But again and again in the past our little Regular Army has rendered service literally vital to the country, and it may at any time have to do so in the future.  Its standard of efficiency and instruction is higher now than ever in the past.  But it is too small.  There are not enough officers; and it is impossible to secure enough enlisted men.  We should maintain in peace a fairly complete skeleton of a large army.  A great and long-continued war would have to be fought by volunteers.  But months would pass before any large body of efficient volunteers could be put in the field, and our Regular Army should be large enough to meet any immediate need.  In particular it is essential that we should possess a number of extra officers trained in peace to perform efficiently the duties urgently required upon the breaking out of war.

The Medical Corps should be much larger than the needs of our Regular Army in war.  Yet at present it is smaller than the needs of the service demand even in peace.  The Spanish war occurred less than ten years ago.  The chief loss we suffered in it was by disease among the regiments which never left the country.  At the moment the Nation seemed deeply impressed by this fact; yet seemingly it has already been forgotten, for not the slightest effort has been made to prepare a medical corps of sufficient size to prevent the repetition of the same disaster on a much larger scale if we should ever be engaged in a serious conflict.  The trouble in the Spanish war was not with the then existing officials of the War Department; it was with the representatives of the people as a whole who, for the preceding thirty years, had declined to make the necessary provision for the Army.  Unless ample provision is now made by Congress to put the Medical Corps where it should be put disaster in the next war is inevitable, and the responsibility will not lie with those then in charge of the War Department, but with those who now decline to make the necessary provision.  A well organized medical corps, thoroughly trained before the advent of war in all the important administrative duties of a military sanitary corps, is essential to the efficiency of any large army, and especially of a large volunteer army.  Such knowledge of medicine and surgery as is possessed by the medical profession generally will not alone suffice to make an efficient military surgeon.  He must have, in addition, knowledge of the administration and sanitation of large field hospitals and camps, in order to safeguard the health and lives of men intrusted in great numbers to his care.  A bill has long been pending before the Congress for the reorganization of the Medical Corps; its passage is urgently needed.