Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Aug 27, 1903

Signs of a demand on the part of large property owners for a large standing army in the United States are beginning to appear in various quarters. J. J. Hill, the railway magnate, is quoted as saying:—

I am not overrating the demand when I say that it is imperative that the United States maintain the nucleus always and the organization and the officers for an army of two hundred thousand men. With our varied interests, with our expanding commerce, and with our crowning and ever-increasing power, this strength is not more than sufficient for our uses in times of stress and danger.

However that may be, I am thoroughly convinced that the United States should maintain at all times an army of one hundred thousand thoroughly drilled, thoroughly trained, thoroughly disciplined, and thoroughly officered men. This, in my opinion, should be the strength in times of peace of the regular establishment.

The inefficiency of the State militia as a protection to life and property during labor riots, which has of late been so often demonstrated, has no doubt strongly suggested to the minds of leading employers of labor the necessity of a standing army which can be called upon in such emergencies, and which, being independent of labor unions and of home influences to which members of the militia are subject, can be relied on to oppose the mob to the full extent of its power. The present attitude of labor unions toward the national guard is doing much to create a demand for a large standing army, and the industrial strife of these times can not proceed much further before such a safeguard will be deemed a logical necessity of the situation.