<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (September 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <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> <P> In reality, neither the US Army nor US Navy was in shape for war in terms of manpower, size, military hardware or experience . The Navy had fine ships but Wilson had been using them to threaten Mexico, and the fleet's readiness had suffered . The crews of the Texas and the New York, the two newest and largest battleships, had never fired a gun, and the morale of the sailors was low . The Army and Navy air forces were tiny in size . Despite the flood of new weapons systems unveiled in the war in Europe, the Army was paying scant attention . For example, it was making no studies of trench warfare, poison gas or tanks, and was unfamiliar with the rapid evolution of Aerial warfare . The Democrats in Congress tried to cut the military budget in 1915 . The Preparedness movement effectively exploited the surge of outrage over the "Lusitania" in May 1915, forcing the Democrats to promise some improvements to the military and naval forces . Wilson, less fearful of the Navy, embraced a long - term building program designed to make the fleet the equal of the British Royal Navy by the mid-1920s, although this would not come to pass until after World War II . "Realism" was at work here; the admirals were Mahanians and they therefore wanted a surface fleet of heavy battleships second to none--that is, equal to Great Britain . The facts of submarine warfare (which necessitated destroyers, not battleships) and the possibilities of imminent war with Germany (or with Britain, for that matter), were simply ignored . </P> <P> Wilson's decision touched off a firestorm . Secretary of War Lindley Garrison adopted many of the proposals of the Preparedness leaders, especially their emphasis on a large federal reserves and abandonment of the National Guard . Garrison's proposals not only outraged the provincial politicians of both parties, they also offended a strongly held belief shared by the liberal wing of the Progressive movement, that was, that warfare always had a hidden economic motivation . Specifically, they warned the chief warmongers were New York bankers (such as J.P. Morgan) with millions at risk, profiteering munition makers (such as Bethlehem Steel, which made armour, and DuPont, which made powder) and unspecified industrialists searching for global markets to control . Antiwar critics blasted them . These selfish special interests were too powerful, especially, Senator La Follette noted, in the conservative wing of the Republican Party . The only road to peace was disarmament in the eyes of many . </P>

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