OCR Text |
Show BAKER REPLIES I H DETAILTOGHARGES HALF MILLION AMERICANS WILL BE IN FRANCE SOON, WITH MILLION MORE READY. Men Are Ready to Take Their Placet at Side of Allies as Soon as Ships Can Be Secured to Take Them Over. Washington. America will have an army of half a million in France early " this year, with a million more trained and equipped, ready to follow as quickly quick-ly as ships can be provided to carry them and the outlook for ships is not unpromising. Secretary Baker gave this Information Informa-tion to the world on January 28 in a statement before the senate military i committee, baring much that until now has been carefully guarded with the army's military secrets, in answering charges that the government has broken brok-en down preparing for war. From early mor.ning until late afternoon after-noon the secretary addressed the committee, com-mittee, and a crowd, including many members of both houses of congress, gathered in a big hearing room of the senate office building. He spoke extemporaneously, ex-temporaneously, beginning with details of the mammoth task of building an army of a million and a half, answer-' answer-' ing such complaints of inefficiency as 1 werecited by Senator Chamberlain in : his recent speech and declaring that ! such instances were isolated and not general. The chief points in Secretary Baker's statement were : There will be half a million men in France early in 1918. There will be a million and a half ready to go to France in 1918. The American people will soon demonstrate dem-onstrate upon the battlefields of Eu-i Eu-i rope, side by side with our allies, our determination to win the war. The ordnance bureau has been letting contracts at the rate of twenty a day. We could not delay sending men to cantonments until the last button was on the last coat. Major General Wood advised me to send the men to the camps, saying they would have a lot to learn before they would have need for rifles. It was Pershing who caused rejection of the Lewis machine gun. The German government is still unaware un-aware of the number of men we havo in France. One railroad built by Americans in France has 600 miles of rails. It was not for us to decide (he theatre the-atre of war the theatre was France. It was not for us to decide the line of communications the line reached across the Atlantic ocean, with one end infested by submarines. Our enemy en-emy was on the other side of No Man's Land, and our problem was to get over there and get him. While many things disclosed impressed im-pressed the committee, it was frankly amazed when told that the men of thirty-two national guard and national army divisional camps are ready to go today at. need. When members wanted to know why such things had not been given publicity before, Mr. Baker spoke of the reluctance of military mili-tary men to reveal their war plans and quoted German remarks about Amer-ca's Amer-ca's advertisement of her preparations. Emphasizing that he was not there to defend himself or anybody else, the secretary urged the committee again and again to lay bare any shortcoming shortcom-ing or failure of the department, that it might be corrected. |