Plowshares into swords : the decision to mobilize the National Guard in 1940

Abstract

In September 1939, as Europe went to war, the United States had an Army rated seventeenth in the world. The National Guard was a force, although partially equipped and trained, that could augment it. The Army quickly won presidential approval to increase both the Guard's size and its training, but not to the levels the Army wished. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was hesitant to take too large a step for the largely isolationist populist. The Army, too, moved cautiously in its efforts to train and reorganize the National Guard. The National Guard Association represented the Guard's officer corps and possessed one of the most effective lobbies at that time. It had long sought an increased national defense and funds without incurring substantial Federal control. From 1939 through 1941, the Association, at the behest of Milton A. Reckord, its able lobbyist, set aside its concerns over Federal control, if only briefly, and cooperated with the Army, but only if the Federal government paid for more troops and equipment. While the Association attempted to balance its state and national concerns, Congress grappled with the political costs of mobilizing citizen soldiers. Isolationists in particular faced the dilemma of strengthening national defense and restricting the growth of presidential power. Public Law 96 passed in August 1940 provided for the mobilization of the National Guard for one year, but restricted its use to US possessions and the Western Hemisphere. In 1941 Roosevelt requested Congress to retain Guardsmen, Reservists, and draftees. While retention of the Guard was not in serious doubt, it was tied to keeping draftees beyond one year. Passage of retention legislation by one vote denoted the nation's division over the nation's possible evolvement in the war. The Acts of 1940 and 1941 tested the National Guard as an instrument of national defense and expanded the Federal government's powers over the Guard. Federalized units served as training grounds for draftees and effective combat units. Mobilization brought another result. Congress had expanded its power to use the Guard as a Federal reserve force, effectively removing it from the state' hands, a point finally clarified in 1990 by the Supreme Court.