Executive is practically limited to a paper organization.  The scattered units can be brought under a proper organization, but they will remain physically scattered until Congress supplies the necessary funds for grouping them in more concentrated posts.  Until that is done the present difficulty of drilling our scattered groups together, and thus training them for the proper team play, can not be removed.  But we shall, at least, have an Army which will know its own organization and will be inspected by its proper commanders, and to which, as a unit, emergency orders can be issued in time of war or other emergency.  Moreover, the organization, which in many respects is necessarily a skeleton, will furnish a guide for future development.  The separate regiments and companies will know the brigades and divisions to which they belong.  They will be maneuvered together whenever maneuvers are established by Congress, and the gaps in their organization will show the pattern into which can be filled new troops as the Nation grows and a larger Army is provided.

REGULAR ARMY RESERVE

One of the most important reforms accomplished during the past year has been the legislation enacted in the Army appropriation bill of last summer, providing for a Regular Army reserve.  Hitherto our national policy has assumed that at the outbreak of war our regiments would be immediately raised to full strength.  But our laws have provided no means by which this could be accomplished, or by which the losses of the regiments when once sent to the front could be repaired.  In this respect we have neglected the lessons learned by other nations.  The new law provides that the soldier, after serving four years with colors, shall pass into a reserve for three years.  At his option he may go into the reserve at the end of three years, remaining there for four years.  While in the reserve he can be called to active duty only in case of war or other national emergency, and when so called and only in such case will receive a stated amount of pay for all of the period in which he has been a member of the reserve.  The legislation is imperfect, in my opinion, in certain particulars, but it is a most important step in the right direction, and I earnestly hope that it will be carefully studied and perfected by Congress.

THE NATIONAL GUARD

Under existing law the National Guard constitutes, after the Regular Army, the first line of national defense.  Its organization, discipline, training, and equipment, under recent legislation, have been assimilated, as far as possible, to those of the Regular Army, and its practical efficiency, under the effect of this training, has very greatly increased.  Our citizen soldiers under present conditions have reached a stage of development beyond which they can not reasonably be asked to go without further direct assistance in the form of pay from the Federal Government.