Show BAKER REPLIES IN TAIL TO CHARGES HALF MILLION AMERICANS AMERICAN S WILL W ILL BE IN FRANCE SOON WITH MILLION ILLION M MORE READY men are ready to take their places at side of AM allies a a as soon as ships can be S secured ur d to take them over washington america will have am e nn an army of halt half it ti million in france early this year with a million more trained rill and equipped ready to follow its as quickly ns as ships can be provided to carry them lind and tile the outlook for ships is id riot not unpromising secretary baker gave tills till information to the world on january 28 in it a statement ta before the senate military committee baring much that until now has been carefully guarded with the ardys military secrets in answering charges cli arges that the government has broken down preparing for war from early morning until late after noon the secretary addressed the committee and a crowd including many members of both houses of congress gathered la in a big hearing room of the S nato office building he spoke extemporaneously beginning with details of the mammoth task of building an army of a million and a half answering such complaints of inefficiency ns na were cited by senator chamberlain in ills his recent speech and declaring that such instances were isolated and not general the chief points in secretary bakers statement were there will be half a million men in france early in 1918 there will be a million and a halt half ready to go to france in 1918 the american people will soon demonstrate on strate upon the battlefields of europe side by side bide 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 mail to e cantonments canton ments until the last button wag on the last coat major general wood advised roe me to send the men to the camps sa saying ying they 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 tin naw aware are of the number of men we vi e ha have e in france one railroad built by americans in france has GOO miles of rails it was not for us to decide the theatre of war the theatre was prance france it was not for us to decide the line of communications the line reached across across the atlantic ocean with onu one end infested by submarines our enemy was ori the other side of no mans land and our problem was to got get over there and get fiet him while many things disclosed impressed 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 men to reveal their war plans and quoted german remarks about americas 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 or failure of the department that it might be corrected |