militia that has reached the border. In th& opinion of recognized au thorities on military matters not even the delays of days and weeks that have characterized the mobili zation of the national guard are so significant as the glaring lack of training and the no less obvious lack of equipment when these regiments are within gun shot of Mexico. Compared with the Mexican sol diers across the border the national guardsmen who have arrived in El Paso shine in the matter of military externals, such as uniforms and tents, although some did not possess the appearance of American soldiers when they arrived in various combi nations of regulation olive drab ci vilian clothing and derby hats. Compared with the regular soldiers stationed at Ft Bliss and in the city of El Paso these national guard boys, whose fine patriotism does not take second place to anybody, are lament ably lacking, it is glaringly obvious, in certain things that military tradi tion and present necessity require, and this despite the appropriations of millions by congress and state legis latures and warnings that the U. S. war dep't long ago gave command ers of these 48 little, independent, unco-ordinated armies to bring their units up to war requirements. In matter of equipment some of the militia forces here are days and weeks from war requirements; in the matter of training and efficiency they are months distant Take, for instance, the Massachu setts national guard contingent, which is rated, along with the Penn sylvania and New York ' militia, as the best in the country. More than 50 of the 73 men of ambulance corps No. 1, when de trained here to go into camp, fainted more from lack of food than from the heat On the train for more than four days their meals had consisted large ly of tomatoes, crackers and coffee. Field hospital No. 1, consisting of 67 1 men and" 5 officers, were using their cots for the -sick among themselves. Men of the Fifth. Eighth and Ninth Massachusetts infantry aTived at Camp Cotton, which is on the out skirts of El Paso, only a short dis tance from the Mexican border, with out automatics. The machine" gun company of the Eighth had several of their automat ic rifles out of commission. But for tunately for the men the iather of one of them, Henry Parkman, gave the company $5,000 to buy fonr Lewis machine guns. No one questions Parkman's gen erous and patriotic motives, but it is thought he wanted to give his son and the sons of other Massachusetts men the best fighting chances for their lives with a machine gun that Wias demonstrated its superiority over the kind now being used by the mili tia and the regular army. "If I had my way," said a sergeant who saw active service in the Phil ippines, "I'd throw these 'Benny Mer cers' (the name the company gives to the automatic rifles of the Benet Mercier model) over the border into Mexico and count on the Mexicans doing more damage to themselves with them than to us." When Batteries A, B, C, D, E of the First Light artillery, Massachusetts, arrived in their trains at Ft. Bliss, op posite thetretch of cacti, rock and sand newly named Camp Pershing, only one battery! Battery B of Wor cester, under Capt. Herbert, was able to unload under its ,own man-and-horse power! All the other batteries had to be assisted in unloading and hauled into camp by A and B batteries of the Fifth field artillery of the U. S. reg ular army, stationed at Ft Bliss, and by one of the regular motor" truck companies. As yet none of these batteries ex cept Battery B. which brought 130 horses along with it, has any hordes for their guns and other wheeled, equipment! BBmmmmfMmmk