The cavalry arm should be reorganized upon modern lines.  This is an arm in which it is peculiarly necessary that the field officers should not be old.  The cavalry is much more difficult to form than infantry, and it should be kept up to the maximum both in efficiency and in strength, for it can not be made in a hurry.  At present both infantry and artillery are too few in number for our needs.  Especial attention should be paid to development of the machine gun.  A general service corps should be established.  As things are now the average soldier has far too much labor of a nonmilitary character to perform.

National guard.

Now that the organized militia, the National Guard, has been incorporated with the Army as a part of the national forces, it behooves the Government to do every reasonable thing in its power to perfect its efficiency.  It should be assisted in its instruction and otherwise aided more liberally than heretofore.  The continuous services of many well-trained regular officers will be essential in this connection.  Such officers must be specially trained at service schools best to qualify them as instructors of the National Guard.  But the detailing of officers for training at the service schools and for duty with the National Guard entails detaching them from their regiments which are already greatly depleted by detachment of officers for assignment to duties prescribed by acts of the Congress.

A bill is now pending before the Congress creating a number of extra officers in the Army, which if passed, as it ought to be, will enable more officers to be trained as instructors of the National Guard and assigned to that duty.  In case of war it will be of the utmost importance to have a large number of trained officers to use for turning raw levies into good troops.

There should be legislation to provide a complete plan for organizing the great body of volunteers behind the Regular Army and National Guard when war has come.  Congressional assistance should be given those who are endeavoring to promote rifle practice so that our men, in the services or out of them, may know how to use the rifle.  While teams representing the United States won the rifle and revolver championships of the world against all comers in England this year, it is unfortunately true that the great body of our citizens shoot less and less as time goes on.  To meet this we should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services, by every means in our power.  Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving the peace of the world.  Fit to hold our own against the strong nations of the earth, our voice for peace will carry to the ends of the earth.  Unprepared, and therefore unfit, we must sit dumb and helpless to defend ourselves, protect others, or preserve peace.  The first step—­in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come—­is to teach our men to shoot.