; ,-T5 "T-t F0W&31?!Sl
The Commoner
- ..
JSMMo- 2
w.oro superseded by now ideas and had to bo
thrown Into the scrap heap.
"Thoy said to us, this is a moving picture, it
is something that nobody can paint and givo
you an idea of. It is not a static thing.
A PITIFUL HANDFUL
"Therefore it became necessary for us to have
eyes Micro in instant and immediate communica
tion with us, and wo sent over to Franco Gen.
Pershing, and wo sent with him not merely a
division of troops to that X shall refer in a
momont but wo sent with him perhaps Is can
say riafoly the major part of the trained, oxpert
personnel of the army. You know tho sizo of
the ofllcial corps of tho rogiilar army in this
country when tho war broke out. It was a piti
ful handful df trained men, and yet It was neces
sary to divide them up and send over to Franco
officers of tho highest quality to that they would
bo at tho front and see in tho workshops and in
tho factories and in tho war offices and in tho
armies, whoro. consultations would, take placo
immediately back of tho front, so that they
could soo tho thing with their own eyes and send
us back tho dolails by cable every day of tho
changing character of this war. ,
"Gon. Pershing's staff of experts and officers
over thoro runs Into tho thousands, and they
are busy ovory minute; and every day that tho
sun rises I got cablegrams from Gen. Pershing,
from ton to sixteen and twenty pages long, filled
with measurements and formulas and changes
of a' millimeter in sizo; groat, long specifications
of changes in details of things which wero
agreed upon last weok and changed this week,
and nood to bo changed again next week. So
that what wo aro doing at this end is attempting
by using tho eyes of tho army thoro to keep up
"to what they want us to do. ,
"Already you will find in your further exam
ination into somo of the bureau work of tho de
partment, some of the divisions, when they como
down, you will find that schedules which wero
agreed upon, woapons which wero selected and
which wo had started to manufacture, have been
so far discarded that peoplo haye forgotten tho
names of them, almost, and now things substi
tuted in their placo, and those forgotten and
now things in their places.
"So that if one gets tho idea that this is the
Bort of war wo used to have, or if ho gets the
idea that this is a static thing, it is an entirely
erroneous idea. And when you remember that
wo had to dlvldo this little handful of officers
. that wo had and send so largo a part of them to
Franco, and then think of those who remained
at homo, you will reallzo, I am sure, that those
who remained hero had tho double duty, insuffi
cient for either aspoct of it in numbers and
they still have this double duty they had to go
forward with manufactures, work out Industry
and industrial relations, they had to seo about
suppllos of raw materials and manufacture fin
ished products, and make from day to day alter
ations and changos that had to bo .made and
they had to bo ingenious with suggestions, to
see whether they could deviso on this side some
thing which had not boon thought of over there
They had to be hospitable to suggestions
which came from the other Bide, they had to
confer with tho foreign officers who were here
and wero constantly being changed, so that men
fresh from tho front could bo hero to.advlse with
us, and in addition to that every one of them had
to bo a university professor, goint out into tho
life of the communityand selecting men who
hacKmechanical experience and knowledge and
training, but not military mechanical experience
and knowledge and twining, and adding to his
original equipment this" scientific training, that
finishing touch which ma Jo him availab e for
use as a military scientist. "& ior
HOW DEPARTMENT GREW.
"As a consoquenco this little group which
stayed hero have built the great special dpart
monts of tho army. The ordnance department
nftnil"!1 tUlnk' Wlth ninty-three or SinetySx
officers, has now, as I recall the figures L
thing ike 3,000 officers. They have had to be"
trained, they have had to be speclaHzed, and
that has had to go on contemporaneously with
this tremendous response to tho changing condi
tions on the other side. b conai-
war1? n!?STl Ume' WhQn We started lto this
war I think it was commonly thought throuch
out the country that our contribution at tho m,
set might well be financial and du8tria The"
S that' Ume' th i01 w7 &&
at that time the appropriate industries and
many converted industries were largely devoted
to manufacture of war materials for our allies.
"As I suggested this morning, when we went
into that market wo found it largely occupied,
so that our problem was not going to a shoe fac
tory and saying make shoes for us. Bjit
it was going to a factory which never
made shoes, because all the shoe fac
tories wero busy making shoes for people
from whom we could not take them, and saying:
'Learn how to make shoes in order that you may
make them for us.'
COULD NOT DISTURB MANUFACTURE FOR
TILE ALLIES IN THIS COUNTRY
"Now, of course, that is not true of shoes, but
it is true of machine guns, it ie true of other
arms, It Is true of ammunition, it is true of forg
ing capacity, which was the greatest defect in
the country, and all of this timo we had not
merely not to disturb the programme of Allies
manufacture in this country, but we had not
to cut off the supplies of raw material to our
allies, and we had not to disturb the industry of
this country to such an extent that products up
on which they depended for the success of their
military operations would be interfered with,
both agricultural and commercial and Industrial
products.
"At tho outset the idea was that we would be
a financial and industrial assistance to our allies
during the year 1918, and I think I probably
can read from the Metropolitan Magazine for
August a suggestion which will show what the
current expectation of the country was. The
editor of the Metropolitan Magazine was pro
testing against what he believed to be the in
tention of the government at that time."
Here ' Senator Weeks interrupted to ask if
that was the magazine of which Theodore
Roosevelt is associate editor. Secretary Baker
replied that Mr. Roosevelt was a contributing
editor, and continued:
"This magazine came out in August, 1917,
and this editorial says:
" 'Since it is our war, we want to put every
thing Into it so as to finish it in the shortest
possible time so 'that the world may !be re
stored. To our mind the whole plan of the war
department has been flavored with a desire to
hold off until the Allies finish the war for us.'
"You see the editor was dealing with what he
supposed to be the intention of the war depart
ment at that time, that wewere 'holding off so
far as actual military operations were concerned '
and letting the Allies do the fighting. '
"What he says we should have done, and I
ask your particular attention to it, is this:
" 'We should have strained every energy to
have got from 60,000-to 100,000 men to France
this year.'
PROGRAMME EXCEEDED
"That is, the year 1917. I tell no secret, but
It is perfectly well known to everybody in this
group that we have far exceeded what in Au
gust, 1917, was i regarded- as a programme-so
deal that the editor of this magazine refers to
it as a thing which we ought to have strained
every, nerve in a vain but hopeless effort to ac
complish." In response to a question by Chairman Cham
berlain the secretary said the United States did
not haye more than the jninimum number of
men in France in August, 1917., .
He continued: , . ,
"And then the editor goes on: 'And bv next
year, 1918, we could have 500,000 men tb send
S SipT part of 50M0 ' ich -
meX iKlmoren
hail that in France, and instead of h'Svin? 2
half a million men whom we could sW to
France if we could find any way toVdo it in 1918
we will have more than one-half million men in
France early in 1918, and we have avatole if
the transportation facilities are availab e to us
and the prospect is not unpromisinc nnl
onehaU million who in 191? can tVpto
Senator Weeks astfed whether the secretarv
knew who wrote the editorial, and Mr Baker
n d h th0,ugllt tt was attributed to Mr Wieidn
the editor-in-chief. vviggm,
"Why," asked Chairman Chamberlain h
you not felt it proper to let ttoriffi "wL e
confidence with reference .to th?S thin nlJ
you are telling now?"' things that
"Senator, I confess I have hesitated and I
still hesitate," replied the secretary, "i have
here a statement ironr Field, Marshal. Von Hh
denburg, in whicbhe Is quoted' a's saying in a
German newspaper,- In contemptuous fashion of
us, that we have advertised our' preparations -for
this war in an unworthy manner."' "
"Do you think, for a moment, Secretary
Baker," said the chairman, "that1' there' has been
any time within the last year tht-the German
secret service has not been fully advisdd as to
everything we have done?' ' '-
"Yes, senator, I know. If I may .rely upon
confidential information which we get from con
fidential sources, the German government is still
mystified as to the number of men we have in
France, or have had there at any time."
The chairman said he doubted' this. After
some' discussion as to the policyof governments
in announcing military secrets, 'Mr. Baker said
It was not the policy of the American' or other
governments to do so and added:
"I am saying this now, bec-upe yo.u have asked
me why I have held back these fact's until now.
I am saying to you that you couldnot get from
Great Britain at this minute) I do not know
whether I could get from Great Britain at this
minute, the number of soldiersreat Britain has
in France or at home. I could g'e't an approxi
mation, I could get whatever information
might be deemed helpful to, the' .'immediate mil
itary object to be. accomplished) biit I could not
get from Great Britain or France either one,
the actual number of troops th'ex have at the
front. -' ,, .
"It may be that that preqoju.tipji is unneces
sary, and yet that is the precaution which mil
itary men have observed, ancl I ha"ye no further
point to make in the matter of the number of
troops there than to show) as. X w;as showing
when I read that extract, that" our original in
tention was to make our military effort in 1918,
and in August, of 1917 a zealous advocate of im:
mediate military activity laj&qqwii the max
imum obtainable programme 'a. ;thing which has
since been multifold exceeded' ''
WHY TROOPS WEREt SENT.
"Why did we decide to send-'some- troops to
France in l'917? It is no secret: Wfieri Marshal
Joffre came to this country from Prance,, when
the British mission came from France, they told
us of a situation which we had not up to that
time fully appreciated. There had been in Franco
recently conducted before that an unsuccessful
major offensive. The French people had suf
fered, suffered in a way that not only our lan
guage is not adapted to describe, but our imag
ination can not conceive. The war is in their
country. This wolf has not only been at their
doors, but he has been gnawing: for two years
and a half at their vitals, and when this unsuc
cessful offensive in France had gone" on there
was a spirit not of surrender, but of fate, about
the French people, about the mighty military
engine which they had seen prepared to over
come them for forty years was at them, and
their attitude was that no ..atter whether every
Frenchman died in his tracks, as they were will
ing to do, on not,, that it was- an irresistible
thing, and so they said to us, 'Frankly, it will
cheer us; it will cheer our people If you send
over some of your troops.' ,
j "We did send. some troops.
LUCE BRITISH, OUR REGULAR ARMY WOULD
HAVE BEEN DESTROYED
"At that place we had a choice. "We-could
have sent over, as. did Great Britain, our regular
army, and in a very short preparation have put
it into action; and suffered exactly what Great
Britain suffered with her 'contemptible little
army,' as It was called by their adversaries. Our
army would have given as gtfbd an account of
Itself as the British army did, but it would have
been destroyed, like the British army, and there
would have been no nucleus on which to build
this new army that was to come over a little
later and t was deemed wiser to send oyer a
regular division, .but not to send over our whole .
regular army at that. time.
A2tT yrh!t haPDened was that that regular
Pq!,(,onttWfln over and the people of France
inrL ,? !ems .of their garments as tfiey
marched up the streets of Paris; the old veter-
S?SSind?d in this war' gless' or armless,
wPmf tl nS, n crutches. Perhaps, as they
2dmtlne ,necJf. ? Amer-can idiers. Not a
sbl l'vp?inn Ahat ?IvIsion unaccompanied
i by a Veteran. America had gone?. to .France, and
.? v
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