officers, and army technicians. Tech also started a Reserve Officer Training Corps unit; the first in the Southern United States, it became a permanent addition to the school. World War I affected the school academically as well: the United States government asked for and financed an automotive school for army officers, a rehabilitation program for disabled soldiers, and a geology department. Federal aid also helped to establish Tech's industrial education department, courtesy of the Smith–Hughes Act of 1917. The war also placed on hold extensive fundraising efforts for a new power plant, and made it difficult to find engineers willing to teach at the school; Matheson toured Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and MIT in 1919 but failed to secure a single hire, as none of the students wished to work for such low wages. The bitter rivalry between Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia flared up in 1919, when UGA mocked Tech's continuation of football during the United States' involvement in World War I. Because Tech was a military training ground, it had a complete assembly of male students. Many schools, such as UGA, lost all of their able-bodied male students to the war effort, forcing them to temporarily suspend football during the war. In fact, UGA did not play a game from 1917 to 1918. When UGA renewed its program in 1919, their student body staged a parade which mocked Tech's continuation of football during times of war. The parade featured a tank-shaped float marked "Argonne" with a sign "Georgia in France 1917" followed by an automobile with three people in Tech sweaters and caps bearing a sign "Tech in Atlanta". A printed program was subsequently distributed in the stands with a similar point. While the Tech faculty was able to prevent a riot, no apology was made, and this act led directly to Tech cutting athletic ties with UGA and canceling several of UGA's home football games at Grant Field (UGA commonly used Grant Field as its home field). Tech and UGA did not compete in athletics until the 1921 Southern Conference basketball tournament. Despite intense pressure on Tech to make amends, Matheson stated that he would never change his mind unless "due apologies" were offered, and if he was overruled, he would resign. Regular season competition did not renew until after Matheson's retirement, in a 1925 agreement between the two institutions negotiated by athletic directors J.