WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1856
366
to the discharge of Army trusts. To employ them in civil ca- pacities is injustice to the community in general. It cuts off all competition. There is no encouragement for individuals in civil life to qualify themselves for such trusts, when they are precluded, as they must be, by the employment of officers of the Army. If officers of the Army are to be selected for the surveys of rivers and harbors, and the construction of all public works, civilians will lose the stimulus necessary to keep up the rivalry and emula- tion which is beneficial to society and redounds to the justice of the citizens. Why, sir, you are told these are gentlemen of scientific qualifications. Be it so; but their science is abstract, not practical. These are practical matters, and require men of practical sense and experience to accomplish them. It is not a gentleman who has acquired all the science of figures on the black- board, and who has made the prettiest forts for imaginary war- fare, who can do such things in practical reality. Furthermore, these gentlemen are appropriate to the Army. Their business is to fight in time of war, and in time of peace to qualify themselves for the discharge of their duties in war. If we were to rely alone on the officers of the Army to discharge all the civil trusts, and it should become necessary to marshal our forces on our own soil, or to invade a foreign country, of course these gentlemen will be withdrawn from their employment in civil life, and ordered to the Army; and what then will become of all these improvements which require military men of science? When you withdraw these gentlemen whose science and knowl- edge have been appropriated to these purposes, you leave a com'.. plete blank in the practical affairs of the country, and nothing can be done that is necessary to be accomplished in this way. But, we are told, so many of these officers are educated, from time to time, in the Military Academy, and if we do not employ them in this way, they will be idle. If they are educated at the Military Academy, it is a preference of accident or design, by which they receive that advantage from the country. If, when they have re- ceived this education, they do not choose to return to the walks of civil life, but appropriate themselves exclusively to the Army- I say to the Army-let them compete with each other in every- thing that is officer-like and military, and not block the path of civilians to preferment and pecuniary advantage appropriate to their spheres. Confine the officers strictly within the trusts con- fided to them by the Government, and give them a fair recom- pense; but let civilians strike forward and compete for that position to which they are entitled.
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