Internal Intervention

Internal Military Interventions in the United States

Table II.
Internal Military Interventions in the United States 1921-1935

Page 21

NATURE OF INTERVENTION (1)	NG or Fed (2)	FISCAL YEARS 1921-27 (3)		FISCAL YEARS 1928-30 (4)		FISCAL YEARS 1931-32 (5)		FISCAL YEARS 1933-35 (6)
Civil Disturbances	NG	15	2,800~	4	*	**	**	0	0
Civil Disturbances	Fed	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Civil Rights	NG	0	0	0	0	**	**	0	0
Civil Rights	Fed	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Labor disputes	NG	33	28,000~	10	*	**	**	31	31,582
Labor disputes	Fed	1	2,100	0	0	0	0	0	0
Prison disorders	NG	4	169	4	*	**	**	8	764
Prison disorders	Fed	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Suppressing unemployed	NG	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	659
Suppressing unemployed	Fed	0	0	0	0	1	600	0	0
Guarding prisoners	NG	14	1,100~	4	*	**	**	19	2,311
Guarding prisoners	Fed	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Bandits and bank robberies	NG	2	57	1	*	**	**	12	464
Bandits and bank robberies	Fed	2	4,750	0	0	0	0	0	0
Other	NG	25	4,000	3	*	**	**	31	3,899
Other	Fed	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	200?
Total	NG	93	36,000~	26	*	**	**	104	39,679
	Fed	3	6,750	0	0	1	600	1	200?
	All	96	42,750~	26	*	**	**	105	39,879?

The first number in each set is the number of interventions; the second is the number of troops involved. No attempt is made to distinguish between troops actually deployed at the site of the incident and troops that were called up and placed at a distance on stand-by alert.

* National Guard data from 1928-30 consisted of a simple listing of interventions without figures for the number of troops involved.

** Annual Report of the Chief of the Militia Bureau for fiscal years 1931 and 1932 have no listings of the activities of the National Guard during those years, and I can find no published record of them elsewhere.

1. Unless otherwise indicated in the following notes, the categories listed here were those used by the source publications.

2. Abbreviations as in Table I.

3. Sources: Annual Report of the Chief of the Militia Bureau for each year from 1921 to 1927. Prior to 1921 these reports did not list interventions. Where names of military units were given rather than number of troops, the troop numbers were calculated from figures given that year for average troop strength by state and unit. Figures for federal intervention in labor disputes obtained from Reichley (1939, p. 201). Figures for federal intervention against banditry are from Parker (1970, p. 52).

4. Sources: Annual Report of the Chief of the Militia Bureau for 1928,1929, and 1930. Interventions were listed, but without the number of troops involved. No federal troop interventions took place according to Reichley (1939).

5. No data are available for these years for National Guard interventions. The one federal intervention was suppression of the Bonus Army of the unemployed, for which troop figures are taken from American Military History (1969), p. 413.

6. Sources: Congressional Record, 74th Congress, II Session, Vol. 80, Part 2, pp. 2069-2081, Jan.-Feb. 1936. There is also mention in American Military History (1969, p. 413) of a federal intervention in 1934 when the Air Corps took over carrying airmail in a dispute with the airline companies. The number of troops involved is taken from the New York Times, 13 Feb. 1936.