The grand total of national appropriations for the twenty years before the war was less than $17,500,000,000. In no one year had the total appropriations run much above $1,000,000,000. It was clear, however, that whatever theory should finally be accepted for raising the necessary funds, the United States must resort to borrowing until the revenue acts should be passed and the funds should become available. The President recommended that the credits to be granted be sustained, "so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation."

1917.

The first Loan Bill of the war became a law April 24, It authorized a bond issue of $5,000,000,000 at First Lib- three and a half per cent interest, and in addition erty Loan to this an issue of short-term notes of $2,000,000,000. It was proposed by the Treasury Department to sell the short-term notes as money was needed by the Treasury and then to receive them back in return for bonds. It was hoped in this manner to provide for a continuous flow of funds. About twice in each year it was proposed to have a vigorous campaign for the sale of bonds to the people at large, and in anticipation of the first of these drives three weeks were set aside about the first of June for the first Liberty Loan campaign in which bonds to the amount of $2,000,000,000 were offered to the people. A Liberty Loan organization was built up to aid in bringing the campaign for funds to the attention of the citizens. Bonds for as low as fifty dollars were issued so that no one need be unable to subscribe, and the national morale that supported the entry into war at once stimulated the sale of Liberty bonds and was sustained by it. In November the second loan of $3,800,000,000 was placed.

Loans to
Allies

The Bond Act, passed in the understanding that the United States was to aid the other enemies of Germany, provided that $3,000,000,000 might be loaned by the Treasury Department to the Allies and their associates. Until this time the Allies had made heavy purchases of raw materials in America, paying for them in

turn by their credits in the American banks, by gold shipped to America to meet the balances, by American securities sent home to be sold in the open market, and by national loans offered for subscription in the United States. The gold in the Treasury, amounting to $1,279,000,000 on July 1, 1914, rose to $2,445,000,000 in April, 1917. Hereafter the Allied purchases were paid for by the proceeds of national loans extended by the United States Government. Before the end of the war Congress had authorized the lending of $10,000,000,000, of which $9,300,000,000 were actually advanced. The first American participation in the war was as banker for the Allies.

camps

The belief that the American contribution was to be economic postponed the date at which it was expected to have military forces available for use, but did Officers' not prevent their preparation. The National training Defense Act of 1916 was in effect, training camps had prepared a considerable number of reserve officers, and a new series of training camps was opened May 15, 1917, to prepare more reserve officers to be used first as instructors in the organization of new divisions. The National Guard was recruited to 382,000 men, the regular army was enlarged by enlistment to 527,000, the navy and the Marine Corps by enlistment to 75,101, and the General Staff sent into Congress with the approval of the President a project for raising the rest of the national army by a draft.

The principle of selective service, as the draft of 1917 was called, was supported on two theories. There had been nothing quite like it in American experience. Selective The Civil War draft had been a method for stim- service ulating enlistments, not for bringing men to the colors. The Confederate draft had been a means of coercing a population. Selective service was to be a means of raising an army at a time when young men were eager to bear the responsibility, but to raise it in accordance with the national need rather than individual enthusiasm or patriotism. Great armies were to be raised, but they were also to be

provided with military implements and their dependents at home were to be regarded as entitled to maintenance by the nation. In England, where the armies had been filled by volunteers, national industry had been crippled by the patriotic spirit that took skilled men from their shops to the front, and the burden of society had been increased by the dependent families left behind.

The principle of selective service was debated until the middle of May, and became a law on the 18th. The office of the Provost Marshal-General was revived to administer it, and draft boards were organized throughout the nation to coöperate in the registration of men of draft age, from twenty-one to thirty, and in their classification. "If farms, factories, railroads, and industries were not to be left crippled, if not ruined, by the indiscriminate volunteering of key and pivotal men," said the Provost Marshal-General in his report upon the new national departure, "then, in the face of such an enemy as Germany, the total military effectiveness of the nation would have been lessened rather than strengthened by the assembling of 1,000,000 volunteers."

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The Annual Reports of the Council of National Defense, the United States Shipping Board, and the Provost Marshal-General, E. H. Crowder, are as yet the best sources for the details of war organization. W. F. Willoughby, Government Organization in War-Time and After (1919), gives a general survey, which may be checked in some details by F. L. Paxson, "American War Government, 1917-1918," in American Historical Review, October, 1920, and by A Handbook of Economic Agencies for the War of 1917 (1919), which was compiled in the historical branch of the General Staff. Newton D. Baker, Frontiers of Freedom (1918), is a compilation of occasional addresses. George Creel, How We Advertised America (1920), is a history of the Committee on Public Information. Edwin N. McClellan, The United States Marine Corps in the World War (1920), is an official history, largely statistical. F. W. Halsey, Balfour, Viviani, and Joffre (1917), gives the story of the British and French military missions. Theodore Roosevelt, The Foes of Our Own Household (1917), includes the correspondence relating to the proposed volunteer division.

CHAPTER XLIX

LAUNCHING THE A.E.F.

THE Selective Service Act became a law on May 18. Upon signing it the President announced that John J. Pershing, junior major-general on the active list, would be General sent to France at the earliest possible date in Pershing command of a small contingent of American troops, and that a great army would be raised as soon thereafter as possible. A few days later the orders issued to the commander of the American expeditionary forces reminded him that "the underlying idea must be kept in view that the forces of the United States are a distinct and separate component of the combined forces." At the date of his appointment Pershing was in command of the American troops on the Mexican Border, where he had succeeded the late MajorGeneral Frederick A. Funston. His earlier military career had been most intimately associated with the Philippine Islands, where his successes as a junior officer inspired President Roosevelt in 1905 to promote him over 902 seniors on the army list to be a brigadier-general. So far as he had party affiliations, he was known as the son-in-law of Senator Francis E. Warren, a Republican of Wyoming. Among his seniors were Hugh L. Scott, Chief of Staff, who was abroad with the mission to Russia; Tasker H. Bliss, who was acting Chief of Staff; and Leonard Wood, a former Chief of Staff.

Balfour

The decision to send an expeditionary force to France was a departure from the views that had prevailed in Washington a few weeks before. When the original Joffre and plan for raising the army was designed in April, "there was no intention whatever of sending any troops abroad until March, 1918." The Quartermaster-General, with the assistance of the Council of National Defense, placed his first orders with this in view. The change in

intention came within a few hours after a French warship passed in at the Capes of the Chesapeake on April 24 bearing Marshal Joffre, Viviani, and a French military mission for a conference with the United States. "Let the American soldier come now" was the message they brought from France who had borne the heaviest impact of the war for thirty-three months, and whose morale needed the stimulus of a visible aid from America if it was to hold until the American weight could be brought upon the line. A. J. Balfour with a British mission arriving about the same time told the same story. As a result of their arguments "it was determined to begin at once the dispatch of an expeditionary force of the American army to France."

The naval participation of the United States had become a fact two weeks before the appointment of Pershing was Naval parannounced. In anticipation of the state of war ticipation Rear Admiral William S. Sims, president of the Naval War College at Newport, was ordered to England at the end of March to coöperate with the British naval forces in the blockade of Germany. A flotilla of destroyers followed him in April, and arrived at Queenstown May 4. "When will you be ready for business?" inquired the British naval officer as he greeted their commander after his voyage across the Atlantic. "We will start at once," was the reply.

In addition to maintaining an increasing fleet of destroyers on the blockade and on convoy duty, the navy added a squadron of battleships and undertook to close the North Sea by a barrage of mines in order to prevent the egress of submarines. A new type of contact mine was subsequently invented, manufactured, and transported; and 56,611 such mines were planted by American mine-layers between the Orkney Islands and the coast of Norway, constituting four fifths of the whole barrage which extended across two hundred and thirty miles of sea. Small destroyers were built by scores to watch for submarines.

After a few days spent in Washington, Pershing with a little staff went quietly to England, and then to France,