alled into positions of
importance. In fact, the training of the regular officers was inferior
to that of the naval officers. West Point and Annapolis were both
excellent in the quality of their instruction, but what they offered
amounted only to a college course, and in the army there was no
provision for systematic graduate study corresponding to the Naval War
College at Newport.

These difficulties and deficiencies, however, cannot fully explain
the woeful inferiority of the army to the navy in preparedness.
Fundamentally the defect was at the top. Russell A. Alger, the Secretary
of War, was a veteran of the Civil War and a silver-voiced orator,
but his book on the "Spanish-American War," which was intended as
a vindication of his record, proves that even eighteen months of as
grueling denunciation as any American official has ever received could
not enlighten him as to what were the functions of his office. Nor did
he correct or supplement his own incompetence by seeking professional
advice. There existed no general staff, and it did not occur to him, as
it did to Secretary Long, to create one to advise him unofficially. He
was on bad terms with Major General Nelson A. Miles, who was the general
in command. He discussed even the details of questions of army strategy,
not only with Miles but with the President and members of the Cabinet.
One of the most extraordinary decisions made during his tenure of office
was that the act of the 9th of March, appropriating $50,000,000 "for
national defense," forbade money to be spent or even contracts to be
made by the quartermaster, the commissary, or the surgeon general. In
his book Secretary Alger records with pride the fact that all this money
was spent for coast defense. In view of the fact that the navy did its
task, this expenditure was absolutely unnecessary and served merely to
solace coast cities and munition makers.

The regular army on April 1, 1898, consisted of 28,183 officers and men.
An act of the 26th of April authorized its increase to about double that
size. As enlistment was fairly prompt, by August the army consisted
of 56,365 officers and men, the number of officers being but slightly
increased. It was decided not to use the militia as it was then
organized, but to rely for numbers as usual chiefly upon a volunteer
army, authorized by the Act of the 22d of April, and by subsequent acts
raised to a total of 200,000, with an additional 3000 cavalry, 3500
eng