Preparedness

Before WoRLD WAR I Preparedness became a movement to increase the military capacity of the United States as well as citizen support for war efforts. After the outbreak of European hostilities in 1914, organizations such as the National Security League, the American Defense Society, the League to Enforce Peace, and the American Rights Committee exerted pressure on an unwilling president WooDROW Wilson to strengthen military defenses. Wilson, who campaigned and won on keeping America out of the war, stood behind his pledge of NEuTRALITY until events forced the United States entry into the war in 1917.

Theodore Roosevelt was a leading advocate of the Preparedness movement. He wrote America and the World War in 1915 and Fear God and Take Your Own Part in 1916, which appealed to the people of the United States to prepare for war. These books helped popularize the Preparedness movement. Roosevelt disdained those who, like Wilson, were “Flubdubs and Molycoddles” ignoring the fact that the country was unprepared to fight. The Preparedness movement took offense at occupied Belgium’s fate and decried “German atrocities,” which were said to be going on there.

In 1914, the Army War College issued a report entitled “A Statement of a Proper Military Policy for the United States,” which warned of depending on isolationism as a policy. It warned that newer technology, such as the submarine, the airplane, and the wireless telegraph placed the United States within the sphere of action of hostile nations. No longer could the United States depend on distance and geography to protect it. War College estimates demanded a standing army of at least 500,000 with a reserve of equal force. It also called for arms and training programs.

One such program was initiated by General Leonard Wood, a medical doctor turned soldier. He was the senior officer in the army and commander of the Department of the East. Wood established a military training camp at Plattsburg, New York. There, he and other professional man trained to be reserve officers. Administered by regular army personnel, the course was five weeks long. The Preparedness movement, financed by wealthy financier Bernard Baruch, caught on, and around 16,000 business and professional men were trained as officers in eastern cities.

As the United States inched closer to war, the issue of military preparedness gained new urgency. Organizations including the National Security League, the American Defense Society, the League to Enforce Peace, and the American Rights Committee held activities and Preparedness Day parades to further promote their cause. After German submarine attacks, especially the sinking of the Lusitania in May of 1915, Wilson dropped his opposition to an American military buildup. In 1916 he toured the country to urge support for preparedness, even though this was in direct opposition to his campaign promises of “Peace with Honor.”

In 1916, Wilson’s secretary of war, Lindley Garrison, and his assistant, Henry Breckenridge, established a national defense plan with the support of Wilson that called for a “Continental Army.” The plan would build up forces over a three-year period in a federal reserve army. Congress disapproved, and Wilson withdrew support. Garrison and Breckenridge resigned. In June of that year, however,

Congress passed the National Defense Act. It allowed the president to commandeer factories and establish a government nitrate plan, and it permitted the army to double its size by adding 11,450 officers and 223,580 enlisted men in annual increments over five years. The National Guard could expand to 17,000 officers and 440,000 men. A corresponding naval appropriations bill broadened the effect of the measure.

In spite of the National Defense Act, the nation was unable to recruit new troops up to the authorized strength. Militia and state forces had always been depended upon for emergency reserves. As a consequence, ground forces of the U. S. Army numbered only around 128,000 as America entered World War I in April of 1917. The Selective Service Act of 1917, which required that all men between the ages of 18 and 45 register in the Selective Service System, was used to bolster the military. A total of 24 million men registered, and the army was increased to 4 million soldiers. The Preparedness movement began to lose its raison d’etre following the National Defense Act and the accompanying increase in naval expenditure in 1917. The movement disappeared when mobilization began following U. S. entry into the war.

Further reading: Michael Perlman, To Make Democracy Safe for America: Patricians and Preparedness in the Progressive Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984).

—Annamarie Edelen