George E. Chamberlain to Woodrow Wilson

I received last evening your favor of the 20th instant, in which you advise me that I was quoted in the New York World of same date with your letter as follows:"The military establishment of America has fallen down; there is no use to be optimistic about a thing that does not exist; it has almost stopped functioning. Why? Because of inefficiency in every Bureau and in every Department of the Government of the United States. I speak not as a Democrat but as an American citizen."You desire to know if I am correctly quoted, inasmuch as you do not like to comment upon the statements made before learning from me whether I actually made them.

In reply permit me to say that the words quoted are substantially those used by me. My address on the occasion referred to was extemporaneous and without notes, but the New York Times of yesterday morning purports to give a verbatim report of all the addresses made, and I believe the report made is substantially correct. In that I am quoted as saying, in part:"Now, in conclusion, and I have only touched a few of the high spots, let me say that the military establishment of America has fallen down. There is no use to be optimistic about a thing that does not exist. It has almost stopped functioning, my friends. Why? Because of inefficiency in every Department of the Government of the United States. We are trying to work it out. I speak not as a Democrat, but as an American citizen."You will note that there is very little difference between the two reports, and, in view of the fuller report in the Times, I am inclined to believe it correctly quotes me.

But, Mr. President, may I beg that you will do me the honor to read the whole of what I said in order that the part quoted may have its proper setting. I only had twenty minutes allotted me, and in that brief time undertook to show that since the Battle of Bunker Hill we had never had a proper military organization or policy, and that our troubles now are largely due to that fact. I was only discussing the military policy, or lack of such policy, from the earliest days of the Republic, and immediately following the language last quoted, I said:"We are trying, my friends, and I have burned the midnight oil in an effort to do it--we have tried to centralize the power of supplying the Army in one man who can say 'No', and has the nerve to say 'No', when the time comes to say it. We have reported a bill, following the experience of Great Britain and France, creating a Director of Munitions for this purpose. We have gone one step further, and we have provided a bill for the creation of a Cabinet of War, whose duty it shall be to lay out what we never have had--and haven't now-- a program to carry on this war to a successful conclusion. My friends, this is not an Administration measure; it is an American measure and comes from Republicans and Democrats both."All present understood the criticism, and you will note that ex-President Roosevelt in his speech shortly following mine made substantially the same criticism of conditions during the Spanish-American War, although as he said, "It was waged by an Administration of which I was a part and in which I afterward became even more closely connected".

I have been connected with the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate ever since I have been a member of the Senate, and have taken a very deep interest in military legislation and I believe I know something about the deficiencies in the military establishment. Since Congress convened, the Committee have been diligently at work, endeavoring to find out actual conditions and to find some remedy for recognized or proven deficiencies in our military system. The testimony of witnesses in and out of the establishment clearly establishes the fact, Mr. President, that there are inefficiencies in the system that ought to be remedied for a proper prosecution of the war, and, further, that there are and have been inefficients connected with the administration of a disjointed and uncoordinated establishment. So feeling and so believing, I have felt it my duty to speak out, in the hope that defects in the military code may be cured, and inefficients later weeded out. I will be glad to join with other members of the Committee and go over the situation with you at any time, if you desire it, and review the testimony, which, taken in connection with an inherited deficient system, led me to the conclusion expressed in my short extemporaneous address to which you call my attention.

Yours very sincerely,
Geo E Chamberlain

I have the honor to remain,
President Woodrow Wilson,
The White House.