Planning
A Highway
System
The Clouds of War
The United States was only slightly prepared for hostilities when war was declared against Germany April 6, 1917. The total strength of the Army was less than 200,000 men, and most of these were recent enlistments in the early stages of training. Perhaps half a dozen regiments stationed in the Canal Zone and on the Mexican border were at war strength; the rest of the Regular Army was scattered all over the country in battalion-sized garrisons. Some industries had tooled up to produce munitions for the Allies, and America was making large shipments of food to Europe; but these were only token efforts compared to those that would be required to fight a full-scale war.
Within a week of the Declaration of War, President Wilson created the Council of National Defense, consisting of the Secretaries of War, the Navy, Agriculture, the Interior, Commerce, and Labor, along with an unpaid Advisory Council of industrialists, labor leaders, financiers, and prominent citizens from all walks of life. Boards and committees functioning under the authority of the National Council eventually supervised every aspect of the war effort, including regulation of the national economy.
On May 17, 1917, Congress imposed Selective Service, and the United States set out to build an army of a million men. This national Army was to be trained in 16 huge cantonments, each as large as a good-sized city, complete with railroad tracks and terminals, sewers, waterworks, streets, roads, and housing for 22,000 men. First, however, it was necessary to train the officers who would train the men; and for this job the Army built 12 officer training camps at existing military posts. All of this construction went on at such a pace that the 12 officer training camps and 9 of the 16 cantonments were completed by June 14, 1917 — just 30 days after the program was started.[1]
A drastic industrial expansion paralleled the military mobilization. Steel mills were expanded. The capacity of portland cement mills was increased to meet the spiraling demand triggered by an immense construction program. Brand new shipyards were built in eastern ports to build steel and concrete ships to replace the dozens sunk each month by German U-boats; and at Sparrows Point, Maryland, Bethlehem Steel built a city to house its shipyard workers, complete with sewerage, water, and streets.
Breakdown of a Lopsided Transportation System
The railroads were as unprepared for war as the rest of the country—perhaps more so. For a decade they had been under effective Government regulation, and to preserve competition they had been prohibited from pooling freight or from merging parallel competing lines, even where such mergers would have
- ↑ Engineers At Washington Rush Work On Army Camps But There Is Much Delay, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 78, No. 12, June 21, 1917, p. 619.
