Measure of Growth

To the Senate for confirmation last week Franklin Roosevelt sent two sets of nominations to increase the fighting and administrative heft of the U.S. Army.

They contained only 51 names, yet they made a good measure of the recent growth of the U.S.'s land fighting force, and one that was simpler to comprehend than numbers of men in the field or of weapons coming off production lines.

To take the place left empty by Robert Porter Patterson when he became Under Secretary of War, the President appointed Manhattan Lawyer John Jay McCloy (see p. 62) as Assistant Secretary of War.

Onetime A.E.F. artillery captain, Jack McCloy has been in Washington since September as special assistant to War Secretary Stimson. Manhattan Private Banker Robert Abercrombie Lovett was appointed Assistant Secretary of War for Air, a spot that has been vacant since Herbert Hoover's time. As a special assistant, thin-cheeked Bob Lovett, wartime naval aviator and wearer of the Navy Cross, has been hard at work since De cember on Air Corps problems, carries the hope of Army airmen that he will give them the kind of representation they need in high Army councils.

After thus tripling the size of his Army sub-cabinet, Franklin Roosevelt went to work on his top-rank fighting men, sent over a list of ten new major generals, 39 new brigadiers. Once confirmed, the list will give the Army a total of 363 general officers on the active list. When World War I began, the Army had only 35 active-list generals. When World War II began, the Army had 67.

Of Franklin Roosevelt's new major generals, six are now Corps Area commanders, four division commanders. Brigadiers represent all the fighting branches (including four from the Air Corps) and most of the back-of-the-lines services.

In the Army's new brigadiers' list were two names that caught the eye of Army men with a thought for tradition. Upped to general officer's rank was Field Artillery Colonel Thomas Jonathan Jackson Christian, grandson of famed "Stonewall" Jackson of the Civil War. Promoted to Brigadier General was Ulysses S. Grant III, West Pointer grandson of the Civil War general and son of the late Major General Frederick Dent Grant. General Christian has a West Pointer son in the Army. General Grant's three daughters are married to Army officers.

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