thorized to bring the total up to approximately 210,000. Service in the National Guard is popular, and no difficulty will be encountered in bringing it up to full authorized strength.

The larger tactical units of the National Guard are completely organized, and progressive training is given to keep the troops in readiness for active field service. If the additional strength recommended is authorized, the National Guard will be able to furnish for the national defense 18 infantry divisions, 4 cavalry divisions, and certain corps and army troops.

Great improvement in the equipment of the National Guard was accomplished during the year. Most of the light field artillery has been converted from animal-drawn to motor-drawn, and so modified as to be adapted to high road speeds. Field training camps have been reconditioned at a cost of $2,300,000, and additional funds have been made available for further camp improvement.

The motorization of most of the organizations of the National Guard has made it possible to widen the scope of field training and has provided convenient transportation to and from ranges and other training areas.

The National Guard has been greatly improved since it began to receive the Federal aid provided in the National Defense Act. The harmonious cooperation between the National Guard and the Regular Army is as commendable as it is necessary.

ORGANIZED RESERVES

In any major emergency the country will rely very largely on the officers commissioned in the Organized Reserves to lead our citizen armies. These officers, actuated by the highest patriotism, devote a great deal of time, and sometimes undergo considerable expense, to prepare themselves for the duties they may have to assume in war. Shortly after the World War the personnel of the Reserve Corps was drawn largely from those who had served as officers during the war. In recent years our new Reserve officers have come almost entirely from college graduates who have taken advanced Reserve Officers' Training Corps training. The country is fortunate in having these young men available in the Organized Reserves.

Inactive-duty training is provided in the various corps areas through correspondence courses and conferences conducted by Regular Army officers assigned to duty with the Reserves. This should be supplemented by frequent active-duty training. Due to lack of funds the number that could be given active military duty has been kept so low that many excellent Reserve officers have been able to receive this training only at intervals of 5 or 6 years. During the coming fiscal year it will be possible to give active-duty training to 20,000 Reserve officers. I recommend that hereafter funds be made available for active-duty training for 30,000 annually. This will make it possible to call approximately one-third of the Reserve officers classified as active to active duty for 2 weeks each year.

Since the organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps several thousand Reserve officers have been placed on active duty with the work companies. These officers have rendered excellent service in administering the affairs of these companies. This duty called for the exercise of initiative, leadership, and executive ability of a high order.

The Reserve officers and the country have profited greatly by this service. However, it should not be regarded as a satisfactory substitute for military training.

On June 30, 1935, there were 112,590 officers in the Organized Reserves, of whom 91,955 were classified as active. Nearly 9,300 Reserve officers were on duty with the Civilian Conservation Corps and 344 on extended active duty with the Air Corps.

At the beginning of the World War the Regular Army had about 6,000 officers. When the war ended there were some 250,000 officers in the Army of the United States. Shortage of trained officers was one of our greatest problems. Soldiers without officers are more useless than officers without soldiers, for trained officers can take men off the street and make soldiers of them, while soldiers without officers are little better than a mob. The success of an army depends upon having an adequate number of trained officers.

Our scheme of national defense contemplates securing the extre officers that will be needed in war time from the officers commissioned in the Organized Reserves, who are chiefly college Reserve Officers' Training Corps graduates. This is one of the basic and essential parts of our scheme of national defense. Those well-meaning but misguided persons who agitate against military training in colleges are therefore seeking to undermine the Nation's ability to defend itself.

The propaganda against military training in colleges is based upon the fallacy that such training instills a spirit of militarism in the youth of America. In my opinion, any candid, unbiased observer will reach the conclusion that this is a sheer assumption which has no foundation in fact. It is no rash assertion to say that Reserve Officers' Training Corps graduates are no more jingoistic or truculent in international affairs than those who have not had military training. But they are better prepared to serve their country in time of national peril.

We must assume that all citizens, except a few who despise our form of government and desire its overthrow, think the United States is worth fighting for. If they have that patriotic feeling in their hearts they should not permit themselves to be misled by seditious propaganda, but should willingly and loyally support every agency created by the National Defense Act, which sets up the best organization for a citizen army that has ever been conceived. The provisions of that act are entirely democratic and are consistent with the aspirations of the most idealistic lover of peace.

While the Army at present has a fairly large reserve of officers available for an emergency, it is sadly deficient in an enlisted reserve. A reserve of enlisted men, and particularly noncommissioned officers, sufficiently large to bring existing Regular Army units to war strength at the outbreak of hostilities, would be of great benefit to national defense.

CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS

While the Civilian Conservation Corps is in no sense a military organization, its entire personnel being made up of civilian laborers, the War Department is charged with many important functions in

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connection with this project. Under the general supervision of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work, Mr. Robert Fechner, the War Department receives, immunizes, conditions, organizes, feeds, clothes, and shelters the men enrolled in the corps. It also establishes, constructs, and administers the work camps. It supervises the health, sanitation, hospitalization, welfare, and recreation of the members of the corps. Practically it has charge of all of the activities in connection with the project except the selection of the men and the supervision of the work performed in the forests, national parks, or other places where the men are employed.

During the fiscal year covered by this report there were in excess of 300.000 men in the corps and these were cared for in more than 2,000 work camps. The immediate administration of these camps was largely under Reserve Army officers called to active duty for the purpose. Their work was directed by the corps area commanders.

The remarkable success of the C. C. C. project has been largely due to the ability, zeal, initiative, and resourcefulness of the Reserve officers. I have been able to visit a number of these camps and to observe the praiseworthy results being accomplished, not only in the conservation of natural resources, through fire protection afforded our forests, the elimination of plant and insect pests, the prevention of soil erosion, and in numerous other ways, but also in the physical and spiritual development of the young men enrolled in the corps, who themselves constitute one of our most valuable national

resources.

At the close of the fiscal year the War Department was preparing to procure the necessary supplies and equipment and to establish work camps to care for nearly 300,000 additional members of the corps, to be enrolled in the authorized expansion of the project.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In concluding the military portion of this report I wish to emphasize the following recommendations:

The Regular Army should be maintained at a minimum strength of 14,000 officers and 165,000 enlisted men. Authority has been given for recruiting the Army up to 165,000 enlisted men, but it should be extended to permit raising the officer strength from 12,000 to 14,000, the increase to be made in annual increments, so that the total number would be attained in 4 or 5 years.

The National Guard should be maintained at a minimum strength of 210,000, which will necessitate an increase of approximately 15,000.

The minimum number of officers of the Organized Reserves to be given 2 weeks' active duty military training each year should be 30.000. Available funds limit the number to be given this character of training during the coming fiscal year to 20,000.

Provision should be made for enrolling 50,000 youths annually in the Citizens' Military Training Camps. The number to be trained this summer at such camps is 30,000.

An enlisted reserve of sufficient size to bring existing Regular Army units to war strength should be maintained.

A 5-year aircraft procurement program should be initiated at once, under which a minimum of 800 military airplanes of the best nd most modern design should be purchased annually.

A munitions procurement program should be begun which should have as its objective the acquisition of a full complement of modern weapons and other equipment for the Regular Army and National Guard at peace strength, plus a reasonable reserve of standardized equipment.

Funds should be made available for the completion of the Army housing program, so that the Army may be provided with needed facilities.

A new War Department building in the District of Columbia should be authorized in order that the widely scattered activities of the Department may be centralized and that protection may be afforded valuable military records.

THE CIVIL ACTIVITIES OF THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS

The continuation of the enlarged public construction program by the Corps of Engineers, to relieve unemployment and to aid in the revival of industry, has resulted in another year of material progress and increased construction activities on the river and harbor and flood control improvements.

ALLOTMENTS AND EXPENDITURES

These nonmilitary activities of the War Department received allotments totaling $96,935,033.84 from the emergency relief appropriations during the year, to be applied on 39 projects, making a grand total from these sources of $347,590,786.68, to be applied on 127 projects.

The total expenditures during the fiscal year on all civil works of the Corps of Engineers, including both those under the public works program and those under the appropriations made by Congress for the normal activities of the Department, amounted to $201,240,177.67. These expenditures provided direct employment for 79,500 persons. With indirect employment included, it may be conservatively estimated that over 200,000 persons were given employment during the year. The work not only had great value in stimulating general economic recovery, but at the same time permitted noteworthy progress to be made in the construction of many meritorious navigation and flood control projects, advancing the program for these projects by many years, and making their benefits immediately realizable in the economic, commercial, and social life of the country.

The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 has provided additional funds in the amount of $108,986,500 to be applied to the continuation of work on both river and harbor and flood control projects. The necessity for establishing a low cost per man-year for direct labor has made it difficult to select navigation improvements for the emergency program, since the work involved in this class of improvement is of a type which cannot in general be undertaken within the cost limitation established. With indirect labor considered, however, these projects will average as high as, if not higher than, other types of construction in the total employment afforded by any given allotment of funds.

The War Department has realized the need for speed in order that the emergency relief appropriation funds may be used to relieve unemployment promptly. The first allotment from this appropriation, totaling $107,186,500, was received on June 6, 1935. By July 27 work aggregating over $68,200,000 had been advertised or placed under way with Government plant and hired labor.

FLOOD CONTROL

The War Department, as a result of the comprehensive surveys which it has undertaken of the major streams throughout the United States, has prepared studies and reports setting up some 1,600 stream an estimated construction cost of improvement projects, at $8,000,000,000. A careful selection of 280 economically justifiable