For a decade or more after World War I the American public as a whole was little concerned with the peacetime Army. It was considerably less concerned with the Army's plans for the current or future use of national manpower. For a time in the middle and late twenties, war memoirs, fiction, and drama enjoyed a vogue, but the general interest in contemporary military matters was aroused mainly by war revelations, public controversies such as that surrounding Brig. Gen. William Mitchell's advocacy of an autonomous air force, and changes in the high command of the services. Demobilization, disarmament, international agreements for peace, and economy in public expenditures were successively central to the thinking of the times. They deflected public interest from serious concern with the internal problems and needs of the armed forces. There was a general idea abroad that in the event of a national emergency the Army, backed by the civilian population, should be prepared. But the likelihood of a national emergency seemed remote indeed in an era devoted to arms reduction and treaties of peace and friendship.