USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5 > Part 53
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THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
creased to 21 companies of infantry and 2 troops of cavalry, which number was gradually reduced as law and order was restored. The troops were on duty 52 days in all.
On June 26, 1914, occurred a fire which destroyed a large part of the City of Salem. The infantry officers were all at the Officers' School at West Newbury, and as the companies were called out they assembled and moved to Salem under their sergeants in a manner which showed a high degree of training and discipline. There were 24 companies on duty, and in his annual report the adjutant-general said: "This tour of duty was, in my opinion, as efficient a tour as was ever performed by the militia of Massachusetts." The troops were on duty until July 7, and not only policed the burned district, but at the beginning administered the relief work.
RELATIONS WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (1903-1914)
The chief characteristic of this period, however, was the development of closer relations with the federal government. The so-called "Dick Act," passed by Congress January 21, 1903, together with later statutes passed to supplement it, pro- vided for increased federal appropriations for the organized militia; the federal government undertook to equip the troops completely for the field. , The government encouraged the at- tendance of officers and men of the militia at service schools of the Regular Army under federal compensation. It pro- vided for the participation of the Army and militia in joint maneuvers paid for from federal funds. It assigned officers and noncommissioned officers of the Army to duty as in- spectors and instructors of the militia.
To obtain its allotment of federal funds, the militia of a State had to meet certain standards of efficiency. It must perform at least five days' camp duty and hold at least twenty- four drills a year. Since Massachusetts already exceeded these minimum requirements, the federal law imposed no hard- ship and was advantageous to the State both financially and in the line of active cooperation.
FEDERAL RESTRICTIONS (1908-1915)
In one respect the administration of the law did produce some antagonism, though less here than in most States. The
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FEDERAL SUPERVISION
law of May 27, 1908, provided that, "On and after January twenty-first, nineteen hundred and ten, the organization, armament, and discipline of the organized militia . . . shall be the same as that which is now or may hereafter be pre- scribed for the Regular Army of the United States, subject in time of peace to such general exceptions as may be authorized by the Secretary of War."
The law also provided that organizations which had existed since May 8, 1792, "shall be allowed to retain their accustomed privileges, subject, nevertheless to all duties required by law in like manner as the other militia." Under these words the Division of Militia Affairs in the War Department tried to force on the militia not the organization prescribed by law, which actually existed in the Regular Army, but the organiza- tion laid down in the Field Service Regulations as the ideal in time of war-an ideal which the Regular Army did not try to reach and which the law did not allow it to reach.
The division also refused to recognize a headquarters for any organization which was not complete according to this standard. Thus the First Brigade went out of existence because it had only two regiments, instead of the three then prescribed as the ideal in regulations, and Massachusetts was left with one brigade and two unattached regiments. The cavalry squadron would also have lost its headquarters and the three troops become unattached, had not the fourth troop needed to complete the squadron been formed in 1910, in spite of the fact that there was a single troop of cavalry at Peterboro, N. H., and single regiments of infantry in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, which could have been used to fill the vacancies, had the militia been called into federal service. Even the privileges of the two corps of cadets secured to them by the express words of the law were attacked, but unsuccessfully.
EFFECTS OF FEDERAL SUPERVISION (1903-1914)
The law did accomplish good, even in Massachusetts, by breaking up the old mixed brigades and making the cavalry and artillery independent commands, where their own particu- lar needs were not overlooked in a unit predominantly infan- try. It led to the formation of permanent staff departments,
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from which officers were detailed to organizations, instead of having such officers mere appointees of the brigade or regi- mental commander with no coordinating head in departmental matters. It led to the formation in each infantry regiment, in 1915, of a machine gun company, a supply company, and a headquarters company.
In another respect the Division of Militia Affairs did a valuable work. The characteristic of the organized militia all over the country was that it had an excess of infantry and a deficiency of all the auxiliary arms. For State purposes, infantry and a small amount of cavalry were the only arms needed except in very rare instances, such as Shays's Rebel- lion of 1786. On account of the far greater expense of main- taining the auxiliary arms, there was a general feeling that the federal government ought to contribute most of this ex- pense, if it desired them maintained.
Although prior to the National Defense Act of 1916 the federal government could not prescribe what kind of troops a State should maintain, its persuasion did induce Massachu- setts and other States to provide their proportion of the auxiliary arms needed for complete divisions. In Massachu- setts, beside organizing the special units in the infantry regi- ments and increasing the cavalry squadron to four troops, the signal company, which had been formed in 1905 by consolidat- ing the two brigade signal corps, was increased to a two-com- pany field battalion; the ambulance or hospital corps, as it had been variously called, was divided into an ambulance com- pany and a field hospital; and most important of all, the Second Corps of Cadets, voluntarily changed from infantry to field artillery, surrendered their ancient privilege of not being attached to any unit smaller than a division, and became the second battalion of the First Regiment of Field Artillery.
THE NATIONAL DEFENSE ACT OF 1916
June 3, 1916, the National Defense Act was passed by Congress. This marked the culmination of the federalization of the militia. The War Department was given the right to prescribe what units and branches of the service each State should maintain and to unite the organizations of different
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ON THE MEXICAN FRONTIER
States, so as to have tactically complete divisions, and pro- vided a certain amount of federal pay for each member of the National Guard (as it was now called), in return for which he took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and to obey the orders of the President. Under the Constitution the militia can only be used "to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions," and so is not available as an expeditionary force. For this reason the militia organizations in the War with Spain had to enter the service not as militia, but as volunteers.
The National Defense Act meets this situation by providing that when so authorized the President may draft the National Guard into the Army of the United States, and that persons so drafted "shall, from the date of their draft, stand dis- charged from the militia, and shall from said date be subject to such laws and regulations for the government of the Army of the United States as may be applicable to the Volunteer Army." The law also required a minimum of 48 drills and 15 days' field duty of each National Guard organization. The Naval Militia Act of August 29, 1916, provided similar federal aid and control for the naval militia.
Under the provisions of the National Defense Act, Massa- chusetts organized a second field hospital and second ambu- lance company in 1916, and at the beginning of the next year an additional company was added to the signal battalion and the Second Regiment of Field Artillery organized. The First Corps of Cadets also changed into a regiment of engineers. The Naval Brigade had also been gradually increased so that by the end of 1916 it included 10 deck divisions, 3 engineer divisions, a company of marines (the first of its kind to be organized in the entire United States), and aeronautical de- tachments.
MASSACHUSETTS ON THE MEXICAN FRONTIER (1916)
June 18, 1916, the President called out the National Guard and organized militia of the country for duty on the Mexican border, and Massachusetts sent its entire land forces except the coast artillery and Sixth Infantry. Inasmuch as only fifteen days had elapsed since the passage of the National Defense Act, the Massachusetts militia had not been able to
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THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
reorganize as "National Guard" under that act. Great con- fusion resulted at the mobilization camp at Framingham, some of which was due to shortsightedness on the part of the War Department, and some to the fact that the militia was un- prepared for the situation.
The period of border service was spent in drills and field exercises with the Regular Army, and during it the officers and men became accustomed to Regular Army methods and administration, so that the later mobilization of 1917 was ac- complished without confusion. They also returned from the border with horses and a large amount of equipment which they had not had before. After the severance of diplomatic relations with Germany, the troops devoted all their energies to preparing for the call for foreign service, which all thinking men could see was coming; and in doing this their border ex- perience was a great aid.
TENURE OF OFFICE CONTROVERSY (1914)
Although under a system of electing officers the militia had always had its internal politics, it had been generally free from partisan civilian politics. The adjutant-general, the administrative head of the militia, though the personal ap- pointee of the governor, had in practice been retained in office under successive governors of the same party, and in one notable instance under a governor of the opposite party. Governor Walsh, a man of no military experience, on taking office determined to oust the then adjutant-general, though of the same political party as himself, and induced the legisla- ture to repeal the law passed in 1912 which had given the adjutant-general a five-year tenure of office. The suspense and unrest which this incident directly and indirectly caused was a positive set-back to the development of the militia in efficiency, and to conditions which resulted from it may be attributed much of the confusion when the Mexican Border call came.
THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE GUARD (1917-1919)
August 5, 1917, the President drafted into the Army of the United States the entire National Guard, except some half dozen departmental officers; so that from then on Massachu-
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STATE GUARD
setts had no National Guard. The history of the National Guard organizations in federal service will be told in a later chapter of this volume and will not be touched upon here.
In anticipation of this draft, the legislature provided in 1917 for the organization of a local force known as the Massa- chusetts State Guard. A novel but wise provision of the law not only made the members soldiers, but gave them the powers of deputy sheriffs and constables in criminal matters throughout the Commonwealth. When fully organized, the force consisted of 11 regiments of infantry, a troop of cavalry, a medical department, and the First Motor Corps, a battalion equipped with automobiles and largely recruited from former members of the First Corps of Cadets; a total of about 725 officers and 10,800 men. They were formed into a division under Maj. Gen. Butler Ames, who had been pro- moted to lieutenant colonel of the Sixth Massachusetts In- fantry in the Spanish War. Companies and detachments of the State Guard performed duty in guarding the barred zones on the Boston waterfront for 17 days in December, 1917. They were used also at a riot in Easthampton for 14 days; and at an explosion in Franklin. The guard also rendered valu- able aid after the explosion in Halifax Harbor in December, 1917, and during the influenza epidemic in the fall of 1918. In 1918 the organizations performed five days of camp duty and in 1919. seven days.
STATE GUARD IN THE POLICE STRIKE (1919)
Its best known and most important duty was in connection with the Boston Police Strike in 1919. In May of that year the Guard had been reduced to two brigades of three regi- ments each, the troop of cavalry, and the First Motor Corps; a total of 536 officers and 6,225 men. The police left their posts on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 9. The cavalry troop and the First Motor Corps, which were holding their regular drills that evening, were held at their armories until 11: 00 P.M. and then dismissed, since all seemed quiet.
Rioting began almost immediately thereafter, and continued through the night. Early the next morning the mayor of Boston issued his precept, ordering out the commands located in the city; and before night the governor had ordered out
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THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
the remaining regiments. Hence by 2:30 A. M. of Thursday, September 11, the entire State Guard was on duty in Boston, having mobilized, entrained, and reached the city in less than fifteen hours. The companies were recruited to 100 men, and additional units were accepted. On October 8 the relief of the troops began, and was completed on December 21, after a tour of duty of 102 days, the longest ever performed in sup- port of the civil authorities since the days of Shays's Rebellion. The understanding that the troops would fire on rioters had an immediate effect, and disorders ceased at once. Indeed all the tours of duty of the State Guard were so performed that in his annual report for 1920 the adjutant-general said: "All will go down in history as fine examples of what a loyal citizen soldiery can do when a crisis arises in the community."
POST-BELLUM ORGANIZATION (1919-1930)
The services of Massachusetts organizations in the World War are elsewhere described in this volume. By the middle of 1919 the former members of the National Guard were re- turning from overseas, and the question of reorganizing it demanded consideration. At first there was considerable un- certainty, because it was generally expected that Congress would establish some form of universal training, and the future organization of the Army had not been decided. The new National Defense Act, passed by Congress in June, 1920, disappointed the advocates of universal training and merely broadened and strengthened the basic ideas of the National Defense Act of 1916.
Under this law and the military policy formulated by the War Department in accordance therewith, there was to be one Army of the United States, consisting of the Regular Army, the National Guard, and the Organized Reserves. Only a skeleton organization of the last is to exist in time of peace; but the two first are to be kept constantly recruited to peace strength ; and at least one division of each is to be located in each of the nine corps areas into which the country is divided.
Unfortunately, the wave of economy which swept the country shortly after the act was passed has prevented the plan in its entirety ever being put into effect, and the National
Courtesy of the Author
26TH TANK COMPANY ON THE MARCH
Courtesy of the Author
37 M M GUN IN ACTION
THE NEW NATIONAL GUARD, 1930
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PERPETUATION OF ORGANIZATIONS
Guard as well as the Regular Army has suffered from a short- age of appropriations by Congress. The Militia Bureau of the War Department is presided over by a National Guard officer. It is understood that all policies affecting the National Guard are to be prepared by committees consisting of an equal number of Regular Army and National Guard officers. A National Guard organization may be divided between differ- ent States, so that one State may have the headquarters and some of the units of an organization and the remaining units be in a neighboring State. Since the National Guard usually encamps by divisions, these detached units have an opportunity to get accustomed to the organization of which they will form a part in time of war, so that a cause of friction under the old Dick Act is removed.
PERPETUATION OF ORGANIZATIONS (1920-1930)
Under this law, the names of the World War organizations were to be perpetuated and assigned to the States from which a majority of their members had come. Massachusetts was allotted one field artillery brigade, consisting of the 101st and 102nd Field Artillery Regiments; one infantry brigade, con- sisting of the 101st and 104th Infantry Regiments; the 101st Regiment of Engineers; and certain corps, Army and auxiliary troops. Later the State was allotted a complete di- vision, which was designated as the Twenty-Sixth, in recogni- tion of the fact that Massachusetts had furnished more men than any other State to the "Yankee Division" in the World War.
Federal economy delayed the organization of the full num- ber of units, but in 1930 the division was complete, save for one or two minor company units. This is the first time Massa- chusetts has had a complete tactical division since the reorgani- zation of 1876. In addition to the 26th Division, the State has a complete harbor-defense regiment of coast artillery ; a full regiment of cavalry ; a battalion of colored infantry; and the First Corps of Cadets, which has organized itself into a bat- talion of anti-aircraft artillery, which in time of war will be expanded into a full regiment. The Naval Militia has not been reestablished, for the federal government has taken over the entire Naval Reserve system.
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THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA
The organization of these National Guard units has been gradual, and at first there was some shifting of companies from infantry to artillery, and vice versa; but by the end of 1920, 73 units had been federally recognized-125 by the end of 1921, and 134 by the end of 1922. A board of officers, presided over by the adjutant-general, had recommended a form of reorganization which would have preserved not only the World War organizations but also the historic Massa- chusetts regiments which saw service in the Civil and Spanish Wars. In some cases, such as the coast artillery and the First Corps of Cadets, the continuity of the organization has been preserved. In other cases, company organizations, some of which go back to the War of 1812 and even to the Revolu- tion, have been continued; but the connection of the regi- mental unit with any one of the pre-war regiments rests on a slight basis. This is unfortunate, for Massachusetts had reason to be proud of its historic regiments, all but one of which dated back to the Civil War.
THE SERVICE IN 1930
The tours of camp duty of the division, which now last 15 days, are held ordinarily at Camp Devens, although the Air Service has usually performed its tour at Mitchel Field, N. Y. The shortage of horses has made it necessary to take only one regiment of field artillery to camp with the division, the other performing its tour separately. The coast and anti-aircraft artillery performs its tour at coast forts, and the cavalry is united with that of the other New England States in a joint camp at Quonset Point, R. I. The Training School has been re-established, and is doing good work.
The formation of a highly efficient body of State Police has relieved the National Guard of aiding the civil authorities, save in some unusual emergency; and since 1919 there have been but four such occasions worthy of note: an explosion in Springfield in 1923 ; floods in the western part of the State in 1927; a strike in New Bedford in 1928; and a fire in Fall River the same year.
Although the numbers of the National Guard are about double what they were at the beginning of 1916, no deteriora-
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
tion in quality is visible. Most of the officers are World War veterans, and the requirements of the War Department exact a high standard both physically and professionally. The tours of camp duty show that, when the new National Guard is called upon to go to war, it will prove itself worthy of its heritage from the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia of 1861, 1898, and 1917.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
EDWARDS, FRANK E .- The '98 Campaign of the 6th Massachusetts, U. S. V. (Boston, Little, Brown, 1899).
FRYE, JAMES A .- The First Regiment Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, United States Volunteers, in the Spanish-American War of 1898 (Boston, Calumet Co., 1899).
HALL, CHARLES WNSLOW, editor .- Regiments and Armories of Massa- chusetts (Boston, Potter, 1899).
MASSACHUSETTS (Colony) .- Acts and Resolves, Public and Private of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (21 vols., 1869-1922) -Volumes I-V contain the Public Acts.
MASSACHUSETTS (Colony) .- Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686 (5 vols. in 6, Bos- ton, 1853-1854).
MASSACHUSETTS (Commonwealth) .- Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court (Boston, 1839 and later years).
MASSACHUSETTS-ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE .- Annual Reports (Bos- ton, 1845 and later).
PIERCE, FREDERICK E .- Reminiscences of the Experiences of Company L, Second Regiment Massachusetts Infantry, U. S. V., in the Spanish- American War (Greenfield, E. A. Hall & Co., 1900).
WEBBER, HARRY E .- Twelve Months with the Eighth Massachusetts In- fantry in the Service of the United States (Salem, Newcomb & Gauss, 1908).
WEYMOUTH (Mass.) .- List of Weymouth Men World War Veterans (Weymouth, 1930)-Check list of all Weymouth men in service in the World War, with a list of missing men.
CHAPTER XX
MASSACHUSETTS IN THE WORLD WAR (1914-1919)
BY JOHN H. SHERBURNE
ATTITUDE OF MASSACHUSETTS (1914-1915)
The outbreak of the great European war came upon the people of Massachusetts as a complete and shocking surprise. No one had any warning of the coming storm; hundreds of Massachusetts travellers were caught by it in Europe and re- patriated with difficulty. The economic and social ties between Europe and the eastern seaboard States, especially Massa- chusetts, were strong. Trade with foreign countries had pros- pered and a part of the prosperity of Massachusetts was in- volved therein; its citizens watched the course of events in Europe with deep sentimental interest and with some alarm for their trade and business futures. The sympathy of the people went out strongly to France and the great majority of Massachusetts people were overwhelmingly in favor of the allied powers. The invasion of Belgium and the violation of its neutrality was strongly condemned, and the tales of Ger- man atrocities intensified hostility against a ruthless and mili- taristic Germany. The invasion of France was watched step by step with great interest. Crowds assembled in front of the newspaper bulletins, and special editions of the papers were eagerly read. When the tide of invasion was checked at the Marne and the invader thrown back, there was almost universal relief. It was generally believed that the war would soon be over, from exhaustion of resources if not from de- cisive victory.
The war did not affect the physical or economic life of the State. The Boston stock exchange, following the New York stock exchange, closed on the outbreak of the war, but soon reopened; and business and industrial life continued as before. Foreign trade was interrupted; but it was soon found that foreign competition, which had been feared by the indus-
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INTEREST IN THE ALLIES
tries of Massachusetts under the lower tariff schedule enacted by the first Congress in the Wilson administration, was also stopped. Then war orders from the belligerents for cloth, leather, munitions and nearly every other product manufac- tured in this State began to flow in, with resulting material prosperity to the community.
INTEREST IN THE ALLIES (1915-1916)
A considerable number of Massachusetts men, led by strength of conviction or by love of adventure, joined the Allies, enlisting with the Canadian forces, in the Foreign Legion, or with the allied hospital and ambulance service. To most people, however, the war, as a fact touching their daily life or future, seemed remote. Although the sympathy of Massachusetts, except the small part of the population of Teu- tonic derivation, was strongly with the Allies, the community settled down to a comfortable and profitable neutrality and watched the tragedy unroll. There was some talk of a duty to intervene when Belgium was invaded; and when the Lusi- tania was sunk in May, 1915, a great wave of indignation swept over the State and the whole country, which might well have brought this nation into the war had the national admin- istration so decided.
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