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Mobilizing the Army and Navy

ANY weeks before the present

crisis had reached the stage of war the United States Government was actively pushing all possible preliminaries for the event. On March 25 President Wilson issued an executive order increasing the enlisted strength of the United States Navy to 87,000 men, in accordance with the emergency authority conferred upon him by the naval service act of Aug. 29, 1916. The next day Secretary Daniels sent a telegram to 2,600 editors throughout the country, stating that new ships and ships in reserve were being fully commissioned as rapidly as possible, and asking that the public be urged to furnish the naval recruits imperatively needed to man these vessels.

On March 26 President Wilson signed an executive order increasing the authorized enlisted strength of the United States Marine Corps to 17,400 men, an increase of 2,419, the limit allowed under the emergency act.

At the Naval Academy 183 new Ensigns were rushed into the navy three months in advance of their time, and were graduated on March 29, at once receiving their assignments on various vessels.

Calling Navy Into Service

When the declaration of a state of war became operative on April 6 Secretary Daniels signed an order at 4:05 o'clock the same afternoon for the mobilization of the navy. One hundred code messages were sent by wireless and telegraph from the office of Admiral W. S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations, within a few minutes after the signing of the order. The messages set in motion the machinery by which the navy went on a war basis with every ship and shore station, and by which the Naval Militia of all the States, as well as the Naval, Reserves and the Coast Guard Service, passed into the control of the Navy Department.

There were about 584 officers and 7,933 enlisted men in the Naval Militia, a total force of 8,517. These assembled at desig

nated points and were assigned to ships to be used in the Coast Patrol Service or on other naval duty. All ships in active commission in the regular navy were ready for duty when the order came. But there were battleships in the reserve fleets, reserve destroyers, and other reserve units that had only nucleus crews, which were now to be fully manned and put into service. Other vessels which had been out of commission were assigned to active duty as rapidly as possible.

There were approximately 361 vessels of the navy completed and fit for service, including 12 first-line battleships, 25 second-line battleships, 9 armored cruisers, 24 other cruisers, 7 monitors, 50 destroyers, 16 coast torpedo vessels, 17 torpedo boats, 44 submarines, 8 tenders to torpedo boats, 28 gunboats, 4 transports, 4 supply ships, a hospital ship, 21 fuel ships, 14 converted yachts, 49 tugs, and 28 minor units. The mobilization order also called into active service about 70,000 enlisted men, as well as over 8,500 members of the Naval Militia, a considerable number of Naval Reserves, and the men in the Coast Guard Service. It put into the regular naval service all new units in process of being purchased as well as those which had been offered for the power boat patrol by yachtsmen and other patriotic citizens along with their volunteer crews.

The total number of men required for the proper mobilization of the navy as it stands is 99,809 regulars and 45,870 reserves. It was estimated that 73,817 regulars and 25,219 reserves were needed for the battleships, scouts, destroyers, submarines, mine force, and training ships. For the Coast Defense forces it was estimated that 10,633 regulars and 17,195 reserves were needed, and for the various shore stations 10,318 regulars and 2,080 reserves.

The order called out those retired officers who had been registered in the department as fit for duty in the event of war to the Naval Reserve force, Naval Militia, examining boards, and bureau

duties, where they in turn released officers on the active list, and enabled the latter to go to sea for fighting duty.

Naval Recruiting Campaign

When the mobilization order came to the navy it still lacked 35,000 men to bring it up to the full authorized strength of 87,000. Recruiting had been carried on in the last few weeks with exceptional energy, but the average daily gain was only about twenty-five men. After the declaration of a state of war the call became more urgent, and large posters on the highways and handbills stuck across the front of taxicabs and other vehicles re-echoed the appeal for men. An increase of enlistments followed at once.

At the end of the first week of April the Naval Reserve recruiting office in New York City was crowded daily, and the daily total of recruits in the country was more than 700. Enlistments for the navy and for the Marine Corps all continued to show marked gains. On April 17 the navy was enrolling nearly 1,000 men a day, and Secretary Daniels announced that he already had 71,696 of the 87,000 men thus far authorized.

Meanwhile the mobilization of a large fleet of "mosquito craft" to patrol the Atlantic Coast and fight U-boats if they invaded American waters was in progress under Secretary Daniels and Admiral Benson, Chief of Naval Operations. Many owners of private yachts donated the use of their craft and crews for this purpose, and other men of wealth began building submarine chasers of a kind that had proved successful in British waters.

More than fifty small boat builders submitted proposals on March 31 for the construction of chasers and patrol boats of the 110-foot and 50-foot types, indicating that the Navy Department would be able to get all the small boats it needed in a comparatively brief time. On that date the coast patrol fleet was organized on an official basis under the Government, and Captain Henry B. Wilson was detached from his post as commander of the superdreadnought Pennsylvania to take charge of the coast "mosquito fleet."

Radio Stations Seized

Seizure of all wireless stations in the United States and its possessions was ordered by President Wilson on April 6, and the enforcement of the order was

delegated to the Secretary of the Navy. Accordingly the navy at once took possession of the radio system throughout the country, assuming control of all commercial stations that might be useful to the Government in war time, and suppressing and dismantling the rest, including thousands of amateur wireless plants.

Defensive war zones, guarded by patrol boats, were established around the whole coast line of the United States through an executive order issued by President Wilson on April 5. To prevent surprise attacks against New York and other coast points by German submarines or raiders, this order created a series of local barred zones extending from two to ten miles from the larger harbors in American waters all the way from Maine to California and the Philippine Islands. All vessels are barred from entering these harbors at night, and entrance or exit in daytime must be in accordance with certain rules of pilotage and other matters which the patrol boats are under orders to enforce. The ports at both ends of the Panama Canal are closed each night under the same order.

Contracts for the construction of twenty-four destroyers of thirty-five-knot speed were awarded by the Navy Department on March 24. Ten will be built at the Union Iron Works, San Francisco; six by William Cramp & Sons, Philadelphia, and eight by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company, Quincy, Mass. The contracts will be paid on the basis of cost plus 10 per cent. profit. The average cost will be in the neighborhood of $1,400,000 for each vessel. The Navy Department awarded the contracts on the day the bids were opened, and Secretary Daniels stated that he was ready to award similar ones for fifty destroyers, all urgently needed, and to pay for them out of the $115,000,000 emergency fund; but the shipbuilding plants of the country were so overcrowded with other naval work that only three were able to do any

thing in that direction at the present time. Of the twenty-four destroyers in question fifteen belong to the regular 1917 program and nine to the emergency program. Including these new orders the navy now has under construction a total of fifty-two destroyers, eight of which were authorized in 1914-15 and twenty in 1916.

Secretary Daniels announced on April 11 that Charleston, W. Va., had been selected as the site for the Government armor plate plant, for the construction of which Congress appropriated $11,000,000.

National Guard Mobilized

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The preliminary steps toward mobilizing the National Guard also were well under way before the assembling of Congress in special session. The War Department issued orders on March 25 calling out fourteen National Guard units "for police purposes in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, besides the District of Columbia. They were assigned to protect railways, bridges, water systems, and other strategic points. As an example of the promptness with which these State units got into active service it may be noted that every man of the Seventy-first New York Infantry Regiment left New York City under secret orders on April 1.

On March 26 President Wilson called out twenty additional regiments and five separate battalions of National Guard units in eighteen different States, from Ohio to the Pacific Coast. The following day he suspended the muster out of the 22,000 National Guardsmen that still remained in the Federal service from the Mexican border mobilization. Seven more regiments were called into service in the next two days, and by the beginning of April the total under arms was more than 60,000, or over one-third of the 150,000 men in all the National Guard organizations in the country. Then a temporary halt was called, owing to inability to furnish supplies as fast as the men were mustered in.

It was announced that twenty-six training camps for the military training

of civilians would be maintained by the War Department in various parts of the country during the Summer months, with facilities for drilling 25,000 men.

State Governments responded generally to the needs of the hour. New York promptly appropriated $1,000,000 for defense, Massachusetts the same, New Hampshire $500,000, and many other States similar amounts. Mobilization of National Guard units throughout New England was especially prompt and rapid. College men in all parts of the country organized student regiments, and in many cases a majority of the whole undergraduate community began drilling. Home defense leagues in cities and towns sprang up from Maine to California, and obtained professional military drill; in New York City the body of this nature created by Police Commissioner Woods numbered nearly 10,000 men, the equivalent of a United States Army division, with a full military organization and a large degree of effectiveness. Mayor Mitchel of New York City organized a Committee on National Defense, under whose leadership nearly all the States of the Union joined in making April 19the anniversary of the battle of Lexington-a "Wake Up, America!" day.

Patriotic enthusiasm was everywhere in evidence, yet enlistments in the regular army continued to come very slowly. Men of military age awaited the action of Congress, which was in process of determining whether to depend once more upon the volunteer system or to enact a compulsory service law. President Wilson and the Army General Staff strongly favored universal compulsory service for young men, and two bills embodying such a system were introduced in Congress, but they met considerable opposition from the outset. On April 18 the House Military Committee, by a vote of 13 to 8, finally agreed to report the Army General Staff bill with an amendment authorizing the President first to try the volunteer system for raising 500,000 men, and then to use the selective draft if the volunteer method proved unsuccessful. The matter rests there at the present writing. Meanwhile Secretary Baker has announced that men are en

listing in the regular army at the average rate of 1,434 a day.

Many large banks and commercial houses have undertaken to keep up the salaries of National Guardsmen recruited

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from among their employes, as was done at the time of the call to the Mexican border, when one large telephone company alone paid $284,000 to absent employes.

Organizing for Economic Defense

NATION-WIDE system of economic

war activities developed during the month, nearly all centring about the Council of National Defense, a body consisting officially of the members of the President's Cabinet and its civilian Advisory Commission, a group of picked business men and leaders of industries. The members of the Advisory Commission are: Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Secretary; Julius Rosenwald, Chairman of Committee on Supplies; Bernard M. Baruch, in charge of raw materials; Daniel Willard, transportation; Dr. F. H. Martin, medicine and sanitation; Dr. Hollis Godfrey, science and research; Howard Coffin, munitions, and W. S. Gifford, Director of the Council. Each is working through a board of experts to organize the war activities in his department. Many of these boards were created in April.

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The important work of the Food Board was placed under the management of Herbert C. Hoover, the executive head of the Belgian Relief Commission. task assigned to the Food Board is that of coping with the problems of food shortage, distribution, and waste; price control, the mobilization of the agricultural resources of the country, and the formulating of all necessary measures to keep up the stream of American food supplies to the Allies.

Presidents of the leading railroads of the country met at Washington on April 11 at the call of the Council of Defense and named a board of five men to direct the operations of American railways throughout the war, with Fairfax Harrison of the Southern Railway as Chairman and Daniel Willard, President of the Baltimore & Ohio and Chairman of the Defense Council's Advisory Commission, as an ex-officio member.

The creation of a General Munitions

Board was announced on April 9, headed by Frank A. Scott, a Cleveland manufacturer. This board is charged with supplying the army and navy with munitions and equipment. One of its chief functions will be to decide between the country's military and industrial needs when recruiting invades the factories. Twenty men, fifteen of them army or navy officers, make up the board.

In like manner an Economy Board was organized to mobilize the commercial interests of the country and attend to the equitable distribution of commodities in war time and to keep prices down. Important pioneer work in the direction of economy for the Government was achieved by one of the members of the Advisory Commission, Bernard M. Baruch, who, as Chairman of the Committee on Raw Materials, arranged to get copper, steel, and other metals for the Government at about half the market price, thus saving the nation many millions. The insurance interests of the country placed their valuable records at the service of the Government and laid plans to prevent the destruction of grain and cotton by incendiary fires. A General Medical Board of the Council of National Defense was organized on April 17 by leading physicians from all parts of the country, with Dr. Franklin Martin of Chicago as Chairman, and a score of eminent physicians as members of the Executive Committee, to mobilize the nation's medical resources during the

war.

General Goethals's New Task

The Federal Shipping Board, which embodies the Administration's program for building a vast fleet of wooden cargo ships to transport supplies to the Allies and thus defeat the German submarine

campaign, was organized as a $50,000,000 corporation on April 16. Its avowed purpose is to construct 1,000 ships of 3,000 to 5,000 tons burden within the shortest possible time. Major Gen. George W. Goethals, the engineer who built the Panama Canal, was made General Manager of the enterprise. Congress has authorized the use of $50,000,000 for the work of this board. Chairman Denman announced that contracts had already been let, and that, barring unforeseen obstacles, by October the shipyards on the Atlantic and Pacific would be turning out the new vessels at the rate of two or three a day, to be leased to private shipping concerns.

Treatment of Germans

The history of America's entrance into the world war would be incomplete without reference to the attitude of the United States Government toward the unnaturalized and naturalized German citizens in this country, the former having become alien enemies by the declaration of war. The war proclamation of President Wilson was followed by proclamations to the same effect by the Mayors of all American cities. Typical of the spirit of these was the following by the Mayor of New York:

TO THE CITIZENS OF NEW YORK Upon just grounds and after long and patient forbearance, the President and the Congress of the United States have declared that by the act of the autocratic Government which rules in the German Empire war exists between the two countries, and the free people of America are about entering into the great world conflict. Millions of the people of this city were born in the countries engaged in this great war. No part of the earth is without its representatives here.

I enjoin upon you all that you honor the liberty which so many of you have sought in this land and the free self-government of the American democracy, in which we all find our opportunity and individual freedom, by exercising kindly consideration, selfcontrol, and respect to each other and to all others who dwell within our limits; that you, one and all, aid in the preservation of order and in the exercise of calm and deliberate judgment in this time of stress and tension. There will be some exceptional cases of malign influence and malicious purpose among you, and as to them I advise you all that full and timely preparation has been made adequate to the exigency which exists

for the maintenance of order throughout the City of New York, and for the warning of the ill-disposed I quote the statute of the United States, which is applicable to all residents enjoying the protection of our laws whether they be citizens or not:

Whoever owing allegiance to the United States levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason.

The punishment prescribed by law for the crime of treason is death or, at the discretion of the court, imprisonment for not less than five years and a fine of not less than $10,000. All officers of the police have been especially instructed to give their prompt and efficacious attention to the enforcement of this law. JOHN PURROY MITCHEL,

Mayor.

Official proclamations were issued forbidding any "alien enemy" from remaining or residing "within half a mile of any Governmental fort, factory, reservation, base of supplies, or any land used for war purposes." The enforcement of this order, however, was left to the discretion of the United States Marshals, and forbearance was shown. The enemy aliens living or employed about the military points around New York were given six weeks to find new locations, and exceptions to the rule were made where bond could be furnished. Hoboken, N. J., which is almost entirely populated by Germans, being the site of the chief piers of the two great German steamship lines, the Hamburg-American and North German Lloyd, was placed under military guard in the pier districts on April 19; the Mayor at the same time issued a proclamation announcing that aliens residing within half a mile of the piers would not be disturbed if they obeyed the laws.

Nowhere in the country were there reports of any disturbances among the Germans during the first two weeks following the declaration of war, and their general attitude was one of unswerving loyalty to the United States. The 750 officers and men of the German Navy who sought refuge in American waters on the cruisers Kronprinz Wilhelm and Prinz Eitel Friedrich were taken to Georgia on special trains March 27 and placed for safe keeping in stockades at Fort McPherson and Fort Oglethorpe, under guard of the Seventeenth Infantry.

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