At West Point

Last Saturday, President Coolidge promoted Brigadier General Merch Bradt Stewart, U. S. A., to be Major General Stewart. On Tuesday, Major General Stewart retired from the Army, pleading physical disability. When he did so, the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, N. Y., lost its superintendent.

To fill the vacancy thus caused on the active list of general officers, Brigadier General Richmond P. Davis of Camp Lewis (Washington state) was made a Major General and Colonel Walter C. Short, a San Juan Hill hero, became Brigadier General Short. To superintend West Point officialdom finally decided on Major General William R. Smith, commander of the Army's Hawaiian department (Fort Shafter).

West Point is primarily associated in the public mind with rigidly erect, flawlessly neat, machinelike companies of cadets marching and countermarching over their parade ground on the Hudson Palisades. General Stewart was an ideal superintendent in such a conception: 31 years an infantryman, an expert and exacting drillmaster.

But war is now primarily associated in the public mind less with infantry drilling than with the feats of artillerymen and long-range explosives. General Smith will be an ideal superintendent in this conception--35 years an artillery man, cited for obtaining exceptional discipline and results from rookies under fire in France.

Pending General Smith's return (in February) from foreign service, West Point is to be temporarily superintended by a cavalry man-- Brigadier General Edwin B. Winans, whose latest command was the First Cavalry Division at Fort Bliss, Tex.