Illinois Stirred over Governor’s Failure to Appoint Gen. Davis

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

In a very pointed editorial, the “Chicago Tribune,” in its issue of Feb. 18, takes Gov. Small to task for appointing Roy D. Keehn, commander of the Illinois National Guard instead of Brig. Gen. Abel Davis, the Acting Commander of the Guard.

“Gov. Small has handed the command of the Illinois National Guard division to Mr. Hearst’s Chicago representative, Roy D. Keehn, the editorial states.

“The motive of the appointment is not a mystery in the light of Mr. Small’s conception of the governorship as a source of personal advantage.

“But what does Mr. Hearst want with the Illinois National Guard?

“Mr. Keehn has been a lieutenant colonel and judge advocate in the guard for four years. His training and experience in the military profession has consisted of some rudimentary training in the preparatory school of De Pauw university, the organization of a militia company at the beginning of the Spanish war, which company was not mustered into service, and, in the late war, services as judge advocate on Gen. J. Franklin Bell’s staff in New York.

“We doubt that Mr. Keehn himself would assert that this experience has equipped him for command of a division of line troops, or that it justistifies his promotion over the general officer next in order of rank to the retiring major general, who is Brigadier General Abel Davis. Gen. Davis has had precisely the training and experience with line troops which the command of the Illinois Guard division calls for and which are conspicuously absent from the record of Mr. Keehn. Gen. Davis began in the Guard as a private of the First Illinois infantry thirty years ago. In this regiment he served in the trenches at Santiago, Cuba, in the Spanish war, and became a major in 1910. As major he went with the Illinois division, the 33rd division of the National Guard, to France in 1918, and on May 4 of that year was commissioned colonel of the 132nd infantry, which regiment he commanded in the field, fighting with British and French troops and through the great battle of the Argonne. He was given the distinguished service cross for valor and the distinguished service medal for distinguished service, and upon his return to the United States in 1919 was commissioned brigadier general in the Guard and is now commander of the 66th infantry brigade, Illinois National Guard.

“The appointment to command a division of line troops of a lieutenant colonel whose sole military experience has been in the legal work of a judge advocate over a brigadier general with 30 years’ experience in the Guard as private and commissioned other, including battle and active field experience in two wars, is obviously not made upon grounds of military qualification.

“The selection may be based on service, but not service in the Guard or in the national army or in the organized reserve. It may be based on service, but not military service to the National Guard or to the army of the United States.

“The authority of the governor to appoint Mr. Keehn commander of the Illinois National Guard division is unquestionable, whether Mr. Keehn is fitted for this military office or not. But under the national defense act, which coordinates the Guard with the federal army organization, the duty now devolves upon the war department to recognize Mr. Keehn’s commission as of the federal service. Inquiry at the bureau of militia at Washington suggests that its executive is impressed with Mr. Keehn’s qualifications, whatever they may be. Developments will be watched with unusual curiosity by every citizen in and out of the state of Illinois who is interested in the National Guard as a military organization or in the conditions of our national defense. We are for the time being at peace and the military fitness of commanders of troops may not seem to have that immediate relation to the national security and to the security of the men called upon to fight that it would were the United States at war. But that relation, though now less apparent, is not the less real, while the possibilities of political manipulation of the Guard are both real and apparent. The substitution of political influence for military qualification in the management of the national defense is a pucnomenon which no citizen can afford to ignore even in time of peace, and not only the people of Illinois but the nation will be interested to know what Mr. Hearst wants with the Illinois National Guard,” the editorial concludes.

A special dispatch to the “Tribune” from its Washington correspondent states: “Army officers expressed surprise that Brig. Gen. Abel Davis had not been selected in view of his experience and seniority.”