OCR Text |
Show ; rmy Bill Clause Would Oust Him as Chief of Staff. RESULT OF LONG FRICTION rellow Officers Now Generally Admit Excellent Qualities of Former Surgeon Sur-geon Pershing May Be Superintendent Super-intendent of Academy. BY GEORGE CLINTON. Washington. It' congress has its way Major General Leonard Wood sill cease to be chief of the general staff of the United States army on March 4 next. This story of the possi-jility possi-jility or probability of General Wood 3eing deprived of the chieftainship of ihe general staff is curiously interest-ng, interest-ng, and it involves troubles in the irrny, resentments in other places, ind even possibly a desire "to ' get ;ven personally." Today General Wood is the ranking Dfficer on the active list of the American Ameri-can army. For years in the war department de-partment there was friction between the adjutant general's department, ol which General "Ainsworth was the dead, and some of the other departments. depart-ments. The matter was brought to a crisis when General Ainsworth was suspended temporarily from command In order presumably that an investigation investi-gation of the troubles might be made. Then General Ainsworth asked to be placed on the retired list and this, was done and it was thought that further trouble was to be avoided. the history of this country, it is said, has there been such interest on the part of foreigners in a presidential campaign as is the case this year. The members of the national committee com-mittee of each party have been asked to set aside seats for several foreign ambassadors and ministers and lor many of the subordinates of the embassies em-bassies and legations. It is known that foreign governments take a great interest in-terest in American political affairs and while the thing is not done publicly, pub-licly, they are kept informed by their representatives in this country of the various impending political changes and of the probable chances of the candidates, coupled probably with statements as to just what changes in the administration are likely to mean in connection with treaty matters or with the attitude of this government toward foreign governments generally. general-ly. A bill has just passed the senate of the United States appropriating $15,-000,000 $15,-000,000 to be used by the government for the purchase of all the land lying on the south side of Pennsylvania avenue ave-nue between the treasury building and the capitol. The bill was introduced by Senator Heyburn and it went through the senate quickly. What its fate in the house will be at this session ses-sion no one can tell yet, but eventually eventual-ly probably it will pass. The government owns already a large part of the land lying between Pennsylvania avenue and the Potomac river, but there is a big section of it bordering on the avenue and extending extend-ing to the park in which the agricultural agricul-tural buildings are situated, which is given over to business, stores, markets, mar-kets, small hotels and lumber yards. It is for this section that Mr. Hey-burn's Hey-burn's bill provides the money for purchase. Aviators of Signal Corps. The signal corpa 0f the army is studying and practicing aviation avia-tion daily and in dead earnest. The corps has not been given as much money by congress for the purpose of perfecting its men in the art of flying as was wished for, and not nearly-enough, nearly-enough, perhaps, to keep this country in equipment abreast of other great countries of the world, but with their small appropriation the signal corps men are doing all that they can, and even if they have not all the necessary machinery they intend apparently to be ready to use it when they do get it. Out on a reaching meadow near Hyattsville, Md., every afternoon officers of-ficers and enlisted men of the signal service go soaring skyward In their biplanes. bi-planes. They not only fly, but they engage In the practice of trying to drop missiles so that they will hit the mark, and in addition to this they drop weighted envelopes, supposedly .containing messages. In war time these envelopes would he dropped from aloft into outlying posts of an army which could not readily be reached by the couriers of the commanding general. Scores of visitors go to the aviation ground every day from the city of Washington. Everybody remembers that U was an American officer who sacrificed his life as a volunteer for the service in the first attempted trial of a biplane under government auspices au-spices with two passengers in the machine. ma-chine. It seems almosl incredible to some people that the officers and enlisted en-listed men of the signal corps should go to their flying work daily in the face of the record of the year's casualties, casual-ties, and do it with such perfect nonchalance, non-chalance, seemingly giving no more thought to a flight way up into the clouds than they would give to a foot drill on the parade ground. Many of the members of congress 3ided with General Ainsworth and they seemed to think that General Wood was in a way responsible for the bringing of matters to a head and the forcing of the retirement of the adjutant ad-jutant general. So it was that at the last moment, while the committee of the two houses was considering the army bill, a provision was inserted by one of the house members that no man, after March 4 next, should be chief of the general staff who had not served ten years in the line of the army. This would knock out General Wood because he was a staff officer for a long time as a surgeon with the medical corps. The senate conferees agreed with the house conferees and the matter is now up to the senate and house for sanction. It seems probable that President Taft would prefer to veto this proposition, but if he does he will have to veto the whole army appropriation bill of which it is a part, and this he cannot well do. General Wood's Career. It was General Wood who was colonel colo-nel of the Roosevelt Rough Riders, Mr. Roosevelt himself being the lieutenant lieu-tenant colonel, at the outset of the Spanish war. ' Later, General WTood was made a brigadier general by President Pres-ident McKinley, and later still he was promoted to a major generalship by President Roosevelt, and now he is the ranking officer of the army. For years the army resented what they .called the "intrusion" of General Wood into the line, ranking as he did officers who had seen long service in command of regiments, but the feeling against him in the army largely has passed and army officers today say he is a most efficient officer. The attempt ol congress to prevent his continuing in the position which he now holds as chief of staff has aroused many animosities ani-mosities and it is probable that this one time surgeon will be looked upon by some people as a martvr to inim- Testing a New Machine. On the aviation field hangars have been built in which to house the biplanes, bi-planes, of which there are several, two different models being represented. When a visit was paid to the field an officer and an enlisted man were seated seat-ed in an absolutely new machine, and were going to test it for the first time. They took a running start over the meadow and then went up, neither one of them knowing definitely whether or not the machine was to develop some weak spot which might make flying fatal. The made a time test of it, staying aloft two hours, most of the time being from 600 to 1,000 feet above the heads of the spectators. A detachment of enlisted men took a piece of white canvas 20 feet square out to the center of the meadow and there spread It on the ground, the white of the canvas doubtless showing forthfrom aloft distinctly from the surrounding green. The biplane circled cir-cled on the field, which is a huge one, then gradually narrowed the circle and than rather a sharp turn was made and the aviators passed directly over Ihe white canvas, dropping a weight which landed within two or three feet of the target. It must be said that Ihe machine in which the soldiers were riding was traveling at the rate of nearly 60 miles an hour when the weight was dropped. It may seem that it would be easy to drop something from aloft on a marked mark-ed space, but when moving at a rapid rap-id rate it is much more difficult tc gauge the target properly than it is tc ' hit . flying mark with a rifle ball, and every sportsman knows that this It something of a job. Of course the while canvas which was spread on the grass was In reality Intended only as the bull's eye or a tar get, for if one takes Into consideration the space covered by & battleship, oi by the ordinary land fortification, it will be seen at once that a mlssllt dropped from the clouds striking only a few feet away from the canvas woulc have done the "damage duty" to any ship or fortification which It was In tended to hit. The missile In time ol war, of course, would be n dynnmlt bomb or something else equally at deadly ical legislation. It is said that Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing is likely to 'be named as superintendent of the United States military academy to succeed Major Thomas H. Barry, who may take the post of command at New York made vacant by the death of Gen. Frederick Fred-erick Dent Grant. Like General Wood, General Pershing has had a phenomenal phe-nomenal rise in the army. Eight or nine years ago when he was a captain cap-tain of cavalry circumstances gave him command of troops enough to make a brigade formation. He happened hap-pened to be the senior officer in the field, and although he was only a captain, cap-tain, this gave him the command of a considerable body of troops. Pershing in the Philippines. At that time certain savage inhabitants in-habitants of the Philippines were defying de-fying the American troops and committing com-mitting depredatious In what was called the Lake Lanao region of the Philippines. Pershing took his brigade Into the field against them and did excellent ex-cellent service, putting down the uprising up-rising and later pacifying the natives. In one of his messages to congress Mr. Roosevelt, who was then president, lamented la-mented the fact that the law prevented prevent-ed the president from promoting an officer for good service from one grade to another. He mentioned Pershing by name. When there was a vacancy in the rank of brigadier general. Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt promoted Captain Pershing to fill the place, a promotion which jumped over the heads of four or five hundred senior officers. President Roosevelt did this same thing in another case when he promoted Capt Albert L. Mills from the rank of a captain to that of brigadier general. Diplomats Going to Conventions. In a recent article the Intention Inten-tion of a large part of Washington Washing-ton to "move on" the national conventions conven-tions was told about and something was given of the personnel of the "movers." Added to them should be certainly fifty or sixty members of the foreign legations now on service for their governments at the capital of the United States. Never before la |