The Building of an Army Author:John Dickinson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT ON April I, 1917, the strength of the Regular Army stood at 5791 officers and 121,797 enlisted men;1 while the Nation... more »al Guard numbered 7612 officers and 174,008 men.2 On the following day President Wilson appeared before Congress and recommended a declaration of war against Germany.3 A brief paragraph in his address was devoted to the question of supplying man-power for the army: " This step will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States, already provided for by law in case of war, of at least 500,000 men, who should in my opinion be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service; and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed, and can be handled in training." There was as yet no clear idea among the public as to the extent to which the United States would participate in the war; and the newspapers treated as debatable the question whether or not American troops would be sent to Europe.4 In view of this uncertainty the farsightedness of the policy outlined by the President is as apparent now as its boldness was remarkable at the time. In a few days a bill embodying the administration's policy was drawn up in the War Department and 1 Report of adjutant general, War Department, "Annual Report," 1917; Vol. 1, p. 171. 2 Report of chief of militia bureau in ibid.; p. 919. 3 War was declared April 6. 4 See "New York Times," March 30, 1917; p. 1, column 5: March 31; p. 1, column 8. submitted to the military committees of both houses of Congress. What the administration proposed was to do two things: (1) Bring up the numbers of the Regular Army and National Guard to the maximum war-time strength authorized by the National Def...« less