In August 1921, a free summer camp for young White men between the ages of 16 and 35 selected from around the country was held at Camp Meade and eleven other military installations nationwide. The Citizens’ Military Training Camp (CMTC) offered instruction in a variety of subjects and military physical training, all led by Army instructors. Attendees were supplied with uniforms and equipment, free transportation to and from the camp, and, if necessary, use of on-site medical and dental personnel.
In offering the camps, the Army hoped that the selected campers would “become sufficiently interested to affiliate with the National Guard or Organized Reserve when they return to their homes” but “attendance at the camp involves absolutely no obligation, moral or legal, to perform any further military service,” according to the Laurel Leader.
In that first year, Camp Meade expected 1,200 selectees from the District of Columbia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to be a part of the first CMTC.
“CMTC camps were a month long and Camp Meade, later Fort Meade, was one of about 50 Army posts nationally that hosted a CMTC program each summer from 1921 to 1940,” wrote Barbara Taylor in the book Fort George. G. Meade, The First 100 Years.
Delayed By WWI
The origins of the CMTC began before World War I when Army Chief of Staff General Leonard Wood assigned three officers (including Captain Douglas MacArthur) in 1913 to come up with a plan for a volunteer summer camp. Two camp locations were offered in the first year, with the number doubling to four the next year, 1914. With war in Europe rapidly gaining steam, by 1915 “the idea of military preparedness to take on a new urgency” became a reality, according to Donald M. Kington in his book Forgotten Summers, The Story of the Citizens’ Military Training Camps, 1921–1940.
The final camp was held in 1916. Although plans for a camp in 1917 were underway, “in April, however, the nation declared war against Germany, wiping out any possibility of summer camps for volunteer civilians,” according to Kington.
Post War: A Renewed Focus on Preparedness
In the first election following the World War, Warren G. Harding was elected president. Harding was an avid proponent of voluntary military training and was widely reported promoting his intention to develop a comprehensive system for training at least 100,000 men each year.
Congress had set forth a pathway for voluntary military service in the National Defense Act and amended by the Reorganization Act of 1920. The War Department would conduct twelve Citizen Military Training Camps throughout the United States beginning in the summer of 1921.
Captain George W. Hinman, Jr. wrote in his essay on the subject that President Harding’s “conviction being that the first essential of a military program is to strengthen the reserve through voluntary training.” Harding was promoting the training and was looking at the civilians as an addition to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and to act as “feeders” for the skeleton reserve in the nine corps areas established under the National Defense Act.
In June of 1921, The Washington Herald published a White House statement from President Harding that urged young men to attend the voluntary training, saying:
“I hope every young man who can arrange it, will attend one the of citizen military training camps to be conducted this summer by way of the War Department in each of the nine army corps areas. In this way he will increase his worth to the nation and obtain individual benefits of priceless value to himself and to the community in which he lives.”
CMTC Launched
The details regarding the establishment and maintenance of the training camps were being placed directly under the control of the Corps Area commanders, who were also responsible for the recruitment campaigns.
Initially, the idea was to offer a three-year program with the first year designated the “Red” year, advancing to the second “White” year, and finishing with the final “Blue” year. After completing three years of camps, attendees were qualified to become second lieutenants in the Officers’ Reserve Corps. For the inaugural 1921 year, only Red-year camps were offered.
Camp Meade, as part of the Third Corps area, drew its candidates from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.
The numbers of White, educated males who responded to the robust recruiting in 1921 led to a large number of candidate applications, many of which were not selected for a camp. The low acceptance rate caused bitterness and resentment among those rejected, as well as those civic leaders who helped with the recruiting effort, Kington found.
The next year, Congress gave the War Department enough money to more than double the attendance and the training site locations. As Kington observed, “The low response to recruiting in 1922 in one way seems to have been beneficial: only a few applicants were rejected, most of whom were turned down for physical or age reasons.”
In August of 1922, the camps overall received an enthusiastic endorsement from President Harding, who addressed the CMTC students of Camp Meade, along with General Pershing, and representatives of Congress, who were at the White House to greet the students following their march down Pennsylvania Avenue and around to the White House. The dignitaries also gave a flattering welcome to the students, according to the Army and Navy Journal.
In 1923, several changes to the overall CMTC program structure took place. Kington wrote, “The number of branches offered for training was reduced from nine to six.” Reviewing the first two years of the program resulted in “the biggest change and enhancement: the addition of a fourth year of training, adding the Basic course to the Red, White, and Blue courses.”
Army and Navy Journal highlighted railroad support of the recruiting effort in August of 1924, saying: “The great railway co-operators have naturally contributed much to camp publicity; many printed attractive posters and not only distributed them to each railroad station but furnished application blanks to their agents.”
The War Department support and congressional funding for the CMTCs continued. Each year more applicants were accepted. Additional camps were added to keep up with demand. In March of 1927, an announcement from Major General Douglas MacArthur, U.S.A. Headquarters, Third Corps Area, Baltimore, Maryland, stated that it had become necessary to assign population quotas to the various counties, and to follow the “first come, first served” rule in appraisal of applications.
The entire quota for Prince George’s County was to be twenty-one. The announcement continued, “In past years, Camp Meade, Maryland, has been one of the largest camps for this purpose but will be supplanted [sic] by other military stations in the Third Corps Area.
Citizen Military Training for Blacks
As uneven enrollment in the camps continued, efforts were made to give certain jurisdictions additional time to recruit from their area before losing their slots to areas that received more qualified applicants than they could accept. However, Blacks were never part of the equation.
In fact, throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s, Black men struggled to access CMTC training. As Black historian Dr. Krewasky A. Salter, COL United States Army (Ret.) wrote in The Story of Black Military Officers 1861–1948:
“The two decades immediately following World War I dealt black Americans who had been, or desired to become, officers in the United States Regular Army a devasting blow. Although they were used indiscriminately on the frontlines during the main offensives in 1918, fought and led heroically for democracy and initially were welcomed home as heroes, they soon found that their services were no longer wanted.”
In May of 1935, the Washington Tribune reported that Major Charles Demonet, Chairman of the Procurement Committee of the CMTC for the District, denied that plans for a CMTC for “area colored boys” had been abandoned, and that he hoped sufficient interest in the training will enable opening a camp next summer. In response, the Tribune noted, District Board of Education member Charles H. Houston, who had initially voiced concerns that the project had been discarded, vowed to “continue to fight for participation of Negro citizens in all phases of army life.”
In July 1936, The Washington Times reported that more than 200 Black youths were expected to enroll in the “colored” Citizens’ Military Training Camp set to open at Fort Howard, Maryland, the next week.
Salter wrote that, “[t]he first CMTC ‘for members of the Race’ opened at Ft. Howard, Maryland, 8 July 1936. According to Arthur Fearing, a member of that first all-black CMTC, there was a CMTC at nearby Fort Meade, Maryland, but since blacks were not allowed there, Lieutenant Colonel West A. Hamilton, of the local National Guard, pushed for and received permission from the War Department to organize a camp for blacks at Fort Howard. It was there that Fearing earned his commission in 1938.”
Despite obstacles to admission to the CMTC for Blacks, which included unpublished requirements for minimum numbers of applicants and lack of publicly available information as to how and where to apply, Salter noted that a handful of Black applicants were accepted and went to camps, but that they would be sent home upon arrival because “a mistake had been made.”
Another avenue to military training would become available to Black men. In the Third Corps Area, Ft. Howard had already opened to Black men through the Civilian Conservation Corps. In his tome, Fighting for Hope: African American Troops of the 93rd Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America, History Professor Robert F. Jefferson wrote that, “when approximately 226 men between 18 and 25 years of age poured into Fort Howard, Maryland, during the spring of 1933, they received extensive training in military discipline under the watchful eyes of army officers.” According to Jefferson, they were trained for two weeks and then the “recruits marched off to reserve station camps deep in the Maryland forest.”
Once able to enroll in the CMTC camps, Black recruits were put through the “physical and mental rigors of military training.” Jefferson wrote that, “CMTC training was very popular among Black youths in the Third and Ninth Corps areas.” He said, “Most of the youths who attended the CMTC noticed the collective spirit that emanated throughout the camp.”
Beginning of the End
The CMTC almost met its end in 1934, when, according to Kington, the “lame-duck Hoover administration’s proposed budget for the 1934 fiscal year (for camps held in 1933) cut CMTC’s funding in half—down to a lean $1 million.” This led the War Department to cut the numbers of candidates accepted to the camps. However, the Army managed to keep the program running.
Kington observed, “[t]hat the number of scheduled camps remained almost the same in both 1933 and 1934 as in past years defies explanation.” Then, likely buoyed by national and international events, the CMTC would receive $2 million for the 1935 camps, Kington observed.
In what would be the final CMTC camps, The Daily Mail of Hagerstown, Maryland, reported on June 12, 1940, that “applications for CMTC enrollment in the [Third] corps area have reached 7,652 –with the quota to be filled set at 4,325.” At that time, Maryland and Virginia had not filled their quota, the District of Columbia was filled, and every Pennsylvania district received more applications that they had vacancies, according to The Daily Mail.
Camps would open on July 5th. The posts offering camps and their numbers of recruits were: Fort George G. Meade, Md. (Infantry-Signal Corps), 3000; Fort Hoyle, Md., (Field Artillery), 700; Fort Monroe, Va., (Coast Artillery), 225; Fort Belvoir, Va., (Cavalry), 150; and Fort Howard, Md., (Negro Infantry), 250.
In an unceremonious announcement made by the War Department and reported by various newspapers in the early months of 1941, the CMTC camps would be suspended for that summer, so that the facilities and resources could be focused on the training of combatant forces.
In Kington’s extensive research that included outreach to nearly 200 former CMTC alumni, he noted that, “[as] popular and well publicized as CMTC appears to have been during its 20-year life, it still suffered a degree of obscurity and longed for a clearer identity.” And the jury still appears to be out on its overall benefit to the country. However, he noted that, “When presented with the favorable memories and strong endorsements of hundreds of men who were there, it is difficult not to join them in believing CMTC was something special.”
Angie Latham Kozlowski is a staff writer and member of the Board of Directors for the Laurel History Boys. In addition to her investigative reporting, her articles frequently spotlight Howard County.
Kevin Leonard is a founding member of the Laurel History Boys and a two-time winner of the Maryland Delaware District of Columbia Press Association Journalism Award.