Nothing Less Than War: A New History of America’s Entry into World War I

7. Preparedness Debates and the Presidential Election: March–November 1916 [Includes Color Plates]

7 Preparedness Debates and the Presidential Election March–November 1916 “Who is attacking the institutions of this country?” asked Congressman James Hay in mid-March 1916. “What nation on earth is attacking them? My friends, there is not a country on earth today that has any idea of making war on the United States.” So spoke the chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee and author of one of the most provocative bills of the Wilson presidency. Representative Frank L. Greene (R-Vt.) responded that after the war a prosperous United States would find itself subjected to the jealous rivalry of “any or all the powers of the Old World.” Hay in turn rejoined that the European nations would not cross the Atlantic, much less seek indemnity for their losses. Socialist Meyer London concurred; never in the history of modern warfare had a far distant power attacked a great industrial nation.1 On March 6, within a month after War Secretary Garrison resigned, Hay’s committee unanimously reported its Army Reorganization Bill, which modestly increased the strength of the regular army from about 100,000 to 140,000 men. In time of war this force could reach 275,000. The bill federalized the National Guard of 129,000, placing it directly under the control of the War Department. The legislation also authorized the department to raise a volunteer force of 250,000 men. Ironically, by so doing, it was adopting a version of Garrison’s Continental Army, although a strongly modified one. At the end of six years, over 1.4 million men could be on call. Wilson backed the proposal, supported by Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory, who argued that the federal government possessed the authority to assume direct control of the Guard. Although the president believed the bill gave the 188 Preparedness Debates and the Presidential Election 189 militia a more prominent role than he desired, the National Guard Association supported the plan. Even such weak legislation met with some opposition. Some members of the House Military Affairs Committee denied the constitutionality of militia federalization. James H. (“Cyclone”) Davis (D-Tex.), a former Populist leader, accused Wilson of conspiring with northern business to draw America into war; the ultimate issue lay in “democracy” versus “plutocracy.” Meyer London offered a Marxist critique, claiming that the European conflict centered on a quest for markets and commercial supremacy: “Wars are nowadays shopkeepers’ quarrels.”2 Certain editorialists found the Hay bill inadequate, the New York Tribune commenting that it would create a “paper army” unable to meet any attack. The Literary Digest, polling five hundred editors, revealed that the average estimate of desired troop strength for the regular army was 285,078; the reserve force should tally 1.2 million. Augustus Gardner said that to regard Hay’s legislation as adequate for the nation’s defense was “as sensible as to regard the peanut tendered by some child’s hand at the circus as an adequate satisfaction of an elephant’s demand for food.” Historian John Patrick Finnegan calls Hay’s proposal “a minimum response to a new national mood. In 1912, it would have been welcomed. In 1916, however, events seemed already conspiring to overtake and render inadequate any preparedness legislation whatsoever.”3 The raid of Mexican chieftain Pancho Villa against Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9 revealed America’s vulnerability. Machine guns failed to load promptly, needed reserves were lacking, and the cavalry unit on duty was caught short. Six days later, Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to launch his “punitive expedition” with four thousand regulars. Assistant Chief of Staff Tasker Bliss told his superior, Hugh L. Scott, that the army lacked the strength to “reasonably guarantee American territory from hostile invasion and American citizens and property from injury.” Gerard, writing House from Berlin, warned of eventual German attack on the American continent, “probably by way of an infringement of the Monroe Doctrine in Brazil or Mexico.”4 The German-born Julius Kahn of California, a former actor and a ranking Republican member of the House Military Affairs Committee, introduced an amendment that would immediately increase regular army strength to 220,000. Douglas MacArthur, an army major attached to the 190 Nothing Less Than War General Staff, advised Kahn on the matter. Just as birds, animals, and insects devour one another, said the congressman, “in all history in like manner men have preyed upon their fellow men...