"I would like to see a test established that would oblige
officers to take sufficient exercise to pass it without
inconvenience. For the reasons given above, 20 miles in two
days every other month would do the business, while 10 miles
each month does not touch it, simply because nobody has to
walk on 'next day' feet. As for the proposed test of so many
hours 'exercise' a week, the flat foots of the pendulous
belly muscles are delighted. They are looking into the
question of pedometers, and will hang one of these on their
wheezy chests and let it count every shuffling step they
take out of doors.

"If we had an adequate test throughout 20 years, there would
at the end of that time be few if any sacks of blubber at
the upper end of the list; and service opinion against that
sort of thing would be established."

These tests were kept during my administration. They were afterwards
abandoned; not through perversity or viciousness; but through weakness,
and inability to understand the need of preparedness in advance, if the
emergencies of war are to be properly met, when, or if, they arrive.


In no country with an army worth calling such is there a chance for
a man physically unfit to stay in the service. Our countrymen should
understand that every army officer--and every marine officer--ought to
be summarily removed from the service unless he is able to undergo far
severer tests than those which, as a beginning, I imposed. To follow any
other course is to put a premium on slothful incapacity, and to do the
gravest wrong to the Nation.