AMERICA TRAINING NEGRO OFFICERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3150, 31 July 1917, Page 6

AMERICA TRAINING NEGRO OFFICERS

FOE COLOURED REGIMENTS. A training camp for the negro officers who are to hold commissions in tho coloured regiments provided for under tue Selective- Conscription lav was opened last month at Fort Des Monies, with a student enrolment of 1200. Colonel C. C. Ballou, of the 37th Dinted States Infantry, in command of the camp, is assisted by a staff of white officers of the regular army, thirteen in number, and as the work progresses some ot the students with military training will be called on to assist. _ For three months the prospective officers, carefully selected from applicants in the six territorial departments or'the United States, will be drilled on field and in lecture room for service -abroad under Major-Gcneral Polling.- In addition to the 1000 candidates selected in the various departments, 250 negro noncommissioned officers of the regular army -irfl trviii" for commissions. The latter were selected from the 9th and 10th Cavalry and tho 24th and 25th Infantry. A majority of the candidates are college men, many of them prominent in the profession "of law or medicine, or with considerable business training. Qtute_ a number, in addition to the non-commis-sioned officers, have had eome military training, both practical and theoretical.