vUiliT ]l 'Wif 
 
MANAGEMENT 
 
 0/ 
 
 ■nffi AMERICAN SOLDIER 
 
 B9 
 
 MAJOR GENERAL DAVID C. SHANKS 
 National Arm^i 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Mr. Thomas F. Ryan has two sons in our army, and 
 is deeply interested in whatever pertains to the welfare 
 of the military service. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Ryan*have provided an extensive and 
 comfortable Officers' Home for the benefit of officers 
 who are passing through New York en route to ser- 
 vice overseas, and they are now building an attractive 
 Officers' Club at Camp Mills, the large Embarkation 
 Camp near Mineola, Long* Island. Sometime ago in 
 conversation with Mr. Ryan I expressed the belief that 
 the greatest weakness of our young officers was their 
 lack of practical knowledge and experience in the 
 handling of men, and that there was no book known to 
 me which covered this field. Mr. Ryan generously 
 offered to publish a booklet on this subject if I would 
 write it. 
 
 The best part of this publication therefore — the fact 
 that it costs nothing to the officer who reads it — is due 
 to the generosity of Mr. Ryan. 
 
 383980 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 At the beginning of the present war the authorized 
 strength of the United States Army, exclusive of. 
 Philippine Scouts, was as follows: 
 
 Officers 7,038 
 
 Enlisted men 132,122 
 
 Since our entrance into the war we have increased 
 the number of our officers by more than one hundred 
 thousand and the number of our enlisted soldiers by 
 more than one and a half million. It goes without 
 saying that this enormous expansion in our military 
 forces has been a task of great difficulty. Our country 
 has always been opposed to a large standing army 
 and the policy of our Government has always been 
 peculiarly non-military in character. 
 
 The material which has been used in the rapid ex- 
 pansion of our army is excellent. Sterling young col- 
 lege men have been put through the various training 
 camps and their progress has been quite satisfactory. 
 They have worked hard and have absorbed much of 
 the technical training that is required in modern war- 
 fare. All sorts of textbooks, manuals, and pamph- 
 lets, combined with the explanations and lectures of 
 selected instructors, have given them at least a fair 
 smattering of the subjects which are essential for 
 them to know. 
 
There is one respect, however, in which a great 
 many of these young men are deficient. My duties 
 at a Port of Embarkation, through which a great 
 body of troops pass, have given me opportunity to 
 see something of a considerable number of our new 
 officers and to size up their weak as well as their 
 strong points. I am quite sure of my ground when I 
 say that the weakest point in the training of our 
 young officers is their lack of knowledge and expe- 
 rience in the handling and management of their men. 
 
 Men are the tools of the military profession. With- 
 out at least a fair knowledge of. how to use those 
 tools the young officer is likely to lose much of his 
 efficiency. Beyond question the management of men 
 is the most important, as well as the most difficult 
 thing that falls to the lot of the line officer. No 
 amount of technical training or of technical knowl- 
 edge on the part of the line officer can make him 
 truly efficient if he does not possess the power of 
 controlling his men in such a way as to preserve har- 
 mony in his organization and bring out the best ef- 
 forts of those under his control. 
 
 Strange to say, the young officer seeking some 
 written guide to assist him in learning this impor- 
 tant part of his profession will have great difficulty. 
 We have lectures and manuals and treatises and 
 textbooks on all sorts of technical subjects. On the 
 subject of how to manage men — the most important 
 subject of all — the young officer will find pretty 
 
 4 
 
nearly a barren field. A few paragraphs in Army 
 Regulations, a few scattered magazine articles, and 
 a general order or two, compose the literature avail- 
 able. Neither at West Point nor at our service 
 schools, has this subject received the attention that it 
 deserves. / pparently our young officers are expected 
 to pick up this part of their training by intuition and 
 observation. Experience is the best teacher, but it 
 is a slow and costly process for the young officer to 
 have to learn the rudiments of this important part of 
 his profession by feeling his way along, profiting only 
 by the mistakes he may make. It is an especially 
 costly process if the young officer has to pick up this 
 important part of his education while his country is 
 at war and when each mistake may add another to 
 his already numerous difficulties. 
 
 At the present time we have thousands and thou- 
 sands of soldiers under command of young officers 
 without any sufficient practical experience in the 
 management of men and who are groping their way, 
 doing the best they can according to the lights that 
 are furnished them. I am convinced that something 
 ought to be written in the effort to help our young 
 officers in this most important part of their profes- 
 sion. Anything at all will be better than nothing. In 
 the Infantry Journal for November-December, 1916, I 
 published an article on "Administration and the Man- 
 agement of Men." 
 
 This present article is an enlargement and expansion 
 
 5 
 
of that. In its preparation I have consulted such addi- 
 tional literature as my limited time has afforded me 
 opportunity. In particular I mention the following: 
 
 Military Character — By Admiral Sims, pub- 
 lished in the Infantry Journal for February, 
 1918. 
 
 Psychology of War — By Eltinge. 
 
 Fundamentals of Military Service — By And- 
 rev^s. 
 
 Lectures on Discipline and Training — By 
 Colonel Applin of the British General Staff. 
 
 Mimeograph publication on "Military Char- 
 acter" published by the Naval War College. 
 
 No claim for originality is made for any idea sug- 
 gested herein. I am v^riting this largely from a 
 sense of duty because I think that some one of our 
 older officers should do something in this line. 1 know 
 that it is needed. That this present article is crude and 
 filled with imperfections must be evident, but it may 
 serve as an incentive for some one else to prepare an 
 article that is really worth while. 
 
 In no other profession is the study of men so import- 
 ant as it is in the military profession. To us Pope's 
 line, "The proper study of mankind is man," appeals 
 with peculiar force. 
 
 My effort in this article is to avoid prolonged dis- 
 cussion. The suggestions made are concrete. Many of 
 the items noted are elementary in the extreme, but they 
 are those that constantly present themselves. What the 
 young officer needs is definite instruction, not a sermon. 
 
GENERAL STATEMENT 
 
 As a rule the American people have a most excellent 
 opinion of themselves. They are imbued with the idea 
 that individually and collectively the American in all 
 things is at the top of the heap. 
 
 Apparently as a nation we have been ready to believe 
 that by intuition, and on the spur of the moment, we 
 could accomplish what has cost other nations years of 
 effort and self-sacrtfice. On no other theory can we 
 account for our national indifference to a proper state 
 of preparedness. The idea that a million men would 
 spring to arms between sunrise and sunset was popular 
 with many of our fellow countrymen because it was 
 what they wanted to believe. From these halcyon 
 dreams our people have been rudely awakened. They 
 now realize that military preparation is a matter of 
 time and much hard work. 
 
 It has been said that the proper time to start the 
 training of a gentleman is a hundred years before his 
 birth. It is beginning to dawn upon many of us that 
 the proper time to prepare for war is at least a genera- 
 tion before the war must be fought. Under any cir- 
 cumstances the making of an army from the raw ma- 
 terial is a slow and difficult process ; it is especially 
 difficult when the raw material comes from a nation in 
 which the military spirit is almost wholly lacking. Our 
 people, wholly unaccustomed to military affairs and 
 deeply absorbed in business pursuits, have apparently 
 believed that all that is necessary to make a soldier is 
 to put a uniform on his back and a gun in his hands. 
 The young American of best type makes excellent ma- 
 
 7 
 
terial for a soldier, but it takes time and great patience 
 to produce the finished product. In the case of the 
 average native American his physical powers, his initi- 
 ative, his resourcefulness, his courage, and his intelli- 
 gence are all of a high order. Nevertheless, he has 
 some inherent disadvantages as a soldier v^^hich our na- 
 tion has been slow to realize. 
 
 Frankness and a desire to look at all sides fairly 
 should prompt us to recognize some^f the weak points 
 of the young American as well as to admire those 
 points where he undoubtedly appears to advantage. 
 
 SOME DISADVANTAGES 
 
 First and foremost in the way of difficulties is the 
 matter of environment The young American has been 
 bred and born in an atmosphere distinctly non^military. 
 From his earliest youth he has been accustomed to ideas 
 of great individual independence. Distinctly he has 
 been his own boss. In certain sections of the country 
 it is not unlikely that he has had opportunity to ab- 
 sorb prejudices against military training and against 
 the uniform of the army and navy. The average young 
 American has been accustomed to hearing his govern- 
 ment freely criticised, and perhaps himself has already 
 become an expert critic. 
 
 Now the first and most important lesson in the life 
 of every soldier is discipline and obedience. Without 
 discipline military instruction is in vain. One of the 
 most difficult things to instil in the young American 
 soldier is a proper conception of the enormous, the in- 
 dispensable value of discipline. The American is born 
 in a democratic country where all men are equal and 
 
 8 
 
where every man is accustomed to making up his mind 
 as he goes along. Hence it is that many sterling young 
 Americans find the first few months of military train- 
 ing extremely irksome. The requirement of suddenly 
 giving up their own will and rendering prompt and 
 willing obedience to the will of others is not easy; it 
 is especially hard on the young men of our democratic 
 country accustomed to having their own way in every- 
 thing. Right here is one of the prime causes of deser- 
 tion. The recruit accustomed to doing as he likes finds 
 the lessons of discipline very trying, and makes up his 
 mind that he will go back to a life rid of such annoy- 
 ances. For a time he is like a wild animal suddenly 
 taken captive and that longs for its former freedom. 
 The first months of a soldier's training are always the 
 most trying. Once the soldier has gotten over the first 
 bumps the bonds of discipline become less galling and 
 the attractive part of a soldier's life begins. It is in 
 these first months of the life of a young soldier that 
 the officer needs to be most careful and most patient. 
 
 It is different with the young soldier of a country 
 (Japan or Germany, for instance), where military train- 
 ing is compulsory. From childhood he has been reared 
 in a military atmosphere. The ideas of discipline are 
 absorbed as he grows up. It goes without saying that 
 the task of the officer is immeasurably easier in a 
 country where military training is welcomed rather than 
 in our own country where it is tolerated only when 
 <iire necessity forces it upon us : 
 
 While we are about it we may as well confess 
 that there are national habits that greatly increase the 
 9 
 
difficulty of managing the American soldier. I remem- 
 ber once to have seen the sailors of an entire Japa- 
 nese squadron given shore liberty in a town where 
 saloons were quite plentiful. They were put ashore in 
 the early morning, and were told that the last boats 
 to take them back to their ships would leave at six 
 o'clock in the evening. At that hour the last Jap went 
 back, and of the nearly two thousand sailors not one 
 had become intoxicated. He would be an optimist of 
 highest degree who would be willing to believe that 
 two thousand American soldiers or sailors could be 
 turned loose in a city where whiskey is both cheap and 
 plentiful, and yet find every man fit for duty at six 
 o'clock in the evening. 
 
 I do not make this statement either to detract from 
 the American or to extol the Jap. My only idea is to 
 show that the American officer will find certain diffi- 
 culties by reason of inherited national frailties. Since 
 our entrance into the present war the prohibition of the 
 sale of intoxicants to men in uniform has done much 
 to improve the temperance of our men. It is useless, 
 however, to deny that the existing law has been, and is 
 being violated in numerous ways. So far as the in- 
 terests of our army are concerned, it will certainly be 
 best if the constitutional amendment is enacted giving 
 national prohibition to the country. 
 
 America is a composite nation embracing many dis- 
 tinct elements. The great national melting pot has not 
 yet made us one homogeneous people with easily dis- 
 tinguished national characteristics. This fact adds 
 greatly to the difficulty of the American officer. It is 
 10 
 
a well known fact in our army that some officers who 
 succeed admirably with white troops fail entirely when 
 they come on duty with our negro soldiers. This is 
 due to the fact that they do not understand the negro- 
 character, and success comes most frequently to any 
 officer when he is managing men with whose character- 
 istics he is entirely familiar. 
 
 Take the average white American company. It will 
 be composed of men of many nationalities. The Irish, 
 the Swede, the Pole, the Jew, the Italian, and many 
 others will be represented. These men possess widely 
 different characteristics. They cannot all be managed 
 upon the same plan. In our country all men are equal, 
 but all soldiers are not equal — not by a jugful. The 
 officer who would try to manage the timid, well-mean- 
 ing Swede by the same means which he would probably 
 have to use in controlling the Bowery tough, would 
 have no more success than the parent who uses the 
 same method in dealing with the timid, shrinking child 
 that he is forced to use when dealing with the head- 
 strong and wilful one. This fact, then, that we are a 
 composite people possessing the characteristics of many 
 different peoples adds much to the difficulties of our 
 officers in the management of their men. 
 
 QUALIFICATIONS OF OFFICERS 
 
 A large book might be written and still leave the 
 subject far from exhausted. Of all essential qualities, 
 sound common sense is easily first and foremost. With- 
 out this indispensable sine qua non, 'no officer can hope 
 to be successful in the management of men. 
 11 
 
Even with sound sense as a foundation there is the 
 greatest difference among officers in respect to their 
 ability to manage men. There are some officers who 
 will never make good with troops, no matter how hard 
 they may try. They lack a certain indefinable, in- 
 tangible something that spells the difference between 
 success and failure. Just as there are men who may 
 study music a lifetime and never learn music, so there 
 are officers who may study hard and never learn the 
 mastery of the infinitely more difficult chords that 
 control human nature. 
 
 I do not mean by this that any officer, however gifted 
 by nature, ever attains full stature except by one 
 means — unceasing observation and unceasing effort. 
 There is a widespread idea that a great leader like 
 Napoleon is the heir to a heaven-born gift that raises 
 him beyond the level of all his contemporaries. But 
 let the truth be known for the encouragement of all 
 who are willing to attain eminence as Napoleon attained 
 his — by hard work. In his youth that which disting- 
 uished Napoleon from his fellows was his constant 
 reading, his habit of taking many notes, and his power 
 of application. He himself has said that the power of 
 applying military principles readily and on the spur of 
 the moment came to him by always thinking of them. 
 Success came to Napoleon as it comes to most officers, 
 through constant endeavor. It is not my intention to 
 enter into a long drawn out discussion of the qualities 
 needed by the officer on duty with troops. It is better 
 to touch upon these qualities in the discussion of the 
 relations between the officer and those under his com- 
 mand. 
 
 12 
 
TREATMENT OF THE AMERICAN SOLDIER 
 BY HIS OFFICER 
 
 In the first place, treat the soldier as a man. Treat 
 him as you would yourself like to be treated were you 
 in his place and he in yours. I do not mean by this 
 that the soldier should be coddled — far from it. But 
 you can be exacting, you can require the most punctili- 
 ous observance of orders and regulations, and yet do it 
 without nagging or irritating the men under your com- 
 mand. 
 
 Some officers lack the backbone to require the proper 
 performance of duty on the part of their men, lest it 
 render them unpopular. They are willing to play a 
 namby pamby part because they cannot muster cour- 
 age to exact from their men a proper performance of 
 duty. Let the young officer examine himself right here. 
 If he cannot muster the moral courage to do his duty 
 he can never expect to train his men to do theirs. 
 Right here is the beginning of inefficiency. Many is the 
 officer I have known and who must himself have known 
 that he lacked the backbone to say no when that was 
 the answer which ought to be given. Any young officer 
 can easily examine himself. If he cannot correct faults, 
 if he cannot deny his men when they ought to be de- 
 nied, then the officer has missed his calling and he is 
 likely to prove a failure. 
 
 On the other hand, there is no need to be a martinet. 
 No useful purpose is accomplished by a constant 
 nagging and scolding on the part of the officer. 
 
 On a bronze tablet at the main sally port at West 
 Point is the following extract from an address to 
 13 
 
cadets by Major General John M. Schofield, Superin- 
 tendent of West Point, August ii, 1879. Let the young 
 officer study it carefully for it contains much excellent 
 advice : 
 
 The discipline which makes the soldiers of a 
 free country reliable in battle is not to be 
 gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. 
 
 On the contrary, such treatment is far more 
 likely to destroy than to make an army. 
 
 It is possible to impart instruction and give 
 commands in such a manner and in such a tone 
 of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling 
 but an intense desire to obey. 
 
 While the opposite manner and tone of voice 
 cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a 
 desire to disobey. 
 
 The one mode or the other of dealing w^ith 
 subordinates springs from a corresponding 
 spirit in the breast of the commander. 
 
 He who feels the respect which is due to 
 others canot fail to inspire in them regard for 
 himself. 
 
 While he who feels and hence manifests dis- 
 respect toward others, especially his inferiors, 
 cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself. 
 INCULCATING PRIDE OF THE SOLDIER IN 
 HIMSELF AND IN HIS RECORD 
 Of all influences over mankind few are so powerful 
 and so far reaching as pride. We often hear it said of 
 an individual that "he did not know what fear meant." 
 I do not believe it for a moment. When danger of 
 death is near all men fear it. There are some men — 
 14 
 
many men — who overcome that fear, and they are 
 rightly called brave; there are other men who succumb 
 to that fear and we dub them cowards.^ The same 
 man may overcome his fear on one occasion, and on the 
 very next occasion may yield to it. 
 
 Now there is no other influence that holds a soldier 
 in the battle line so well as pride. He fears the jeers 
 and the contempt of his companions more than he fears 
 the bullets of the enemy. It is pride in his good name 
 and in his fair reputation that holds him to the mark. 
 A regiment which has once earned a reputation for 
 bravery will stick and fight on to the death because 
 of its pride. Now pride of the soldier in himself and 
 'n his reputation is a tremendous asset in the every 
 day management of the soldier, provided the officer 
 knows how to turn it to account- Every normal man 
 has an earnest desire to succeed, and feels a deep in- 
 terest in winning success. Judicious effort on the part 
 of the officer will build up a feeling of pride in the 
 soldier that will be most useful. 
 
 Therefore, the officer ought to be most careful to 
 avoid any act that will tend to destroy the self-respect, 
 the feeling of pride of the soldier in himself and in 
 his record. Never put a young soldier in the guard 
 house for the first time if it is possible to avoid it — 
 not until you are sure that no other course will answer. 
 When you put a soldier in the guard house you run 
 the risk of bringing upon him a feeling of degradation 
 and of discouragement, and you run the greater risk of 
 injuring that great asset — his pride in himself. 
 
 When I was a young lieutenant I had a captain whose 
 15 
 
method of controlling his men in case of dereliction 
 was to call them one by one into the orderly room, and 
 appeal to tkeir sense of pride, both in themselves as 
 well as in the company. I have since seen many officers 
 who were abler, and more efficient, and more valuable 
 to the Government, but I have seen few who knew 
 better how to bring out the best there was in a soldier. 
 
 PRIDE OF THE SOLDIER IN HIS 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 In these days when our few permanent organizations 
 have been torn to pieces in the effort to provide seasoned 
 material for units just being formed, it seems ridiculous 
 for anyone to talk about pride in the organization to 
 which the soldier belongs. Yet the time may come, and 
 that soon, when there will be many American soldiers 
 who will justly know and justly glory in the pride of 
 the unit to which they belong. It may soon be that we 
 shall have American organizations who have won their 
 title to be placed beside those famous organizations in 
 history that have made their names immortal. 
 
 General Sherman once said that an army had a soul 
 as well as a man. This is true, and it is also true that 
 a company has a soul as well as an army. 
 
 The pride of the soldier in his organization may be 
 made a most useful influence in the ordinary routine 
 administration of a company. As illustrative of the 
 beneficial influence of company pride in ordinary every 
 day management of men, I may relate the following: 
 
 In the summer of 1886, I was at Fort Leavenworth 
 attending a rifle competition. At that time, no regi- 
 16 
 
ment nor even any considerable part of any one regi- 
 ment was stationed there. It was the custom to select 
 one company or one troop from each of several differ- 
 ent regiments and to send it to Leavenworth as a part 
 of the garrison. In 1886 they were casting about for 
 an infantry company — they wanted a good one — one that 
 would set a proper standard for the student officers. 
 The choice fell upon Company K, 13th Infantry, com- 
 manded by Captain Arthur McArthur, Jr. It was a 
 wise choice, and I shall not forget that company, small 
 in numbers but so abounding in spirit and pride as to 
 be notable. 
 
 The men all knew why the company had been sent to 
 Fort Leavenworth. Every man felt that a great onus 
 was on him individually. The line at parade showed 
 service stripes on nearly every man from wrist to elbow. 
 When the company was dismissed no man sallied forth 
 from the barracks who was not so spick and span as to 
 be a marked man at yards' distance. For a man with 
 "K Company, 13th Infantry," on his cap to be sent to 
 the guard house would have been a calamity. There 
 were stories of how one or two, over-bibulous after 
 pay day, had been brought in the back way by compan- 
 ions lest some one might see a K Company man at a 
 disadvantage. 
 
 When I was a "youngster," I was serving at a large 
 post at the time of the establishment of the Post Can- 
 teen. Everything connected with the running of it was 
 new; nothing had been worked out. The War Depart- 
 ment authorized no stoppages; company commanders 
 were responsible for their own collections, and the sub- 
 17 
 
ject of these collections caused a good deal of anxiety. 
 There was a general consensus of opinion : to the guard 
 house and the black list with any man who failed to 
 pay. Pay day came and went. There were many fail- 
 ures to pay, likewise many in the guard house. One 
 captain had three men who failed to pay. He called 
 them into the orderly room one at a time. Each man 
 put up a sorowful story about having spent all his 
 money before he reached the canteen. To each one, the 
 captain made the same reply: "I do not like to have 
 men of my company in the guard house; it hurts the 
 man, and it hurts the company." Then he took from 
 his own pocket the money needed to pay each man's 
 canteen bill, and sent him down to pay it. But it did 
 not stop there. The captain then sought the canteen 
 ojfficer, and learned that the men had paid up. He 
 asked the canteen officer to write him a letter to that 
 effect, and the letter also said that his was the only 
 company at the post which owed nothing. This letter 
 was posted on the company bulletin board. It made a 
 hit. The men of the company thereafter would not 
 stand for any man injuring the good name of the 
 company by non-payment of canteen bills. That com- 
 pany enjoyed a fine reputation while other company 
 commanders swore and reviled and put men in the 
 guard house. 
 
 HOMESICKNESS 
 
 Many of the young soldiers who are now serving at 
 
 our various cantonments, as well as those already "over 
 
 there" have left their homes for the first time. It is 
 
 not unlikely that many of them will suffer from home- 
 
 18 
 
sickness, perhaps in an acute form. To the young 
 soldier hornesickness is a great trial, and it will take 
 time and grit for him to overcome it. 
 
 The judicious officer, alive to the interest of his men, 
 can do much to help overcome the ill effects of this 
 most trying time. Just a few words — and no more — 
 to tell the young soldier that a time comes in the life of 
 every man when he must leave his former home, that 
 the strong man grits his teeth and overcomes his lone- 
 some, distressed feeling, and that only the weakling 
 gives way and plays the baby act. 
 
 At the same time give the homesick soldier plenty to 
 do. Homesickness feeds on idleness. It is most likely 
 to disappear when the soldier is given such a quantity 
 and variety of work as to keep both body and mind 
 fully occupied. 
 
 WRITING HOME TO HIS RELATIVES 
 
 Many a young soldier after he has been away from 
 home for a time acquires new interests, and forgets to 
 write home, frequently to the distress of his parents. 
 It is not infrequently the case that the company com- 
 mander receives anxious letters of inquiry from the 
 parents or other relatives of some of his men. Gome 
 officers regard such small matters as a petty detail not 
 of sufficient interest to require their attention, but it is 
 in these small matters that the officer has opportunity to 
 show his really helpful spirit towards his men. 
 
 One way to manage this matter is to wait until the 
 company is assembled and then announce without men- 
 tioning any names that a letter of inquiry has been 
 19 
 
received from the parents of one man in the company; 
 that every young man ought to feel interest enough in 
 his parents to write to them from time to time, and 
 that any man who fails to take that small trouble 
 should be ashamed of his neglect. When the right 
 sort of officer makes an announcement of this kind to 
 his men the neglect will soon disappear. 
 
 PROPER DISTRIBUTION OF DUTIES 
 
 Before our entry into the present war promotion in 
 our army was relatively slow. A second lieutenant was 
 assigned to a company, and he had the benefit of learn- 
 ing by observation and experience. His captain was 
 generally an officer who had received a certain amount 
 of seasoning. The green subaltern had abundant op- 
 portunity to become acquainted with his profession 
 gradually. 
 
 It is not so now. The stress of war has put upon 
 the young officer tremendously important duties, and at 
 the same time his opportunities for properly fitting 
 himself for the performance of those duties have been 
 greatly curtailed. Nowadays a great many of our 
 captains, and even field officers, are without the experi- 
 ence that is so necessary to enable them properly to 
 control the men under their charge. In many organiza- 
 tions the captain and the lieutenant must learn their 
 duties simultaneously — it is a case of the blind leading 
 the blind. All the more necessary is it then that some 
 sort of system be pursued and that system the right 
 one. 
 
 In that excellent . manual, the Infantry Drill Regula- 
 20 
 
tions, it is laid down and insisted upon over and often 
 that in all tactical work there must be an allotment to 
 each subordinate of his appropriate duties and non- 
 interference with him so long as he does well. It is a 
 correct principle and works well. It is the means we 
 rely upon to give to the subordinate the opportunity 
 for developing efficiency and confidence in himself. 
 Without this system we could never train the subordi- 
 nate officers and non-commissioned officers properly to 
 lead their commands. This same system which the drill 
 regulations prescribe for tactical exercises should be 
 insisted upon at all times — on the march, in camp, at 
 meals and in barracks or in billet. There is no other 
 principle more important for the young officer to get 
 clearly fixed in his mind, for in many organizations this 
 principle is neglected entirely. In many companies the 
 captain and the first sergeant are the whole show. 
 There is no intermediary, and nobody else attempts to 
 exercise any authority. In such organizations the lieu- 
 tenant assists the captain only when at drill or military 
 exercise. Subordinate non-commissioned officers refer 
 every question to the first sergeant. 
 
 The corporal is frequently never called upon to exer- 
 cise any authority except on guard or in charge of 
 fatigue parties. At drill he gives the commands, ''Squad, 
 halt" or "follow me;" when the recall sounds his au- 
 thority ends, his duty is done. No one but the captain 
 and the first sergeant is getting any training in the 
 handling of men because no one else has the oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 When the time comes for a lieutenant or a subordi- 
 21 
 
nate non-commissioned officer to step into a more im- 
 portant place requiring the control of m-en, he is green 
 as grass because he has had no actual experience. A 
 man may stand on the bank and watch others swim 
 week after week; but, if he wants to learn- how to swim, 
 he must himself go into the water. The captain who 
 does not give his lieutenant and his subordinate non- 
 commissioned officers anything to do except at drill 
 and military exercise is not training his company as the 
 army regulations require, neither will he get best re- 
 sults. 
 
 I quote two paragraphs of Army Regulations to show 
 their general tenor : 
 
 Paragraph 287 : A thorough police of bar- 
 racks will precede the Saturday inspection. The 
 chiefs of squads will see that bunks and 
 bedding are overhauled, floors, tables, and 
 benches scoured, arms and accouterments 
 cleaned, and all leather articles polished. 
 
 Paragraph 288: Chiefs of squads will be held 
 responsible for the cleanliness of their men. 
 They will see that those who are to go on duty 
 put their arms, accouterments and clothing in 
 the best order, and that such as have passes 
 leave the post in proper dress. 
 
 There are few organizations where these paragraphs 
 of the regulations are enforced. When a captain picks 
 out a private and makes him corporal, he cannot tell in 
 advance what sort of non-commissioned officer he is 
 going to make. 
 
 22 
 
Neither can he tell much about the corporal if he 
 hears him say only, "Squad, halt," or "Follow me." I 
 have many a time heard a captain say that he was sur- 
 prised and disappointed in the poor showing made by 
 some sergeant who had just been promoted from cor- 
 poral. The time to try out the corporal is when he is 
 a corporal. Give him the seven men of his squad; tell 
 him they are his to look after, to instruct, and to man- 
 age. Tell him he is to look after the condition of their 
 bunks, their equipment, their cleanliness and their be- 
 havior. Put the corporal on his mettle. When his 
 squad is unusually good at inspection, it will do no 
 harm to say, "Corporal, your squad was in good shape 
 today." All of us like an encouraging word now and 
 then. When the corporal's squad is not in good shape, 
 tell him so, and tell him what was wrong. In other 
 words, give the corporal a real job. If any man of his 
 squad has muddy shoes at the foot of his bunk, or 
 hair that needs trimming, or grease spots on his coat, 
 speak to the corporal about it. The commissioned offi- 
 cer ought never to do the corporal's work; it is suffi- 
 cient if the officer sees that the corporal does his work 
 and does it well. It is only by holding the corporal 
 strictly to his job that he will get the idea that it is 
 really and truly incumbent upon him to look after his 
 squad in the way that the regulations require. 
 
 The squad system is the very soul of company train- 
 ing; it gives to the company commander opportunity 
 to size up his subordinates, to relieve any who are hope- 
 less, and develops confidence and efficiency in those 
 who need just this kind of work. 
 23 
 
In proper sequence, each line sergeant should have 
 under him the squads assigned to his charge. In the 
 supervision of these squads, he should as far as pos- 
 sible, deal with the corporal. The captain should deal 
 with both. In short, every non-commissioned officer 
 should have a job. When anything goes wrong, every 
 man whose business it was to supervise that particular 
 work should be held up, and responsibility for the fail- 
 ure established. 
 
 It takes a tactful captain to get the proper work out 
 of his lieutenants. Many are assigned no work at all 
 except at drill or at tactical instruction. There can be 
 but one officer in command of a company, but that is 
 no excuse for letting the lieutenants remain ignorant 
 and go to rust for lack of opportunity to learn their 
 profession. The best training for inexperienced lieu- 
 tenants will be given by assigning to each in turn cer- 
 tain duties as the captain's representative in the 
 management of the company mess, the daily inspection 
 of barracks, kitchen, mess hall, etc., office work, pre- 
 paration of rolls, returns, routine papers, etc. One 
 excellent form of training for a lieutenant is to place 
 him in charge of gymnastics, athletic events, and com- 
 pany amusements. 
 
 Following out the scheme above outlined and required 
 by the regulations, every officer and every non-com- 
 missioned officer will have something to do. The cap- 
 tain will have supervision and control but will exercise 
 it in such a way that all of his subordinates are receiv- 
 ing training of the right kind — a training that will 
 enable the machine to continue to run smoothly even 
 24 
 
though the captain and the first sergeant should be 
 simultaneously called away. 
 
 CRITICISM 
 
 Undoubtedly one of the greatest handicaps upon effi- 
 ciency in our army is the tendency upon the part of 
 some of our officers to overmuch criticism. 
 
 Every American citizen feels at liberty to express 
 his views on any subject that comes up. Freedom of 
 speech is a national right, and the American officer 
 feels that he has all the prerogatives of any other 
 citizen. Not always does criticism, even when well 
 meant, work to the good of the military service. 
 
 For instance, let us suppose that an order involving 
 a new policy is issued from the War Department. What 
 happens? Do we as a body get behind the order, and 
 use our utmost endeavor to carry out the spirit of the 
 order? Or do we — a great many of us at any rate — 
 immediately begin to tear the order to pieces, and 
 sharpen our wits by showing how some other plan 
 suggested by ourselves would have been better? The 
 young officer cannot be too careful of his course in this 
 respect. No officer ought to expect soldiers under his 
 command to carry out loyally his orders if the officer 
 himself does not set the example. The disastrous 
 habit of "knocking" all orders and all authority is one 
 of the most harmful influences in our whole service. 
 
 Not only that, but we sometimes find this criticism 
 takes place in the presence and in the hearing of en- 
 listed men; nothing could be worse. It is an old saying 
 that is is a soldier's privilege to growl. If this is so, 
 25 
 
our service would be often more benefited by the 
 breach than by the observance of this privilege. 
 
 Our officers' mess should be a place entirely free 
 from the criticism of official orders, and a place notable 
 for its loyalty towards official authority. On the con- 
 trary, it is sometimes the case that our messes and our 
 clubs are only convenient spots where the critics may 
 foregather. 
 
 The great Admiral Jervis once said: "I dread not 
 the seamen; it is the indiscreet, licentious conversation 
 of the officers, and their presumptuous discussions of 
 the orders they receive that produces all our ills." Let 
 all officers who presume to criticise their seniors re- 
 member this — that they thereby set the example for 
 criticism of themselves by all who are junior to them. 
 
 DRUNKENNESS 
 
 One of the most difficult things that the young officer 
 will have to contend with in the management of his 
 men is to prevent on the part of some of them 
 overindulgence in intoxicating liquor. This is a 
 hard problem for even the best and most experienced 
 company commanders. 
 
 Some officers — many officers, in fact — never think of 
 taking any preventive measures. The soldier who gets 
 drunk is placed in confinement; when he has sobered 
 up he is tried by court-martial, a portion of his pay is 
 taken away, perhaps additional confinement is awarded 
 — and that ends it for the time being. Another pay 
 day the same thing happens, and pretty soon the man 
 is a confirmed drunkard. The officer who draws high 
 26 
 
pay to control his men never thinks to raise his hand 
 or to lift his voice in the effort to prevent the soldier 
 from getting drunk — his only action is to punish the 
 man after the offense. Any officer who is satisfied to 
 allow his men to drink to excess, and makes no at- 
 tempt to prevent it, is not doing his full duty. 
 
 I know full well that there are some men — a few 
 men — in almost every company who are incorrigible, 
 and who can be managed only by the strong arm of 
 the law. Nevertheless, most of our soldiers join their 
 companies as young recruits. They are not confirmed 
 drunkards when they join, and with proper manage- 
 ment they can be kept decent and sober. The most 
 demoralizing influence upon them is their contact with 
 the "hard nuts" of the company. The country boy 
 who is not accustomed to drink requires a good deal 
 of backbone to withstand the guying of older com- 
 panions who make sport of him and his lack of worldly 
 experience. Many a young recruit is driven to his first 
 offense through the taunts of older men. 
 
 It requires a lot of moral courage on the part of the 
 inexperienced lad to stand up against the boastings and 
 the enticements of those whom they regard as veterans. 
 The time to save the young soldier is in the beginning. 
 A little care on his captain's part will do much to keep 
 the young soldier straight. If his foot slips and he 
 gets drunk for the first time, don't keep him in the 
 guard house forever, thereby crushing his self-respect. 
 Try an appeal to his pride. 
 
 In my own experience as a company commander, I 
 never found any other method as useful to me when a 
 27 
 
soldier had sobered up as to bring him alone into the 
 orderly room, look him squarely in the eyes, and say, 
 "Jones, don't you feel ashamed of yourself? Your 
 conduct is hurting yourself and your company, too." 
 The man in uniform is just as much subject to re- 
 morse as the man in civilian clothing. It was a very 
 exceptional soldier who would not say: "Yes, Captain, 
 I do feel ashamed, and I am going to keep sober next 
 pay day." Then was the time to say: "All right, Jones, 
 I am going to watch you next pay day, and see if you 
 are man enough to keep sober." And in Heaven's 
 name, if Jones does come through successfully, don't 
 fail to find opportunity to let him know that his vic- 
 tory has been observed. 
 
 It is not a bad plan to do this at inspection in ranks — 
 the men standing adjacent will hear the captain's 
 recognition of Jones' improvement and they may be 
 depended upon to tax him thoroughly should he fall 
 again. A little touch of the human element now and 
 then, a word of encouragement from the captain at the 
 right time, will help many a young soldier to find him- 
 self, and bring him to feel something of that personal 
 pride in himself and his record which is the very 
 foundation of every good soldier. 
 
 The captain who is determined to do his full duty by 
 his men has still another means at his disposal, and a 
 very effective one if he properly uses it. The young 
 soldier belongs to a permanent squad of which a cor- 
 poral is squad leader. The corporal has but seven men 
 to look after, and he should be made to understand at 
 the beginning that it is a part of his duty to look after 
 28 
 
the behavior of his men. The squad belongs to a 
 larger section of the company under supervision of a 
 sergeant. Give the sergeant to understand that he is 
 to see that the corporals under his supervision do their 
 full duty. In this way the recruit is being looked after, 
 and both the corporal and the sergeant are getting use- 
 ful training, and an idea of the responsibility that has 
 been placed upon them. 
 
 If anything goes wrong with a soldier do not fail to 
 bring both the sergeant and the corporal into the case, 
 so that they may thoroughly appreciate and realize their 
 own duties. In many companies the men are permitted 
 to get drunk and to receive punishment therefor, while 
 the sergeants and corporals pursue the even tenor of 
 their way with never a word said to them. 
 
 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH HIS 
 MEN 
 
 The officer who is on duty with a company ought to 
 be able to call by name every man of his organization. 
 I have sometimes seen captains who had been in com- 
 mand of the same company for many months, yet could 
 not personally identify half of his men. Nothing gives 
 to the soldier a more belittling idea of his importance 
 than to find that his own captain does not know him by 
 name. 
 
 Some officers may regard this as a trivial matter, but 
 it is one that the young officer who wants to succeed 
 cannot afford to neglect. If the officer does not exert 
 himself sufficiently to know by name his own men he 
 need not be surprised if the interest of the men in 
 29 
 
their company is only perfunctory. Men will not do 
 their best work for an officer who shows so little in- 
 terest in them. 
 
 THE COMPANY MESS 
 
 One of the most important duties that falls to the 
 lot of the line officer is supervision of the company 
 mess. It is surprising how much the interest of young 
 soldiers centers around the company kitchen. 
 
 The successful line officer must take an interest in 
 that which is of such vital importance to his men. 
 There should be close inspection of the kitchen, the 
 cooking utensils, the refrigerator, the dishes and all 
 other mess paraphernalia. Scrupulous cleanliness must 
 be insisted upon. The officer should frequently sample 
 the food and the coffee, and he should take an active 
 part in planning the daily menus so as to afford pleas- 
 ing variety. The interest of the officer must be real, 
 not feigned. Soldiers are not at all slow in detecting 
 the officer whose interest is only a thin veneer. 
 
 PUNISHMENTS 
 
 Scarcely any feature of military administration is more 
 perplexing to the inexperienced officer than that of 
 punishments. Under our army regulations and under 
 the Articles of War, much authority is placed in the 
 hands of the commissioned officer. Necessarily this 
 must be the case. Discipline cannot be maintained un- 
 less the officer has authority adequate for that purpose. 
 
 The object of punishment is to maintain discipline 
 and its use should be limited to the minimum consist- 
 30 
 
ent with the object in view. The second paragraph of 
 our army regulations reads as follows : 
 
 "Military authority will be exercised with firmness, 
 kindness and justice. Punishments must conform to 
 the law and follow offenses as promptly as circum- 
 stances permit." 
 
 No better guide can be given to the young officer than 
 that quoted above, but he needs something a little more 
 in detail until experience has shown him the way. To 
 secure best results the essential elements of punish- 
 ment are justice and promptness. The officer ought 
 always to investigate thoroughly before he administers 
 punishment. It is better that an offense should go un- 
 punished than to make a mistake and punish an inno- 
 cent man. 
 
 In our service the amount and the kinds of punish- 
 ment vary widely — the personal equation of the officer 
 who has the matter in hand cuts a large figure. One 
 officer will punish quite severely what another over- 
 looks entirely. Some officers have a cast iron rule — 
 "Let no guilty man escape" — therefore, they prefer 
 charges for every dereliction for trial by court-martial. 
 
 Looking back over my four years at West Point the 
 only advice on this subject that I can recall came from 
 an instructor in law, who advised his section to be 
 careful as young officers to prefer charges for every 
 dereliction so that they might establish for themselves 
 the reputation of being absolutely impartial. In this 
 way the men would know what to expect, and would 
 have no grievance. Even now we have officers who 
 know no other method. The green recruit and the "old 
 31 
 
soak" are all in the same boat; to them all soldiers 
 are as alike as pawns on a chess-board. To such officers 
 any attempt to consider the human, the personal ele- 
 ment in the soldier is childish; any attempt to control 
 by other means than that of fear is pooh-poohed as 
 balderdash or "weak attempt at moral suasion." 
 
 To be sure there is to be found, now and then, a 
 soldier to whom all appeals are useless. To such a man 
 the methods of force are obligatory, and should be 
 applied freely and unhesitatingly. But, if he is given 
 opportunity, the average soldier will respond surpris- 
 ingly well to appeals to his pride. 
 
 Under our present regulations there is much power 
 in the hands of the company commander. Company 
 punishment and the withholding of privileges are suffi- 
 cent in the hands of a capable officer to control all 
 except the really hard cases. It ought to be the effort 
 of every line officer to use company punishment when- 
 ever it is possible to secure the desired results in that 
 way. Of course, the soldier must be informed of his 
 right to demand trial by court-martial if he prefers. 
 
 In the first place the captain knows his men better 
 than any summary court officer can possibly know 
 them. In addition it is of great advantage to a captain 
 to manage his own men. Whenever the captain has to 
 call for outside assistance through the medium of 
 court-martials he loses an asset of great value. A com- 
 pany likes to feel that its captain is a strong man — 
 strong enough to manage his men without having to 
 call for outside help. Moreover, when the captain 
 awards punishment in the shape of kitchen police or 
 32 
 
extra fatigue, it is usually served around the company 
 barracks where the men of the company have a chance 
 to see what is happening. They usually taunt their 
 luckless companion, and at the same time make up 
 their minds not to be caught in the same predicament. 
 At the same time the company is the direct beneficiary, 
 for the punishment usually takes the form of company 
 chores such as cleaning windows, scrubbing floors, peel- 
 ing potatoes, etc. 
 
 When I was a captain I had a German cook who 
 was a great disciplinarian — any soldier who had once 
 served under him a tour of kitchen police by way of 
 punishment never intentionally got himself in the way 
 of serving additional tours. 
 
 The foregoing remarks are intended to cover only 
 those cases of neglect and of minor infractions which 
 may properly be punished in the manner indicated. Seri- 
 ous offenses such as disrespect, insubordination, wilful 
 defiance of authority, etc., require prompt and ade- 
 quate punishment. Nothing is to be gained by attempt- 
 ing any halfway measures with an insubordinate or 
 mutinous soldier. On the contrary discipline is much 
 more likely to be restored by strenuous measures than 
 by halting, flimsy ones. The wilful, defiant soldier 
 should receive prompt and adequate punishment not 
 only by way of correcting him, but also for the sake 
 of its influence on others. 
 
 A word must be said also as to the manner of the 
 
 officer while awarding punishment. The officer should 
 
 be calm and dignified. The excited officer, talking in a 
 
 loud tone, and rasping the soldier whose case he is 
 
 33 
 
adjudging accomplishes little that is of use. He arouses 
 in the soldier a feeling of resentment that is far from 
 helpful in establishing discipline. The best and most 
 efficient disciplinarians I have known in the army were 
 men of soft manner and even temper. It was said of 
 the late Major General Thomas H. Ruger, who was 
 notably successful as a disciplinarian, that in the twenty 
 years he was a colonel of an infantry regiment he had 
 lost his temper but on one occasion. Let the young 
 officer thoroughly understand that military efficiency 
 does not consist in a loud manner and a strident voice. 
 
 ORDERS 
 
 Any orders given, whether written or verbal, should 
 be as short and simple as clearness will permit. The 
 greatest order ever given consisted of four short words. 
 God said: "Let there be light." Take that as a model 
 and you can not go wrong. 
 
 CHEERFULNESS 
 Hardly anything is more useful to a young officer 
 than cheerfulness. A grouch casts a gloom over every- 
 body. The cheerful man is an asset of great value. I 
 once had in my company a short, sawed-off Irishman 
 whom the men called "Shorty." Sometimes around pay 
 day he was a little hard to manage, but he was a 
 valuable man in the company because his unfailing wit 
 and cheerfulness were contagious, and served to keep 
 the men in good humor. One hot day, after a loni? 
 march in the Philippines we had gotten lost, and were 
 following an unknown trail up hill and down dale. 
 34 
 
Finally, 1 brougltt the company to a halt and sent 
 "Shorty's" squad to the top of a hill to reconnoitre. 
 When he had reached the summit one of the men called 
 to him, "I say. Shorty, is this the last hill?" To which 
 he immediately shouted back, "Yes, this is the last hill, 
 the next one is a mountain." His apt reply put the 
 men in good humor and made them forget their 
 fatigue. 
 
 Nothing is better around the barracks than a few 
 who can sing, or a man who can play the guitar or 
 banjo. Whatever gives a cheerful tone to the bar- 
 racks, or the camp, is surely worth cultivating. The 
 efficient organization is generally the cheerful, happy 
 one — it is never the sullen, grouchy one. 
 
 LOYALTY 
 
 Among the qualities which are essential in the make- 
 up of the really valuable officer, there is scarcely any 
 one of them that ranks in importance with loyalty — ^by 
 which one means a true, willing, and unfailing devotion 
 to a cause. 
 
 In his individual relations to his superiors, we under- 
 stand loyalty on the part of a subordinate to mean a 
 true and voluntary compliance with the will and plans 
 of the superior. Every man has a desire to have things 
 his own way — that is only natural, and no man can be 
 blamed for it. The milk and water man — the man who 
 has no ideas of his own— who is willing to sneeze every 
 time his superior takes snuff, never amounts to very 
 much, anyway. But there is a proper time, and a 
 proper way to express our ideas. Once a decision has 
 
 :5 
 
been reached by a superior — once your duty has been 
 laid down — it is time to give up your own ideas, and 
 attempt with whole might to carry out the plan which 
 it is your duty to follow. 
 
 On the efficiency report which commanding officers 
 are required in time of peace to fill out in the case of 
 subordinate officers, there is this question: 
 
 "Proper authority having decided on the 
 methods and procedure to accomplish a certain 
 desirable end, state whether he impresses you 
 as being an officer who will co-operate ener- 
 getically and loyally in accomplishing this end 
 regardless of his personal views in the matter." 
 Consider for a moment that you are a commanding 
 officer, and that you are filling out your own efficiency 
 report, what answer do you give to that question? If 
 that answer were truthfully given in the case of all 
 officers, it is surprising how few could lay claim to 
 real loyalty. Let us note, further, that true loyalty 
 does not mean blind, passive obedience to the letter of 
 the law. It means a true effort to carry out the intent. 
 As an instance in point the following quotation from 
 Commander Schofield of the United States Navy is 
 cited : 
 
 "In an army maneuver a captain was in- 
 structed to take his company to a certain place 
 and remain there. He obeyed. Later a general 
 officer passing that way inquired of the cap- 
 tain what he was doing there, and was in- 
 formed by the captain of his orders "to re- 
 36 
 
main." It was not conceivable to that general 
 officer that the captain had no further instruc- 
 tions, but such was the case. Was that cap- 
 tain loyal? Not unless he had exhausted every 
 means to determine his true relations to the 
 affairs in hand. Loyalty is not characterized by 
 blind and servile obedience, but by intelligent, 
 active and zealous obedience." 
 The truly loyal officer will never be satisfied to 
 shield himself by claiming ignorance of his orders if it 
 be possible to obtain information. Loyalty to duty 
 requires the suppression of his own interests to aid 
 the general plan. I quote from Commander Schofield 
 the following excellent illustration of this idea : 
 
 **0n one occasion it had been decided to hold a 
 night maneuver in which numerous vessels were to 
 take part. The maneuver involved search by night 
 for the enemies' ships, and an attempt at attacking 
 them if found. The problem was so designed that 
 every ship would get valuable training in night work. 
 The hour for opening the problem was set; at that 
 hour each ship was to be in an assigned area. By a 
 prearranged signal, the maneuver was to begin on the 
 presumption that each ship was in its assigned area. 
 One of the scouts, desiring special distinction for effi- 
 ciency, passed outside its area, promptly found the 
 enemy and, on the opening of the maneuver, began 
 reporting the enemy's movements. The value of the 
 maneuver was ruined because that scout was not loyal 
 to the plan. The desire for personal distinction in the 
 maneuver out-weighed the demands of complete loyalty 
 
to the maneuver, and resulted in the wasted efforts of 
 many ships. Loyalty means the continued conscious- 
 ness of membership, of partnership, in the whole. It 
 means that the desire for the good of the whole shall 
 predominate." 
 
 If we carefully examine ourselves, we shall find too 
 often a tendency to examine the orders of our su- 
 periors. If they agree with our own ideas we are in- 
 tensely loyal. If they do not, we take them with bad 
 grace. In other words, it is too often the case that 
 our loyalty rings true only when the plan we are re- 
 quired to follow agrees with our own ideas. It is a 
 very poor and unreliable subordinate who can be de- 
 pended upon to carry out energetically only those plans 
 which he himself approves. 
 
 APPOINTMENT AND USE OF NON-COM- 
 MISSIONED OFFICERS 
 
 The back-bone of every organization is the non-com- 
 missioned officers who are a part of it. Properly se- 
 lected, properly trained and properly used, the non- 
 commissioned officers are the mainstay of discipline and 
 of efficiency. In nothing is a young officer more likely 
 to make mistakes than in the selection and in the 
 training of the corporals and the sergeants who are 
 under his control. 
 
 These non-commissioned officers live in the barracks, 
 sleep in the barracks, and take their meals in the 
 company mess. They are present during the very con- 
 siderable time when there is no officer on hand. Upon 
 them falls the brunt of maintaining company discipline. 
 38 
 
Hence, the great importance of training them so that 
 they may be properly fitted for their important duties. 
 
 As a rule, the most soldierly, best disciplined, and 
 most capable private of the company is made corporal; 
 but no officer can tell how well the new made corporal 
 will succeed until he has been tested. One great trouble 
 is that the training of the corporals is frequently not 
 along the right lines. In many organizations the duty 
 of the corporal is confined largely to drill, to guard, 
 and fatigue duty. In comparatively few organizations 
 is use made of the corporal by putting upon him the 
 supervision of his squad in every respect. No corporal 
 will be trained properly unless he has the idea that the 
 responsibility for his squad rests primarily upon him- 
 self. 
 
 No private ought to be made a corporal under the 
 supposition that in the natural order of events when 
 he has become the senior corporal he will be promoted 
 sergeant. Such a scheme is to take from the corporal 
 the main incentive to do his duty thoroughly. It robs 
 the company commander of the great value of competi- 
 tion, and competition properly used is one of the very 
 greatest assets in successful company administration. At 
 the time of his promotion the corporal should be thor- 
 oughly instructed in the duties that will be expected of 
 him. At the same time, he should be told that his own 
 future will depend upon the way that he performs this 
 duty. He should be told that if he cannot manage the 
 seven men of his squad successfully he will be relieved 
 and a successor appointed. In addition, he should be 
 told that if he manages his squad better than any other 
 39 
 
corporal in the company he will be the first to be pro- 
 moted sergeant. In this way will be established com- 
 petition and the great benefit of competition will be 
 gained. 
 
 At one time during my service in the Philippine 
 Islands I was called upon to make ten corporals from 
 a batch of recruits, none of whom had been in the 
 company more than a few days. I picked out the ten 
 men who seemed likely to be of value as non-com- 
 missioned officers and brought them together in the 
 orderly room. I explained to them that each of them 
 was to have entire charge of his squad including their 
 general instruction, the care of their equipment, the 
 supervision of the barracks occupied by his squad, and 
 especially, the general behavior of his men. They were 
 told that this general control would be exercised under 
 my supervision and under that of the lieutenants and 
 sergeants of the company, but that the actual work 
 would be done by the corporals and that we should keep 
 close note of the way in which each one performed this 
 duty. At the same time I was careful to explain that 
 it was necessary to give them relative rank at that 
 time but that I should not at all be guided by that 
 relative rank in their promotion. I explained that the 
 best corporal — the one who ran his squad in all re- 
 spects most successfully — would be the first one to be 
 promoted sergeant. I found that scheme to work ad- 
 mirably and I never after followed any other. It made 
 the corporals take an interest in their squads which I 
 could have obtained in no other way. 
 
 Not long ago I served a tour of more than four 
 40 
 
years in the Inspector General's Department. During 
 that time I had occasion to inspect many organizations 
 of the service. These organizations varied greatly in 
 appearance and in general efficiency. There was one 
 respect, however, in which all of the best organizations 
 agreed thoroughly. They were all run on the squad 
 system, and that system was made the keystone of 
 company administration. In all of the best organiza- 
 tions which I have inspected, responsibility of non- 
 commissioned officers was developed to a high degree, 
 and in a great many of them there was established a 
 system of squad competition. 
 
 It is not a difficult matter for a tactful captain to 
 establish this system of competition, either between 
 squads of his company or between companies of the 
 same regiment- I have seen companies under a tactful 
 captain work voluntarily and enthusiastically in plant- 
 ing vines and sodding the company area, laying neat 
 walks, and in every respect improving the appearance 
 of the company for the main reason that they wanted to 
 be regarded as having the most attractive company bar- 
 racks. So far as competition between squads of the 
 same organization is concerned, a captain can readily 
 establish it by holding his corporals responsible for the 
 appearance of their squads; by requiring of them that 
 prior to the regular Saturday inspection corporals shall 
 make the required preliminary inspection. 
 
 A remark of the captain at his own inspection to a 
 
 corporal of the squad that he had found the squad in 
 
 unusually good shape will put the men of that squad 
 
 on their mettle; will make every man in the squad 
 
 41 
 
strive to be worthy of that captain's commendation on 
 subsequent occasions. If any squad has fallen below 
 standard, the captain has only to call the corporal into 
 the orderly room and tell him simply that his squad 
 was unsatisfactory. If the corporal is worth his salt 
 it takes but one admonition of the captain to rouse his 
 ambition and make him determined to merit no more 
 of them. 
 
 The sergeants in their turn should have supervision 
 over the squads belonging to their sections and in 
 dealing with these squads should be required as far as 
 possible to exercise JirS^' control through the corporal. 
 Any officer who has to deal with men should call upon 
 both sergeants and corporals. It is only in this way 
 that the best use of non-commissioned officers can be 
 made and it is only in this way that can be laid the 
 assured foundation for true company efficiency. 
 
 There are two things the officer must look to care- 
 fully: Never fail to back up your non-commissioned 
 officers when they are in performance of duty; never 
 correct one in the hearing of privates if it is possible to 
 postpone the correction and give it in private. These 
 two things are essential and should receive careful 
 attention. 
 
 TACT 
 
 Of all the valuable qualities which an officer can 
 have few of them are superior in importance to tact. 
 I do not know exactly what definition the dictionary 
 gives to this word, but in a military sense it means a 
 knowledge and an appreciation of when and how to do 
 things. 
 
 42 
 
The prime essential of tact is a first-rate knowledge 
 of human nature. The tactful man knows how to deal 
 with his fellow-men. In our service today there is 
 many an officer of experience and ability whose mili- 
 tary usefulness is seriously marred because of his lack 
 of tact. It is the oil which makes the machinery of 
 military affairs run smoothly. When tact is lacking the 
 military machine soon acquires a disagreeable squeak. 
 It is not infrequently the case that success which at- 
 tends an effort depends upon the time, the place, and 
 the attending circumstances. Just a little knowledge 
 of when and how to do things sometimes accomplishes 
 the desired results when the lack of such knowledge 
 would result in inevitable failure. As illustrative of 
 this, in his admirable article on Military Character, 
 Admiral Sims relates an instance of his early service 
 which is both interesting and instructive: 
 
 "Shortly after I reported on my first ship, I learned 
 that if I made out an official application for leave, and 
 the captain approved it, I would be free to do as I 
 pleased until my leave expired. So, having prepared 
 the document in due form, I requested the marine 
 orderly at the cabin door to hand it to the captain. 
 This orderly was an old man who had had extensive 
 experience with the temperamental idiosyncrasies of 
 commanding officers. He glanced at the paper and at 
 once handed it back to me with the following wise ad- 
 monition : 'If you'd be a-takin' of my advice, now, Mr. 
 Sims, you'd hand this here request in after the old 
 man's had his lunch: he's in a h — 1 of a humor this 
 mornin' !' I followed this advice and my leave was 
 
granted, and since that time I have seldom if ever 
 made any request of a superior officer until after he has 
 had his lunch. I have related this incident to you 
 gentlemen because I believe that a systematic avoid- 
 ance of contact with an empty stomach will be found 
 as advantageous in civil as in military life." 
 
 DUTY 
 
 This is the most important word in the soldier's vo- 
 cabulary. It is a word which determines in large, part 
 the value of any officer to the military service. Great 
 ability, fine common sense, excellent intiative, and many 
 other important military qualities will be lost unless 
 accompanied by an adequate sense of duty. It is not 
 my intention to try to preach a sermon on this subject. 
 
 By duty we mean that an officer constantly exerts his 
 best ability towards doing what he ought to do. The 
 officer who neglects to put forth his best efforts under 
 all conditions thereby falls short of that which is ex- 
 pected of him. The young officer can readily determine 
 for himself his own personal equation. Better than any 
 one else the officer knows whether he constantly uses his 
 best efforts and whether to the best of his ability he is 
 attempting to perform that which he ought to do. 
 
 Duty calls for self-sacrifice. It requires that an of- 
 ficer shall neglect his own comfort and his ease to do 
 that which his own judgment and his own conscience 
 tell him he ought to do. The conscience of the young 
 officer will be his best guide to tell him whether he is 
 following his duty according to his best light. His 
 conscience will tell him whether, when he is on guard 
 44 
 
he uses his best endeavors to instruct and to inspect 
 his sentinels closely and thoroughly; it will tell him 
 whether at the end of a hard march he neglects his own 
 weariness to look after the comfort of the men who are 
 dependent upon him; it will tell him whether in all of 
 the matters which are put upon him he is giving to the 
 service the best that is in him. If he does not in every 
 respect use his best abilities, if he is not persistent in 
 his endeavors to do what he ought to do, then he has 
 fallen short of what the Government has a right to ex- 
 pect. Many an officer in our service, of excellent ability 
 otherwise, finds himself unrewarded because he is 
 lacking in the talent of continuous and persistent ef- 
 fort. It is of no use to be a genius unless that power 
 is used. The careful, slow-plodding officer, who can 
 always be relied upon to do his best, is of far more 
 value than the brilliant but erratic officer whose ability 
 is not always dependable. 
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Scarcely anything more adverse to the efficiency of an 
 officer can be said than to say that he lacks decision of 
 character. By decision of character we mean the abil- 
 ity to arrive at a conclusion and follow that conclusion 
 to its legitimate results. The uncertain man who never 
 knows his own mind and who is always conferring and 
 consulting with others is never able to gain the confi- 
 dence of his own men. Soldiers in a company are not 
 long in sizing up an officer's ability in this respect. 
 
 Few young officers have decision of character in a 
 prominent degree. Lack of experience makes many of 
 45 
 
them timid. Decision of character in the mihtary man 
 is not as a rule a thing which comes to an officer in full 
 blossom. It is, however, a thing which can be readily 
 developed. Observation and experience are great teach- 
 ers in this respect and by constant effort any young 
 officer of ability will soon be master of his own de- 
 cision. I do not mean by this that an officer, whatever 
 his ability, should neglect the opinions and suggestions 
 of others. Nothing is more disgusting than the head- 
 strong man who will listen to the opinion of nobody. 
 What I mean is that having heard the opinions and 
 suggestions of others the decision must be that of the 
 officer himself. In our service we find there are some- 
 times officers with long years of service and of high 
 rank who are dominated entirely by subordinates. Such 
 officers are never able to announce a decision until 
 they have consulted a subbrdinate and the decision 
 when it is announced is not that of himself but of his 
 subordinate. Hardly anything is more humiliating to 
 a superior than to know that his subordinates do not 
 regard him as the real power behind the throne, but 
 look for someone of his staff. The young officer should 
 try to train himself in this respect and come early to 
 rely upon himself and be master of his own mind. Self- 
 conceit in any man is disgusting but self-confidence is 
 an admirable trait when kept within proper bounds. 
 
 INITIATIVE AND SELF-CONFIDENCE 
 We have lots of officers of ability and of good inten- 
 tion who know their duty and do what is told them in 
 an excellent way; but the trouble with such officers is 
 that they lack initiative. They never do anything ex- 
 46 
 
cept what they are told to do; they never start any- 
 thing. 
 
 No officer is so helpless and so hopeless and so use- 
 less as the one who is content to drag along pursuing 
 the even tenor of his way, never evincing any real ac- 
 tive interest in his own profession.. The officer whose 
 only interest in his profession is to draw his pay and 
 keep out of trouble is not a military asset but a lia- 
 bility. The officer in our service who is known as a 
 live-wire is a man who is constantly on the alert to im- 
 prove the service. It is the duty of every officer to try 
 to inculcate initiative in those under his control and to 
 foster is't)y every means in his power. This can best be 
 done by assigning certain duties to subordinates, giving 
 them general instructions relative to the matters under 
 their charge and leaving the accomplishment of details 
 to their own ways and means. The higher in rank that 
 an officer gets the more important it is that he learn the 
 art of supervising, while entrusting to subordinates the 
 actual performance of details. On the part of the su- 
 bordinate who is ambitious to succeed every opportun- 
 ity should be seized to attain success, coupled with a 
 determination to put forth his best endeavors. No su- 
 bordinate should ever miss a chance, however strenuous 
 the work required, to have an independent command. 
 
 In carrying out any work entrusted to him, however, 
 the subordinate should be very careful to make a dis- 
 tinction between true initiative and undue license. 
 Nothing is more irritating to a superior officer than to 
 find that the authority which he has been willing to en- 
 trust to a subordinate has been made the basis, on the 
 47 
 
part of that subordinate, of exercising an authority 
 which was never meant to be delegated to him. 
 
 True initiative is based upon strong will power. Will 
 power is a quality born in men and not readily acquired, 
 although it may be developed and increased by proper 
 care. No officer is really valuable who has not strong 
 will power, for with it goes energy, power to accomplish 
 work and resolute persistence. Von der Goltz says that 
 "Sway over others is before all else founded upon will." 
 Usually accompanying strong will is self-confidence. A 
 man who has self-confidence has the courage of his 
 convictions and is rarely possessed of doubt. 
 
 These two qualities, initiative and confidence, almost 
 invariably are accompanied by a most valuable quality 
 —that of willingness to bear responsibility. Among all 
 desirable qualities which an officer can possess scarcely 
 any are to be rated higher than the power of initiative 
 and the confidence in himself to attain the ends which 
 he has in view. 
 
 COMPLAINTS 
 
 The officer on duty with troops is bound sooner or 
 later to have to deal with complaints on the part of 
 some of his men. The handling of complaints is a 
 pretty good test of an officer's ability to manage men. 
 
 If too much encouragement be given complaints 
 there is sure to be a growing number of men in every 
 company who will always be ready to complain on one 
 score or another. Very frequently the complaints are 
 ae-ainst non-commissioned officers ; it is not infrequently 
 the case that they are well founded, and the neglect to 
 48 
 
entertain and investigate them would leave a festering 
 sore that would be bad for discipline and that would en- 
 gender discontent. It takes good judgment to handle 
 complaints satisfactorily — so as neither to weaken the 
 authority of the non-commissioned officer nor to allow 
 the complainant to go away feeling that he has not had 
 a square deal. , 
 
 Some officers allow men to come to them freely with 
 complaints without ever having spoken to any non-com- 
 missioned officer nor to the first sergeant. Other offi- 
 cers never receive any complaints, or if they do it is in 
 such a grudging and inritable way that the man feels 
 that he has not had justice done. I believe that a safe 
 rule in hearing complaints of men in a company is to 
 insist that each one shall have permission from the first 
 sergeant before being allowed to come to the officer to 
 state his case. At the same time the first sergeant 
 should have direct and positive instructions that he 
 must report to the captain every complaint that he re- 
 ceives. When the complaint has been heard the man 
 must be given a square deal. If it is a case in which 
 the non-commissioned officer is to blame a reprimand 
 should in the usual case be given in private. 
 
 The officer must always bear in mind his duty to sup- 
 port non-commissioned officers who are attempting to 
 maintain discipline, but no non-commissioned officer is 
 entitled to support at the expense of doing justice to 
 the men under his control. -^ 
 
 49 
 
NEATNESS 
 
 If a regiment is stood iVi line for inspection it is often 
 possible to pick out the best and most efficient company 
 in that regiment by walking down the line and select- 
 ing the one that presents the best and neatest appear- 
 ance. 
 
 When an inspector lo6ks a company over and finds 
 many men who are not properly shaven ; and a consid- 
 erable proportion have grease spots on their coats and 
 dust on their shoes, and a goodly number with hair that 
 needs trimming; when he finds that the equipment is in 
 poor shape and that there is a lack of uniformity in the 
 way that it is worn, he can feel pretty sure that the in- 
 struction and general efficiency of that company will 
 correspond to its outward appearance. 
 
 Neatness is a prime military virtue. Therefore, the 
 young officer should strive for it with might and main. 
 There is no one thing for which American soldiers 
 have been more constantly criticised than in their 
 slouchy appearance; in their lack of care in the details 
 of presenting a neat and soldierly appearance. There 
 is no doubt that we are entirely too careless in this re- 
 spect. Everything about a military organization ought 
 to be a model of order, arrangement and neatness. The 
 mess room, kitchen, barracks, billet, tents, clothing and 
 equipment of the men, in fact, everything connected 
 with the company, should receive scrupulous care. It 
 is here especially that the officer sets the example and 
 he can not be too careful. Some officers are disgrace- 
 fully negligent in this respect. 
 50 
 
I once inspected a company that, in the absence of 
 its permanent commander, was temporarily commanded 
 by a lieutenant, who was an intelligent officer and a 
 graduate of West Point. He was not at all responsible 
 for the condition of the company, being only temporar- 
 ily on duty with it, but I found it to be in excellent 
 condition and every man was spick and span in appear- 
 ance. I have seldom seen a company that presented a 
 better appearance and I remarked to that effect to the 
 lieutenant who seemed to be much delighted that the 
 company had made such a fine showing. When the 
 company had been dismissed and we had gone alone 
 into the orderly room I remarked to the* lieutenant that 
 it was a pity that a single man in the company should 
 be able to do so much to detract from its general show- 
 ing. He began at once to stammer and explain that he 
 must have overlooked the man I had in mind, as he had 
 not heard me speak about it in ranks. I told him that 
 I was not in a position to speak about it at that time 
 but that when he went home, if he took a look in the 
 mirror, he would have a good chance to observe the 
 man I had reference to. He was unshaven ; there were 
 spots on his coat; his shoes and leggings were not well 
 polished, and I felt it a shame that a man who drew 
 high salary for instructing others should present the 
 poorest appearance of any man in the company. 
 
 It ought to be a matter of pride on the part of the 
 officer to see how neat he can keep his company and he 
 can do no more helpful thing in this respect than to set 
 for his men an example that they will emulate. 
 51 
 
SALUTING 
 
 There is hardly anything in which the American 
 Army is more negligent than in the matter of saluting; 
 there is scarcely anything in which it makes as bad an 
 appearance. We have never been a military people and 
 the great mass of our fellow citizens have been in- 
 clined to look upon salutes on the part of the soldier as 
 a mark of inferiority or a badge of servility. 
 
 A great many American soldiers render the salute in 
 a shame-faced sort of way. Many of them dodge it 
 entirely by pretending not to see the officer. One has 
 only to walk along the streets of the city where there 
 are many soldiers passing to verify the foregoing state- 
 ment. As a matter of fact, nothing could be further 
 from the truth than that the salute is a mark of ser- 
 vility or inferiority. On the contrary, it is only an ex- 
 change of courtesies between men who are in the mili- 
 tary service. If a soldier is required to salute the of- 
 ficer there is the same requirement that the officer shall 
 return the salute and it is done in the same way. 
 
 In civil life the young man who is employed in a bank 
 or store would be regarded as decidedly uncivil and 
 lacking in courtesy and proper respect if he failed on 
 entering his place of employment to greet those over 
 him. It is not at all belittling, not at all a badge of ser- 
 vility for the bank clerk to say, "Good morning" to the 
 cashier when he comes into the room. Neither is it at 
 all a badge of inferiority for the soldier to salute his 
 officer. Carelessness and indifference on the part of 
 our soldiers and sailors in this respect is most harmful 
 52 
 
to discipline. Discipline requires that the soldier shall 
 salute his officer and when this requirement is neglected 
 it establishes on the part of the soldier a habit of neg- 
 lect which will extend to other matters. 
 
 I fear that in large part our carelessness in this re- 
 spect is due to the fact that many men are placed in the 
 uniform who have never had any military instruction. 
 Some time ago on the streets of New York City I met 
 three men in uniform and they passed me without pay- 
 ing the slightest attention so that I went back and ques- 
 tioned one of them as to how much service he had had 
 and he told me none at all. These men had just that 
 morning put on their uniforms getting ready to go 
 across the sea. They were civilian employees of the 
 Engineer Department, clothed in the uniform of the 
 combatant troops with the words "Civilian Employee" 
 in small letters on the left sleeve quite inconspicuous 
 at a distance. 
 
 The importance of the salute and what is meant by 
 it is impossible to over-estimate. It is a mark of the 
 soldier's respect for his officer. At the very beginning 
 of the Bolsheviki reign the Soldier's and Workman's 
 Congress passed a resolution as follows: "The men will 
 not in future salute officers." That was th€ first step 
 toward the downfall of the Russian military forces. 
 In quoting this resolution, Colonel Applin of the Brit- 
 ish General Staff writes, "Now isn't that a trifle? Yet 
 that small trifle has led to the telegram that reads, *The 
 troops have left the trenches. The artillery h being 
 sold. Officers are serving as cooks and orderlies.' " 
 
 We are supposed in this country to be free from the 
 
miserable propaganda of the Bolsheviki and yet it was 
 not a great while ago that a resolution was introduced 
 iriti^ Congress by one of its members providing that sol- 
 diers should be required to salute no officer except 
 those of their immediate organization. It seems strange 
 that our people cannot get it into their heads that the 
 salute is the very foundation of military respect and 
 courtesy. Neglect in this matter is ruinous to disci- 
 pline. . 
 
 I am convinced there are two main reasons why our 
 soldiers are so careless in the matter of saluting offi- 
 cers. The first is that they are not properly and thor- 
 oughly instructed, that they are allowed to pass officers 
 without saluting or to do it in a most improper way, 
 and all without correction; and secondly, that a great 
 many of our officers are themselves most negligent in 
 the way they return salutes. It ought to be a matter of 
 pride on the part of every officer carefully and puncti- 
 liously to return the courtesies of soldiers. If more 
 regard were given to this matter we would soon find a 
 very different status from that which now exists. 
 
 DESERTION 
 
 Of all things in our service which are harmful to 
 military efficiency few of them are equal in importance 
 to desertion. We are not a military people and a great 
 many of our fellow citizens have not looked upon the 
 military service with any degree of interest or of affec- 
 tion. By many of our people the seriousness of the 
 crime of desertion is not appreciated. They regard the 
 soldier who deserts in the same light as a civilian who 
 54 
 
has made an agreement to render certain services and 
 then quits his job. The heinousness of the offense of 
 taking an oath to follow the country and to serve the 
 country's flag, and then violating that oath is lacking in 
 civilian estimation. 
 
 In many countries where military service in time of 
 peace is much more popular than in our own, the de- 
 serter is despised and detested and he is given over to 
 the hands of the authorities as soon as he is discov- 
 ered. It is not so in our country. On the contrary, in 
 many of our communities the deserter is shielded and 
 protected. It is my opinion that one of the great rea- 
 sons for this state of affairs is the fact that our army 
 and the great mass of people — at least before the be- 
 ginning of this war — were too far apart. The people 
 saw too little of the army to know its needs or to ap- 
 preciate its work. The greatest aid that can come to 
 our military service is a closer union between the army 
 and the pople. '^ 
 
 In large part desertion will cease as soon as the sol- 
 dier knows that he has thereby committed a crime 
 which makes him despicable to his comrades in civil 
 life. While I am sure that desertions in our army 
 are largely the result of the fact that the serious- 
 ness of the crime is not appreciated by our civilian 
 population, I am confident that the number of de- 
 sertions in our army would be greatly lessened by 
 proper effort on the part of our officers. Too many of 
 our officers apparently go on the supposition that the 
 only way to check desertion is by punishment afier the 
 
 55 
 
crime has been committed and the soldier is again 
 within military control. They never do anything to 
 prevent the crime from taking place. I state it as a 
 fact, which I believe could be established without diffi- 
 culty, that a very large proportion of our men who de- 
 sert leave the colors and break their oath without even 
 having heard a single officer raise his voice to caution 
 them against committing this great crime. Many of our 
 officers when asked about desertion merely state that a 
 certain number of men have deserted and then on their 
 part ask, "What are you going to do about it?" If any 
 officer is satisfied to have men desert from his company 
 without his ever taking any steps whatever to prevent 
 it he has failed in his duty and he has not done what 
 the Government has a right to expect. The officer has 
 a certain duty which he owes to himself and to his 
 Government and if he shirks it the blame, in part at 
 least, can be placed upon his shoulders. 
 
 Every recruit who joins a company ought to be talked 
 to on this subject; he ought to be instructed thoroughly 
 by his officer as to the difference that exists between 
 a mere civil contract and an oath of enlistment. He 
 should understand the difference between a man who 
 makes a bargain in civil life and then changes his mind 
 and the man who raises his hand and takes a solemn 
 oath to serve his country and follow the flag, and then 
 breaks that oath. It is up to the officer to explain this 
 difference to the young soldier, not by long sermons, 
 but by such brief talks to his men as will put into the 
 company a spirit of detestation for that man who en- 
 gages to serve his country and then violates his oath. 
 56 
 
DISCIPLINE 
 
 That which distinguishes the trained military force 
 from the mob is discipline. It is a most difficult quality 
 to secure. Our vast resources make it possible to pur- 
 chase ships, munitions and supplies of every kind. If 
 we are short on supplies we can go into the market and 
 buy them, but no financial resources can purchase dis- 
 cipline because it is not for sale. It can be provided 
 only by the slow laborious process of constant care 
 and persistent effort. In his admirable lecture on this 
 subject, Colonel Applin of the British General Staff 
 defines discipline as, "instant and willing obedience to 
 all orders, and in the absence of orders, to what you 
 believe the order would have been." ^ 
 
 Discipline is the very soul of armies, difficult to ac- 
 quire, but capable of being lost almost immediately. 
 The means of acquiring discipline vary according to 
 the characteristics of the people. The methods which 
 succeed in one country will fail entirely in another. In 
 referring to this subject General Applin says, "First of 
 all, our enemy has it in the most extraordinary degree. 
 He has an iron military discipline such as the vvorld 
 has probably never seen, or certainly never since the 
 time of the Romans. And what discipline is it? It is 
 the discipline of force, brought to a great point by an 
 autocracy. It is the discipline of the lash, and the of- 
 ficer thinks nothing of lashing his men across the face 
 for not standing at attention properly. It is the disci- 
 pline that sends the men to death at the point of the 
 officer's revolver who stands behind,, but it is neverthe- 
 57 
 
less a discipline, and we must get a better discipline 
 than this or we cannot defeat the enemy." 
 
 It need hardly be said that the means of enforcing 
 discipline in the German army as above described, 
 would never be tolerated for a moment in our own 
 country. The American officer who would lash a sol- 
 dier across the face for not standing at attention prop- 
 erly would not last longer than it would take to con- 
 vene a courtmartial for his trial. With us the only 
 means of discipline that is likely to succeed is that 
 which has for its object the development of a willing 
 and cheerful obedience on the part of the soldier. The 
 officer who knows how to attain this end is an ex- 
 tremely valuable one. The autocratic methods of Ger- 
 many are based upon unlimited power of the officer and 
 upon fear on the part of the soldier which has been in- 
 stilled by many years of application of the method of 
 force. To establish thorough discipline in an organi- 
 zation is not an easy task and we may as well recognize 
 rome of the difficulties at the beginning. In plain truth 
 tnc young American is more difficult to discipline than 
 the soldier of almost any other nationality. This may 
 not be a pleasant truth but it is truth just the same. 
 
 "We are all sovereigns in America" makes fine read- 
 ing but it does not make fine soldiers. No man can be 
 a good soldier until he has thoroughly learned the 
 lesson that the principal duty of a soldier is not to be 
 a sovereign but to obey "his orders. And "there's the 
 rub" with the young American. All his life-time he 
 has been accustomed to doing as he pleases. We do 
 not any of us lay aside the habits and the training of a 
 58 
 
life-time without considerable struggling and consider- 
 able misgivings. The young man who has been accus- 
 tomed to being his own master and to making up his 
 own mind as he goes along does not take kindly to the 
 restriction's which discipline imposes. There are two 
 principal methods of enforcing discipline — first, by 
 force, which is used to a large extent by the Germans, 
 and the second, based on common sense, pride and pat- 
 riotism. Our people would never stand for the Ger- 
 man method. It is foreign to our whole national char- 
 acter and should not be considered for a moment. At 
 the same time no discipline can accomplish much if 
 force is lacking when it becomes necessary. The true 
 method of establishing discipline is by reliance upon 
 the pride of the soldier; by appeals to his common 
 sense; and by force of example. 
 
 AMUSEMENTS AND RECREATION 
 
 "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is just 
 as true of the young soldier as it is of the young 
 civilian. 
 
 Some officers take very little interest in their men 
 outside of bare official requirements. When this is the 
 case it is unfortunate. Officers should feel a lively in- 
 terest in whatever will add to the pleasure and content- 
 ment of their men. Efficient soldiers are generally con- 
 tented ones, and you cannot keep young American sol- 
 diers contented within the bare walls of a barrack 
 building without providing some form of amusement. 
 If the officer responsible in this matter does not take 
 sufficient interest to provide adequate facilities for 
 59 
 
amusement and for recreation the men will look around 
 and become interested in the first thing that comes to 
 hand. During the proper seasons of the year physical 
 contests and out of door games are the best sources of 
 recreation for soldiers because they serve to develop 
 the physical powers of the soldier and have a tendency 
 to interest him in normal and healthy recreation. Dur- 
 ing the winter months a bowling alley, a few pool 
 tables, an amusement room, a good reading room sup- 
 plied with magazines and books are all aids to content- 
 ment and hence are aids to discipline. 
 
 The amusement and recreation of soldiers affords a 
 fine field for the activities of young officers. In this 
 field they can do much pleasant work and at the same 
 time gain much useful knowledge in the management 
 of men. If the services of our young officers who are 
 graduates of West Point and the colleges and univer- 
 sities were properly utilized they would be invaluable 
 in the way of supervising out-door sports and gymnas- 
 tic exercises of their men. These subjects all receive 
 great attention at West Point, and also at the various 
 colleges and universities, which are the sources from 
 which we have derived many excellent young officers in 
 recent months. 
 
 LANGUAGE AND MANNERS OF SOLDIERS 
 Any close observer would be surprised to see what a 
 difference there is between companies at the same sta- 
 tion and some times in the same regiment in respect to 
 the language and manners of the men. That difference 
 like many other differences between companies is due 
 60 
 
to the individual equation of the officers who are re- 
 sponsible for the organization. 
 
 Truth compels the statement that neither the lan- 
 guage nor the manners of many of our soldiers are 
 what they ought to be. Most officers will readily admit 
 this to be the fact. I do not draw attention to this un- 
 pleasant statement except to place the blame where it 
 ought to be — upon the officers who are responsible for 
 the organization, and to say that there can be most 
 radical and pleasant change in this respect if the offi- 
 cers will exhibit a little needed attention. All of our 
 older officers will admit that the young soldiers of 
 many organizations have a bad habit of using disgust- 
 ing, vulgar and obscene language — language that would 
 bring a touch of shame to the cheeks of any decent 
 woman. It is not infrequently the case that this dis- 
 gusting language is used in the presence and in the 
 hearing of officers without any effort on their part to 
 check it. 
 
 I am not a prude and I am not shocked when I hear 
 a soldier or any one else utter an ordinary oath ; but the 
 vile, obscene language which some officers permit to be 
 used in their hearing with no word of protest, is dis- 
 gusting in the extreme. No officer worthy of the name 
 ought to permit it for it is an easy matter to correct. 
 Nothing more is needed than a few words to the effect 
 that this kind of language will not be tolerated in the 
 company. Lay the law down to the non-commissioned 
 officers; award a few hours of kitchen police to first 
 offenders, and there will be no subsequent violations. 
 61 
 
Some officers pay very little attention to the manners 
 of their men. When I was an inspector I used to drop 
 in some times at meal hours of the organizations at the 
 post where I was making an inspection. I sometimes 
 found the greatest difference between companies. Some 
 captains required their men to come to meals in proper 
 uniform and the company presented a good appearance 
 while at meals. In other ccompanies men were per- 
 mitted to straggle in at will, barefoot, wearing under- 
 shirt, blue denim overalls, or any other old thing that 
 came handy, looking for all the world like a lot of cow- 
 boys at a "chuck wagon dinner." 
 
 If an officer lets his men run wild — if he permits 
 them to use any language they wish, however vile or 
 obscene — if he allows them to come to meals bare-foot 
 and in undershirt, it is not unlikely that the same spirit 
 will characterize the performance of all that they un- 
 dertake. 
 
 LEADERSHIP 
 
 This is the most serious part of the officer's business. 
 It is toward fitting himself for this most important 
 work that all of an officer's energy should tend. To be 
 a real leader of men is the summit of an officer's use- 
 fulness. Few officers attain it in eminent degree. No- 
 body can tell just what are the indispensable qualities 
 that produce the desired effect. 
 
 Captain (now Brigadier General) Andrews, says, "A 
 good leader is as one with his men, he speaks their lan- 
 guage, he shares their blessings and their hardships, he 
 is jealous of their name, he defends their sensibilities 
 62 
 
and their rights in the larger organization, in fact he is 
 the recognized guardian of their welfare, physical and 
 mental as individuals and as a group. He becomes 
 their hero and is affectionately nick-named. Making 
 camp after a hard march he will not accept an invita- 
 tion to lunch while his men go hungry awaiting a de- 
 layed wagon ; he would not take shelter while his men 
 lay out in a storm. In short he does everything at all 
 times to make them feel that he is looking out for 
 their interests, not his own selfish comfort. It is in- 
 cidentally true that when hardships come he will be 
 more than repaid by their devotion to him and care for 
 his comfort." 
 
 Leadership is based on a knowledge and a correct 
 appreciation of the enormous value of the spirit which 
 actuates men. Napoleon's opinion is embodied in his 
 famous maxim that: "in war the moral is to the physi- 
 cal as three to one." Marmont said: "A leader's 
 knowledge of war is incomplete if in addition to his 
 skill in conceiving technical combinations he does not 
 possess a knowledge of the human heart, if he has not 
 the power of gauging the momentary temper of his 
 own troops and also that of the enemy." 
 
 Leadership must accommodate itself to the men who 
 are led. Napoleon was wont to arouse his soldiers to 
 wild enthusiasm by harangues addressed to the imagina- 
 tion of his men. Similar harangues addressed to 
 American soldiers would fall flat. Yet the American 
 soldier is just as susceptible to the influence of his 
 officer as the French soldier ; the only difference is that 
 the influence must be exerted in a way to accommo- 
 63 
 
date itself to his national characteristics, and this brings 
 us back to the statement already made, that the young 
 ofEcer who desires to succeed must carefully study his 
 men. All men cannot be managed in the same way. 
 There is as much difference between men as there is 
 between children and the officer will have best success 
 who recognizes this fact and works upon it. Every 
 group of men working together soon comes to have a 
 soul of its own. This is so regardless of the size or 
 the nationality of the group, it is true of a squad and 
 it is true of an army. The leader who learns to know 
 that spirit has acquired a grip that is invaluable. Gen- 
 eral Andrews well says, "There are many means of 
 appeal to this spirit; you must learn to use them. You 
 can make lagging foot-steps quicken and fatigue-dulled 
 minds brighten, just as martial music will make a jaded 
 column spring to life; the men are no less tired, but 
 new nerve-forces have supervened and made them for- 
 get the fatigue. This soul is as susceptible to bad in- 
 fluences as to good. How disastrous if the leader 
 offend it. How important that he be in touch with it, 
 and treat it intelligently." 
 
 RESPECT FOR THE UNIFORM 
 
 Those of us who have been many years in the army 
 can recall without difficulty the many articles that have 
 appeared in our service journals and in the public 
 press bewailing the lack of respect on the part of the 
 public at large for the uniform of our soldiers and 
 sailors. A few years ago the discussion of this subject 
 was acute. Many states passed laws intended to pre- 
 64 
 
vent invidious distinction against the wearers of their 
 country's uniform. Restaurants, theatres, dance halls 
 and other places of amusement were the chief offenders. 
 
 It seems queer that in a free country the uniform 
 of that country should meet with disfavor; but it is 
 of no use to deny the facts. In some of our moving 
 picture films the young hero was occasionally repre- 
 sented as pursued by relentless fate: things went 
 against him and he lost one position after another 
 until at last he paused before a sign reading: "Men 
 wanted for the United States Army." Apparently that 
 was the last straw. Cruel fate could pursue him no 
 further. It is strange that many of our fellow citizens 
 should look upon the young man applying at the re- 
 cruiting station as the victim of ill fortune and should 
 shun association with him because he wears his coun- 
 try's uniform. 
 
 Many explanations have been given for this unfavor- 
 able opinion. Some have attributed it in large part to 
 the hostility of certain labor unions, and especially to 
 the propaganda of such bodies as the I. W. W. In 
 part, perhaps, these explanations serve to explain — but 
 in part only. In my opinion the fault can be laid in 
 large part at the door of the Army itself. I feel quite 
 sure that the remedy is in our own hands, if we will 
 but use it. People usually respect that which is re- 
 spectable. It is a fact that prior to the present war 
 it was not an unusual sight to see soldiers parading the 
 streets while under the influence of liquor. 
 
 It is also a fact that many of our non-commissioned 
 officers and our best men passed these drunken soldiers 
 65 
 
with never an effort to correct the abuse. Some of our 
 soldiers wear their uniform into low dives and places 
 of questionable reputation. A civilian who is under the 
 influence of liquor and reels while walking on the 
 street attracts comparatively little attention. It is not 
 so with the soldier, for his uniform serves to make him 
 conspicuous. The soldier whom the public shuns is not 
 the neat, self-respecting young man. The soldier who 
 gives the army a black eye is the man who wears his 
 uniform while reeling in the street or while visiting 
 low dives or brothels. 
 
 If the army is to do its share toward raising the 
 uniform to its proper plane in public estimation, the 
 right place for us to start is with the man who wears 
 the uniform. When all our soldiers are neat, respect- 
 able, orderly and sober, we shall have no more trouble 
 about the question of proper respect for the uniform. 
 
 The present war with its feature of universal con- 
 scription and the acute interest of the country in all 
 men who wear the uniform has wrought a wonderful 
 change in the attitude of the people towards the army. 
 There is now the kindliest feeling towards all soldiers. 
 The Y. M. C. A., the Red Cross, the Knights of 
 Columbus, the various Camp Welfare associations, to 
 say nothing of the tremendous number of local and 
 municipal organizations, have all done a great work in 
 providing for the comfort and the pleasure of our 
 soldiers. 
 
 This interest has not been at all confined to the 
 activities of organized associations. The hospitalities of 
 numerous private homes has shown how general is the 
 66 
 
interest in the soldier. If this present war has done 
 no other good to the army it has at least served to 
 bring into closer union the great mass of our people 
 and the soldiers who wear the country's uniform. This 
 interest will doubtless continue after the war is over. 
 The thousands who now wear the uniform and who will 
 return to civil life at the conclusion of the war will 
 be a leaven to the country at large. Let us hope the 
 time may never come again when there will be any 
 lessening of the present kindly feeling of the people 
 towards the wearers of the uniform. 
 
 CARING FOR GOVERNMENT PROPERTY 
 
 One of the important duties of officers is to see that 
 proper care is taken of Government property. Too 
 often this important duty is neglected. Under existing 
 orders the Government furnishes, as may be needed, 
 clothing and equipment for soldiers and there is no 
 charge against the soldier for what he receives. Often- 
 times there is a tendency on the part of the soldier 
 to mutilate or destroy Government property in order 
 that it may be replaced by that which is fresher or 
 newer. It is the business of the officer carefully to 
 watch and protect the interests of the Government in 
 this matter. 
 
 Sometime ago when I was an Inspector a large num- 
 ber of blankets* were placed before me and I noted 
 they were all torn in practically the same way. In- 
 vestigation showed that they had been torn under the 
 supervision of the young officer who corhmanded the 
 company because he wanted his men to have new 
 
 a 
 
blankets. He had to pay personally for the damage 
 which he had done to Government property and I have 
 no doubt that the lesson in his case was a salutary one. 
 It ought to be a matter of pride to officers to aid the 
 Government by seeing that the best possible care is 
 taken of all property issued to soldiers and to build 
 up among the men a feeling of their duty to the 
 Government in this respect. 
 
 SAVING MONEY 
 
 The Government makes provision for allowing any 
 soldier to deposit money with the paymaster and binds 
 itself to pay interest of four per cent, on deposits. 
 This apparently is a small matter but it is one which 
 ought not be neglected. 
 
 In the first place, depositing money with the pay- 
 master inculcates in the young soldier an idea of thrift. 
 In the second place, when he deposits his money he 
 hasn't so much to s^end uselessly. And lastly, when 
 a soldier has money on deposit with the Government 
 the officer who has charge of that soldier has a grip 
 upon him that is quite useful. Rarely does any sol- 
 dier desert who has considerable money with the 
 Government; rarely does he go absent without leave; 
 and not often is the soldier who deposits money ad- 
 dicted to the use of liquor. It will be found as a rule 
 that those soldiers who deposit money with the Gov- 
 ernment are the best and most reliable men of the 
 company and the company commander has a grip on 
 them that is extremely useful. 
 68 
 
TALKING TO SOLDIERS 
 
 Many of our older officers are adverse to talking to 
 soldiers, or, at any rate, they never pursue that policy. 
 Some of them feel that the only way to manage a 
 soldier is by the iron hand of the law. They pooh- 
 pooh any other method and ridicule what they term 
 "moral suasion methods." 
 
 If young soldiers are talked to in the right way and 
 at the right time and just to the right extent, it is ex- 
 tremely useful to them. They learn much in this way 
 that they could learn in no other. I am convinced that 
 many of our officers neglect their duty in this respect. 
 This remark has particular application to our older 
 officers. Some of them seem to act on the principle 
 that a soldier should absorb all of the things which he 
 ought to know just as a sponge absorbs water. There 
 are a great many of our soldiers who get into trouble 
 and are tried by court-martial who have never heard 
 a single officer warn them against any of the tempta- 
 tions of a soldier. They have never been told about 
 desertion, nor of the respect which they owe to their 
 uniform, nor cautioned against the evil of drunkenness, 
 nor of wearing their uniform into dives and disreput- 
 able places, nor concerning any of the other many, 
 many things which a soldier ought to be told about. 
 
 In my opinion the company officer who neglects his 
 duty in this respect falls short of what the Govern- 
 ment has a right to expect, and short of what his own 
 judgment would tell him he ought to do. If any offi- 
 cer commands a company and has men desert whom he. 
 69 
 
has never cautioned against committing that great 
 crime, he is, in part, responsible for that desertion. 
 
 On the other hand, talking to soldiers should not be 
 carried to such an extent as to make it either a bore 
 or to nag them by long, drawn-out sermons. There is 
 a way to do everything right and the right way to talk 
 to soldiers is to give them a few short sentences in re- 
 gard to one subject at a time. The time to talk to 
 them is when they are not fatigued and the way to 
 talk to them is by looking them squarely in the eye, 
 say what you have to say and then stop. 
 
 ESPRIT 
 
 All of an officer's efforts should be directed towards 
 creating the proper spirit in his men both individually 
 and collectively. The soldier or the organization which 
 does duty only because it has to is of very poor quality. 
 
 There are some horses of mettle and spirit which it 
 is a pleasure to look at. Their movements are free 
 and easy and they work because they like it; there are 
 other horses which never move unless there are oats 
 ahead of them or a whip behind. It is just so in the 
 army: Some soldiers and some organizations take an 
 interest and a pride in their work. Others drag along 
 and find their chief interest only at the mess table or 
 on pay day. 
 
 Therefore, all of an officer's efforts should be bent 
 upon developing an interest of his men in their work. 
 The result will depend upon the officer himself. The 
 first requisite on the part of the officer to accomplish 
 this result is a live interest on his own part. No man 
 70 
 
can create an interest among men where he feels no in- 
 terest himself. One officer will step in front of a com- 
 pany and the men will give a fine, snappy drill; all of the 
 men will be right up on their toes. Another officer may 
 take the same company and every movement will drag. 
 In establishing this interest an officer should be care- 
 ful to consider the characteristics of his men. The 
 autocratic methods that are used in the German army 
 would bring only disaster if applied to the American 
 soldier. The German soldier will do whatever his offi- 
 cer tells him. Years of training have instilled into 
 him implicit obedience to the will of his officers. With 
 the American' soldier you get best results by explain- 
 ing the reasons for things first. The American will 
 endure privation and hardship as well as any soldier 
 in the world when privation and hardship are neces- 
 sary, but he does not like to undergo discomfort unless 
 he sees the necessity for it. For instance, the Ameri- 
 can soldier will carry his heavy pack containing rations, 
 and blankets and ammunition uncomplainingly. He 
 needs his blankets, he wants the food and he may have 
 to use his ammunition. A few years ago when prac- 
 tice marches first began it was ordered in some com- 
 mands that extra weight should be provided by putting 
 small bags of sand or bits of iron wrapped in cloth 
 into the soldier's pack. The idea was to harden the 
 soldier by getting him accustomed to the extra weight. 
 To many soldiers this plan was exceedingly obnoxious. 
 They did not like the plan because they could see no 
 necessity for it. In soldier parlance they objected to 
 being used as pack horses. 
 
 71 
 
The officer who can develop in his men a live spirit 
 is a most valuable one. The means of doing it are 
 various — often-times competition is the most successful 
 method. Competition between squads of the same com- 
 pany are most effective. Then the effort to excel some 
 other company is often-times used with great advan- 
 tage. One officer under whom I served was most suc- 
 cessful in developing that kind of individual interest 
 in his men by keeping ever before them the fact of 
 their individual responsibility. If he saw one of his 
 men presenting a careless or slouchy appearance he 
 would have him sent to the orderly room and would 
 say, "Smith, I take lots of interest in the appearance 
 of my men and I want you to do it, too. Your present 
 appearance might do for some other company but it 
 won't do for this one because it is not up to our 
 standard." By such means he made the men of his 
 company take an interest in themselves and an interest 
 in the company. 
 
 The morale of armies is the most valuable asset they . 
 can have, and the morale of armies is founded upon the 
 esprit of individuals. 
 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN OFFICERS AND 
 ENLISTED MEN 
 
 Under Army Regulations and .customs of the service 
 undue familiarity between officers and enlisted men is 
 forbidden. Our country is so wholly non-military in 
 character that many Americans have found it hard to 
 understand this relationship, and have commented ad- 
 versely upon it. Now that stress of war is upon us 
 12 
 
this requirement of the regulations should be enforced 
 even more rigorously than in time of peace. 
 
 This requirement is not founded r;;^on any difference 
 in the social status between the officer and the enlisted 
 man; nor is it founded upon any difference in culture 
 or mental attainments. It is founded solely upon the 
 demands of discipline. Discipline requires an immedi- 
 ate, loyal, cheerful compliance with the lawful orders 
 of the superior. Experience and human nature show 
 that these objects cannot be readily attained when there 
 is undue familiarity between the officer and those under 
 his command. Take for instance a half dozen college 
 chums who are ordinarily intimate, and are accustomed 
 to chaff one another and to associate upon terms of ut- 
 most familiarity. Let one of them presume to give 
 some order or some direction to the others. What 
 happens? As like as not the presumptious individual 
 is "called down" with a unanimity that is astounding. 
 He is lucky if he escapes without receiving some physi- 
 cal reminder of his inability to impose his own will 
 upon his boon companions. It is an old saying that 
 "familiarity breeds contempt," and nowhere is that 
 more true than in military life. 
 
 Now and then we see officers who are inclined to 
 neglect or ignore the distinction that prevails in all 
 armies between officers and men. Such officers are 
 never successful in the management of men. Soldiers 
 understand and appreciate the reasons and the necessi- 
 ties which prevent undue familiarity between officers 
 and their subordinates. They have a thorough con- 
 
 7Z 
 
tempt for the officer who forgets his place and his du- 
 ties and who neglects the requirements of orders and 
 regulations. On the other hand let it be well under- 
 stood that there is no place in the American army for 
 the rasping, unreasonable, martinet. Our discipline is 
 not of the German kind, founded upon force. It is 
 rather of the kind that is based upon common sense 
 and has for its object the attainment of a willing and 
 cheerful obedience. It is a discipline founded more 
 upon the French system which causes the French sol- 
 dier in the trenches to speak of his officer as "my cap- 
 tain." That is the kind of spirit which is helpful. 
 
 In times past we have had in the American service 
 too much of the loud mouthed, rasping manner tend- 
 ing to humiliate the young soldier and to lessen his self 
 respect. The loud and profane drill sergeant and the 
 inconsiderate, overbearing officer do great injury to our 
 service, because they produce dissatisfaction and discon- 
 tent, and hence are direct causes of desertion. Not only 
 that, but these methods on the part of even a few offi- 
 cers or non-commissioned officers give to our civilian 
 population a bad impression of army methods. The 
 War Department has done everything it can to eliminate 
 the evils above outlined. The following extract from a 
 letter of instructions from the War Department, dated 
 December i6, 1916, shows the attitude of the War De- 
 partment in this important matter: 
 
 "While there must be no relaxation in discipline in 
 exacting a thorough and prompt performance of mili- 
 tary duty, officers when dealing with subordinates must 
 
 74 
 
hear in mind the absolute necessity of avoiding language 
 and remarks or gestures which tend to lessen self- 
 respect. This is all important if we are to have a 
 cheerful, willing, and efficient army. It is not neces- 
 sary to adopt a tone of voice or manner different from 
 that usually employed in general conversation, and espe- 
 cial care must be taken against sarcasm and unneces- 
 sary public rebuke. These faults while more often 
 found in officers new to the service, sometimes exist in 
 others of more experience. Such officers are unfit 
 temperamentally for command of men." 
 
 75 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 The best grip any officer can have on the Ameri- 
 can soldier is on his pride. Therefore, do every- 
 thing possible to build up the soldier's pride in 
 himself and in his record. Constantly appeal to 
 him to keep a clean and an honorable record. 
 
 Treat the American soldier as a man; look him 
 squarely in the eye when you talk to him, and treat 
 him justly. 
 
 Never do anything to lessen the respect of the sol- 
 dier for himself. Never put a young soldier in the 
 guard-house if it is possible to avoid it. Many a 
 young soldier gets started wrong by being kept in 
 the guard-house with bad men who are confined 
 there because they can be managed in no other 
 way. 
 
 As far as possible use company punishment. Men 
 respect an officer more who is able to handle his 
 men without having to use outside means for dis- 
 cipline. To be able to run your company yourself 
 is a great asset; be careful not to lose it. 
 
 Give short talks to men on subjects which they 
 ought to know. Be sure the talks are short. Have 
 something to say; say it; then stop. 
 
 Teach the soldier to have proper respect for his 
 uniform. Teach him that if he becomes reeling 
 drunk in his uniform or wears it to low dives he 
 brings discredit upon himself and upon the uni- 
 form of his country. 
 
 1^ 
 
7- Be extremely careful about your manner in dealing 
 with soldiers ; they are entitled to a respectful and 
 patient hearing. Some officers seem to go on the 
 theory that military efficiency consists in a loud 
 voice and an impatient manner. 
 
 8. Don't attempt to gain cheap popularity by un- 
 officerlike acts. Soldiers are not slow to size up 
 an officer. They soon learn whether his interest 
 in his men is feigned or real. They respect and 
 admire the officer who requires a strict perform- 
 ance of duty. The true rule for handling soldiers 
 is : Don't nag them ; don't neglect them ; don't 
 coddle them. 
 
 9. Put responsibility for the squad squarely upon the 
 shoulders of the corporal of the squad. Make him 
 look after every detail — instruction, equipment, 
 dress, neatness, general appearance, behavior. 
 
 10. Train the lieutenants and the sergeants to have an 
 interest in company administration by supervising 
 details. When anything goes wrong call in the 
 sergeant and the corporals whose place it was to 
 see about it. If Private Smith has grease spots 
 on his coat and long hair at inspection, see why 
 Corporal Jones and Sergeant Brown had not at- 
 tended to those details. 
 
 ri. Look carefully after the company mess. Much of 
 the discontent in a company is founded upon dis- 
 satisfaction with the food and the way it is served. 
 
12. Do everything possible to provide legitimate 
 amusements and recreation. Young men cannot be 
 kept contended within the bare walls of the bar- 
 rack building. Baseball and out-of-door sports 
 afford a good opportunity for the activities of 
 young lieutenants. 
 
 13. If there are many new men in the company say a 
 word or two to them about writing home to par- 
 ents, and to caution them in regard to home- 
 sickness. 
 
 4. Be an optimist; cultivate that habit. There are 
 some men who always see their troubles with great 
 clearness. They are always afraid that things will 
 not turn out just right. The man who is an op- 
 timist is like a breath of fresh air. He cheers all 
 who come around him. One of the great sayings 
 of Lord Nelson was : "I am not come forth to 
 find difficulties but to remove them." 
 
 15. Try not to become a critic or a "knocker." When 
 once a matter has been settled put your energies 
 into the question of how you can best carry out 
 both the letter and the spirit of the order. 
 
 16. If any man deserts from your company and you 
 have never spoken to him in warning against com- 
 mitting that crime the blame for his desertion is 
 partly yours. You have not done your duty. 
 
 17. If any company officer cannot call every man of 
 his company by name he should get busy at once. 
 
 78 
 
The officer who wants to succeed must be loyal to 
 those above him. He is then on solid ground for 
 expecting it from those below him. 
 
 Don't let a new made corporal feel that he has a 
 permanent job regardless of effort. Establish com- 
 petition between squads. Promote the corporal 
 who makes the best showing and relieve at oncC_ 
 those who are worthless. 
 
 The value of any officer to the Government de- 
 pends in large part upon how much attention he 
 gives to duty. It is not how much ability an offi- 
 cer has but how well he uses what he does have 
 that determines his value to the Government. 
 
 It is the duty of the officer to prove his title and 
 his worth by exhibiting superior knowledge. No 
 organization will long respect an officer who has 
 not the knowledge properly to instruct his men. 
 
 Remember Napoleon's maxim, that in war the 
 moral is to the physical as three to one. Strive to 
 arouse a proper spirit in the men individually and 
 in the organization as a collective unit. Not much 
 success can be hoped for unless the proper spirit 
 is aroused. 
 
 Listen attentively to suggestions of Sdbordinates. 
 Invite recommendations for improvements. This 
 is a good way to create and maintain the interest 
 of subordinates. 
 
 79 
 
24. Encourage initiative on th*e part of subordinate 
 Do this by apportioning or assigning work. Le 
 them do the work under your own supervision. 
 
 25. Justice and promptness are the foundations o 
 mihtary discipHne and military efficiency. It take; 
 a level headed man to maintain discipline and ye'i 
 have every man feel that he has had a square deal 
 
 26. Teach the soldiers to be neat in person and clean 
 and SQber in their lives. Force of example is the 
 greatest of all aids in this respect. 
 
 27. Prohibit the use of dirty, vulgar language. Punish 
 offenders and see that your instructions are car- 
 ried out. 
 
 28. There is something to be done : the efficient officer 
 sets to work earnestly and loyally to do it, over- 
 coming obstacles as he goes along. The inefficient 
 officer either does nothing, or spends his time dis- 
 cussing difficulties or in suggesting some other 
 plan more to his liking. 
 
 29. Our Army Regulations state that : "Courtesy among 
 military men is indispensable to discipline." Noth- 
 ing is more derogatory to our military service than 
 the inconsiderate overbearing officer who imagines 
 that brusqueness is a mark of efficiency. The kind 
 of courtesy needed is that which springs from the 
 heart and not the thin veneer of official formality. 
 
 80 
 
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 RtzCIT' L,iD 
 
 
 JAN 4 1963 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 nt^T'n MAR 1 S 
 
 1982 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY