on the alert, reconnoitering and scouting) of just sixty men. There were sixty men out of three companies! Now, how many men constitute a company?
Mr. Shields. Sixty-four.
Mr. Houston. They have not one-third of the requisite number. The amount at a fort where there are two companies is thirty men. That is the protection you afford to Texas. We have no efficient force in Oregon. I have discovered, in looking over the reports, that, at the fort, near the ferry-house, where the massacre of such unprecedented atrocity took place, there were but four soldiers. This is the protection your army affords!
Now, sir, is it politic to increase the regular force of the United States? To govern a country well, where intelligence predominates over selfishness and interest, I think the smaller the army is the better. I have had some experience in that. It is very well to take care of arms and ordnance stores and army stores which would be useful in time of war. It is necessary, I think, to have an army for that purpose. You may have as great a stock of science as you please, but it does not follow that you are bound to make an officer of every gentleman you educate at West Point. I do not think it would be wise policy to extend the army to suit the establishment of the Military Academy; but rather to suit the Military Academy to the interests and exigencies of the country. That is my opinion about the army.
The nominal number of the army is fourteen thousand. There is not a vacancy, I presume, for an officer in the whole service. According to the data I have before me, and the items 1 have given, I suppose there are about four thousand five hundred men in the service. To make the actual number of fourteen thousand complete, you would have to make the nominal force three times fourteen thousand. Let the head of the Department show that they can keep this establishment perfect before they go to ingrafting new limbs on it, in its present imperfect condition. Let the trunk be sound before you graft it. I know that the officers will never be less than the establishment; and if the soldiers be less than the establishment, it shows that it is too large, and ought rather to be reduced. Whenever we see that the present establishment is kept in order, and the requisite number of men to make it complete always in the service, it will commend itself to consideration; and if a greater amount of force, or a larger establishment be necessary, it would be acceded to. I do not, however, now see any necessity for it. If you increase it, it will never get less. We know that, even when the army is increased in time of war, there is difficulty in reducing it to a peace establishment afterward. It has always been the case, and always will be, that a man, by once holding an office temporarily, acquires a claim to it which is enforced by relatives and friends: and the army thereby will become an eye-sore to the people, and a carbuncle upon the body politic.
It may be asked, sir, how I would furnish protection to the emigrants who travel on the plains to California and Oregon. I would fix a proper season at which they should take their departure from Fort Laramie. I would have them depart in companies, each company consisting of about one thousand emigrants. Out of these one thousand, the usual proportion would be about two hundred and fifty men, I would give them a guard of two hundred and fifty more, making five hundred men to each company. I
