Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval H.J. Res. 440 Directing Reduction of Enlisted Men in Army to 175,000

The White House, February 5, 1921.

I return herewith, without my approval, House joint resolution No. 440, directing the Secretary of War to cease enlisting men in the Regular Army of the United States, except in the cases of those men who have already served one or more enlistments therein.

The text of the joint resolution discloses that its purpose is to cause a discontinuance of enlistment in the Regular Army until the number of enlisted men shall not exceed one hundred and seventy-five thousand. No provision is made in the resolution for the preservation of any proportionate strength in the combatant corps of the Army and a mere discontinuance of enlistment would, for a long time, preserve the Staff Corps disproportionately enlisted and the combatant corps insufficiently manned to maintain the instruction and training which ought to be assured if an Army of one hundred and seventy-five thousand men is to be efficient in proportion to its aggregate number.

On the fourth day of June, 1920,1 signed a bill passed by the present Congress, providing for the re-organization of the Army. Because of the profoundly disturbed condition of the world and in order that full benefit might accrue to the people of the United States from the lessons of the World War as to what, under modem conditions, is required to be the nucleus of an efficient Army, the War Department had recommended an Army of approximately five hundred thousand men. The Congress, after prolonged consideration, determined to authorize, and did authorize, the re-organization of the Army on the basis of an enlisted strength of approximately two hundred and eighty thousand men, including in the organization new arms like the Air Service and the Chemical Warfare Service, the use of which were developments of the war and provision for which is a necessary addition to the pre-war strength of the Army. The Act authorized for the first time in our history a tactical organization of the Army, resting upon divisions as tactical units, and required the training of the National Guard and the organized reserve in territorial areas of the United States in association with the divisions of the Regular Army. At that time, the Congress plainly regarded the provision then made as the minimum which would provide for the added arms and new duties imposed on the Army, and for that efficiency which the peace-time Army of the United States should have as the nucleus of mobilization in the event of a national emergency. I regret that I am not able to see in the condition of the world at large or in the needs of the United States any such change as would justify the restriction upon that minimum which is proposed by the House Joint Resolution.

WOODROW WILSON.