entered en-tered the army receiving a salary of 9150 a month Had he pursued his occupation one by the way affording every prospect for advance he might bo today a man of note forhe possessed great ability in that line At any rate he would not be in amore a-more desperate plight than he is a culprit before the military authorities and liable at the ago of fifty to be thrown with a large family upon the world And his case is but a sample of many others |