A debate over military preparedness engulfed the nation a century ago as The Great War threatened to cross the Atlantic from Europe. Proponents argued that military expansion would deter attack, while pacifists and other supporters of neutrality worried the manufacture of battleships and the creation of a large army would encourage U.S. involvement in the war.
The appearance of military preparedness organizations in Bangor, including a chapter of the National Defense League and an officer-training program for businessmen, were two of the many signs that preparedness advocates were gaining ground in the closing months of 1915.
U.S. entry into World War I was still more than a year away, but the growing patriotic fervor echoed in Bangor’s newspapers along with the endless stories about the war in Europe demonstrated that a large percentage of the Queen City’s male population was ready to march.
Several events had aroused concern in the Pine Tree State in the last year that the Atlantic Ocean wasn’t wide enough to protect the country from the catastrophic events in Europe. A German soldier had attempted to blow up the railroad bridge at Vanceboro and the German passenger ship Kronprinzessin Cecilie with a cargo of gold had sailed into Bar Harbor to escape pursuers.
Rumors of spies manning wireless contraptions in the woods near Bangor had been reported in the newspapers, while heavily armed “treasure trains” lumbered through the city between Canada and New York banks carrying British wealth to finance the war.
Meanwhile, the newspapers reported on a weekly basis the sinking of many commercial vessels, some with Maine connections like the William P. Frye. Sometimes these ships, like the Lusitania, carried civilian passengers ranging from Bar Harbor socialites to immigrants.
The Bangor branch of the National Defense League named Harry M. Smith, a former captain of the city’s own Company G of the Maine National Guard, as its leader, according to the Bangor Daily News on Sept. 29, 1915. One of the group’s first actions was to invite famed Arctic explorer Rear Adm. Robert Peary, an ardent military preparedness advocate, to give a speech at City Hall on Nov. 19.
The retired Navy man didn’t mince words.
“The last year has proved that no human institution, no government, no region on earth’s surface is safe unless it can defend itself … Because we are big, it does not follow that we are strong. The rabbit stands no chance with the little weasel.
“This country with its utmost resources, its most desperate courage, intense energy and undying patriotism will be as helpless against any one of the huge fighting machines abroad which are trained by continuous combat to the highest level of efficiency, precision and endurance as a child in the hands of a professional wrestler,” said the man many believed to have been the first to reach the North Pole.
America had never fought “a real war with a first class power,” he noted.
In the War of 1812, the United States had 10 times as many men under arms as the enemy, yet managed to win only one land engagement — after the war was over. It was “a fool idea” to think that “the weight of untrained numbers counts for anything.”
Besides building up its military capabilities, Peary advocated an “aerial coast patrol system,” an early warning network for spotting invasions.
“The idea itself … is the division of our entire coast from Eastport to the Rio Grande, and from San Diego to Puget Sound, into convenient sections or ‘beats,’ each beat in time of emergency to be patrolled continuously by a powerful hydro-aeroplane with driver and observer equipped with wireless.” Such a machine would be able to detect an enemy’s ships, “giving several hours of advance notice to prepare for attack.
“When the system is in operation there will be, far out at sea, a continuous corridor of whirring shuttles, the eyes of the nation, ceaselessly weaving their curtain of protection round the entire country. With such a system in operation, a surprise attack upon our coasts will be an impossibility,” Peary said.
The idea was to get the system established “by private initiative” and then to turn it over to the government. Thus, the government would acquire a large number of hydro-aeroplanes and aviators. The goal of a committee of prominent Maine men was to establish the first station in the system in Maine.
“It requires no stretch of the imagination to picture some daring Maine man driving his machine at 100 miles per hour southeastward from his station; discovering almost in mid-Atlantic the approach of a hostile fleet headed for New York or Hampton Roads, and returning to flash the news to Washington hours before the station to the south could possibly do so,” the Arctic adventurer said.
This was heady stuff for listeners back when “hydro-aeroplanes” were still experimental “machines,” and the idea of a naval invasion of the East Coast the stuff of science fiction nightmares.
The Bangor Daily News announced on Page One on Nov. 27 that Peary had been named president of the Maine Aeronautical Coast Patrol Association. The group was seeking to raise $10,000.
Another event indicating that Bangor had decided it was time to prepare for war was announced on Dec. 16 in this Bangor Daily News headline: “Bangor Business Men To Form Company to Study Science of War.”
The idea was based on a well-publicized training camp for “business and professional men” that had been held the summer before at Plattsburg, New York. This “semi-military organization” would be headed up by Lt. F.S. Clark of the U.S. Army, a military science instructor assigned to the University of Maine. Clark said he was volunteering his time for this particular “officers’ training course.”
Men from the training camp program would be considered for commissions should Congress decide to call up “a huge continental or reserve army … The keynote of it all is patriotism — defense of the flag in an emergency,” the reporter wrote, summing things up for his readers.
As an indication of the informality of the experiment, Clark recommended “that you form some kind of definite organization and provide yourselves with a uniform — service hat, drab woolen shirt, khaki breeches and leggings. This will aid, if it does nothing else, in the spirit of cohesion.”
Twenty-six of the business and professional young men of Bangor had already indicated they wanted to prepare for war in this manner, and a petition was being circulated urging more to join.
During this period the government announced it was opening a Navy recruiting station in Bangor. The Queen City would also become “district headquarters for the Naval Reserve, a new organization of those who have served one or more enlistments in the navy,” according to the Bangor Daily News on Oct. 22.
In this manner, a potentially powerful nation organized for the decades of warfare ahead depending both on civilian and government leadership and resources from small towns and cities across the country. Those advocates of neutrality and pacifism were soon swept aside.
Wayne E. Reilly’s column on Bangor a century ago appears in the newspaper every other Monday. His latest book, “Hidden History of Bangor: From Lumbering Days to the Progressive Era,” is available where books are sold. Comments can be sent to him at wreilly.bdn@gmail.com