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Brigadier General Lassiter goes on: “The main objective of military training given in our schools, colleges, and sum- mer camps is to fit our young manhood to fill up the com- missioned and non-commissioned grades in the National Guard and Organized Reserve Units of their particular lo- ealities. Trainin _in Colleges and Universities is known as the Senior Division and that in the secondary schools as the Junior Division. The Senior Division now reaches 124 Colleges and Uni- wersities and 57,000 men. This is less than one-fifth of the total (670) institutions and one-sixth of the College student enrollment (334,000). The Junior Division reaches 105 of 1,200 secondary schools, where Junior Units might be maintained, and 39,000 boys out of a possible 450,000 are now receiving military training. - Congress is now appropriating approximately $3,000,000 for the support of the Reserve Officers Training Corps, but this figure “by no means represents the total cost of the system.” The law authorizes “very material Federal support to further the success of this military training in College and lower schools.” And one is forced to recall the bitter opposition expressed by Congress against the Sterling-Towner Bill for Federal aid to procure a higher standard of general education in pu lic schools throughout the States. In the summary of the Report of the Committee on the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps it was unanimously agree that a fundamental factor for adequate national defense is “Complete and proper conception by the young men and women of the country of their rights, privileges, respon- Sbiities and duties as citizens, together with proper prepara- tion for each and every one to render some useful service in the organized defense of the Nation in an emergency.” With other recommendations, this Committee also advises that every effort should be made to increase the efficiency and the number of the Senior Units “by giving the subject due weight in opening addresses at the beginning of the College terms, by members of the faculty stressing its im- ortance on every proper occasion; by using available means of publicity to place and keep this idea before the attention of the student body; credits toward a degree in colleges and Government subsidy in high schools and other secondary schools not essentially military.” It is well, after_this brief review of the Report of 1923, to go back to the Reports of the Secretary of War for the years 1921 and 1922, the original National Defense Act of 1920, ‘and the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy ‘or 3 By the National Defense Act, two of the new departments cover the Air Service and the Chemical Warfare Service. Air Service The Air Service, composed of 1,500 officers and 16,000 en- listed men, will receive 50 per cent additional pay when on aviation duty. Twenty per cent of the Air Service is defen- sive, 80 per cent is offensive. In the 1921 Report it ia stated that 75 per cent of the personnel must be between the ages of 21 and 35—the maximum efficiency covers @ period of about five years—s° that the Air Service should rely largely ppon the Reserve officers. The 1922 Report lowers the maximum age of available men from 35 to 30. There are six Air Service Reserve Units in colleges and the Department regards as “unfortunate” the Act of Congress of 1922 prohibiting the formation of more such units. . The Report gives the high wreckage of sirplanes and cas- ualties of fliers but the increase of pay in the air service is the only indication of the high mortality and injury rate in this form of service. During the war the average length of life of a flier in active service was less than one week. Chemical Warfare Service The Chemical Warfare Service, with 101 officers and 1,200 gen, has for its purpose “the investigation, development, manufacture OF procurement, and supplying to the Army all smoke and incendiary materials, all toxic gases, and all gas defense appliances; the research, design, and experimentation concerned with chemical ‘warfare and its material; and chem- ical projectiles, filling plants, and proving grounds; the super- vision and training of the Army in chemical warfare bo offensive and defensive, including the necessary schools of instruction; the organiza ipment, training, and opera- tion of special gas troops, and Sach other duties as the Presi- dent from time to ime may prescribe.” The 1922 Report states that “there is no great reason to ct a greater percentage of disability cases following g25 poisoning than from injuries of the acute respiratory dis- eases.” rough experimenting with guinea pigs belief has been established “that there is a great field of usefulness for mustard gas from & prophylactic point of view.” The further development of smoke and incendiary materials is advocated, such as “white phosphorus, which is also capable of creating casualties by burning. White phosphorus is adaptable not only as a smoke bot as a burning material to attack personnel.” “The moral effect of burning phosphorus is too great to be overlooked at any time.” . “Hydrocyanic acid gas is tasteless, odorless, and produces no discomfort, death ensues instantly upon breathing it, an without struggle, and many accidents have occurred.” The justification of the War Department for experimenta- tion with these gases is placed on the use which the Public Health Service can make of them as vermicides. Two million dollars a year is needed a5 a minimum by the War Depart- ment to keep up the study of poisonous compounds. Personnel The maximum enlisted strength of the Regular Army was increased by the National Defense Act from 175,000 to 280,000 men. This was cut down through Congressional appropria- tion of 1921 to 125,000 men and 12,000 officers. The National Guard has a strength of 114,000 men. The number of officers has been enormously increased (approximately one to every ten enlisted men), especially among the higher ranks, and an entirely new class of officers, 1,120 in number, established, called warrant officers, which include among others, band- masters, clergy, nurses. Even the head of the finance de- partment is made a brigadier general, “with 141 officers in grades from colonels to second lieutenants, and 900 enliste men.” This of course means not only an increase in pay but in prestige, and offers inducements for enlisted men to work up to non-commissioned officers. Perpetuation of World War Units It was a specific intent of this Act to preserve, @8 far as practicable in the reorganization of the national defense, divisions and subordinate units that served in the World War —not only of the Regular Army but of the National Guard and the Organized R . The Secretary of War says in his report of 1921 “The importance of this action as a means for maintaining the spirit and traditions aroused and ac- quired in the World War has already become manifest.” And again, in regard to the assignment of General Pershing as Chief of Staff and his Deputy, “These assignments are particularly appropriate in view of the fact that one of the main features of the policy evolved under the National De- fense Act aims at the reconstitution of the great combat div- istons which so distinguished themselves as units of the Amer- ican Expeditionary Forces under the leadership of these officers. Present Plan In the so-called framework of a National Army, “The Reg- ular Army, the National Guard, and the Organized Reserve are mutual counterparts and are differentiated only in phase of application.” The pian calls for officers of the Regular Army to develop the training classes in Colleges, Schools, National Guard, and Citizens’ Camps. “The Organized Reserve is a purely Federal Force and is raised, trained, supported, and employed by the United States, and in a war of magnitude would compose the major . part of the Army” This Federal Reserve Force takes the old State Militia and, when Congress authorizes the use of troops in excess of the Regular Army, is subject to draft by the President without consent of the Governor of each State. ; The Volunteers’ Oath Both officers and enlisted men in the National Guard take a written oath that they volunteer for a period of three years under the conditions prescribed by law, and they will serve the United States and their own State honestly and faith- fully “Against all their enemies whomsoever,” and they will NY