[Memorandum for The Adjutant General.] WAR DEPARTMENT, The Secretary of War directs that you submit as soon as possible the memorandum called for from this office on December 15, 1911, with reference to abolishing the muster roll. L. W., Major General, Chief of Staff. [Memorandum for The Adjutant General.] WAR DEPARTMENT, The Secretary of War directs that your opinion with reference to the abolition of the muster rolls, originally called for on December 15, and again called for on January 8, be furnished this office with the least practicable delay. The matter has been under consideration for a long time, and final action is being delayed solely with a view to receiving your reply. L. W., Major General, Chief of Staff. It will be seen that Gen. Ainsworth was directed to submit for the consideration of the office of the Chief of Staff his opinion, etc.; not for the consideration of the Secretary of War; nor does it anywhere appear in these papers that this memorandum was intended for the consideration of the Secretary of War. The communication of Gen. Ainsworth to the Chief of Staff in response to the foregoing document is as follows; the portions printed in black-face type are those which are quoted by the Secretary of War in his letter to Gen. Ainsworth of February 14 as evidence of insubordination and other misconduct on his part: [Memorandum.] WAR DEPARTMENT, THE ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE. In the accompanying memorandum of the Chief of Staff, dated December 15, 1911, The Adjutant General is called upon, first, for his opinion concerning a proposal to abolish the present muster roll and "to adopt as part of this plan the descriptive list herewith"; and, second, to furnish a statement showing in detail wherein he considers any feature or features of the proposed plan to be inadvisable or impracticable. In compliance with the first part of this call, The Adjutant General expresses the opinion that the entire plan is both impracticable and inadvisable, and that the formulation of it is a forcible illustration of the unwisdom of intrusting the preparation or amendment of the forms of Army reports to those who have no practical knowledge of the uses to which those reports are to be put. In this connection it is deemed proper to remark that it is understood, perhaps incorrectly, that the plan now under consideration was formulated by two relatively young officers, neither of whom has any practical knowledge of the purposes for which muster rolls are used in the War Department. One of these officers, out of a total commissioned service of 14 years and 8 months, has served but 2 years with the regiments to which he had belonged, and but 1 year and 1 month in command of a troop therein. The other, out of a total commissioned service of 17 years and 8 months, has served 7 years and 9 months with the regiments to which he has belonged, and but 1 year and 2 months in command of a company therein, exercising that command for only 4 months as a captain, 8 months as a first lieutenant, and 2 months as a second lieutenant. Inasmuch as the total service of these officers as company commanders only amounts to about a year for each of them, their ability to deal with the subject in question, even on the company commander's side of it, is by no means apparent. Neither of these officers, nor any other officer in or out of the General Staff, no matter how long he may have been in service, is qualified to prepare forms of any kind for use in The Adjutant General's Office, unless, through actual service in that office, he has acquired a practical knowledge of the manner in which and the purpose for which the information recorded on these forms is used. It is a self-evident proposition that any bureau of the War Department that is charged by law or regulations with the obtaining and keeping of certain information, and that alone knows just what demands are likely to be made upon it from all sources for such information, is the best judge, and the only competent judge, of the form in which and the extent to which such information should be furnished to it. Therefore, it may be fairly stated as a general principle that the judgment of a chief of bureau as to the necessity for any particular report or return, or for any particular item of information required to be embodied thereon, should have much greater weight than the views of officers who have little or no knowledge of the purposes for which the reports, returns, or information in question are used in the War Department. The muster roll is one of the most ancient and most important of our milltary reports. In nearly its present form it was in use in the American colonies long before their separation from Great Britain. It has stood the test of practical use for more than 150 years, both in peace and war, and on its pages, preserved in the archives of this office, is recorded the history of the American soldier from 1775 to the present time. Thousands of millions of dollars have been disbursed, and more than $150,000,000 are now being disbursed annually for pensions alone, and almost all of that enormous expenditure has depended, and much of it still depends, primarily upon the showing of the muster rolls as to military service and milltary status, because upon that showing depends every other question of title under the pension laws, regardless of whether the claims be based upon wounds, injuries, disease, age, or any other ground. And upon this showing of the muster rolls many other millions have been disbursed, and are still to be disbursed for back pay, bounty, and other allowances, to say nothing of the claims of soldiers, their widows, and orphans, under local and other laws conferring rights, priviledges, and benefits upon them on account of honorable military service. The experience of much more than a century of both peace and war has demonstrated conclusively that, with but few exceptions, all of the items of information that are now recorded on muster rolls that are forwarded to the War Department at frequent intervals, there to be examined, corrected, and preserved, are indispensable in the conduct of the current business of the department and are absolutely essential to the future protection of the interests of the Government and of a myriad of claimants against it. And now it is lightly proposed to abolish this time-honored, time-tried, and invaluable record, examined and corrected as each part of it is received in the War Department and all of it preserved there in safety, and to substitute for it a curtailed form of individual record that shall not reach the department until after the soldier is separated from the service, that shall not be subjected to any expert scrutiny until it is impossible to discover or correct serious errors or omissions, and that in many cases in time of peace, and in a multitude of cases in time of war, must inevitably be lost or destroyed before reaching the department, thus leaving a void in the military histories of the soldiers concerned, no part of which can be filled without the expenditure of much time and labor, and much of which can never be filled at all. In compliance with the second part of the accompanying call, the following statement is submitted, although it is recognized that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to formulate any statement that will carry conviction to anyone who is so unmindful of consequences, or so uninformed as to the needs of the Government and the public with regard to the matter in question, as seriously to propose to abolish one of the most important, if not the most important, of all the records of the War Department. However, the statement is submitted in the confident expectation that when other, if not wiser, counsels shall prevail, and after experience with the proposed plan or any similar plan shall have shown the inevitable evil effects thereof, this statement will receive the consideration that may not be given to it now. The principal reasons for regarding the proposed plan as inadvisable and impracticable are as follows: The proposed plan is plainly unlawful. The twelfth article of war, which embodies the law relative to the rendition of muster rolls, is as follows: "ART. 12. At every muster of a regiment, troop, battery, or company, the commanding officer thereof shall give to the mustering officer certificates, signed by himself, stating how long absent officers have been absent and the reasons of their absence. And the commanding officer of every troop, battery, or company shall give like certificates, stating how long absent noncommissioned officers and private soldiers have been absent and the reasons of their absence. Such reasons and time of absence shall be inserted in the muster rolls opposite the names of the respective absent officers and soldiers, and the certificates, together with the muster rolls, shall be transmitted by the mustering officer to the Department of War as speedily as the distance of the place and muster will admit." It is proposed in the accompanying memorandum of the Chief of Staff to evade this requirement of law by calling the pay rolls of June 30 and December 31 "muster and pay rolls," entering there on the data required by article 12, yet maintaining the monthly ceremony of muster. But the adoption of this proposal could hardly fail to be regarded generally as a mere subterfuge of a kind that would be scorned by honorable men in any of the relations of private life, and that would be most discreditable to a great department of the Government in its management of the affairs of the Nation. Article 12 requires that at every muster certain facts and the reasons therefor shall be certified to, and that these facts and reasons shall be "inserted in the muster rolls," not in pay rolls, even though they be called muster and pay rolls, and be made semiannually. Moreover, the article specifically requires that the muster rolls shall be transmitted by the mustering officer to the Department of War as speedily as possible. The plain intent of this requirement is that the muster rolls shall remain in the War Department, and the article has been so construed by that department from time immemorial. But pay rolls, whatever other name may be given to them, are not transmitted to the War Department by any mustering officer, nor do they remain in that department when they reach it. They are vouchers to paymasters' accounts, and as such are forwarded by the paymasters with their accounts to the Paymaster General, by whom they are examined and then transmitted to the Auditor for the War Department, in whose office they remain. The adoption of the plan proposed in the accompanying memorandum, aside from being liable to criticism as being an indefensible and discreditable subterfuge, would be a plain violation of both the letter and the spirit of the law. It ought to go without saying that The Adjutant General's Office should be constantly in possession of the latest obtainable information as to the whereabouts and status of every officer and enlisted man of the Army, and that this information should be in the shape of direct, positive, and affirmative reports, leaving nothing to be assumed or inferred from the mere absence of such reports. Under the proposed plan of abolishing the muster rolls, keeping the record of soldiers on individual descriptive lists that shall be forwarded to the department only at the expiration of the soldier's service, and requiring the monthly returns to show only transfers, deaths, and desertions by name, The Adjutant General's Office would have, except in case of transfer, death, and desertion, no positive information whatever with regard to any soldier in the Army between the dates of his enlistment and assignment to an organization and the date of his separation from the service, a period which in the cases of men serving their full terms in an organization, as the majority of them do, would now be a period of three years. During all this time the department would be in entire ignorance as to the status and conduct of the soldier, and would not even know whether he was a private or a sergeant major. In responding to requests and appeals from official and private sources, averaging more than 100 a day, relative to the whereabouts, present status, transfer. or discharge of soldiers, and to many other kindred subjects relating to them, this office would be unable, for periods ranging from one month to three years, to give any information whatever with regard to the soldiers concerned beyond the mere fact that they had been assigned to certain organizations at certain more or less remote dates. In every such case it would be necessary for the office to communicate with, or to advise the applicant to communicate with, the commanding officer of the organization to which the soldier belongs, with no certainty that he would not be on detached service, or on furlough, or absent in confinement or otherwise. All this would involve much delay in every case, and a delay of several months in the case of every man stationed or supposed to be stationed in the Philippine Islands. Surely, the great amount of business of this kind that comes to The Adjutant General's Office from bureaus of the War Department, from other departments, and from the public at large ought not to be subjected to the vexatious and wholly unnecessary delays to which much of it would inevitably be subjected under the proposed plan. The department owes a duty to the public in this very important matter of being ready to furnish it proper information in response to reasonable and proper inquiries, and if it can not discharge that duty with reasonable promptness it will subject itself to well-merited reproach. Would not the department be justly censurable if, in response to the appeal of an anxious father or mother, it could do no more than to say that the son had been assigned to a certain organization, perhaps two years previously; that since that time he had not been reported to have died, to have deserted, or to have been discharged; and that for further information concerning him inquiry should be made of his company commander in the Philippine Islands, from whom an answer might be expected in about four months? The Adjutant General's Office is frequently called upon to furnish, under paragraph 124, Army Regulations, complete descriptive lists of surrendered or apprehended deserters from organizations serving in Alaska or beyond the continental limits of the United States; also to furnish at the earliest practicable moment descriptive lists of soldiers separated, without such lists, by transfer or otherwise, from organizations serving at remote stations in the United States or beyond the continental limits thereof. During the Civil War thousands of men absent from their commands and without descriptive lists were discharged from hospitals, convalescent camps, parole camps, and other similar centers of concentration, on descriptive lists prepared from muster rolls on file in The Adjutant General's Office, and furnished by that office. Many men were discharged in the same way during the War with Spain, and it is certain that in any war of magnitude great numbers of men who are absent from their commands without descriptive lists, or whose commands have been mustered out of service, will have to be discharged in the same way. Unless the department is constantly in possession of the military histories of soldiers, complete up to the latest possible date, such as are now furnished by the muster rolls, it will be impossible for the department to meet any of the demands made upon it in any of the classes of cases just mentioned. And it will be equally impossible for the department to check, verify, or correct the statements or allegations of service that are received in connection with the many appli cations that are submitted annually for discharge by purchase, for retirement, for long furloughs, and for various other privileges and benefits. It will be seen by the foregoing statement that it is simply impossible for the department to wait, as the plan under consideration proposes it shall, for the details of a soldier's military history until after he shall have been separated from service, and then to receive that history in a form that it is impossible to check or verify in many of its most important particulars. Long experience has proven that accuracy and completeness of a soldier's military history, as well as its safe preservation, can be assured in no other way than by having the record of his service made up at comparatively short intervals and transmitted directly to the War Department, where it will be safe from all the vicissitudes of the field, and where it will be subjected immediately to examination and checking by experts, who will promptly take such steps as may be necessary to correct or supply any errors or discrepancies that may be discovered in the record. Such errors and discrepancies are discovered in great numbers in the rolls and other reports and returns that are received in times of profound peace from the Regular Army with its experienced officers and enlisted men, and it has been found that in time of war, as was to be expected. a vastly greater number of errors and deficiencies are to be met with in the rolls and other papers received from the Volunteer Army with its inexperienced officers and men, all profoundly ignorant as to military paper work and all of its requirements. What kind of a service record of the volunteers of a general war should we have if, under a plan such as that in question, they should be permitted to go on from the beginning to the end of their service, keeping their individual records in their own way, perpetuating their own errors and shortcomings, and the War Department receiving no part of the record of the majority of them until after the disbandment of their commands, when it would be forever too late to correct errors, supply deficiencies, and reconcile discrepancies? Is not this consideration alone sufficient to condemn the proposed plan as utterly impracticable and unworthy of serious thought? It is obvious that, in order that the department may meet the demands of its own business, as well as that of other departments and of the public at large, it will be necessary for it to have at some reasonably short intervals of time, not longer than two months, reports showing the name, organization, rank, status, and station of every enlisted man of the Army. This information can not be furnished with less labor, or in any more convenient form, than in the shape of a muster roll, which is and always has been preeminently the historical record of the individual soldier. Such information can not properly or economically be embodied in the monthly return, which is essentially a record of a command and of its numerical status from month to month. The War Department should also have such an accurate, complete, and continuous record, showing affirmatively and not negatively or by inference the entire military history of every soldier, as will enable the department to furnish the Commissioner of Pensions, the accounting officers of the Treasury, and other officials of the Government accurate and complete information upon which to base the disbursement of the many millions of dollars that are expended annually on account of military service, and under constantly changing legislative provisions. Long experience has shown that the only way in which such a record can be assured is to have it made and furnished to the War Department at short intervals, so that errors or omissions shall not be perpetuated in it, but shall be detected and corrected contemporaneously, while it is still possible to do so, through the vigilant scrutiny and methodical checking to which it has been found absolutely necessary to subject all current muster rolls and other reports relative to officers and enlisted men. It is only by unremitting watchfulness and voluminous correspondence that the War Department is now able to keep an accurate record of the essential features of a soldier's service. Under the scheme now brought forward, by which it is proposed that the full record of the soldier shall not be sent to the War Department until after he has been separated from the service, the thousands of errors and omissions that are now readily detected and promptly corrected would be perpetuated, with the result that it would be impossible to correct or explain them in later years, when it would be of vital importance to do so in connection with pension or other claims. In the accompanying memorandum reference is made to the fact that a certain form of descriptive list is in use in the Navy and Marine Corps, and that fact is set up as an argument in support of the whole plan proposed in the memorandum. But the proponents of this plan fail to mention the much more important fact that neither the Navy nor the Marine Corps depends upon the descriptive list alone or even chiefly as the central record of its enlisted personnel, as it is proposed that the War Department shall do; and that neither the Navy nor the Marine Corps is content to remain for years in utter ignorance of the rank, status, conduct, and even the whereabouts of men, as it is proposed that the Army shall do, but that on the contrary both the Navy and the Marine Corps insist on the rendition of muster rolls at short intervals, the Navy requiring its rolls to be rendered every three months and the Marine Corps requiring them every month. Upon inquiry in the Navy Department and at Marine Corps headquarters the facts stated below have been ascertained: The Navy has used the "continuous descriptive list" for many years, recently changing from sheet to book form, but has never found it practicable to do away with the quarterly muster roll. The Navy finds it highly desirable to have each enlisted man carefully and frequently rated as to professional qualifications and conduct and uses the record on the descriptive list, now called "service record," and a special report in all cases of transfer, discharge, desertion, or death to record these ratings which are not reported on the muster rolls. But the Navy Department depends upon the muster roll as a final resort touching all matters required to be of record there. The Navy Department would be better off than the Army without the muster roll, as with the Navy transfers are the very general rule, while with the Army they are the exception. Very few indeed of the enlisted men of the Navy serve a whole enlistment at the same station or on the same vessel. Most of them have several changes, and each change brings to the Navy Department a report giving a complete record of the sailor while serving at that assignment. |