"After giving this question of a reserve for the army the most careful thought, after having heard the opinion of many officers of our army,--and those too best qualified to give opinions on a matter of this sort,--I am convinced that, under our system of military enlistment, it is impracticable to accumulate, with either a long-term or a short-term enlistment period, a dependable reserve force of fairly well trained men. To use our army as a training school would destroy the army as such, and fail utterly to create any reserve that could be depended upon as a large body of troops. "The proposal of the General Staff of the army has been that the men should enlist for two years and then spend five years in the reserve. The five years in the reserve is impossible in this country, because we have no compulsory military service and because it is intended by the authors of the plan not to pay the reserve men. And it is an open-and-shut proposition that men cannot be expected to enter the reserve voluntarily, without pay, when the regulations would require them to submit to such inconveniences as applying to the department for leave to go from one State to another or into a foreign country, and when they would be compelled to attend maneuvers, often at distant points, at least twice a year." The Militarists, the professional military men, and those who draw their inspiration from that source, present no plan for enlarging our army in time of war except: (1) The proposed Reserve system so clearly shown in the above quotation to be impracticable; (2) Reliance upon State Militia to reënforce the regular army--a plan rejected by all who are willing to learn by experience; and (3) The increase of the standing army, to bring it up to a point where it could at any time cope with the standing armies of other powers, and its maintenance there. Another quotation from the same article by Representative Hay will give the facts that show the impracticability of the plan for increasing the standing army: "But, in order to make more evident what Congress has given to the army and the consequent results that must have been obtained therefrom, let me call attention to the fact that during the last ten years the appropriations for the support of the military establishments of this country have amounted to the grand total of $1,007,410,270.48, almost as much as is required to pay all the other expenses of the government, all the salaries, all the executive machinery, all the judiciary, everything, for an entire year.