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The Army expects to spend $11,000,000 on a new Hawaiian air base, to shove the U. S. first line of defense 2,000 mi. westward (TIME, Feb. 18). To coast defense projects would go $23,000,000, to the Air Corps, $90,000,000 to bring it up to 2,320-plane strength. New barracks and landing fields will cost another $44,600,000.
Chief of Staff, Professional soldiers, who rate General MacArthur the most brilliant Chief of Staff since Wartime General Peyton C. March, speak as highly of his innovations in the Army's higher tactical organization as they do of his wangling money from Congress. For Douglas MacArthur is a curious mixture of philosopher and politician, gallant and grind.
When Lieutenant Douglas MacArthur violated all etiquet expected of a military observer and charged up the hill with the Japanese soldiers at Mukden; when Colonel Douglas MacArthur behaved as no Divisional Chief of Staff ordinarily does and attacked a German machine gun nest with a bayonet on the du Feys salient; when Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur refused to pass a buck which had been passed to him and personally directed the ousting of the 1032 Bonus Army from Washington—he was merely obeying impulses like the one which sent Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur tearing up Missionary Ridge in 1863 to plant his Union colors on the Rebel breastworks. For that deed of valor, Arthur MacArthur got a Congressional Medal of Honor, the only important bestowal in the U. S. Army which his son has missed.
Son of a Lieutenant General, who capped his career by his able administration of the Philippines, it was only natural that Douglas MacArthur should go to West Point. His slim-fingered hands were as adept at fielding a baseball as they were at turning in perfect mechanical drawings. He was graduated first in his class and First Captain of the Cadet Corps, which is all you can do at West Point, a record matching those of John Joseph Pershing and Charles Pelot Summerall. A vital, handsome young officer, "Doug" MacArthur soon earned the respect and reliance of his superiors. And wherever he went the hearts of Army ladies fluttered. They still do.
He got the most interesting details the Army had to offer, was one of Roosevelt I's aides in 1906-07, went to Vera Cruz in 1914 and when War came was already attached to the General Staff in Washington. It was MacArthur's idea to form a National Army division from militia troops of the various states to make the folks back home as quickly War-conscious as possible. He became the outfit's Chief of Staff. It became known as the "Rainbow" (42nd) Division and at the end of the War MacArthur, at 38, was in command. Fellow officers now recall that it was worth one's life to go to MacArthur's headquarters. He habitually located it up between his assault battalions because that shortened his line of communications.