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Show WE 'EE NEVER PREPARED. Secretary Garrison of the War Department De-partment has run up against tho "real thing" in attempting to concentrate the army and make it an effective f orco in, placo of a more adjunct for commercial com-mercial enterprises in the different sections sec-tions of tho country. Tho Secrotary would make tho army effcctlvo for military purposes. Bui th.e interests of tho different commercial propositions which call for the scattering of the army into many disconnected posts aro directly opposed to making a military force of our army. It is manifest that as long as the army is kept segregated in small bodies arid remote posts it will bo impossible to put it on a military mili-tary footing. Thore can bo no military mili-tary training in tho modern sense, thero can bo no practice in military maneuvers on a large scale or even on a regimental scale, such as is ncces-' sary to propare a fighting force for war. Wo trust that the Secretary ma' triumph in this contest; but his triumph tri-umph may fairly bo doubted, 'because the people seom eager to continue the Congressional control which results in keeping tho army broken into fragments frag-ments so that commercial trade in various va-rious parts of the country may bo helped by selling the supplies necessary neces-sary to tho troops. These trade interests inter-ests aro insistent as to tho continuing of tho posts, and this has boon so long tho practico that it will be very dif ficult to change it. In this connection, tho New York Horald harks back to the time when General Taylor fought tho Mexicans at Rcsaca do la Palma. Ho was unablo to pursue the Mexicans across the river because he had no boats or pontoons, and it asks, in case wo wero to invade Mexico, how wo would proceed; how the details .aro to bo worked out, how tho supplies are to be furnished, tho transportation facilities mado read', and so on. The Herald raises the whole question ques-tion of preparedness in this reference; but, of courso, we aro not prepared to fight even such a comparatively small country ob Mexico. So far as that is concernod, wo aro never prepared for any war; we mako our preparations after af-ter tho war begins, and we necessarily suffer grievous loss in lives, mone3", and general wnsto before wo actually get to going in tho progress of any war. This wo hayo always done, and this we shall doubtless continue to. do, The notion that wo shall be able to scrape through in somo sort of a way, any war that wo may got into, fixes the unprepnrcdness policy in the American mind. Apparently thore is no way to get over this idea, or out of this rut. Tt is, of courso, unthinkable that we should engage in war -with Mexico; nobod' wants any such war, nobody wants to interfere in Mexico, and nobody no-body of sense expects cither intervention inter-vention or war; but since the question of prcparcducss of our army is raised, it is only proper that the newspapers should point out tho fact that Ave are not. prepared for war, that wo are in about as inefficient a condition of un-preparcdness un-preparcdness for any war" as we ever were in tho history of the country, and that is saying a good deal. Tt has really bocomo a question in the minds of thinking citizoiiri whether it is worth whiln in keen m un uriny at all, since wo spend a lot of monoy for war purposes, pur-poses, but really fritter the money away to holp littlo communities all ovor the Unitod States with tho benefit of a littlo trada with the govorumout in supplies for the troops, with tho idea of making those troops ofl'ectivo from a military standpoint, entirely eliminated. |
