pointment for the distinguished soldiers who had occupied it, with constant but fruitless efforts to invest the office with something more than a name.

The reliability and excellence of the river and harbor works, under the War Department, caused the nation to turn to it when all those previously selected to dig the Panama Canal had acknowledged failure. Under the system developed by the Corps of Engineers, its officers, headed by the incomparable Goethals, have brought that great public work to a completion well within the time limit of the estimates. It is, and will remain, a fitting monument to the War Department in general, and to the Corps of Engineers and their alma mater in particular.

The administration of civil affairs of great importance to the nation have been entrusted to the War Department until the burden of even slight supervision on the part of the Secretary of War leaves little time for proper attention to the original functions of his office in connection with the army. War has become a complicated and absorbing science demanding a knowledge of a vast array of principles and details on the part of those responsible for the administration of armies. The time has arrived when the burden should be rearranged and the parts not correlated with preparation for and the conduct of war should be severed from the War Department so as to bring the labors of the office within the mental and physical capacity of supervision of one man. If this can not be accomplished then there should be a new office created,

that of Secretary of the Army, to correspond with that of Secretary of the Navy. The necessity for some drastic action may be readily appreciated by a slight consideration of the variety and importance of subjects requiring the personal attention of the Secretary of War, and to which are added other burdens at almost every session of Congress.

It is not an easy matter radically to recast a system, such as that involved in the organization of the War Department, because of the personal interests within and without the department to be conserved, but it is certain that unless some of the burden is lifted from the Secretary of War and dispersed by authority of law amongst designated assistants, or transferred to other branches of the government, the centralization which has grown up will break down or militate against full success, for the duties have long since outgrown the capacity of any individual.

It is a compliment to the War Department system that Congress should commit to it so many matters requiring discretion, integrity and quick action, as in the case of floods, earthquakes, fires and other great public calamities. It shows that at heart public men, as well as the people, have confidence in the honesty, capacity and integrity of the army.

XII

COMMAND OF THE ARMY

"If an army was in existence, and an officer were invited to take command of it, his course would be plain, for he would have nothing more to do than to examine the constitution of it, and to inquire into the composition, to enable him to decide

The difficulty in which you expect to be involved, in the choice of general officers, when you come to form the army, is certainly a serious one; and in a government like ours, where there are so many considerations to be attended to and to combine, it will be found not a little perplexing."-WASHINGTON.

THE

HE present status as to the command of the army is the result of more than half a century of discussion, involving, from time to time, some of the most celebrated men of their day. The army regulations in force prior to 1855, those of 1836, 1841 and 1847, defined the duties of the officer assigned to command the army, as follows:

"The military establishment is placed under the orders of the Major General Commanding-in-Chief, in all that regards its discipline and military control. Its fiscal arrangements properly belong to the administrative departments of the staff, and to the Treasury Department, under the direction of the Secretary of War."

The authority of the Commanding General was further specifically extended to cover supervision of everything which entered into the expenses of the

military establishment, and to "see that the estimates for the military service are based upon proper data and made for the objects contemplated by law and necessary to the due support and useful employment of the army."

In 1855 the regulations were changed and the Commanding General practically ceased to exercise command of the army, until 1864, when under pressure of the necessities of a great war, General Grant was assigned to command with unlimited authority over all its parts. As soon as the war closed the office reverted to the conditions existing between 1855 and 1861.

Generals Scott, Sherman, Sheridan and other distinguished soldiers found themselves harassed with the impossibilities of the situation, and the War Department is filled with records of efforts to find a solution satisfactory alike to the Commanding General and to the Chiefs of Staff Bureaus. It remained for the war with Spain to disclose, in the most glaring manner, the need for some reform of so impossible a military situation. Long and bitter experience had shown the impossibility of defining any line of separation between the duties of the Commanding General of the Army and those of the Secretary of War. All attempts to accomplish this had brought nothing but controversies and misunderstandings.

Immediately after the inauguration of General Grant as President, having in mind his own troubles as Commanding General, he authorized the Secretary of War to assign General Sherman to command

the army, and to order that all official business which required the action of the President or Secretary of War should be submitted through the Commanding General. General Sherman, in assuming command, on March 8, 1869, announced the Chiefs of Bureaus as his "general staff." When a new Secretary of War assumed duty, a few days later, he caused to be rescinded all the instructions except those directing General Sherman to assume command of the army, which removed the Chiefs of Bureaus from his control.

Gradually the practice took form and became fixed whereby the office of the Commanding General of the Army was reduced to an empty title and, at the last, the Adjutant General exercised the authority of the Secretary of War and became, in effect, the real commander. Although all orders were issued in the name of the Commanding General, he was not always consulted, and frequently knew nothing of important orders until they had gone into effect. The situation had reached a crisis intolerable to the soldiers of high rank selected from time to time, and assigned to command the army, and none could fill the office without becoming restive under the conditions. It should be remembered that for more than forty years the office had been filled by general officers who had won such distinction in campaign and battle as would, in any other country, have led to the highest honors being conferred upon them. This situation at the War Department, bad enough in peace, became obnoxious and impossible in the