As a result of bitter
disagreements with President Woodrow Wilson over
America's national defense strategies, Lindley M. Garrison resigns his position
as the United States secretary of
war on this day in 1916.
Garrison came to Wilson's
attention while serving as vice-chancellor of New Jersey (in addition to
running a legal practice) and was appointed secretary of war in January 1913
upon Wilson's ascent to the White House. After the outbreak of war in Europe in
1914, Garrison clashed repeatedly with many in the Wilson administration,
including the president himself, who regarded the secretary as notably hawkish
with respect to America's national defense.
The main disagreement between
Garrison and the president arose from the Wilson administration's long-term
national defense plans and short-term U.S. military preparedness in light of
the ongoing war in Europe. At the time, Wilson favored a policy of strict
neutrality—he would be reelected later that year on a platform promising to
keep America out of the war—and he objected to Garrison's belief that a
full-time reserve army should be created as a foundation for national defense
and, more immediately, for support in case the U.S. entered the European war.
In his letter of resignation
to the president, Mr. Garrison wrote, It is evident that we hopelessly disagree
upon what I conceive to be fundamental principles. This makes manifest the
impropriety of my longer remaining your seeming representative with respect to
those matters. I hereby tender my resignation as Secretary of War, to take effect
at your convenience. Assistant Secretary of War Henry Breckinridge also
resigned his position out of loyalty to Mr. Garrison.
Newton D. Baker, a former
mayor of Cleveland, took over as secretary of war upon Garrison's resignation.
Chosen by Wilson for his pacifist leanings—and distrusted by such hawks as
Wilson's steadfast Republican opponent, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge—Baker would
nonetheless help the president reach the decision to enter the war in April
1917, submit a plan for universal military conscription to Congress and preside
over the mobilization of some 4 million American soldiers.
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-secretary-of-war-resigns
[10.02.2015]
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