THE UNITED STATES AT WAR—AT HOME
When any nation declares war, it immediately brings upon itself unusual problems and difficulties, but probably no other nation ever had such problems to solve and such difficulties to overcome as the United States, immediately after Congress declared a state of war existed with Germany. The United States was not ready for war. She had been a peace loving nation, and although possessed of great natural resources, she had never developed them, to any extent, for the purpose of carrying on war. The cosmopolitan people of the United States had never been put to the severe test of war conditions, and whether or not they would stand together as one great nation was yet to be proved. This meant that when war was declared the United States had to start right at the bottom and build up a mighty fighting nation. This had to be done as quickly as possible, for Germany's plan was to crush her enemies before the United States could bring any help.
The first thing that the country was called upon to do was to raise an army. Under ordinary circumstances, the government would call for volunteers. In this way an army could be provided which would be sufficient for usual conditions. The war with Germany, however, was by no means a war in any way like that Americans had taken part in before. The government knew this and realized that the United States would have to raise an army that numbered in the millions. To do this, the volunteer system was found entirely inadequate. So a system of drafting men was worked out for which the government passed the draft law, compelling all men between the ages of 21 and 31 to register for military service. This plan was accepted with great favor by the people, and consequently, the day after registration the government had ten million men in the prime of life from which to pick her army. The draft system was in charge of General Crowder who, as a result of long study on the subject, had devised a system which was not in any way influenced by political pull and was equally fair to both the rich and the poor. Local boards were established for examining the drafted men, and those selected were soon on their way to training camps.
To house this great army, the government had to build a great system of army camps. Contracts were given out soon after war was declared and the camps began to spring up almost overnight. The government built 16 draft army camps and 16 national guard camps. There were also numerous other military zones where smaller bodies of troops were trained. The draft army camps were located so as to house the men from different sections of the country, as a glance at the list of camps will show:—
Camp Devens, Massachusetts; Camp Upton, New York; Camp Dix, New Jersey; Camp Meade, Maryland; Camp Lee, Virginia; Camp Jackson, South Carolina; Camp Gordon, Georgia; Camp Sherman, Ohio; Camp Taylor, Kentucky; Camp Custer, Michigan; Camp Grant, Illinois; Camp Pike, Arkansas; Camp Dodge, Iowa; Camp Funston, Kansas; Camp Travis, Texas; Camp Lewis, Washington.
These great cities were built in less than four months. If all the buildings of the sixteen cantonments were placed end to end, they would make a continuous structure reaching from Washington to Detroit. Each one of these camps housed between 35,000 and 47,000 men. The sixteen cantonments were capable of providing for a number equal to the combined population of Arizona and New Mexico. The hospitals of these camps were able to take care of as many sick and wounded as are to be found in all the hospitals west of the Mississippi in normal times. Each camp covered many square miles of land which had to be cleared of trees and brush before buildings and roads were completed.
[Illustration: This picture shows the standardized style of building used in every army cantonment in the United States. The tar-paper structures in the foreground were used for storehouses and general out-buildings. In the background are the well-built barracks. The company "streets" run between them. Camp Devens, Mass.]
To keep these cantonments clean and fit to live in, large numbers of sanitary engineers, medical officers, and scientific experts were kept busy planning and installing the most modern sanitation systems. To command this great army, the government built officers' camps where men best fitted were trained to be officers, and were then sent to the cantonments to help in changing the American citizen into a soldier. War was declared in April, and by the hot weather of summer America was sending troops by the tens of thousands to Europe. The wonderful way in which American shipbuilders had made it possible to transport these soldiers is told later. But before leaving the subject of raising an army, let us first see by means of figures just what the United States had accomplished in this work. In August, 1918, the overseas force alone was seven times as large as the entire United States army sixteen months before, at the declaration of war. In this time she had transported a million and a half troops overseas and had the same number on this side, with the numbers always increasing. In September, 1918, she had another draft and registration, calling men between the ages of 18 and 45. This gave thirteen million more men.
The colleges of the country had suffered a great deal because of the two draft laws, as practically all men of college age were liable to military service. To overcome this difficulty, the government established in the fall of 1918, the Student Army Training Corps. This plan allowed all students of military age, who were physically fit, to enlist in the army and receive military training, and at the same time obtain a college education. From these men the government planned to choose future officer material. Although the war came to a close before the plan could be fully carried out, it gave every promise of being a success.
It must be evident that perhaps even a greater problem than raising the army was how it was to be transported to Europe. At the beginning of the war, the United States had no ships to use for her necessary task of transporting men and supplies. The ships that were sailing from her ports were all doing their capacity work and could not be used for the new demands. The Shipping Board immediately looked around for yards to place orders for new ships; but there were no yards to fill the orders, as the few the United States had were all overburdened with work. The only remaining solution of the problem was to build new yards. America did it.
The United States went into the war with something like thirty steel and twenty-four wood shipyards, employing less than eighty thousand men. In a little over a year's time, there were one hundred and fifty-five yards turning out ships and employing over three hundred and eighty-six thousand men. These men turned out more tonnage every month than the United States had ever turned out in any entire year before the war. Of the new yards, the greatest was the famous Hog Island yard. On what was once a swamp on the Delaware River, just below Philadelphia, the United States built this yard which is the largest in the world. The demand for speed in building resulted in the plan of fabricating the steel before sending it to the yards. By this method the steel is cut and punched before going to the yard where it is then assembled. Thus steel mills at long distances from the shipyards could be doing a very considerable part of building the ships. Perhaps the great increase in shipping can be best stated by a few figures. In the month of January, 1918, America produced 88,507 tons. Six months later in July she produced 631,944 tons. Before the war the official estimate of America's annual shipping production was 200,000 tons. The estimated production for 1919 was 7,500,000 tons.
The United States navy at the time of the declaration of war was unprepared for the task ahead of it. It was efficient but not nearly large enough for the tremendous amount of work it was called upon to perform. The troop and supply transports needed convoys. There were hundreds of miles of coast to be patrolled. Merchant ships must be armed with men and guns. All this had to be done, besides the work of aiding the Allied fleets in European waters. The government was not long in seeing the need of a great increase in the naval force and was soon making plans to bring this about. New yards were constructed immediately for the building of warships, and the capacity of the old yards was increased. These yards were soon busy turning out destroyers and battleships at a remarkable speed. The special work of patrolling the coasts for submarines called for a great many small and speedy submarine chasers. Motor boat manufacturers all over the country immediately began to make these swift little craft which were popularly called the "mosquito fleet." Even the great factories of Henry Ford, although already busy turning out thousands of motor cars, found room to build these chasers at their inland factories. They were built on specially constructed flat cars, which were then drawn to the coast, where the ships were launched.
As the number of ships increased, the man power was accordingly increased. The navy established a new record by placing a unit of five 14-inch naval guns mounted on specially built railway cars for land duty in France. These guns were the longest range guns in France and were out-distanced only by the great German super guns, the destroying of which was one of their objects. The German super gun fired a small shell for a distance of from sixty to seventy miles. The naval 14-inch guns fired a 1400 lb. shell about twenty-five miles. Although this was a new departure for the navy, it met with the same success which had crowned all of the other war work of this branch of the service.
[Illustration: A 10-inch caliber naval gun on a railroad mount at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, where, after official testing, it was destined for the advance into Germany. Railroad artillery played a very important part in the late war because of its great mobility and range. This gun is terrifically effective at a range of fifteen miles. The oil cylinders visible under the gun where it is mounted are not sufficient to take up the recoil, hence the braces which protrude against the wooden platforms sunk into the ground. The bridge-like structure on the rear platform of the car is part of the carrier for the shell in loading, and the arched bar over the breech block a part of the newly invented quick loading device.]
In figures the work of the navy stands out prominently. At the time war was declared, the navy had 65,777 men in the service and 197 ships in commission; when the armistice was signed, the navy consisted of 497,030 men and about 2000 ships, out of which 75,000 men and 388 ships were on duty in foreign waters.
While army and navy preparations were going on, the business of obtaining munitions and supplies was being very carefully attended to. Before the war there were very few firms making supplies for the government. This meant that the government would have to turn to the great private concerns for its material. These firms dropped all their pre-war work and attended strictly to government orders. The result was that at the end of the summer of 1918 the government was doing business with over 3,000 firms and had over 12,000 contracts in operation. Even small plants invested heavily in increasing their capacity so as to be able to turn out more and better work for the government. The organizing and manufacturing genius of the American people came to the front with a result that the American overseas forces were almost entirely supplied by American products, thereby taking little strength away from the foreign manufacturers.
A few facts concerning the production of motor vehicles will give an idea of the immensity of America's manufacturing program. The automobile industry as a whole expended one billion three hundred million dollars in order to expand its factories to fill government orders. By the month of October, 1918, 70,000 motor trucks had been sent overseas. At the end of the war, 5-ton and 10-ton trucks were being built at the rate of 1000 a day, and all trucks, at the rate of shipment then prevailing, would have in a year's time made a procession 300 miles long.
If critical persons were to try to point out any weakness in America's preparedness program, they would probably take the production of aircraft as an instance where the government had failed. Although America was slow in producing airplanes, it must be taken into consideration that this was almost entirely a new departure for American manufacturers. The delay in airplane production was due to the fact that there was too much red tape to be unrolled before actual work was begun. The government soon realized this and appointed one man to have entire charge of aircraft production. Under his management the red tape was thrown aside and business-like methods took its place.
The combined ability of the automobile engineers of the country produced the Liberty motor which proved to be one of the best airplane engines ever developed to lift great weights. The DeHaviland and Handley-Page, bombing and reconnaissance planes, were immediately equipped largely with the new Liberty. 3180 of the former and 101 of the latter were produced in this country in the year before the armistice was signed. Out of this number 1379 had been shipped overseas. In the meantime the production of planes had been far outstripped by the enlisted and commissioned personnel of the air service. Thousands of cadets and officers were delayed in the ground schools, at the flying schools, and at Camp Dick, Texas, the concentration post for aviation, because of the ruinous shortage of planes, just when the American forces newly brought into the battle zones needed the efficient help of a great fleet of aircraft. Airplanes are rightly called "the eyes of the army." It is unofficially stated that less than 800 American aviators ever saw service over the German lines, and these men, not having American scout planes, used largely foreign models equipped with the famous French Gnome, LeRhone, and Hispano-Suiza motors. American-made machines, whether for bombing, observing, or scouting, went into action for the first time in July, 1918.
[Illustration: A photograph from an airplane at 7900 feet, showing Love Field, Dallas, Texas, and a parachute jumper in the "Flying Frolic," November 12, 1918. Parachutes were used by observers to escape from "kite" balloons ignited by German artillery fire, and a new type is being perfected by which aviators may also escape from disabled airplanes.]
The American people before the war were the most wasteful people in the world. This was probably due to the fact that the people had never been confronted by a real necessity for economizing. However, when war was declared the government immediately demanded that the people conserve their food. The result was that Americans were soon observing wheatless, meatless, and porkless days with great patriotic fervor. 12,000,000 families signed pledges to observe the rules of the food administration, and hotels and restaurants joined in the great conservation effort. War gardens sprang up by the millions. The country was soon conserving millions of pounds of foodstuffs that would ordinarily have been wasted. A food "hog" was considered in the same light as a traitor!
On the same plan as the food administration, the government conducted the conservation of coal. The result was that the essential industries received coal first and the people could get only what was absolutely necessary for heating their homes. Lights were turned out in cities early to save fuel. The "daylight saving" plan from April to November turned the clocks ahead one hour. As a result of all these precautions, the factories were kept going, the ships were not hindered for lack of coal, and America's great preparedness program was carried on without hindrance or delay.
It is difficult to realize what gigantic efforts America was putting forth. An illustration from the manufacture of ordnance will help such an understanding. In the fall of 1918, the United States government was spending upon the making of ordnance alone, every thirty days, an amount equal to the cost of the Panama Canal, and it was spending as much or more in several other departments. What a terrible loss war brings to the world!
[Illustration: The Red Cross War Fund and Membership poster by A. E. Foringer was one of the most effective produced during the War.]
To finance these tremendous preparedness projects, the government called upon the people to lend their money by buying government liberty bonds. This was an entirely new thing for the American people of any generation, but they responded in a manner that showed the government that the people were backing it to the last inch, and that they were out to win as quickly as possible, regardless of cost, or other sacrifices they were called upon to make. The government conducted great loan campaigns. Each one met with greater success than the one preceding it. The bonds were bought by all classes of people, and a man without a bond was like a dog without a home. Of course the great banks and corporations bought millions of dollars worth of bonds, but the great number of small denomination bonds bought by the wage-earning classes was what spelled the success of the loans. The total amount raised by the five loans was approximately twenty-two billion dollars.
Besides these great loans, the American people contributed $300,000,000 to two Red Cross funds inside of a year. There were also enormous contributions to the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the War Camp Community Service, the Salvation Army, and allied funds.
Although a great deal of credit for the remarkable success of America's preparedness program is due to the fact that she had such wonderful resources, the true underlying reason for her success is the magnificent spirit of the American people. Germany thought that, because of the cosmopolitan make-up of the people and the immensity of the country they occupied, they would not unite as one great nation. The United States has proved for all time that she is one solid indivisible nation with ho thought of anything but the progress and liberty of her country and the world, of the unsullied honor and unquestioned defense of her flag, and of all for which it stands.
It was not his olive valleys and orange groves which made the Greece of the Greek; it was not for his apple orchards or potato fields that the farmer of New England and New York left his plough in the furrow and marched to Bunker Hill, to Bennington, to Saratoga. A man's country is not a certain area of land, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. The secret sanctification of the soil and symbol of a country is the idea which they represent; and this idea the patriot worships through the name and the symbol.…
We of America, with our soil sanctified and our symbol glorified by the great ideas of liberty and religion,—love of freedom and of God,—are in the foremost vanguard of this great caravan of humanity. To us rulers look, and learn justice, while they tremble; to us the nations look, and learn to hope, while they rejoice. Our heritage is all the love and heroism of liberty in the past; and all the great of the Old World are our teachers.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
A CONGRESSIONAL MESSAGE
FROM PRESIDENT WILSON'S ANNUAL ADDRESS TO
CONGRESS DECEMBER 2, 1918
GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: The year that has elapsed since I last stood before you to fulfill my Constitutional duty to give the Congress from time to time information on the state of the Union has been so crowded with great events, great processes, and great results, that I cannot hope to give you an adequate picture of its transactions or of the far-reaching changes which have been wrought in the life of our nation and of the world. You have yourselves witnessed these things, as I have. It is too soon to assess them; and we who stand in the midst of them and are part of them are less qualified than men of another generation will be to say what they mean or even what they have been. But some great outstanding facts are unmistakable and constitute, in a sense, part of the public business with which it is our duty to deal. To state them is to set the stage for the legislative and executive action which must grow out of them and which we have yet to shape and determine.
A year ago we had sent 145,198 men overseas. Since then we have sent 1,950,513, an average of 162,542 each month, the number in fact rising in May last to 245,951, in June to 278,760, in July to 307,182, and continuing to reach similar figures in August and September—in August 289,570 and in September 257,438. No such movement of troops ever took place before across 3000 miles of sea, followed by adequate equipment and supplies, and carried safely through extraordinary dangers of attack—dangers which were alike strange and infinitely difficult to guard against. In all this movement only 758 men were lost by enemy attacks—630 of whom were upon a single English transport which was sunk near the Orkney Islands.
I need not tell you what lay back of this great movement of men and material. It is not invidious to say that back of it lay a supporting organization of the industries of the country and of all its productive activities more complete, more thorough in method and effective in results, more spirited and unanimous in purpose and effort than any other great belligerent had ever been able to effect.
We profited greatly by the experience of the nations which had already been engaged for nearly three years in the exigent and exacting business, their every resource and every executive proficiency taxed to the utmost. We were the pupils, but we learned quickly and acted with a promptness and a readiness of coöperation that justify our great pride that we were able to serve the world with unparalleled energy and quick accomplishment.
But it is not the physical scale and executive efficiency of preparation, supply, equipment and dispatch that I would dwell upon, but the mettle and quality of the officers and men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and the spirit of the nation that stood behind them. No soldiers or sailors ever proved themselves more quickly ready for the test of battle or acquitted themselves with more splendid courage and achievement when put to the test. Those of us who played some part in directing the great processes by which the war was pushed irresistibly forward to the final triumph may now forget all that and delight our thoughts with the story of what our men did.
Their officers understood the grim and exacting task they had undertaken and performed with audacity, efficiency, and unhesitating courage that touch the story of convoy and battle with imperishable distinction at every turn, whether the enterprise were great or small—from their chiefs, Pershing and Sims, down to the youngest lieutenant; and their men were worthy of them—such men as hardly need to be commanded, and go to their terrible adventure blithely and with the quick intelligence of those who know just what it is they would accomplish. I am proud to be the fellow countryman of men of such stuff and valor. Those of us who stayed at home did our duty; the war could not have been won or the gallant men who fought it given their opportunity to win it otherwise; but for many a long day we shall think ourselves "accurs'd we were not there, and hold our manhood cheap while any speaks that fought," with these at St. Mihiel or Thierry. The memory of those days of triumphant battle will go with these fortunate men to their graves; and each will have his favorite memory. "Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, but he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day!"
What we all thank God for with deepest gratitude is that our men went in force into the line of battle just at the critical moment when the whole fate of the world seemed to hang in the balance and threw their fresh strength into the ranks of freedom in time to turn the whole tide and sweep of the fateful struggle—turn it once for all, so that thenceforth it was back, back, back for their enemies, always back, never again forward! After that it was only a scant four months before the commanders of the Central Empires knew themselves beaten; and now their very empires are in liquidation!
And through it all, how fine the spirit of the nation was. What unity of purpose, what untiring zeal! What elevation of purpose ran through all its splendid display of strength and untiring accomplishment. I have said that those of us who stayed at home to do the work of organization and supply will always wish that we had been with the men whom we sustained by our labor; but we can never be ashamed. It has been an inspiring thing to be here in the midst of fine men who had turned aside from every private interest of their own and devoted the whole of their trained capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews of the whole great undertaking! The patriotism, the unselfishness, the thorough-going devotion and distinguished capacity that marked their toilsome labors day after day, month after month, have made them fit mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea. And not the men here in Washington only. They have but directed the vast achievement. Throughout innumerable factories, upon innumerable farms, in the depths of coal mines and iron mines and copper mines, wherever the stuffs of industry were to be obtained and prepared, in the shipyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor that was needed to sustain the battlelines, men have vied with each other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms in the face and say, "We also strove to win and gave the best that was in us to make our fleets and armies sure of their triumph!"
And what shall we say of the women—of their instant intelligence, quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for organization and coöperation, which gave their action discipline and enacted the effectiveness of everything they attempted; their aptitude at tasks to which they had never before set their hands; their utter self-sacrifice alike in what they did and in what they gave? Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new luster to the annals of American womanhood.
The latest tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These great days of completed achievements would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice. Besides the immense practical services they have rendered, the women of the country have been the moving spirits in the systematic economies by which our people have voluntarily assisted to supply the suffering peoples of the world and the armies upon every front with food and everything else that we had that might serve the common cause. The details of such a story can never be fully written, but we carry them at our hearts and thank God that we can say that we are the kinsmen of such.
And now we are sure of the great triumph for which every sacrifice was made. It has come, come in its completeness; and with the pride and inspiration of these days of achievement quick within us we turn to the tasks of peace again—a peace secure against the violence of irresponsible monarchs and ambitious military coteries, and made ready for a new order, for new foundations of justice and fair dealing.