NOTHER Army crisis! Press reports from Washington state that due to the obstacles placed in the way of recruiting activities by recent Congressional legislation requiring the consent of the par

ents of all applicants under the age of twenty-one years, the strength of the Army in the coming year may fall below 100,000. More pessimistic newspapermen place the figure which will be reached by next summer as between 75,000 and 85,000.

That the Regular Army with 75,000, or even 90,000, enlisted men would be rendered almost impotent in its efforts to carry on the training of the R. O. T. C., Organized Reserves, and Citizens' Military Training Camps on even their present meager scale and that the summer instruction of the National Guard would be incalculably handicapped is obvious to any officer who has struggled through the 1923 summer camps.

There is no disguising the fact that should the enlisted personnel fall to any such figure as 85,000 a blow even more serious than that of the reduction in the number of officers a year ago would be dealt the National Defense Act. The whole fabric of the military policy of the nation would be jeopardized!

enacted with the last Appropriation Bill is repealed the maintenance of the Regular Army at 115,000 will be a task for supermen.

The Universal Press states: "Were there no enlistments whatsoever, the strength would be reduced from 113,000 to 38,000 by June 30th next." Figures from the Army Recruiting News show an average of about one thousand recruits a week at this time throughout the country. Should this rate be maintained until June of 1924, between 40,000 and 50,000 men at the most, the great majority untrained, would be added to the 38,000 whose terms of enlistment will not have expired. A standing Army of from 70,000 to 80,000 would be the result, exclusive of reenlistments.

And the oft heard "Reenlist? Not me!" prompts this paper. The reenlistment of a large proportion of the present soldiers, it would appear at this time, is the one hope of the Regular Army if it is not to revert to a status which would make even the pre-war days of an authorized strength of 75,000 trained men enviable.

The reenlisted soldier is an invaluable asset. His reenlistment costs the government but little. He is an experienced military man and thus many hours of preliminary training are saved. saved. And above all, the fact that

he has again raised his right hand shows that he is a satisfied and con

Present reenlistment figures are anything but a source of gratification. Here and there are organizations which can boast of the reenlistment of fifty per cent of their discharged men. Few indeed are such units, to judge from figures given in various service publications. And still fewer are those outfits which report a more

favorable percentage.

The greater number run from thirty-three per cent to an absolute zero-almost every discharged soldier a dead loss to the Army with very few arriving to fill up the depleted squads.

Such a situation, truly awful in its possibilities as they bear on the fu

ture of the military system of the country, demands the most conscientious study and Herculean efforts. That the War Department is well aware of this is evidenced by the fact that in recent months numerous communications have been forwarded to regimental and post commanders requesting information as to the reasons given by the soldiers for severing their connection with the Army upon discharge.

With due respect to those commanding officers who have endeavored to enlighten Washington authorities on this particular, it is believed that there is in the Army but one man who can clearly and fully explain the

situation. He is the private himself! No one by any stretch of imagination or understanding can tell more precisely why the Army no longer holds his interest; why in many cases he is willing to throw away from three to twelve years of time toward retirement to plunge into the competition of civil life.

The following proposition is presented for consideration, with the full realization that it is by no means foolproof. Immediately upon the close of the strenuous summer training period, sooner if possible, there be sent from the various Corps Area headquarters, or better still from Washington, a small group of officers who will visit from three to four scattered posts in each of the Corps Areas. The sole qualification demanded of these officers should be that their records for years past have shown them to be men who have been most successful in their dealings with the soldier.

There are any number of majors and colonels who could fill the bill as officers who, throughout their years. of service, have tirelessly and consistently fought for the welfare of their soldiers, officers who as company, battalion, and regimental commanders have had the complete confidence and devotion of their men.

These inspectors, or whatever one might term them, would naturally confer with the commanding officers of the posts to which they are sent. But their primary duty would be to get down to the company, battery, or troop, pick at random from three to eight men of the unit and confer with them frankly and unreservedly as to

their dissatisfaction with the service as it is today.

There will be exaggerations and petty grievances voiced-plenty of them. But the great majority of the men consulted will unburden themselves candidly and honestly. A composite report from twenty or thirty posts throughout the country would be a decisive and clear answer to all the War Department's questions as to why the soldier does not "re-up.'

It is realized that any such proposal will be greeted by exclamations of "Bolshevism," "interference by superiors in internal company affairs,” "subversive to discipline" and the like.

For that reason it might be deemed better to have any such inquiry made by a group of investigators, a poorly chosen word in this connection, composed of Army chaplains, warrant officers, or even noncommissioned officers of long service and integrity.

Even better still might be a staff of recruiting sergeants. They possibly better than any others might be able to ascertain why the men they brought into the Army are leaving the service.

Be the unattractive features of this proposal what they may, there are hundreds of unit commanders in the service who, face to face with a repetition of the days of companies of two squads which were so common three years ago, will eagerly grasp at any straw which in some way might serve to solve a question to them a very pressing and discouraging one. Certainly, this is no time for an overindulgence in any "Pollyanna" attitude of cheerfulness or resignation.

Such an inquiry would not be entirely novel to the Army. It has been the practice in several corps areas, at the close of each Citizens' Training Camp, to have each candidate fill out a questionnaire covering the varied phases of his life and training while under military supervision. As a consequence of the study of these papers, it was found possible in the years following to revise and improve certain courses which, from the answers of the candidates themselves, were found to have been less successfully conducted than others.

In other instances the parents of the students were requested to give their opinions as to the changes they noted in the physical and mental make-up of their sons upon their return to their homes.

The fact that James Brown frankly stated that "I didn't think much of the show about the battalion in attack 'cause they didn't use no cavalry'"

or that Mrs. R. Henderson Livingston felt that "the arrangements for meals were not quite satisfactory so far as my son, Archibald, was concerned inasmuch as he did not have fresh milk at every meal" resulted in no great lowering in discipline the following year, so far as could be noted, nor was there any tendency among the candidates to run wild as a consequence of taking the candidates and their parents into the confidence of the service.

Likewise at the close of the Infantry School each officer is required to fill out a very complete questionnaire form, and it has been the custom at some of the summer camps for officers of the Organized Reserves to close the session with an open discussion as to the methods which might be employed to better the camps in future years.

It might be stated with some justice that the Infantry School, the Organized Reserve camps and the Citi