bulbs in the Federal Building in Chicago. They counted the number of cuspidors in the corridors of Federal buildings elsewhere." Such attention to minute details was customary procedure in this early period when Frederick W. Taylor's Scientific Management with its time and motion studies was the vogue among industrial reformers.23

The Cleveland Commission found much to criticize in the War Department's administration. Among other things, the members thought the muster roll, a cumbersome service biography in multiple copies for each soldier, should be abolished and simpler means found to accomplish the same end. Secretary Stimson and General Wood agreed. General Ainsworth insisted the muster roll was one of the most vital documents in the Army, leaving the distinct impression that the Army could not function effectively without it. Forgetting himself, Ainsworth behaved in such a manner toward General Wood and Secretary Stimson that Mr. Stimson had no choice but to order him courtmartialed for insubordination. Ainsworth's Congressional supporters persuaded the Secretary to allow him to retire instead. 24

With General Ainsworth gone, Secretary Stimson and later Stimson's successor, Lindley M. Garrison, were able to carry out a number of the administrative reforms inspired by the Cleveland Commission. Resistance to abolishing the muster roll within The Adjutant General's Office led to compromises which kept the document alive until the huge expansion of the Army during World War I forced its abandonment. Vertical files were introduced at a great saving in space and time. Beginning in January 1914, the Dewey decimal classification was gradually substituted for General Ainsworth's cumbersome, triplicate numerical files. During this same period the Chief of Ordnance, Brig. Gen. William Crozier, with Secretary Stimson's support, sought to introduce Taylor's scientific management principles into Ordnance arsenals. Determined opposition (1) Barry Dean Karl, Executive Reorganization and Reform in the New Deal (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 188. (2) Lloyd M. Short, The Development of National Administrative Organization in the United States (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1923), pp. 459-60. (3) The quotation is from W. Brook Graves, Administration in the Federal Government, Recent Developments and Problems, ICAF Lecture No. 152-12, 10 Sep 51, P. 4.

23

24 (1) Deutrich, Struggle for Supremacy, pp. 111-22. (2) Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, pp. 127-31. (3) Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, pp. 33-36. (4) Nelson, National Security and the General Staff, pp. 151-66. (5) Stimson Diary, pp. 65-70.

from labor unions persuaded Congress to prohibit the use of Taylor's time and motion studies within the Army and Navy and later the entire federal government, a law which remained on the statute books until 1949.25

General Ainsworth after retirement had not given up his fight against the General Staff. He had simply shifted the base of his operations to the House Committee on Military Affairs where James Hay welcomed his assistance as an unofficial adviser. Secretary Stimson and later Secretary Newton D. Baker detected what they felt was Ainsworth's influence in seemingly minor but very hostile provisions of legislation coming from that committee.2 26

President Taft, urged by Secretary Stimson and now Senator Elihu Root, parried legislative thrusts by Hay, assisted apparently by Ainsworth, aimed at General Wood and the General Staff. Hay succeeded, however, in putting through a provision that reduced the General Staff by 20 percent, to thirty-six members. While increasing it to fifty-five four years later in the National Defense Act of 1916 he so limited the number of officers that could be assigned to the General Staff in Washington that only nineteen were on duty there when the United States entered World War I. (By contrast over 1,000 were so assigned by the end of the fighting. Yet, of these, only four had had previous General Staff experience, and all four were general officers.) 27

The National Defense Act of 1916 was the most comprehensive legislation of its kind Congress had ever passed. It defined the roles and missions of the Regular Army, the Na

25

(1) Deutrich, Struggle for Supremacy, pp. 127-30. (2) Mabel E. Deutrich, "Decimal Filing: Its General Background and an Account of its Rise and Fall in the U.S. War Department," The American Archivist, XXVIII (April 1965), 199–218. (3) H. G. J. Aitken, Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal, Scientific Management in Action 1908-1915 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). (4) Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920 (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 67–69. (5) M. J. Nadworny, Scientific Management and the Unions, 1900-1932 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955), pp. 28–103.

26

2 (1) Morison, Turmoil and Tradition, pp. 132–35. (2) Ltr, Newton D. Baker to Dr. Howard White, 8 May 25. In "Newton D. Baker on Executive Influence in Military Legislation," American Political Science Review, L (September 1956), 700-701.

(1) Report of the Chief of Staff, 1912, p. 243. (2) An Act Making Further and More Effectual Provision for the National Defense, and for other purposes, 3 Jun 16 (hereafter cited as the National Defense Act of 1916). Published in War Department Bulletin No. 16, 22 Jun 16, sec. 5. (3) Report of the Chief of Staff, 1919, pp. 248-49.

tional Guard, and the Reserves, placing the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and the Plattsburg idea of summer training on a firm basis. It prescribed in detail the organization, composition, and strength of all units in the Army, National Guard, and Reserves.28

These provisions were a compromise between the General Staff and Secretary Garrison who favored expanding the Regular Army with Reserves under direct federal control and traditionalists like James Hay who opposed a large standing army and insisted upon a greater and independent role for the National Guard. President Wilson was convinced that with Congress and the nation at large deeply divided on the issue of preparedness such a compromise was politically necessary. Secretary Garrison, opposed to compromise, resigned, and the President appointed a pacifist, reform Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, Newton D. Baker, in his place in March 1916.29

The provisions of the act affecting the General Staff and the bureaus were largely the work of James Hay and General Ainsworth. Hay wrote later that without Ainsworth's "vast knowledge of military law, his genius for detail, his indefatigable industry in preparing the legislation and meeting the numerous arguments which were argued against it," the bill could not have been passed.30

In addition to nearly forcing the General Staff out of existence Hay and Ainsworth inserted provisions limiting its activities essentially to war planning functions and expressly prohibiting it from interfering with the bureaus and their administration. War College personnel, who had been acting as the military intelligence and war planning agencies of the General Staff, were prohibited from performing any General Staff functions. The effect was to cut back the size of the General Staff even further. The Mobile Army Division was abolished and its functions assigned to The Adjutant General's Office and other bureaus. To underline these restrictions, Hay and Ainsworth inserted a further provision decreeing that the

28 Kreidberg and Henry, History of Military Mobilization, pp. 193-96.

29 (1) Arthur S. Link, Wilson: Confusion and Crisis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 15–54, 328-38. (2) Dickinson, The Building of an Army, pp. 29-56.

30

(1) James Hay, Woodrow Wilson and Preparedness, typescript, 1930, p. 23. In James Hay Papers, Manuscripts Div, Library of Congress. (2) Derthick, The National Guard in Politics, pp. 35-40.

"superior" officer whose subordinate should violate them would forfeit his pay and allowances.31

From 1916 onward the bureau chiefs regarded the National Defense Act as their "Magna Carta." It legally guaranteed their traditional independence of executive control by specifying the office of each chief as a statutory agency and designating them as commanding officers of their assigned corps or departments. No President could abolish or change these provisions without Congressional approval.32

When war did come, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge thought "Mr. Hay by his policy did more injury to this country at a great crisis than any one man I have ever known of in either branch of Congress." 33

World War I: The Bureau Period, 1917-1918

The apparent intent of Hay, Ainsworth, and other traditionalists was to revive through the National Defense Act the organization of the War Department that had broken down in 1898. At least Secretary Baker thought so. As soon as Mr. Hay was no longer chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee and General Ainsworth had considerably less influence, Baker announced that so far as he was concerned "The Chief of Staff, speaking in the name of the Secretary of War, will coordinate and supervise the various bureaus of the War Department; he will advise the Secretary of War; he will inform himself in as great detail as in his judgment seems necessary to qualify himself adequately to advise the Secretary of War." 84

After declaring war against Germany on 6 April 1917 Congress passed emergency legislation reversing the policies of Hay

31

"(1) The National Defense Act of 1916, Section 5, spells out all these restrictions. (2) George C. Herring, Jr., "James Hay and the Preparedness Controversy, 19151916," Journal of Southern History, XXX (November 1964), 383-404, deals with nearly every aspect of the controversy except the emasculation of the General Staff. 32 The National Defense Act, secs. 6-16.

33

Quoted by Herring, "James Hay and the Preparedness Controversy," p. 402. The same criticism applies to General Ainsworth.

34

(1) Opinion of the Secretary of War of September 13, 1916 on the Effect of Section 5, National Defense Act, in The National Defense, p. 181. (2) Congress had already adjourned, and Mr. Hay had accepted appointment as a judge on the U.S. Court of Claims. Ltr, Wilson to Hay, 19 Jul 16. James Hay Papers. (3) Newton D. Baker, The Secretary of War During the World War, Army War College lecture, 11 May 29, p. 5. Hereafter cited as Baker War College Lecture.

and Ainsworth by providing that the Chief of Staff should have "rank and precedence over all other officers of the Army" and increasing the size of the General Staff to nearly 100.35 With this authority Mr. Baker could have asserted firm executive control over the bureaus through the Chief of Staff in the manner of Root and Stimson. Instead for nearly a year he went back to the traditional policy of allowing the bureaus to run themselves, with results similar to those in the War with Spain, only far more serious.

Believing he was following the confederate philosophy of Jefferson Davis, Baker asserted that "civilian interference with commanders in the field is dangerous." He applied the same principle in dealing with the bureau chiefs. President Wilson also sought to run the war along traditional lines with as little executive control as possible. Both he and Secretary Baker exercised their authority by delegating it freely. The President left the running of the Army and much of the industrial mobilization program to Mr. Baker who in turn delegated his authority freely to his military commanders and the bureau chiefs.

"An Act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and eighteen, and for other purposes." Approved 12 May 1917 and published in War Department Bulletin No. 30 of 22 May