War department.

In the interest of immediate economy and because of the prospect of a deficit, I have required a reduction in the estimates of the War Department for the coming fiscal year, which brings the total estimates down to an amount forty-five millions less than the corresponding estimates for last year.  This could only be accomplished by cutting off new projects and suspending for the period of one year all progress in military matters.  For the same reason I have directed that the Army shall not be recruited up to its present authorized strength.  These measures can hardly be more than temporary—­to last until our revenues are in better condition and until the whole question of the expediency of adopting a definite military policy can be submitted to Congress, for I am sure that the interests of the military establishment are seriously in need of careful consideration by Congress.  The laws regulating the organization of our armed forces in the event of war need to be revised in order that the organization can be modified so as to produce a force which would be more consistently apportioned throughout its numerous branches.  To explain the circumstances upon which this opinion is based would necessitate a lengthy discussion, and I postpone it until the first convenient opportunity shall arise to send to Congress a special message upon this subject.

The Secretary of War calls attention to a number of needed changes in the Army in all of which I concur, but the point upon which I place most emphasis is the need for an elimination bill providing a method by which the merits of officers shall have some effect upon their advancement and by which the advancement of all may be accelerated by the effective elimination of a definite proportion of the least efficient.  There are in every army, and certainly in ours, a number of officers who do not violate their duty in any such way as to give reason for a court-martial or dismissal, but who do not show such aptitude and skill and character for high command as to justify their remaining in the active service to be Promoted.  Provision should be made by which they may be retired on a certain proportion of their pay, increasing with their length of service at the time of retirement.  There is now a personnel law for the Navy which itself needs amendment and to which I shall make further reference.  Such a law is needed quite as much for the Army.

The coast defenses of the United States proper are generally all that could be desired, and in some respects they are rather more elaborate than under present conditions are needed to stop an enemy’s fleet from entering the harbors defended.  There is, however, one place where additional defense is badly needed, and that is at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, where it is proposed to make an artificial island for a fort which shall prevent an enemy’s fleet from entering this most important strategical base of operations on the whole Atlantic and Gulf coasts.  I hope that appropriate legislation will be adopted to secure the construction of this defense.