<P> Reform to them meant UMT or "universal military training". They proposed a national service program under which the 600,000 men who turned 18 every year would be required to spend six months in military training, and afterwards be assigned to reserve units . The small regular army would primarily be a training agency . </P> <P> Antimilitarists complained the plan would make America resemble Germany (which required two years' active duty). Advocates retorted that military "service" was an essential duty of citizenship, and that without the commonality provided by such service the nation would splinter into antagonistic ethnic groups . One spokesman promised that UMT would become "a real melting pot, under which the fire is hot enough to fuse the elements into one common mass of Americanism". Furthermore, they promised, the discipline and training would make for a better paid work force . Hostility to military service was strong at the time, and the program failed to win approval . In World War II, when Stimson as Secretary of War proposed a similar program of universal peacetime service, he was defeated . </P> <P> Underscoring its commitment, the Preparedness movement set up and funded its own summer training camps at Plattsburgh, New York, and other sites, where 40,000 college alumni became physically fit, learned to march and shoot, and ultimately provided the cadre of a wartime officer corps . Suggestions by labor unions that talented working - class youth be invited to Plattsburgh were ignored . The Preparedness movement was distant not only from the working classes but also from the middle - class leadership of most of small - town America . It had had little use for the National Guard, which it saw as politicized, localistic, poorly armed, ill trained, too inclined to idealistic crusading (as against Spain in 1898), and too lacking in understanding of world affairs . The National Guard on the other hand was securely rooted in state and local politics, with representation from a very broad cross section of American society . The Guard was one of the nation's few institutions that (in some northern states) accepted blacks on an equal footing . </P> <P> The Democratic party saw the Preparedness movement as a threat . Roosevelt, Root and Wood were prospective Republican presidential candidates . More subtly, the Democrats were rooted in localism that appreciated the National Guard, and the voters were hostile to the rich and powerful in the first place . Working with the Democrats who controlled Congress, Wilson was able to sidetrack the Preparedness forces . Army and Navy leaders were forced to testify before Congress to the effect that the nation's military was in excellent shape . </P>

Which incident played an important role in american entrance into world war i