AMERICAN DEFENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16744, 28 December 1914, Page 6

AMERICAN DEFENCE.

UNITED STATES ARMY INADEQUATE. . UNIVERSAL TRAINING RECOMMENDED. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright NEW YORK, December 24. Colonel Husband, of Chicago, Ad-jutant-General of the Central Department of the United States Army, advocates tho universal military training of young men owing to tho utter inadequacy of the forces. If the whole army were assembled at New York there would be, he says, insufficient men to man the guns on a war footing, and if the entire National Guard were • assembled there would not be enough to protect those guns against the enemy. New York's guns in their present condition would be more likely to help the enemy to capture the city, than to provide protection.

Colonel Husband has outlined a scheme for service largely on the Australasian model, by which youths would be taught essential military knowledge and protected against the false history taught in the United States schools. American children, he urges, ought to be taught that America never really won a war against a foe worthy of their steel. Great Britain, during the colonists' revolt, he says, was too much occupied with her own affairs. In 1812 Groat Britain really won, but quit without insisting on her rights. The Civil War, he goes on to say, was merely a contest between two mobs of untrained men. The . fights with Spain and Mexico were trifling. If the Americans are trained they would make magnificent troops, all being ready to die for their country.