BUILDING THE WAR MACHINE

The United States entered the war as a member of the Allied belligerents in their fight for civilization against Germany at 1.18 on the afternoon of April 8, 1917, at which time President Wilson signed the resolution empowering him to declare war as passed by Congress.

The nation set about girding on its armor. A message was flashed to the great naval radio station at Arlington, Va., which repeated it to the extent of its carrying radius of 3,000 miles, notifying all American ships at foreign stations and the governors and military posts of American insular possessions in the Pacific and in the Antilles.

Orders were issued by the Navy Department for the mobilization of the fleet, and the Naval Reserve was called to the colors. The navy also proceeded to seize all radio stations in the country.

An emergency war fund of $100,000,000 was voted by Congress for the use of the President at his discretion.

The Allied warships which had been patrolling the Atlantic coast outside American territorial waters since the war began, to prevent the German ships in American ports from escaping, were withdrawn. There was no need of further vigilance, as one of the first acts of the Government was to seize every German and Austrian vessel which had lain safe under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. There were ninety-one German ships, several of them interned men-o'-war, aggregating 629,000 gross tonnage. The largest group were moored in New York Harbor, numbering 27, and included leviathans like the Vaterland, (54,282 gross tons), George Washington (25,570 tons), and Kaiser Wilhelm II (19,361 tons). Six were in Boston Harbor, among them the Amerika (22,622 tons), and the Kronprinzessin Cecile (19,503 tons). Others were held in the Philippines and Hawaii. Seven Austrian vessels were seized, but subject to payment, the United States not being at war with the Dual Monarchy.

All the German officers and crews were taken in charge by the immigration authorities and held in the status of intending immigrants whose eligibility for entering the country was in question until the end of the war. This decision meant internment.

The machinery of most of the German ships was found to be damaged to prevent the Government making immediate use of them as transports, for which the larger ones were admirably fitted. The damage dated from the severance of relations on February 3, 1917, and was a preconcerted movement undertaken by the various captains and officers upon instructions from Berlin to cripple the machinery when war seemed imminent. Captain Polack of the North German Lloyd liner Kronprinzessin Cecile, held in Boston, admitted that he had received orders to make his vessel unseaworthy from the German Embassy at Washington three days before the rupture with Germany took place.

Congress later authorized the President to take title to the German ships for the United States and to put them into service in the conduct of the war. Payment or any other method of return for their seizure was to wait until the war ended. In a short time more than half of the seized vessels had been repaired and put upon the seas under the American flag with new names. Fifteen were fitted for transports. The Stars and Stripes was duly hoisted on the great German liner Vaterland.

Simultaneous with the seizure of these vessels came wholesale arrests of Germans suspected of being spies. Federal officers swooped down on them in various parts of the country as soon as war was declared. They could not now safely be at large. Several had already been convicted of violating American neutrality by hatching German plots and were at liberty under bond pending the result of court appeals; others were under indictment for similar offenses and waiting trial; the remainder were suspects who had long been under Federal surveillance. It was a war measure taken without regard to the civil law to circumvent further machinations of German conspirators, who had now become alien enemies.

Bearing upon these precautions was a proclamation issued by the President warning citizens and aliens against the commission of treason, which was punishable by death or by a heavy fine and imprisonment. The acts defined as treasonable were: The use of force or violence against the American army and navy establishment; the acquisition, use, or disposal of property with the knowledge that it was to be utilized for the service of the nation's enemies; and the performance of any act and the publication of statements or information that would give aid and comfort to the enemy.

The Government had previously assured Germans and German reservists domiciled on American soil that they would be free from official molestation so long as they conducted themselves in accordance with American law. A general internment of German aliens was deemed to be both impracticable and impolitic.

Precautions taken against internal uprisings by Teutonic sympathizers proved to be sufficient without corralling the great number of German citizens established among the populace—a step which would not only be costly but inflict great hardships on many unoffending and orderly aliens. The Administration held by its previous determination not to resort to reprisals in its treatment of Germans nor to lose its head in the periodic waves of spy fever which spread throughout the country.

The President and his advisers, while taking all these preliminary measures of war, were deeply conscious of the enormous field of other activities, calling for leadership and statesmanship of a high order, which the war situation had opened out. Without being daunted by the prospect, the President took the step of appealing to the people at large for cooperation. There were so many things to be done besides fighting—things without which mere fighting would be fruitless. The President thus stated them:

"We must supply abundant food for ourselves and for our armies and our seamen, not only, but also for a large part of the nations with whom we have now made common cause, in whose support and by whose sides we shall be fighting.

"We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our shipyards to carry to the other side of the sea, submarines or no submarines, what will every day be needed there, and abundant materials out of our fields and our mines and our factories with which not only to clothe and equip our own forces on land and sea, but also to clothe and support our people, for whom the gallant fellows under arms can no longer work; to help clothe and equip the armies with which we are cooperating in Europe, and to keep the looms and manufactories there in raw material; coal to keep the fires going in ships at sea and in the furnaces of hundreds of factories across the sea; steel out of which to make arms and ammunition both here and there; rails for worn-out railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and rolling stock to take the place of those every day going to pieces; mules, horses, cattle for labor and for military service; everything with which the people of England and France and Italy and Russia have usually supplied themselves, but cannot now afford the men, the materials, or the machinery to make."

The President's specific appeal was to the agricultural and industrial workers of the country to put their shoulder to the wheel to help provision and equip the armies in Europe. On the farmers and their laborers, he said, in large measure rested the issue of the war and the fate of the nations. To the middlemen of every sort the President was bluntly candid: "The eyes of the country are especially upon you," he said. "The country expects you, as it expects all others, to forego unusual profits, to organize and expedite shipments of supplies of every kind, but especially of food," in a disinterested spirit. He asked railroad men of all ranks not to permit the nation's arteries to suffer any obstruction, inefficiency, or slackened power in carrying war supplies. To the merchant he suggested the motto: "small profits and quick service" to the shipbuilder the thought that the war depended on him. "The food and the war supplies must be carried across the seas, no matter how many ships are sent to the bottom." The miner he ranked with the farmer—the work of the world waited upon him. Finally, every one who created or cultivated a garden helped to solve the problem of feeding the nation; and every housewife who practiced economy placed herself in the ranks of those who served.

Legislative tasks which confronted Congress were overwhelming and not a little confusing. They embraced measures for authorizing huge issues of bonds to finance the Allies and provide funds for the American campaign; new taxation; food control; the provision of an enormous fleet of airships; forbidding trading with the enemy; an embargo on exports to neutral countries to prevent their shipment to Germany; an espionage bill; and chiefly, a measure of compulsory military service by selective draft to raise a preliminary army of 500,000 men, to be followed by a second draft of the same number, to enable 1,000,000 Americans to help the Allies defeat Germany.

The Bond Bill passed both houses of Congress without a dissentient vote within eleven days of the war declaration and five days of the bill's submission. The Administration sought authority for an issue of $5,000,000,000 bonds, to be raised by public subscription, and $2,000,000,000 bonds in Treasury certificates of indebtedness, the latter to be redeemed in a year by the aid of new war taxation then expected to be available. Both bonds and certificates bore 3-½ per cent interest. The main portion of the five-billion issue, or three billions, was apportioned as a loan to the Allies, in the disposition of which the President was to be wholly unhampered. Securities at par to that amount were to be acquired from the various foreign governments to cover the loan. Representative Kitchin, in presenting the bill to the House, described it as representing "the most momentous project ever undertaken by our Government and carried the greatest authorization of bonds ever contained in a bill submitted to any legislative body in the world." The only material amendments made limited the loans and the acquisition of foreign securities as collateral to the period of the war. The House passed the measure after two days' debate on April 14, 1917, by a vote of 889 to 0. The Senate vote, three days later, after a day's debate, was 84 to 0. The various factions in both Houses, which were hostile to the Administration's policy before war was declared, dropped all partisanship in their eagerness to support measures for prosecuting the war now that the die had been cast.

The War Revenue Bill was less easily disposed of. It bristled with contentious points bearing upon the most equitable ways and means of raising supplementary imposts to meet the first year's war outlays. As submitted to the House it was designed to raise a revenue of $1,800,000,000; but the barometer of the Treasury's needs kept rising and presently stood at $2,250,000,000 as the amount needed to be raised by the bill. The House hurriedly passed a loosely constructed measure, taxing practically every industry and individual, especially the incomes of corporations and men of wealth. It raised all tariff duties and abolished the free list by making the exempted articles subject to a duty of 10 per cent. The House accepted it as a war measure, full of inequalities that would never be tolerated in times of peace. It threw upon the Senate the onus of repairing the defects of the bill. It passed it largely as it stood, a hasty piece of patchwork, in order to get some kind of legislation before Congress to meet the Treasury's requirements. The measure was discussed in a cloud of confusion, and so perplexed the members that, in disposing of it, they relied upon the Senate to return it in better shape for adjustment in conference. The Senate was inclined to confine the measure's revenue scope to $1,250,000,000, leaving the balance needed by the Government to be raised by authorized bond issues. But in redrafting the bill the Senate committee, after vainly succeeding in paring the imposts below $1,670,000,000, was eventually obliged to raise them $500,000,000. The conferees' report further enhanced them to yield approximately $2,500,000,000. In this shape the bill finally passed the Senate October 2, 1917.

A simple named bill "to increase temporarily the military establishment of the United States," which was early presented to Congress after the declaration of April 6, 1917, stood out as the Administration's chief war measure. It became known as the Selective Draft Bill because of its chief provisions, which authorized the President to institute a modified form of conscription for raising a new army. It also authorized him to raise the regular army and the National Guard to their maximum strength and officer and equip them. These latter enlistments were to be voluntary, under existing laws, unless the required number was not forthcoming by that means, in which case the regular military establishment was to be replenished from recruits obtained by the selective draft. This latter method the President was empowered to use for creating two forces of 500,000 men each, one immediately, the other later, as deemed expedient. All men, citizens and intended citizens, between the ages of 21 and 30, were subject to call under the selective draft and were required to register their names for possible enrollment. The census showed that some 10,000,000 men between the ages named could be located by registration, from which number the Government could select the million of men required in two divisions. The House and Senate adopted the measure on April 28, 1917, by substantial majorities, the voting being respectively 397 to 24 and 81 to 8. A vain attempt was made in both Houses to raise the new army by voluntary enlistments.

There was a popular demand for sending former President Roosevelt to France as head of a volunteer force of four infantry divisions, and the Senate adopted an amendment authorizing the project. The House had rejected the proposal. When the bill reached the Conference Committee, the Senate amendment authorizing the Roosevelt expedition was deleted. But upon the bill's return the House reversed itself by refusing to accept it, and sent it back to the Conference Committee with the instruction to restore the section permitting Colonel Roosevelt to organize a volunteer force for service in Europe. The bill went to the President for signature with this provision restored; but the President declined, in his discretion, to avail himself of the authority to permit the dispatch of the Roosevelt division, and it never went.

The Food Control Bill which conferred large powers on the Government for safeguarding the food supplies of the country for war purposes proved as difficult to pass as the War Revenue Bill, but succeeded in reaching the President. Its presentation to Congress was heralded by a public statement from the President, who sought to impress upon the country the immediate need of legislation to conserve and stimulate the country's food production. He sought authority to appoint a food administrator, and named Herbert C. Hoover, who had creditably directed the feeding of the Belgians as head of the Relief Committee, for the post. The President drew a sharp line of distinction between the work of the Government as conducted by the Department of Agriculture in its ordinary supervision of food production and the emergencies produced by the war.

"All measures intended directly to extend the normal activities of the Department of Agriculture," he said, "in reference to the production, conservation, and the marketing of farm crops will be administered, as in normal times, through that department, and the powers asked for over distribution and consumption, over exports, imports, prices, purchase, and requisition of commodities, storing, and the like which may require regulation during the war, will be placed in the hands of a commissioner of food administration, appointed by the President and directly responsible to him.

"The objects sought to be served by the legislation asked for are: Full inquiry into the existing available stocks of foodstuffs and into the costs and practices of the various food producing and distributing trades; the prevention of all unwarranted hoarding of every kind and of the control of foodstuffs by persons who are not in any legitimate sense producers, dealers, or traders; the requisitioning when necessary for the public use of food supplies and of the equipment necessary for handling them properly; the licensing of wholesome and legitimate mixtures and milling percentages, and the prohibition of the unnecessary or wasteful use of foods.

"Authority is asked also to establish prices, but not in order to limit the profits of the farmers, but only to guarantee to them when necessary a minimum price which will insure them a profit where they are asked to attempt new crops and to secure the consumer against extortion by breaking up corners and attempts at speculation, when they occur, by fixing temporarily a reasonable price at which middlemen must sell.

"Although it is absolutely necessary that unquestionable powers shall be placed in my hands, in order to insure the success of this administration of the food supplies of the country, I am confident that the exercise of those powers will be necessary only in the few cases where some small and selfish minority proves unwilling to put the nation's interests above personal advantage."

A sweeping bill was thereupon presented to the House empowering the President, under the war clause of the Constitution, to take the measures he named whenever, in his opinion, the national emergency called for their exercise. The mere conferring of such extreme powers on the President, it was hoped, would suffice. The Government view was that armed with the effective weapons the bill provided, no difficulty would be encountered in enlisting on the side of the public interest all recalcitrant private agencies without legal action.

The House, in passing the measure, made it more drastic by inserting an amendment prohibiting the further manufacturing of alcoholic liquors during the war, and authorizing the President, in his discretion, to commandeer existing stocks of distilled spirits. The President was unwilling to countenance such a drastic curb on the liquor industry, and the Senate Agriculture Committee, on his recommendation, restricted the veto on the manufacture of liquor to whisky, rum, gin, and brandy, removing the ban on light wines and beer, but retained the clause empowering him to acquire all distilled spirits in bond, as above named, should the national exigency call for such action. The Senate approved the bill as thus amended.

The antiwhisky provisions, which were due to the Prohibitionists, were denounced as unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the House vote on the bill was 365 to 5. The Senate vote was as emphatic, being 81 to 6.

A more direct contest with the President over his war powers was waged around the Espionage Bill. Though primarily framed to make spying and its attendant acts treasonable offenses punishable by death or heavy fines and imprisonment, it was projected more as a measure aimed at news censorship, on account of a section forbidding the pursuit and publication of information on the war. A violent and persistent agitation by the press of the country against such a restriction, echoed in both Houses in the course of lengthy debates, finally won the day. All control of the publication of war news was denied the Administration, despite the President's appeals to Congress for the provision of a press censorship. The newspapers demanded to be placed on their good behavior and scouted the idea that any law was needed to restrain them from publishing information likely to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Thwarted by Congress, the President had to be content to forego the authority he sought for placing a veto on war news except such as the Government permitted to be disclosed. He was reminded that when relations were broken with Germany and war neared, the press readily responded to the Administration's request—made in the absence of legal authority to establish a press censorship—to suppress the publication and transmission of information concerning the movements of American merchant craft, then about to be armed against German submarines. Since then announcements of arrivals at and sailings from American ports of all vessels were excluded from the newspapers.

The Espionage Bill had an inherent importance of its own, but its purposes had been so overshadowed by the prominence given to the censorship provision that they were lost sight of. It empowered the President to place an embargo on exports when public safety and welfare so required; provided for the censoring of mails and the exclusion of matter therefrom deemed to be seditious and anarchistic, and making its transmission punishable by heavy fines; the punishment of espionage; the wrongful use of military information; circulation of false reports designed to interfere with military operations; attempts to cause disaffection in the army and navy, or obstruction of recruiting; the control of merchant vessels on American waters; the seizure of arms and ammunition and prohibition of their exportation under certain conditions; the penalizing of conspiracies designed to harm American foreign relations; punishment for the destruction of property arising from a state of war; and increased restrictions on the issue of passports.

The measure acquired a conspicuous place in the war legislation by reason of the embargo provision. It appeared an inconsequential clause, judging from the little public attention paid to it; but the President saw a weapon in it that might have more effect in bringing Germany to her knees than Great Britain's blockade of her coasts, stringent as the latter had proved. It developed into a measure for instituting a blockade of Germany from American ports. It had long been known that the maritime European neutrals—Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—had flourished enormously by supplying Germany with various necessities—mainly obtained from the United States on the pretense that the huge increase of their American trade was due to enlarged domestic consumption, the same being due, in its turn, to the cutting off of needed supplies from other countries by the British blockade and the war situation on land. The design of the embargo provision was to stop these neutrals from receiving any American goods until it was clearly established, before leaving an American port, that they would not be transhipped to Germany. With this object the President was authorized to stop any or all exports to any or all countries in his discretion. This was a sweeping blanket instruction from Congress aimed at placing a barrier on transhipment trade with Germany from the port of departure. "Satisfy us that your goods are not going to Germany via neutral countries," the Government told exporters, "and your ships can get clearance. Otherwise they cannot." The embargo was even aimed at neutral countries that permitted their own goods to cross the German frontier by threatening to cut those countries off from any trade with the United States. But it was not clear how it could be made effective in this respect. Its chief aim was rather to make it impossible for the neutrals to replenish with American goods such of their domestic stocks which had been depleted by exports to German customers.

The subject raised a stormy debate during a secret session of the Senate. Senator Townsend, in an assault upon the embargo proposal, took the view that the Administration wished to use the embargo to force small neutral nations into the war as American allies.

"I am not willing," he said, "to vote for the very German methods we have condemned. I understand that this provision is not to be used for the protection of American produce or to protect the American supply, but to coerce neutral countries. We stood for neutrality, and urged the nations of the world to support neutrality. Now that we are engaged in war we ought not to coerce other nations and force them to enter the struggle."

The Administration found a supporter from an unexpected quarter—from Senator Stone, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who opposed the war and all its works. He thus defended the embargo:

"If we were still neutral I should join readily in opposing such legislation. But we are now belligerent. If it is true that any neutral country, contiguous to Germany, which is now our enemy, is supplying Germany with food, munitions, and other materials out of its own productions, and then comes to the United States to purchase here and transport there a sufficient quantity to replenish its supply, doesn't the senator think the United States is within its belligerent rights to say that the United States doesn't consent?"

"It is true we are no longer neutral," insisted Mr. Townsend, "and we don't intend that any other country shall remain neutral. We are in trouble and want everybody else to be in trouble if we are strong enough to put them in."

The admitted purpose of the embargo was to force neutral countries contiguous to Germany to suspend trade with her as an enemy of the United States. The sentiment of the Senate, barring the objections of a few members like Senator Townsend, who protested against the embargo's "injustice," was that the United States had full control over its own trade, and, especially in time of war, could restrict it as its foreign interests required. No international law was involved in American legislation which determined the disposition of American exports, even if that legislation had a direct bearing on the prosecution of the war. The Administration refused to see any analogy between this embargo policy and the questions raised by the blockade controversy between the United States and Great Britain when the former was a neutral. American belligerency had necessitated a change of basis in the Government's attitude.

The President went to some pains to explain to the country what the export embargo meant. He created a Board of Exports Control, or Exports Council, composed of Herbert C. Hoover, the selected head of the food administration body, and a number of leading Government officials. This board's duty was to prevent a single bushel of wheat or the smallest quantity of any other commodity from leaving an American port without the board's license and approval. This check on exports, the President pointed out, regulated and supervised their disposition, and was not really an embargo, except on consignments to Germany.

"There will, of course, be no prohibition of exports," he said. "The normal course of trade will be interfered with as little as possible, and, so far as possible, only its abnormal course directed. The whole object will be to direct exports in such a way that they will go first and by preference where they are most needed and most immediately needed, and temporarily to withhold them, if necessary, where they can best be spared.

"Our primary duty in the matter of foodstuffs and like necessaries is to see to it that the peoples associated with us in the war get as generous a proportion as possible of our surplus, but it will also be our wish and purpose to supply the neutral nations whose peoples depend upon us for such supplies as nearly in proportion to their need as the amount to be divided permits."

Nevertheless the proclamation that came from the White House on July 9, 1917, disclosed an exercise of presidential authority without precedent in American history in that it contemplated, with British cooperation, the virtual domination of the country's trade with the whole world. It provided for the absolute governmental control, by license, of the exports of essential war commodities to fifty-six nations and their possessions, including all the Allied belligerents, all the neutrals, as well as the enemy countries. These commodities embraced coal, coke, fuel, oils, kerosene and gasoline, including bunkers, food grains, flour and meal, fodder and feeds, meats and fats, pig iron, steel billets, ship plates and structural shapes, scrap iron and scrap steel, ferromanganese, fertilizers, arms, ammunition and explosives. By the control of coal and other fuels the Government was bent on obtaining a firm grasp on shipping. And the point was, as stated in the preamble of the proclamation, "the public safety requires that succor shall be prevented from reaching the enemy."

Europe hailed the establishment of the American embargo as signalizing a "real blockade" against Germany. The Paris "Temps" succinctly expressed the prevailing view in the Allied countries:

"The Allies, despite the patience of their diplomats and the vigilance of their navies, have failed to make the blockade sufficiently tight. A new measure was needed; the United States has now supplied it. By forbidding indirect assistance the United States has introduced a new and efficient condition. If the Allies firmly apply the principle, as public opinion strongly demands, President Wilson's proclamation will have been one of the decisive acts of the war."

The need for sending foodstuffs and like necessaries to the Allies, as pointed out by the President in explaining the embargo, called for shipping facilities of a magnitude that demanded the immediate attention of Congress. Exports there would be in unexampled quantities, but their destination must largely be to the Entente countries, consigned in armed ships. Coastwise craft were drafted for transatlantic trade; ships under construction for private concerns were subject to acquisition by the Government; every craft afloat adaptable to war service—ferryboats, private yachts, motor boats and the like—were listed for contingent use; and the thousand or more merchant ships of American registry demanded an equipment of guns and ammunition to enable them to run the submarine blockade.

The seized German and Austrian ships helped to supply the needed tonnage, but they did not go far. War conditions, created by the recognition that the United States would practically win the war for the Allies by keeping their countries generously supplied with all necessities required the construction of a huge trade fleet of steel or wooden ships at a cost of a billion dollars. The Government, through the Shipping Board, reserved the right of preempting the products of every steel mill in the country and of canceling all their existing contracts with private consumers, so as to divert the use of steel products for the trade fleet. The acquisition of every shipyard in the country was also contemplated as a contingency. Tentative estimates provided for the construction of thousands of steel and wooden cargo ships aggregating between five and six million tonnage within the coming two years.

The shipbuilding program was undertaken by General Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal, as general manager of a new Government body called the Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, and William Denman, its president. Conflict immediately arose between them regarding the expediency of building steel or wooden ships to meet the emergency, and the whole project was imperiled by their personal differences. General Goethals favored a steel fleet and planned to apply the available balance of an appropriation of $550,000,000 to the construction of fabricated steel ships of standard pattern. Early in July contracts for 348 wooden ships, aggregating 1,218,000 tons, and costing some $174,000,000, had been made or agreed upon and contracts for a further 100 were under negotiation. Of steel ships seventy-seven had been contracted for or agreed upon, amounting to 642,800 tons, at a cost of $101,660,356. This was a good beginning, as it represented a program under way for providing 525 ships of all sorts. The remainder of the Goethals program called for steel ships, of which he promised 3,000,000 tons in eighteen months. Another feature of the Goethals policy was the immediate commandeering of private ships in the stocks, whether owned by Americans, Allies, or neutrals. Acute friction arose between General Goethals and Mr. Denman, mainly over the question of the former's negotiations and plans with the steel interests. In the end President Wilson intervened by accepting the invited resignations of both, and placing the shipbuilding in the hands of Admiral Washington L. Capps, a naval ship constructor of renown, and Edward N. Hurley, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.

By now the foundations of a huge war machine had been laid by legislative and executive action; but it was discovered that a vital factor in modern wars had been overlooked. An enormous air fleet was necessary to provide further eyes for the Allies. Congress repaired this omission by voting $640,000,000 for building 22,000 airships and for raising and equipping an American corps of 100,000 aviators.[Back to Contents]