More Wilsonian Piffle Brought to Light
A very interesting article entitled ‘Two of the Famous Stories About Woodrow Wilson — And They’re Not True‘ by Thomas Fleming. An excerpt:
[On the day Congress declared war on Germany in 1917] Major Palmer S. Pierce of the U.S. Army’s general staff testified before the Senate Finance Committee about the war department’s emergency request for three billion dollars.
The chairman of the committee, Senator Thomas S. Martin of Virginia, was also the Senate Democratic majority leader. Martin scowled at Pierce and asked him to explain how the army was going to spend this stupendous sum, the equivalent of perhaps $50 billion in today’s dollars.
Pierce began listing how much it cost to build training camps, buy rifles, artillery, airplanes — then added nervously: “And we may have to have an army in France.”
“Good Lord!” Senator Martin said. “You’re not going to send soldiers over there, are you?”
Few comments better exemplify the almost incredible naivete that underlay the American decision to declare war on Germany.
This post was published on Monday, February 20th, 2006 6:51 am. It has been categorised under
History Military. Click
here to view comments or respond.
