ARMY & NAVY
U. S. Army recruiting officers are expected to be good salesmen. Upon the city streets they often select their dejected-looking prospects, slap them on the backs, say: "Brace up ... be a man . . . join the Army ... it is warm now down in Texas and Georgia; there are hopes and thrills out in Hawaii."
Suddenly inspired, the victim enlists, is despatched to an Army camp. He lives in wooden shacks, built as temporary barracks during the War, looking like a collection of senile packing boxes, or in tents. When not drilling, he is called on to repair worn-out plumbing systems and putter around creaking stables. Many an officer, living with his family at such a camp, has had to spend his own money to make his house livable. Having no Garden of Eden, the U. S. defenders take their fun where they find it. At Fort Douglas, they have invented the game of mule polo, whose chief difference from the authentic game is found in the temperamental habits of the mule.
In spite of mules and in spite of poor housing conditions, the doughboy must eat. "No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer," said the lewd but shrewd General John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough. As everyone knows, the U. S. Army gets no beer from the Government. As for the beef—very little of that can be bought with a daily per capita food appropriation of 35c. (The Navy is allowed 55c.)
Last week Major General Charles Pelot Summerall, Chief of Staff, told the House Military Affairs Committee that the Army food rations were lower than those of convicts in Federal prisons. The soldier gets only one good meal a day, he said. Secretary of War Dwight Filley Davis added that President Coolidge and the Budget Bureau were responsible for the Army's meagre diet. Hearing these words and many others, the House Military Affairs Committee set about to expand the War Department appropriation bill. It increased the daily food ration five cents per day (a total recommendation of $2,167,187); it provided for an enlisted strength of 118,750 instead of the 115,000 proposed in the budget; it made no allowances for the building of new barracks. With such additions, the 1366,000,000 bill went to the House to be debated. Skeptics wondered whether the extra five cents a day would mean beefsteaks or merely better hash.