William Mitchell, John L. Mitchell's son and Alexander Mitchell's grandson, made the best use of the inheritance of his father and grandfather and added some qualities of his own. Alexander Mitchell was a Scottish immigrant who settled in Milwaukee in 1839 and became Wisconsin's pre-eminent businessman in the fields of finance and railroad building. John L. Mitchell was a businessman, politician, and scholar. Although William cannot be logically claimed by Wisconsin, for he spent very little of his time in the state after moving to Washington in the early 1890s with his Congressman father, his Badger birth gives her as much claim on him as any other state. William Mitchell was, in reality, closely associated with no state or section of the country. He was an intense nationalist and devoted his life and work to the interest of the country as a whole.
Combined in William Mitchell were the realism and conservatism of his grandfather and the idealism and spirit of revolt of his father. He saw that his world was the competitive ground for nations in the same manner that his grandfather saw that Wisconsin territory in his time was the competitive ground for individuals. Neither bothered himself about the possible consequences of unrestricted competition on the individual or national level. They knew that the struggle was necessary, and had to be enraged in with all resources available if an individual or nation craved survival.
The Spanish-American War broke out when young “Billy” Mitchell was in his second year at Columbian University (now George Washington), and contrary to the wishes of his father, who was at the time fighting the imperialistic trend with all his influence in the Senate, joined the army. He remained in the army for nearly thirty years seeing service in Cuba, the Philippines, Alaska, and Europe. Throughout his military career, he was in constant revolt against “old line” army officers who could see nothing in his ambition to improve the effectiveness of the army by the introduction of modern military tactics and weapons.
Of course, when the airplane came into use, Billy (then Brigadier-General William Mitchell) saw it as the ultimate in military weapons. He demanded so vociferously, in the public press, congressional hearings, and army staff meetings, for cabinet reorganization designed to allow for the maximum development of the air arm, that his superiors were finally goaded into action. They protected themselves by court-martialing Mitchell for insubordination. General Mitchell was convicted of the charge and suspended from the army. That was in 1925, and he never rejoined the service.
Free from the restrictions of the army, the “Great Crusader,” as Mitchell came to be known, energetically advocated his cause through lectures, articles in popular periodicals, and books, until the time of his death in 1936. Ten years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he wrote articles in popular magazines on the very likelihood of a Japanese attempted conquest of the United States by air.
