United States Secretary of War

“ I think indeed that under all circumstances the best policy for this Government is to treat this man with the greatest possible consideration. If he has the power to do us harm, we must put him in such a position that he will not wish to do it; and if he has not, our treatment of him will have a tendency to draw the United States nearer to us than she is at present. We must, at least, pretend to take the American Secretary of State at his word. ”

“ As far as concerned numbers, the Administration was strong enough in Congress; but the universal want of faith in its capacity to conduct a war of such consequence gave the Federalists an advantage beyond proportion to their numerical strength. The task of opposition was easy, and its force irresistible when the ablest and oldest Republican52 in office—the Secretary of the Treasury—felt himself helpless in face of the Government’s inaptitude for war, and wrote to his closest intimates that no one could “expect much improvement in the manner of making it more efficient. ”

“ He declined the appointment of Secretary of War at the close of hostilities, and was raised by Congress to the rank of major-general. He then prepared a set of extensive general regulations for the army, which was the first complete manual of military tactics prepared in the United States. ”

“ The Secretary of War, as the legitimate organ of the President, under a general authority from him, may exercise the power, and make the allowance to officers having a separate command. The language of the law is plain and unambiguous. No officer is entitled to the additional allowance, unless he be a commandant at a separate post ”

“ A Secretary of War who, instead of forming general and comprehensive arrangements for the organization of his troops and for the successful prosecution of the campaign, consumes his time in reading advertisements of petty retailing merchants to find where he may purchase one hundred shoes or two hundred hats ”

“ And then with a grim smile he leaned forward on the table, looking first at the Secretary and then at Edestone.
“You are both virtually prisoners in this Embassy,” he said. “That is my hand.”
“Then we are now at war,” said the Secretary with a quiet smile.
“No,” replied the General, “it has not come to that yet. And it does not necessarily have to come to that. We should be able to arrange this matter here tonight. As I have said, Germany will pay well. She is willing to start on even terms with the United States, who can build just as fast as we can. ”

“ The young British minister, Erskine, who enlivened his despatches by no such lightness of touch as was usual with his French colleague, wrote to the new Foreign Secretary of England, George Canning, only brief and dry accounts of the situation at Washington, but showed almost a flash of genius in the far-reaching policy he struck out.
“The ferment in the public mind,” he wrote July 21, [22] “has not yet subsided, and I am confirmed in the opinion ... that this country will engage in war rather than submit to their national armed ships being forcibly searched on the high seas.... ”

“ Such laws were commonly understood in diplomacy as removing the subject in question from the field of negotiation, preliminary to reprisals and war. The Act was passed with little debate in the last hours of the session, in the midst of the confusion which followed the acquittal of Judge Chase. [398] Merry immediately called on the Secretary of State, and asked him for some assurance that might serve to quiet the apprehensions which his Government would feel on reading the Act. ”

“ At the outbreak of war between Russia and Japan, in the early part of 1904, the American secretary again manifested his genius for high diplomacy by securing an agreement from the powers to confine the area of hostilities to the territory of the belligerents, thus preventing what threatened to be a general European war, which might have involved the United States. ”

“ President Wilson and Secretary Bryan, however, take the view that when the United States assumes obligations in order to secure small and unoffending neutral nations or non-combatants generally against hideous wrong, its action is not predicated on any intention to make the guarantee effective. ”

“ He shows that in reality the Secretary of War is really a secretary of Peace, and that his primary office is not to make war, but to avert it, and the degree of his prestige is in direct ratio to his success in preserving the peace and tranquility of our people, and that our war budgets are in fact peace budgets, etc. ”

“ It is but an act of justice to declare that the officers in charge of the several executive bureaus, all under the immediate eye and supervision of the Secretary of War, performed their respective duties with ability, energy, and efficiency. They have reaped less of the glory of the war, not having been personally exposed to its perils in battle, than their companions in arms ”

“ Under such circumstances the Secretary of State for War is usually a nonentity, or, if not, he wears himself out by his vain efforts to force through his schemes against the passive obstruction of his colleagues and the indifference of the nation. Behind the Secretary of State there stands the War Office disorganized and emasculated by the hopelessness of ever getting anything done, or ever finding out what it is wanted to do, and from the War Office hopelessness and indifference spread throughout the army. ”

“ Like provision is also necessary in the Treasury Department, while for military affairs it would seem to be sufficient to authorize the President and Secretary of War to delegate to the commanding general so much of the discretionary powers vested in them by law as the exigencies of the service shall require. ”