On Monday evenings, from five to six o’clock, they were taught how to drill by regular army officers, while on Thursdays they attended lectures on maneuvers and the use of arms. I was among the organizers, our aim being to get the jump on others in the event war was declared, so that we could be mustered into service as junior officers. For a time it was a novelty for the people in the vicinity of the armory to see the scribblers, tall and small, lean and fat, shouldering muskets and drilling through the busy business thoroughfare of midtown New York. Then came General Pershing’s campaign against Villa, and that, with the outbreak of war in Europe, intensified the uneasiness of our country. There followed an order for the New York regiments to leave for the Mexican border and many of the members of the Newspapermen’s Military Corps accompanied the boys, better fitted to serve in the campaign, than they ordinarily would have been. Those who didn’t go continued their drills in New York with Major General Leonard Wood in charge, and Major Brown and Captain Hall, both of Governors’ Island, as our instructors. And when the United States joined the Allies in 1917, it was the Newspapermen’s Military Corps that became the nucleus of the famous Plattsburg Citizens’ Training Camp. Among the first graduates were the writers who for two years had been drilling under General Wood and his aides while working as reporters or desk men on New York papers. I was the smallest member of the original group, only 5 feet, 3 inches at the time, and when I filed my application for Plattsburg, though I had had considerable military training and was a good drill master, I was turned down because of my height. I protested vigorously and even went so far as to place my complaint before General Wood and Captain Hall, but was informed that nothing could be done for me. Then came the draft. Time for enlistment was short. I was thirty-one years old. I was eager to serve because I was not a raw novice, and I realized that men of experience were now needed. I tried to enlist in the Regular Army but I was turned down here too. I then offered my services to the Marine Corps, but the same old remarks greeted me—“Sorry, you’re under-sized.” The Navy likewise turned me down. I decided that there must be something radically wrong when a government will turn thumbs down on men it could use in an emergency but whom the officials deemed too short. Even the draft boards were instructed not to accept anyone who was not at least 5 feet 4 inches tall, and it was then that I got busy. I went to see my Congressman and my United States Senator. I told each of my military training and my experiences with the officials in our military service.