Father was much interested in General Wood's camps for the training of the younger boys and was heartily in sympathy with them. Both Archie and Quentin attended them. Quentin had a badly strained back at the time, but that did not keep him from going. At the sinking of the _Lusitania_ a very keen realization of the gravity of the situation was evident all over the country. A number of younger men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five met together to talk things over. In this group were Grenville Clarke, Philip A. Carroll, Elihu Root, Jr., Cornelius W. Wickersham, J. Lloyd Derby, Kenneth P. Budd, and Delancy K. Jay. They felt that it was only a question of time until we would be called to the colors, and realized most keenly the fact that it is one thing to be willing and quite another to be able to take your part. They felt, as this war has shown, the lamentable injustice and grievous loss that is entailed by putting against men who are trained in the business of fighting untrained men who, no matter how good their spirit and how great their courage, do not know the game. The outcome of the conference of these men was the decision to ask General Wood if it would be possible for him to hold a training camp, for men up to forty-five years, similar to those held for boys. With the usual patriotism that characterizes him, General Wood said at once that he would hold the camp even if they were able to get only twenty-five men to attend. In the beginning, converts came slowly, but after a campaign of personal solicitation, in which members of the original group went individually to various cities in the vicinity of New York, the movement got under way with such success that the first so-called "Business Men's Plattsburg Camp" numbered about one thousand, and was immediately followed by another nearly as large. At this time the average man did not know what military training and service meant. The camp was composed of men of all types and all ages. Many of them, too old for active service, had come as an earnest of their belief and through the desire to teach by their actions as well as by their preachings. Robert Bacon and John Purroy Mitchel attended this camp, both of them men whose memory will always be treasured by those who were fortunate enough to know them. We took it all very seriously. At one end of the company street you would see two prominent middle-aged business men trying to do the manual of arms properly, rain dripping off them, their faces set like the day of judgment, crowned with grizzled hair. At the other would be Arthur Woods, the Police Commissioner of New York, "boning" the infantry drill regulations. George Wharton Pepper was promoted to sergeant, and was as proud of it as of any of his achievements in civil life. Bishop Perry of Rhode Island was named as color sergeant.