Wedesday, June 22, 1921. Reducing the Army, Hope for Ireland.

President Harding signed a bill reducing the size of the U.S. Army from 220,000 to 150,000 men.

Virginia National Guard being inspected at Camp Meade, July 23, 1921.

Given the events that would occur twenty years later, the reduction of the size of the inter bellum army has often been criticized, but it's frankly highly unwarranted.  You will often hear things like "In 1939 the U.S. Army was smaller than that of Romania.

Well, sure it was.  The US in 39 was a giant democracy with a large militia establishment bordered to the north by the world's most polite people and to the south by a nation that troubled us, but which was unlikely to attack us.

The US had always maintained a very small peacetime Army and that had, frankly, been conducive to its development as a stable democracy.

Indeed, the traditional military structure of the United States had been based on a professional Navy, a large militia establishment controlled principally by the states, and a small standing army.  Very early on the standing army had been so small it basically didn't exist at all, but that had proven impractical so a tiny professional army became the rule.  After the War of 1812 the peacetime army slightly expanded in size and continued to do so after the Army obtained a frontier policing role following the Mexican War, but it was never overall very large.  

It also lacked any sort of foreign deployment application prior to the Spanish American War.  The Army was thought of as mostly defensive in nature, in case of a foreign invasion, save for the potentiality of trouble with our immediate neighbors.  When the need to deploy ground troops overseas occurred prior to the 1890s, which it occasionally did, it was the Marines, a small force that was part of the Navy, and not the Army, that was used.

Large mobilizations did come during times of war and the size of the Federal Army was always expanded during them by necessity. The use of large numbers of mobilized militia were also a feature of such wars.  Really large mobilizations were very rare, and occurred only during wartime, with the Civil War being the outstanding example prior to World War One.

World War One had been a test of a major reorganization of the Army in the early 20th Century when Congress officially made the National Guard the organized reserve of the Army.  The Army itself had been enormously opposed to what became known as the "Dick  Act" after its sponsor, Congressman Dick, who himself was a longtime member of the National Guard.  For years before World War One the National Guard had sought this status while, simultaneously finding itself frequently used as state police.  Perhaps the defining moment in that is when the Colorado National Guard found itself being called out for that purpose to break a strike at Ludlow, Colorado, a use that ended up being bloody and which necessitated the deployment of the U.S. Army as a result.

 Colorado National Guardsmen at Ludlow, Colorado, in 1914.

That event came a good decade after the Dick Act, but it symbolized what Guardsmen hoped to avoid.  In 1916 things began to change for good when the crisis on the Mexican border necessitated the mobilization, in stages, of the entire National Guard, followed by its demobilization just weeks before the U.S. declaration of war on Germany.  

The start of the Great War none the less saw a resumption of the struggle with some in the Regular Army actually arguing that the Guard should not be deployed, a biased, and frankly stupid, argument.  In the end, the Guard basically saved the American involvement in World War One and rendered it effective as the Regular Army was far too small to provide any immediate assistance anywhere.  While the Regular Army remained biased against the Guard, and would all the way into the early 1980s, the direction was set.  Following World War One a major reorganization of the National Guard commenced with state units for the first time starting to be assigned roles by the U.S. Army that contemplated full mobilization in time of war.

In 1921 that full mobilization was something that was regarded as possible, but not immediately likely. Already by that time some visionaries worried themselves about a resurgent Germany, although Germany in 1921 was on the floor.  Many in the military establishment were worried about Japan, which was beginning to flex its naval muscles in a fashion that clearly demonstrated its resentment at not being accorded great power status by other nations.  It is not true that American thought no future war was possible, they did, but they thought that a large militia establishment, a strong navy, and a small army, could rise to any challenge.  In that they were prove correct.

On this day in 1921, John Garfield Emery, the head of the American Legion, had his portrait taken.

The American Legion was a very powerful institution at the time, far more so than now.  The voice of Great War veterans, it represented a group that had come out of the Great War determined not to be forgotten, and not to be silent.

King George V opened the new Parliament of Northern Ireland with a speech calling for Irish reconciliation.

King George V.

His speech stated:

Members of the Senate and of the House of Commons 

For all who love Ireland, as I do with all my heart, this is a profoundly moving occasion in Irish history. My memories of the Irish people date back to the time when I spent many happy days in Ireland as a midshipman. My affection for the Irish people has been deepened by the successive visits since that time, and I have watched with constant sympathy the course of their affairs. 

I could not have allowed myself to give Ireland by deputy alone My earnest prayers and good wishes in the new era which opens with this ceremony, and I have therefore come in person, as the Head of the Empire, to inaugurate this Parliament on Irish soil. 

I inaugurate it with deep-felt hope, and I feel assured that you will do your utmost to make it an instrument of happiness and good government for all parts of the community which you represent. 

This is a great and critical occasion in the history of the Six Counties, but not for the Six Counties alone, for everything which interests them touches Ireland, and everything which touches Ireland finds an echo in the remotest parts of the Empire. 

Few things are more earnestly desired throughout the English speaking world than a satisfactory solution of the age long Irish problems, which for generations embarrassed our forefathers, as they now weigh heavily upon us. 

Most certainly there is no wish nearer My own heart than that every man of Irish birth, whatever be his creed and wherever be his home, should work in loyal co-operation with the free communities on which the British Empire is based. 

I am confident that the important matters entrusted to the control and guidance of the Northern Parliament will be managed with wisdom and with moderation, with fairness and due regard to every faith and interest, and with no abatement of that patriotic devotion to the Empire which you proved so gallantly in the Great War. 

Full partnership in the United Kingdom and religious freedom Ireland has long enjoyed. She now has conferred upon her the duty of dealing with all the essential tasks of domestic legislation and government; and I feel no misgiving as to the spirit in which you who stand here to-day will carry out the all important functions entrusted to your care. 

My hope is broader still. The eyes of the whole Empire are on Ireland to-day, that Empire in which so many nations and races have come together in spite of ancient feuds, and in which new nations have come to birth within the lifetime of the youngest in this Hall.

I am emboldened by that thought to look beyond the sorrow and the anxiety which have clouded of late My vision of Irish affairs. I speak from a full heart when I pray that My coming to Ireland to-day may prove to be the first step towards an end of strife amongst her people, whatever their race or creed. In that hope, I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment, and goodwill.

It is My earnest desire that in Southern Ireland, too, there may ere long take place a parallel to what is now passing in this Hall; that there a similar occasion may present itself and a similar ceremony be performed. 

For this the Parliament of the United Kingdom has in the fullest measure provided the powers; for this the Parliament of Ulster is pointing the way. The future lies in the hands of My Irish people themselves. 

May this historic gathering be the prelude of a day in which the Irish people, North and South, under one Parliament or two, as those Parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundations of mutual justice and respect.

His speech came at least a decade too late. By 1921 Ireland was irrevocably on the path of independence, save for a massive British military crackdown that the British, to their credit, did not have the stomach to make.

The United Kingdom was, it might be noted, not only about to endure defeat in Ireland, it endured defeat at the International Polo Cup on this day in 1921, with the victory going to the United States in a game that could hardly be regarded as an American forte.

President Harding was photographed with what were termed a group of "Georgia Peaches".

The photograph was no doubt completely innocent, but based on what we now know about Harding, it's hard not to get a certain icky feeling with photos of this type.