Editing Preparedness Movement (section)

==Wilson's program==
Wilson, less fearful of the navy, embraced a long-term building program designed to make the fleet the equal of the Royal Navy by the mid-1920s. "Realism" was at work here; the admirals were Mahanians and they therefore wanted a surface fleet of heavy battleships second to none—that is, equal to Britain. The facts of submarine warfare (which necessitated destroyers, not battleships) and the possibilities of imminent war with Germany (or with Britain, for that matter), were simply ignored.  The Administration's proposals touched off a firestorm of antiwar protest.<ref>Link, ''Woodrow Wilson''  pp. 179ff</ref>  Secretary of War [[Lindley Garrison]] adopted many of the proposals of the preparedness leaders, especially their emphasis on a large federal reserves and abandonment of the National Guard. Garrison's proposals not only outraged the localistic politicians of both parties, they also offended a strongly held belief shared by the liberal wing of the progressive movement. They felt that warfare always had a hidden economic motivation. Specifically, they warned the chief warmongers were New York bankers (like J. P. Morgan) with millions at risk, profiteering munition makers (like [[Bethlehem Steel]], which made armor, and [[DuPont]], which made powder) and unspecified industrialists searching for global markets to control.  Antiwar critics such as [[Robert M. La Follette|Wisconsin's Republican Senator La Follette]] blasted them, saying there was an unnamed "world-wide organization" that was "stimulating and fomenting discord in order that it may make profit out of the furnishing of munitions of war." The only road to peace was disarmament, reiterated Bryan, speaking for the antiwar Democrats.<ref>{{cite book|author=Michael Kazin|title=War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914–1918|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9CazCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA95|year=2017|publisher=Simon & Schuster|pages=95–97|isbn=978-1476705927}}</ref>

Garrison's plan unleashed the fiercest battle in peacetime history over the relationship of military planning to national goals. In peacetime, War Department arsenals and navy yards manufactured nearly all munitions that lacked civilian uses, including warships, artillery, naval guns, and shells. Items available on the civilian market, such as food, horses, saddles, wagons, and uniforms were always purchased from civilian contractors.

===Peace leaders===
Peace leaders like [[Jane Addams]] of Hull House and [[David Starr Jordan]], president of Stanford University, redoubled their efforts, and now turned their voices against Wilson because he was "sowing the seeds of militarism, raising up a military and naval caste." Many ministers, professors, farm spokesmen and labor union leaders joined in, with powerful support from a band of four dozen southern Democrats in Congress who took control of the House Military Affairs Committee.<ref>{{cite book|author=David M. Kennedy|title=Over Here: The First World War and American Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s6dSIuBcx1IC&pg=PA33|year=2004|page=33|publisher=Oup USA |isbn=978-0195173994}}</ref>

===Wilson appeals to the people===
Wilson, in deep trouble, took his cause to the people in a major speaking tour in early 1916, a warm-up for his reelection campaign that fall. Wilson seems to have won over the middle classes, but had little impact on the largely ethnic working classes and the deeply isolationist farmers. Congress still refused to budge, so Wilson replaced Garrison as Secretary of War with [[Newton Baker]], the Democratic mayor of Cleveland and an outspoken opponent of preparedness. (Garrison kept quiet, but felt Wilson was "a man of high ideals but no principles.")<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard Striner|title=Woodrow Wilson and World War I: A Burden Too Great to Bear|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LCEsAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA69|year=2014|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|page=69|isbn=978-1442229389}}</ref>

[[File:Ceremonies and Parades - New York Publishers in Preparedness Parade, New York City, May 1916 - NARA - 23923653.jpg|thumb|Preparedness Parade, New York City, May 1916]]

===Compromise reached===
Congress reached a compromise in May 1916. The army was to double in size to 11,300 officers and 208,000 men, with no reserves, and a National Guard that would be enlarged in five years to 440,000 men. Summer camps on the Plattsburgh model were authorized for new officers, and the government was given $20 million to build a nitrate plant of its own. Preparedness supporters were downcast, the antiwar people were jubilant. The United States would now be too weak to go to war.<ref>Link, 1954 pp. 187–188.</ref> Colonel Robert L. Bullard privately complained: "Both sides [Britain and Germany] treat us with scorn and contempt; our fool, smug conceit of superiority has been exploded in our faces and deservedly."<ref>{{cite book|author=Allan Reed Millett|title=The General: Robert L. Bullard and Officership in the United States Army, 1881–1925|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F97eAAAAMAAJ|year=1975|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-8371-7957-5}}</ref> The House gutted the naval plans as well, defeating a "big navy" plan by 189 to 183, and scuttling the battleships. The [[Battle of Jutland]] (May 31/June 1, 1916) saw the German fleet nearly sunk by the stronger British fleet. Only brilliant seamanship and luck allowed it to escape. Arguing this battle proved the validity of Mahanian doctrine, the navalists took control in the Senate, broke the House coalition, and authorized a rapid three-year buildup of all classes of warships. A new weapons system, naval aviation, received $3.5 million, and the government was authorized to build its own armor-plate factory. The notion that armaments led to war was turned on its head: refusal to arm in 1916 led Berlin to make war on the U.S. in 1917. The very weakness of U.S. military power encouraged Berlin to start its unrestricted submarine attacks in 1917. It knew this meant war with the United States, but it could discount the immediate risk because the U.S. Army was negligible and the new warships would not be at sea until 1919 by which time the war would be over, with Germany victorious.<ref>Dirk Steffen, "The Holtzendorff Memorandum of 22 December 1916 and Germany's Declaration of Unrestricted U-boat Warfare." ''Journal of Military History'' 68.1 (2004): 215–224. [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/50680/summary excerpt]</ref><ref>See  [http://www.gwpda.org/naval/holtzendorffmemo.htm The Holtzendorff Memo (English translation) with notes]</ref>