SECRETARY OF WAR WEEKS SAYS U.S. ARMY 'TOO SMALL'
San Francisco, California (JFK+50) On May 26, 1923, Secretary of War John W. Weeks*, in an address before the Association of the Army of the United States, said that the standing army of the nation ranks 46th in the world and is "too small to accomplish what is intended for it to do."
JFK+50 NOTE
When the United States entered WWI, the officers & soldiers of the Army numbered 127,500. By war's end, 4,000,000 had served. That number was reduced to 1.5 million, then to 780,000.
By the National Defense Act of 1920, the number was set at 280,000 & further reduced by the Congress in 1921 to 125,000. Public pressure and economics are given as the reasons for the size reductions.
*John Wingate Weeks (1860-1926) was born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, graduated from the US Naval Academy 1881 & served in US House of Representatives 1905-1913, U.S. Senate 1913-1919, & as Secretary of War 1921-1925.
SOURCES
"Army Downsizing Following WWI, WWII, Vietnam, And a Comparison to Recent Army Downsizing," by Maj Garry L. Thompson, Thesis for Master of Military Arts & Sciences, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 2002.
"Army of U.S. Too Small To Do Very Much," The Alaska Daily Empire, May 26, 1923, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/
