Woodrow Wilson and the World War
by Charles Seymour · English · Gutenberg #21877 · 506,235 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Woodrow Wilson and the World War
Author: Charles Seymour
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Language: English
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TEXTBOOK EDITION
THE YALE CHRONICLES
OF AMERICA SERIES
ALLEN JOHNSON
EDITOR
GERHARD R. LOMER
CHARLES W. JEFFERYS
ASSISTANT EDITORS
WOODROW WILSON
AND THE WORLD WAR
A CHRONICLE OF OUR OWN TIMES
BY CHARLES SEYMOUR
1921
[Illustration]
TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO.
NEW YORK: UNITED STATES PUBLISHERS
ASSOCIATION, INC.
_Copyright, 1921, by Yale University Press_
Printed in the United States of America
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|Transcribers note: In this plain text the breve has been rendered as [)c]|
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CONTENTS
I. WILSON THE EXECUTIVE Page 1
II. NEUTRALITY " 27
III. THE SUBMARINE " 47
IV. PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS " 71
V. AMERICA DECIDES " 94
VI. THE NATION IN ARMS " 116
VII. THE HOME FRONT " 150
VIII. THE FIGHTING FRONT " 192
IX. THE PATH TO PEACE " 228
X. WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE " 254
XI. BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE OF NATIONS? " 281
XII. THE SETTLEMENT " 310
XIII. THE SENATE AND THE TREATY " 330
XIV. CONCLUSION " 352
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 361
INDEX " 367
WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD WAR
CHAPTER I
WILSON THE EXECUTIVE
When, on March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson entered the White House, the first
Democratic president elected in twenty years, no one could have guessed
the importance of the rôle which he was destined to play. While business
men and industrial leaders bewailed the mischance that had brought into
power a man whose attitude towards vested interests was reputed none too
friendly, they looked upon him as a temporary inconvenience. Nor did the
increasingly large body of independent voters, disgusted by the
"stand-pattism" of the Republican machine, regard Wilson much more
seriously; rather did they place their confidence in a reinvigoration of
the Grand Old Party through the progressive leadership of Roosevelt,
whose enthusiasm and practical vision had attracted the approval of more
than four million voters in the preceding election, despite his lack of
an adequate political organization. Even those who supported Wilson most
whole-heartedly believed that his work would lie entirely within the
field of domestic reform; little did they imagine that he would play a
part in world affairs larger than had fallen to any citizen of the United
States since the birth of the country.
The new President was fifty-six years old. His background was primarily
academic, a fact which, together with his Scotch-Irish ancestry, the
Presbyterian tradition of his family, and his early years spent in the
South, explains much in his character at the time when he entered upon
the general political stage. After graduating from Princeton in 1879,
where his career gave little indication of extraordinary promise, he
studied law, and for a time his shingle hung out in Atlanta. He seemed
unfitted by nature, however, for either pleasure or success in the
practice of the law. Reserved and cold, except with his intimates, he was
incapable of attracting clients in a profession and locality where
ability to "mix" was a prime qualification. A certain lack of tolerance
for the failings of his fellow mortals may have combined with his
Presbyterian conscience to disgust him with the hard give-and-take of the
struggling lawyer's life. He sought escape in graduate work in history
and politics at Johns Hopkins, where, in 1886, he received his Ph.D. for
a thesis entitled _Congressional Government_, a study remarkable for
clear thinking and felicitous expression. These qualities characterized
his work as a professor at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan and paved his path to
an appointment on the Princeton faculty in 1890, as Professor of
Jurisprudence and Politics.
Despite his early distaste to the career of practicing lawyer, Wilson was
by no means the man to bury himself in academic research. He lacked the
scrupulous patience and the willingness to submerge his own personality
which are characteristic of the scientific scholar. His gift was for
generalization, and his writings were marked by clarity of thought and
wealth of phrase, rather than by profundity. But such qualities brought
him remarkable success as a lecturer and essayist, and constant practice
gave him a fluency, a vocal control, and a power of verbal expression
which assured distinction at the frequent public meetings and dinners
where he was called upon to speak. Professional interest in the science
of government furnished him with topics of far wider import than the
ordinary pedagogue cares to handle, and he became, even as professor,
well known outside of Princeton. His influence, already broad in the
educational and not without some recognition in the political world, was
extended in 1902, when he was chosen President of the University.
During the succeeding eight years Wilson enjoyed his first taste of
executive power, and certain traits which he then displayed deserve brief
notice. Although a "conservative" in his advocacy of the maintenance of
the old-time curriculum, based upon the ancient languages and mathematics,
and in his opposition to the free elective system, he proved an inflexible
reformer as regards methods of instruction, the efficiency of which he was
determined to establish. He showed a ruthless resolution to eliminate what
he looked upon as undemocratic social habits among the undergraduates, and
did not hesitate to cut loose from tradition, regardless of the prejudice
thereby aroused against him. As an executive he evoked intense admiration
and virulent dislike; the Board of Trustees and the alumni body were alike
divided between enthusiastic support and bitter anathematization of the
measures he proposed. What seems obvious is that many graduates
sympathized with his purposes but were alienated by his methods. His
strength lay chiefly in the force of his appeal to democratic sentiment;
his weakness in complete inability to conciliate opponents.
At the moment when the issue of the struggle at Princeton was still
undecided, opportunity was given Wilson to enter political life; an
ambition for such a career had evidently stirred him in early days and
was doubtless resuscitated by his success as a public speaker. While
President of Princeton he had frequently touched upon public issues, and
so early as 1906 Colonel George Harvey had mentioned him as a possible
President of the United States. From that time he was often considered as
available for political office, and in 1910, with New Jersey stirred by a
strong popular movement against boss-rule, he was tendered the nomination
for Governor of that State. He accepted and proved an ideal candidate.
Though supported by the Democratic machine, which planned to elect a
reformer and then control him, Wilson won the adherence of independents
and progressive Republicans by his promise to break the power of the boss
system, and by the clarity of his plans for reform. His appeals to the
spirit of democracy and morality, while they voiced nothing new in an
electoral campaign, rang with unusual strength and sincerity. The State,
which had gone Republican by eighty-two thousand two years before, now
elected Wilson its Governor by a plurality of forty-nine thousand.
He retained office in New Jersey for only two years. During that period he
achieved a high degree of success. Had he served longer it is impossible
to say what might have been his ultimate position, for as at Princeton,
elements of opposition had begun to coalesce against him and he had found
no means to disarm them. As Governor, he at once declared himself head of
the party and by a display of firm activity dominated the machine. The
Democratic boss, Senator James Smith, was sternly enjoined from seeking
reëlection to the Senate, and when, in defiance of promises and the wish
of the voters as expressed at the primaries, he attempted to run, Wilson
entered the lists and so influenced public opinion and the Legislature
that the head of the machine received only four votes. Attempts of the
Democratic machine to combine with the Republicans, in order to nullify
the reforms which Wilson had promised in his campaign, proved equally
futile. With strong popular support, constantly exercising his influence
both in party conferences and on the Legislature, the Governor was able to
translate into law the most important of the measures demanded by the
progressives. He himself summed up the essence of the situation when he
said: "The moment the forces in New Jersey that had resisted reform
realized that the people were backing new men who meant what they had
said, they realized that they dare not resist them. It was not the
personal force of the new officials; it was the moral strength of their
backing that accomplished the extraordinary result." Supreme confidence in
the force of public opinion exerted by the common man characterizes much
of Wilson's political philosophy, and the position in the world which he
was to enjoy for some months towards the end of the war rested upon the
same basis.
In 1912 came the presidential election. The split in the Republican
forces promised if it did not absolutely guarantee the election of a
Democrat, and when the party convention met at Baltimore in June,
excitement was more than ordinarily intense. The conservative elements in
the party were divided. The radicals looked to Bryan for leadership,
although his nomination seemed out of the question. Wilson had stamped
himself as an anti-machine progressive, and if the machine conservatives
threatened he might hope for support from the Nebraskan orator. From the
first the real contest appeared to be between Wilson and Champ Clark, who
although hardly a conservative, was backed for the moment by the machine
leaders. The deciding power was in Bryan's hand, and as the strife
between conservatives and radicals waxed hot, he turned to the support of
Wilson. On the forty-sixth ballot Wilson was nominated. With division in
the Republican ranks, with his record in New Jersey for legislative
accomplishment, and winning many independent votes through a succession
of effective campaign speeches, Wilson more than fulfilled the highest of
Democratic hopes. He received on election day only a minority of all the
votes cast, but his majority in the electoral college was overwhelming.
* * * * *
The personality of an American President has seldom undergone so much
analysis with such unsatisfactory results; almost every discussion of
Wilson's characteristics leads to the generation of heat rather than
light. Indeed the historian of the future may ask whether it is as
important, in this age of democracy, to know exactly what sort of man he
was as to know what the people thought he was. And yet in the case of a
statesman who was to play a rôle of supreme importance in the affairs of
the country and the world, it is perhaps more than a matter of merely
personal interest to underline his salient traits. Let it be premised
that a logical and satisfactory analysis is well-nigh impossible, for his
nature is self-contradictory, subject to gusts of temperament, and he
himself has pictured the struggle that has gone on between the impulsive
Irish and the cautious Scotch elements in him. Thus it is that he has
handled similar problems in different ways at different times, and has
produced upon different persons diametrically opposed impressions.
As an executive, perhaps his most notable characteristic is the will to
dominate. This does not mean that he is the egocentric autocrat pictured
by his opponents, for in conference he is apt to be tolerant of the
opinions of others, by no means dictatorial in manner, and apparently
anxious to obtain facts on both sides of the argument. An unfriendly
critic, Mr. E. J. Dillon, has said of him at Paris that "he was a very
good listener, an intelligent questioner, and amenable to argument
whenever he felt free to give practical effect to his conclusions."
Similar evidence has been offered by members of his Cabinet. But
unquestionably, in reaching a conclusion he resents pressure and he
permits no one to make up his mind for him; he is, said the German
Ambassador, "a recluse and lonely worker." One of his enthusiastic
admirers has written: "Once in possession of every fact in the case, the
President withdraws, commences the business of consideration, comparison,
and assessment, and then emerges with a decision." From such a decision
it is difficult to shake him and continued opposition serves merely to
stiffen his resolution. Wherever the responsibility is his, he insists
upon the finality of his judgment. Those who have worked with him have
remarked upon his eagerness, once he has decided a course of action, to
carry it into practical effect. The President of the Czecho-Slovak
Republic, Thomas G. Masaryk, said that of all the men he had met, "your
visionary, idealistic President is by far and away the most intensely
practical." One of the Big Four at Paris remarked: "Wilson works. The
rest of us play, comparatively speaking. We Europeans can't keep up with
a man who travels a straight path with such a swift stride, never looking
to right or left." But with all his eagerness for practical effect he is
notably less efficient in the execution than in the formation of
policies.
Wilson lacks, furthermore, the power of quick decision which is apt to
characterize the masterful executive. He is slow to make up his mind, a
trait that results partly, perhaps, from his Scotch blood and partly from
his academic training. Except for his steadfast adherence to what he
regards as basic principles, he might rightly be termed an opportunist.
For he is prone to temporize, anxious to prevent an issue from approaching
a crisis, evidently in the hope that something may "turn up" to improve
the situation and obviate the necessity of conflict. "Watchful waiting" in
the Mexican crises and his attitude towards the belligerents during the
first two years of the European war are cases in point. There are
instances of impulsive action on his part, when he has not waited for
advice or troubled to acquire exact knowledge of the facts underlying a
situation, but such occasions have been infrequent.
Wilson's dislike of advice has been widely advertized. It is probably
closer to the truth to say that he is naturally suspicious of advisers
unless he is certain that their basic point of view is the same as his
own. This is quite different from saying that he wants only opinions that
coincide with his own and that he immediately dispenses with advisers who
disagree with him. Colonel House, for example, who for five years exerted
constant influence on his policy, frequently advanced opinions quite at
variance from those of the President, but such differences did not weaken
House's influence inasmuch as Wilson felt that they were both starting
from the same angle towards the same point. Prejudiced though he seemed
to be against "financiers," Wilson took the opinions of Thomas W. Lamont
at Paris, because the underlying object of both, the acquisition of a
secure peace, was identical. It is true, however, that with the exception
of Colonel House, Wilson's advisers have been in the main purveyors of
facts rather than colleagues in the formation of policies. Wilson has
generally been anxious to receive facts which might help him to build his
policy, as will be attested by those who worked with him at Paris.[1] But
he was less interested in the opinions of his advisers, especially when
it came to principles and not details, for he decides principles for
himself. In this sense his Cabinet was composed of subordinates rather
than counselors. Such an attitude is, of course, characteristic of most
modern executives and has been intensified by war conditions. The summary
disregard of Lansing, shown by Wilson at Paris, was less striking than
the snubbing of Balfour by Lloyd George, or the cold brutality with which
Clemenceau treated the other French delegates.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Lamont says of the President at Paris: "I never saw a
man more ready and anxious to consult than he.... President Wilson did
not have a well-organized secretarial staff. He did far too much of the
work himself, studying until late at night papers and documents that he
should have largely delegated to some discreet aides. He was by all odds,
the hardest worked man at the Conference; but the failure to delegate
more of his work was not due to any inherent distrust that he had of
men--and certainly not to any desire to 'run the whole show' himself--but
simply to the lack of facility in knowing how to delegate work on a large
scale. In execution we all have a blind spot in some part of our eye.
President Wilson's was in his inability to use men; an inability, mind
you, not a refusal. On the contrary, when any of us volunteered or
insisted upon taking responsibility off his shoulders he was delighted."]
General conviction of Wilson's autocratic nature has been intensified by
his choice of assistants, who have not as a rule enjoyed public
confidence. He debarred himself from success in the matter of
appointments, in the first place, by limiting his range of choice through
unwillingness to have about him those who did not share his point of
view. It is more epigrammatic than exact to say that he was the sole unit
in the Government giving value to a row of ciphers, for his Cabinet, as
a whole, was not composed of weak men. But the fact that the members of
his Cabinet accepted implicitly his firm creed that the Cabinet ought to
be an executive and not a political council, that it depended upon the
President's policy, and that its main function should be merely to carry
that policy into effect, gave to the public some justification for its
belief that Wilson's was a "one-man" Government. This belief was further
intensified by the President's extreme sensitiveness to hostile
criticism, which more than anything else hindered frank interchange of
opinion between himself and strong personalities. On more than one
occasion he seemed to regard opposition as tantamount to personal
hostility, an attitude which at times was not entirely unjustified. In
the matter of minor appointments Wilson failed generally of success
because he consistently refused to take a personal interest, leaving them
to subordinates and admitting that political necessities must go far to
determine the choice. Even in such an important problem as the
appointment of the Peace Commission the President seems to have made his
selection almost at haphazard. Many of his war appointments proved
ultimately to be wise. But it is noteworthy that such men as Garfield,
Baruch, and McCormick, who amply justified their choice, were appointed
because Wilson knew personally their capacity and not because of previous
success along special lines which would entitle them to public
confidence.
The obstinacy of the President has become proverbial. The square chin,
unconsciously protruded in argument, indicates definitely his capacity,
as a British critic has put it, "to dig his toes in and hold on." On
matters of method, however, where a basic principle is not involved, he
is flexible. According as you approve or disapprove of him, he is
"capable of development" or "inconsistent." Thus he completely changed
front on the question of preparedness from 1914 to 1916. When the
question of the initiative and referendum arose in Oregon, his attitude
was the reverse of what it had been as professor of politics. When
matters of detail are under discussion, he has displayed much willingness
for and some skill in compromise, as was abundantly illustrated at Paris.
But when he thinks that a principle is at stake, he prefers to accept any
consequences, no matter how disastrous to his policy; witness his refusal
to accept the Lodge reservation on Article X of the League Covenant.
All those included within the small circle of Wilson's intimates attest
the charm and magnetism of his personality. The breadth of his reading is
reflected in his conversation, which is enlivened by anecdotes that
illustrate his points effectively and illumined by a sense of humor which
some of his friends regard as his most salient trait. His manner is
marked by extreme courtesy and, in view of the fixity of his opinions, a
surprising lack of abruptness or dogmatism. But he has never been able to
capitalize such personal advantages in his political relations. Apart
from his intimates he is shy and reserved. The antithesis of Roosevelt,
who loved to meet new individualities, Wilson has the college professor's
shrinking from social contacts, and is not at ease in the presence of
those with whom he is not familiar. Naturally, therefore, he lacks
completely Roosevelt's capacity to make friends, and there is in him no
trace of his predecessor's power to find exactly the right compliment for
the right person. Under Roosevelt the White House opened its doors to
every one who could bring the President anything of interest, whether in
the field of science, literature, politics, or sport; and the Chief
Magistrate, no matter who his guest, instantly found a common ground for
discussion. That capacity Wilson did not possess. Furthermore his health
was precarious and he was physically incapable of carrying the burden of
the constant interviews that characterized the life of his immediate
predecessors in the presidential office. He lived the life of a recluse
and rarely received any one but friends of the family at the White House
dinner table.
While he thus saved himself from the social intercourse which for
Roosevelt was a relaxation but which for him would have proved a nervous
and physical drain, Wilson deprived himself of the political advantages
that might have been derived from more extensive hospitality. He was
unable to influence Congressmen except by reason of his authority as head
of the party or nation. He lost many a chance of removing political
opposition through the personal appeal which is so flattering and
effective. He seems to have thought that if his policy was right in
itself, Congressmen ought to vote for it, without the satisfaction of
personal arguments, a singular misappreciation of human nature. The same
was true of his relations with the Washington correspondents; he was never
able to establish a man to man basis of intercourse. This incapacity in
the vital matter of human contacts was, perhaps, his greatest political
weakness. If he had been able to arouse warm personal devotion in his
followers, if he could have inflamed them with enthusiasm such as that
inspired by Roosevelt, rather than mere admiration, Wilson would have
found his political task immeasurably lightened. It is not surprising that
his mistakes in tactics should have been so numerous. His isolation and
dependence upon tactical advisers, such as Tumulty and Burleson, lacking
broad vision, led him into serious errors, most of which--such as his
appeal for a Democratic Congress in 1918, his selection of the personnel
of the Peace Commission, his refusal to compromise with the "mild
reservationist Senators" in the summer of 1919--were committed,
significantly, when he was not in immediate contact with Colonel House.
The political strength of Wilson did not result primarily from
intellectual power. His mind is neither profound nor subtle. His serious
writings are sound but not characterized by originality, nor in his
policies is there anything to indicate creative genius. He thinks straight
and possesses the ability to concentrate on a single line of effort. He is
skillful in catching an idea and adapting it to his purposes. Combined
with his power of expression and his talent for making phrases, such
qualities were of great assistance to him. But the real strength of the
President lay rather in his gift of sensing what the common people wanted
and his ability to put it into words for them. Few of his speeches are
great; many of them are marred by tactless phrases, such as "too proud to
fight" and "peace without victory." But nearly all of them express
honestly the desires of the masses. His strength in New Jersey and the
extraordinary effect produced in Europe by his war speeches might be cited
as evidence of this peculiar power. He sought above everything to catch
the trend of inarticulate rather than vociferous opinion. If one objects
that his patience under German outrages was not truly representative, we
must remember that opinion was slow in crystallizing, that his policy was
endorsed by the election of 1916, and that when he finally advocated war
in April, 1917, the country entered the struggle practically a unit.
But it is obvious that, however much political strength was assured the
President by his instinctive appreciation of popular feeling, this was
largely offset by the _gaucherie_ of his political tactics. He had a genius
for alienating persons who should have supported him and who agreed in
general with the broad lines of his policies. Few men in public life have
so thoroughly aroused the dislike of "the man in the street." Admitting
that much of Wilson's unpopularity resulted from misunderstanding, from the
feeling that he was a different sort, perhaps a "highbrow," the degree of
dislike felt for him becomes almost inexplicable in the case of a President
who, from all the evidence, was willing to sacrifice everything for what he
considered to be the benefit of the common man. He might almost repeat
Robespierre's final bitter and puzzled phrase: "To die for the people and
to be abhorred by them." So keen was the irritation aroused by Wilson's
methods and personality that many a citizen stated frankly that he
preferred to see Wilsonian policies which he approved meet defeat, rather
than see them carried to success by Wilson. This executive failing of the
President was destined to jeopardize the greatest of his policies and to
result in the personal tragedy of Wilson himself.
Certain large political principles stand out in Wilson's writings and
career as Governor and President. Of these the most striking, perhaps, is
his conviction that the President of the United States must be something
more than a mere executive superintendent. The entire responsibility for
the administration of government, he believed, should rest upon the
President, and in order to meet that responsibility, he must keep the
reins of control in his own hands. In his first essays and in his later
writings Wilson expressed his disgust with the system of congressional
committees which threw enormous power into the hands of irresponsible
professional politicians, and called for a President who would break that
system and exercise greater directive authority. For a time he seemed,
under the influence of Bagehot, to have believed in the feasibility of
introducing something like the parliamentary system into the government
of the United States. To the last he regarded the President as a sort of
Prime Minister, at the head of his party in the Legislature and able to
count absolutely upon its loyalty. More than this, he believed that the
President should take a large share of responsibility for the legislative
programme and ought to push this programme through by all means at his
disposal. Such a creed appeared in his early writings and was largely
carried into operation during his administration. We find him bringing
all possible pressure upon the New Jersey Legislature in order to redeem
his campaign pledges. When elected President, he went directly to
Congress with his message, instead of sending it to be read. Time and
again he intervened to forward his special legislative interests by
direct influence.
Both in his writings and in his actions Wilson has always advocated
government by party. Theoretically and in practice he has been opposed to
coalition government, for, in his belief, it divides responsibility.
Although by no means an advocate of the old-type spoils system, rewards
for party service seem to him essential. Curiously enough, while
insisting that the President is the leader of his party like a Prime
Minister, he has also described him, with an apparent lack of logic, as
the leader of the country. Because Wilson has thus confused party and
people, it is easy to understand why he has at times claimed to represent
the nation when, in reality, he was merely representing partisan views.
Such an attitude is naturally irritating to the Opposition and explains
something of the virulence that characterized the attacks made upon him
in 1918 and later.
Wilson's political sentiments are tinged by a constant and intense
interest in the common man. More than once he has insisted that it was
more important to know what was said by the fireside than what was said
in the council chamber. His strongest political weapon, he believes, has
been the appeal over the heads of politicians to public opinion. His
dislike of cliques and his strong prejudice against anything that savors
of special privilege shone clear in his attack upon the Princeton club
system, and the same light has not infrequently dazzled his vision as
President. Thus, while by no means a radical, he instinctively turned to
the support of labor in its struggles with capital because of the abuse
of its privilege by capital in the past and regardless of more recent
abuse of its power by labor. Similarly at the Peace Conference his
sympathies were naturally with every weak state and every minority group.
Such tendencies may have been strengthened by the intensity of his
religious convictions. There have been few men holding high office in
recent times so deeply and constantly affected by Christian faith as
Woodrow Wilson. The son of a clergyman and subjected during his early
years to the most lively and devout sort of Presbyterianism, he preserved
in his own family circle, in later years, a similar atmosphere. Nor was
his conviction of the immanence and spiritual guidance of the Deity ever
divorced from his professional and public life. We can discover in his
presidential speeches many indications of his belief that the duties he
had undertaken were laid upon him by God and that he might not deviate
from what seemed to him the straight and appointed path. There is
something reminiscent of Calvin in the stern and unswerving determination
not to compromise for the sake of ephemeral advantage. This aspect of
Wilson has been caught by a British critic, J. M. Keynes, who describes
the President as a Nonconformist minister, whose thought and temperament
were essentially theological, not intellectual, "with all the strength
and weakness of that manner of thought, feeling, and expression." The
observation is exact, although it does not in itself completely explain
Wilson. Certainly nothing could be more characteristic of the President
than the text of a Baccalaureate sermon which he preached at Princeton in
1907: "And be ye not conformed to this world." He believed with intensity
that each individual must set up for himself a moral standard, which he
must rigidly maintain regardless of the opinions of the community.
Entirely natural, therefore, is the emphasis which he has placed, whether
as President of Princeton or of the United States, upon moral rather
than material virtues. This, indeed, has been the essence of his
political idealism. Such an emphasis has been for him at once a source of
political strength and of weakness. The moralist unquestionably secures
wide popular support; but he also wearies his audience, and many a voter
has turned from Wilson in the spirit that led the Athenian to vote for
the ostracism of Aristides, because he was tired of hearing him called
"the Just." Whatever the immediate political effects, the country owes to
Wilson a debt, which historians will doubtless acknowledge, for his
insistence that morality must go hand in hand with public policy, that as
with individuals, so with governments, true greatness is won by service
rather than by acquisition, by sacrifice rather than by aggression.
Wilson and Treitschke are at opposite poles.
During his academic career Wilson seems to have displayed little interest
in foreign affairs, and his knowledge of European politics, although
sufficient for him to produce an admirable handbook on governments,
including foreign as well as our own, was probably not profound. During
his first year in the White House, he was typical of the Democratic
party, which then approved the political isolation of the United States,
abhorred the kind of commercial imperialism summed up in the phrase
"dollar diplomacy," and apparently believed that the essence of foreign
policy was to keep one's own hands clean. The development of Wilson from
this parochial point of view to one which centers his whole being upon a
policy of unselfish international service, forms, to a large extent, the
main thread of the narrative which follows.
CHAPTER II
NEUTRALITY
Despite the wars and rumors of wars in Europe after 1910, few Americans
perceived the gathering of the clouds, and probably not one in ten
thousand felt more than an ordinary thrill of interest on the morning of
June 29, 1914, when they read that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria had been assassinated. Nor, a month later, when it became obvious
that the resulting crisis was to precipitate another war in the Balkans,
did most Americans realize that the world was hovering on the brink of
momentous events. Not even when the most dire forebodings were realized
and the great powers of Europe were drawn into the quarrel, could America
appreciate its significance. Crowds gazed upon the bulletin boards and
tried to picture the steady advance of German field-gray through the
streets of Liège, asked their neighbors what were these French 75's, and
endeavored to locate Mons and Verdun on inadequate maps. Interest could
not be more intense, but it was the interest of the moving-picture
devotee. Even the romantic voyage of the _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_ with
her cargo of gold, seeking to elude the roving British cruisers, seemed
merely theatrical. It was a tremendous show and we were the spectators.
Only the closing of the Stock Exchange lent an air of reality to the
crisis.
It was true that the Spanish War had made of the United States a world
power, but so firmly rooted in American minds was the principle of
complete political isolation from European affairs that the typical
citizen could not imagine any cataclysm on the other side of the Atlantic
so engrossing as to engage the active participation of his country. The
whole course of American history had deepened the general feeling of
aloofness from Europe and heightened the effect of the advice given by
the first President when he warned the country to avoid entangling
alliances. In the early nineteenth century the United States was a
country apart, for in the days when there was neither steamship nor
telegraph the Atlantic in truth separated the New World from the Old.
After the close of the "second war of independence," in 1815, the
possibility of foreign complications seemed remote. The attention of the
young nation was directed to domestic concerns, to the building up of
manufactures, to the extension of the frontiers westward. The American
nation turned its back to the Atlantic. There was a steady and welcome
stream of immigrants from Europe, but there was little speculation or
interest as to its headwaters.
Governmental relations with European states were disturbed at times by
crises of greater or less importance. The proximity of the United States
to and interest in Cuba compelled the Government to recognize the
political existence of Spain; a French army was ordered out of Mexico
when it was felt to be a menace; the presence of immigrant Irish in large
numbers always gave a note of uncertainty to the national attitude
towards Great Britain. The export of cotton from the Southern States
created industrial relations of such importance with Great Britain that,
during the Civil War, after the establishment of the blockade on the
Confederate coast, wisdom and forbearance were needed on both sides to
prevent the breaking out of armed conflict. But during the last third of
the century, which was marked in this country by an extraordinary
industrial evolution and an increased interest in domestic
administrative issues, the attitude of the United States towards Europe,
except during the brief Venezuelan crisis and the war with Spain, was
generally characterized by the indifference which is the natural outcome
of geographical separation.
In diplomatic language American foreign policy, so far as Europe was
concerned, was based upon the principle of "non-intervention." The right
to manage their affairs in their own way without interference was conceded
to European Governments and a reciprocal attitude was expected of them.
The American Government followed strictly the purpose of not participating
in any political arrangements made between European states regarding
European issues. Early in the life of the nation Jefferson had correlated
the double aspect of this policy: "Our first and fundamental maxim," he
said, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our
second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs."
The influence of John Quincy Adams crystallized this double policy in the
Monroe Doctrine, which, as compensation for denying to European states the
right to intervene in American politics, sacrificed the generous
sympathies of many Americans, among them President Monroe himself, with
the republican movements across the Atlantic. With the continued and
increasing importance of the Monroe Doctrine as a principle of national
policy, the natural and reciprocal aspect of that doctrine, implying
political isolation from Europe, became more deeply imbedded in the
national consciousness.
There was, it is true, another aspect to American foreign policy besides
the European, namely, that concerning the Pacific and the Far East, which,
as diplomatic historians have pointed out, does not seem to have been
affected by the tradition of isolation. Since the day when the western
frontier was pushed to the Golden Gate, the United States has taken an
active interest in problems of the Pacific. Alaska was purchased from
Russia. An American seaman was the first to open the trade of Japan to the
outside world and thus precipitated the great revolution which has touched
every aspect of Far Eastern questions. American traders watched carefully
the commercial development of Oriental ports, in which Americans have
played an active rôle. In China and in the maintenance of the open door
especially, has America taken the keenest interest. It is a matter of
pride that American policy, always of a purely commercial and peaceful
nature, showed itself less aggressive than that of some European states.
But the Government insisted upon the recognition of American interest in
every Far Eastern issue that might be raised, and was ready to intervene
with those of Europe in moments of crisis or danger.
A fairly clear-cut distinction might thus be made between American
pretensions in the different parts of the world. In the Americas the
nation claimed that sort of preëminence which was implied by the Monroe
Doctrine, a preëminence which as regards the Latin-American states north
of the Orinoco many felt must be actively enforced, in view of special
interests in the Caribbean. In the Far East the United States claimed an
equality of status with the European powers. In the rest of the world,
Europe, Africa, the Levant, the traditional American policy of abstention
held good absolutely, at least until the close of the century.
The war with Spain affected American foreign policy vitally. The holding
of the Philippines, even if it were to prove merely temporary, created new
relations with all the great powers, of Europe as of Asia; American
Caribbean interests were strengthened; and the victory over a European
power, even one of a second class in material strength, necessarily
altered the traditional attitude of the nation towards the other states of
Europe and theirs towards it. This change was stimulated by the close
attention which American merchants and bankers began to give to European
combinations and policies, particularly to the exploitation of thinly
populated districts by European states. Even before the Spanish War a
keen-sighted student of foreign affairs, Richard Olney, had declared that
the American people could not assume an attitude of indifference towards
European politics and that the hegemony of a single continental state
would be disastrous to their prosperity if not to their safety. Conversely
Europeans began to watch America with greater care. The victory over Spain
was resented and the fear of American commercial development began to
spread. The Kaiser had even talked of a continental customs union to meet
American competition. On the other hand, Great Britain, which had
displayed a benevolent attitude during the Spanish War and whose admiral
at Manila had perhaps blocked German interference, showed an increasing
desire for a close understanding. The friendship of the United States,
itself once a British dependency, for the British colonies was natural
and American interests in the Far East had much in common with those of
Great Britain.
External evidence of the new place of the United States in the world might
be found in the position taken by Roosevelt as peacemaker between Russia
and Japan, and, more significantly, in the rôle played by the American
representative, Henry White, at the Conference of Algeciras in 1906. Not
merely did the American Government consent to discuss matters essentially
European in character, but its attitude proved almost decisive in the
settlement then drafted. It is true that the Senate, in approving that
settlement, refused to assume responsibility for its maintenance and
reiterated its adherence to traditional policy. But those who watched
developments with intelligent eyes must have agreed with Roosevelt when he
said: "We have no choice, we people of the United States, as to whether we
shall play a great part in the affairs of the world. That has been decided
for us by fate, by the march of events." Yet it may be questioned whether
the average American, during the first decade of the twentieth century,
realized the change that had come over relations with Europe. The majority
of citizens certainly felt that anything happening east of the Atlantic
was none of their business, just as everything that occurred in the
Americas was entirely outside the scope of European interference.
There is little to show that Woodrow Wilson, at the time when he entered
upon his duties as President, was one of the few Americans who fully
appreciated the new international position of the United States and its
consequences, even had there been no war. The Democratic platform of 1912
hardly mentioned foreign policy, and Wilson's Inaugural contained no
reference to anything except domestic matters. Certain problems inherited
from the previous Administration forced upon the President, however, the
formulation, if not of a policy, at least of an attitude. The questions of
the Panama Canal tolls and Japanese immigration, the Mexican situation,
the Philippines, general relations with Latin-America, all demanded
attention. In each case Wilson displayed a willingness to sacrifice, a
desire to avoid stressing the material strength of the United States, an
anxiety to compromise, which matched in spirit the finest traditions of
American foreign policy, which has generally been marked by high ideals.
Many of his countrymen, possibly without adequate study or command of the
facts, supposed that Wilson was inspired less by positive ideals than by
the belief that no problem of a foreign nature was worth a quarrel. People
liked the principle contained in the sentence: "We can afford to exercise
the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own
strength and scorns to misuse it." But they also wondered whether the
passivity of the Government did not in part proceed from the fact that the
President could not make up his mind what he wanted to do. They looked
upon his handling of the Mexican situation as clear evidence of a lack of
policy. Nevertheless the country as a whole, without expressing enthusiasm
for Wilson's attitude, was obviously pleased by his attempts to avoid
foreign entanglements, and in the early summer of 1914 the eyes of the
nation were focused upon domestic issues.
Then came the war in Europe.
* * * * *
Today, after the long years of stress and struggle in which the crimes of
Germany have received full advertisement, few Americans will admit that
they did not perceive during that first week of August, 1914, the
complete significance of the moral issues involved in the European war.
They read back into their thoughts of those early days the realization
which, in truth, came only later, that Germany was the brutal aggressor
attacking those aspects of modern civilization which are dear to America.
In fact there were not many then who grasped the essential truth that the
cause defended by Great Britain and France was indeed that of America and
that their defeat would bring the United States face to face with vital
danger, both material and moral.
Partisanship, of course, was not lacking and frequently it was of an
earnest kind; in view of the large number of European-born who enjoyed
citizenship, sympathy with one side or the other was inevitably warm.
West of the Mississippi it was some time before the masses were stirred
from their indifference to and their ignorance of the struggle. But on
the Atlantic seaboard and in the Middle West opinion became sharply
divided. The middle-class German-Americans naturally espoused with some
vehemence the justice of the Fatherland's cause. German intellectuals of
influence, such as Hugo Münsterberg, inveighed against the hypocrisy and
the decadence of the Entente powers. Many Americans who had lived or had
been educated in Germany, some professors who had been brought into
contact with the Kaiser explained the "essentially defensive character"
of Germany's struggle against the threatening Slav. Certain of the
politically active Irish elements, anxious to discredit the British, also
lent their support to the German cause.
On the Atlantic coast, however, the general trend of opinion ran strongly
in favor of the Entente. The brave defense of the Belgians at Liège
against terrible odds evoked warm sympathy; the stories of the atrocities
committed by the invading Germans, constantly more frequent and more
brutal in character, enhanced that feeling. The valorous retreat of the
French and their last-ditch stand on the Marne compelled admiration.
Moreover, the school histories of the United States with their emphasis
upon La Fayette and the aid given by the French in the first fight for
liberty proved to be of no small importance in the molding of sympathy.
Business men naturally favored Great Britain, both because of financial
relationships and because of their dislike and fear of German commercial
methods.
But in all this partisanship there was little appreciation of the peril
that might result from German victory and no articulate demand that the
United States intervene. Warm sympathy might be given to one side or the
other, but the almost universal opinion was that the war was none of our
business. Even Theodore Roosevelt, who later was to be one of the most
determined advocates of American intervention on the side of the Entente,
writing for _The Outlook_ in September, 1914, congratulated the country
on its separation from European quarrels, which made possible the
preservation of our peace.
Whatever the trend of public opinion, President Wilson would have
insisted upon neutrality. Everything in his character and policy demanded
the maintenance of peace. He had entered office with a broad programme of
social reform in view, and the attainment of his ideals depended upon
domestic tranquillity. He was, furthermore, a real pacifist, believing
that war is debasing morally and disastrous economically. Finally, he was
convinced that the United States was consecrated to a special task,
namely, the inspiration of politics by moral factors; if the nation was
to accomplish this task its example must be a higher example than one of
force. Unquestionably he looked forward to acting as mediator in the
struggle and thus securing for the country and himself new prestige such
as had come in Roosevelt's mediation between Russia and Japan. But the
main thought in his mind was, first, the preservation of peace for the
sake of peace; and next, to attain the supreme glory of showing the world
that greatness and peaceableness are complementary in national character
and not antithetic. "We are champions of peace and of concord," he said,
"and we should be very jealous of this distinction which we have sought
to earn."
Wilson's determination was strengthened by his obvious failure to
distinguish between the war aims of the two sides. He did not at first see
the moral issue involved. He was anxious to "reserve judgment until the
end of the war, when all its events and circumstances can be seen in their
entirety and in their true relations." When appeals and protests were sent
to him from Germany, Belgium, and France dealing with infractions of the
law and practice of nations, he was willing to return a response to
Germany, which had confessedly committed an international wrong, identical
with that sent to Belgium which had suffered from that wrong. Wilson has
himself confessed that "America did not at first see the full meaning of
the war. It looked like a natural raking out of the pent-up jealousies and
rivalries of the complicated politics of Europe.... We, at the distance
of America, looked on at first without a full comprehension of what the
plot was getting into."[2] That the aims of the belligerent powers might
affect the conscience or the fortunes of America he did not perceive. He
urged us not to be "thrown off our balance by a war with which we have
nothing to do, whose causes cannot touch us, whose very existence affords
us opportunities of friendship and disinterested service which should make
us ashamed of any thought of hostility or fearful preparation for
trouble." Hence his proclamation of neutrality, which was universally
accepted as right. Hence, also, his adjuration to be "impartial in thought
as well as in action," which was not so universally accepted and marks,
perhaps, a definite rift between Wilson and the bulk of educated opinion
in the Northeast.
[Footnote 2: Speech on the _George Washington_, July 4, 1919.]
During the early days of August Wilson had proclaimed his desire to act
as mediator between the warring forces, although he must have realized
that the suggestion would prove fruitless at that moment. Again, after
the battle of the Marne, he took advantage of German discouragement,
apparently receiving a hint from Johann von Bernstorff, German
Ambassador in Washington, to sound the belligerents on the possibility of
an arrangement. Failing a second time to elicit serious consideration of
peace, he withdrew to wait for a better opportunity. Thus the Germans,
beaten back from Paris, vainly pounded the allied lines on the Yser; the
Russians, after forcing their path through Galicia, defended Warsaw with
desperation; while Wilson kept himself and his country strictly aloof
from the conflict.
But no mere desires or declarations could prevent the war from touching
America, and each day made more apparent the difficulties and the dangers
of neutrality. The Atlantic no longer separated the two worlds. In
September and October the British Government, taking advantage of the
naval supremacy assured by their fleet, issued Orders in Council designed
to provide for close control of neutral commerce and to prevent the
importation of contraband into Germany. British supervision of war-time
trade has always been strict and its interpretation of the meaning of
contraband broad; the present instance was no exception. American ships
and cargoes were seized and confiscated to an extent which, while it
doubtless seemed justified to the British, who were fighting for their
lives, evoked a chorus of bitter complaints from American producers and
exporters. Commerce with neutral countries of Europe threatened to become
completely interrupted. On the 21st of October and again on the 26th of
December, the State Department sent notes of protest to the British
Government. The tone of the discussion was notably sharpened by the
seizure of the _Wilhelmina_, supposedly an American ship, though, as
later developed, she had been chartered by a German agent in New York,
Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, in order to bring the Anglo-American dispute to a
head.
How far the interference with our trade by the British might have
embittered relations, if other issues had not seemed more pressing, no one
can say. Precisely at the moment when business men were beginning to call
upon Wilson for a sturdier defense of American commercial rights, a
controversy with Germany eclipsed, at least from the eye of the general
public, all other foreign questions. From the moment when the defeat on
the Marne showed the Germans that victory was not likely to come quickly
to their arms, the Berlin Government realized the importance of preventing
the export of American munitions. Since the allies held control of the
seas an embargo on such export would be entirely to German advantage, and
the head of German propaganda in this country, a former Colonial
Secretary, Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, attempted to mobilize German-American
sentiment and to bring pressure upon Congressmen through their
constituents in favor of such an embargo. It was easy to allege that the
export of arms, since they went to the allied camp alone, was on its face,
unneutral. Several Senators approved the embargo, among them the chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William J. Stone of Missouri.
Against the proposed embargo Wilson set his face steadfastly. He perceived
the fallacy of the German argument and insisted that to prevent the export
of arms would be itself unneutral. The inability of the Central Powers to
import arms from the United States resulted from their inferiority on the
high seas; the Government would be departing from its position of
impartiality if it failed to keep American markets open to every nation of
the world, belligerent or neutral. The United States could not change the
rules in the middle of the game for the advantage of one side. The perfect
legality of Wilson's decision has been frankly recognized since the war by
the German Ambassador.
But the execution of German military plans demanded that the allied
shortage in munitions, upon which the Teutons counted for success in the
spring campaigns, should not be replenished from American sources.
Failing to budge Wilson on the proposal of an embargo, they launched
themselves upon a more reckless course. On February 4, 1915, the German
Admiralty issued a proclamation to the effect that after the 18th of
February, German submarines would destroy every enemy merchant vessel
found in the waters about the British Isles, which were declared a "war
zone"; and that it might not be possible to provide for the safety of
crew or passengers of destroyed vessels. Neutral ships were warned of the
danger of destruction if they entered the zone. The excuse alleged for
this decided departure from the custom of nations was the British
blockade upon foodstuffs, which had been declared as a result of the
control of food in Germany by the Government. Here was quite a different
matter from British interference with American trade-rights; for if the
German threat were carried into effect it signified not merely the
destruction or loss of property, for which restitution might be made, but
the possible drowning of American citizens, perhaps women and children,
who would be entirely within their rights in traveling upon merchant
vessels and to whom the Government owed protection.
Wilson's reply was prompt and definite. "If the commanders of German
vessels of war should ... destroy on the high seas an American vessel or
the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the Government
of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an
indefensible violation of neutral rights.... The Government of the United
States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a
strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take
any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and
property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their
acknowledged rights on the high seas." It was the clearest of warnings.
Would Germany heed it? And if she did not, would Wilson surrender his
pacific ideals and take the nation into war?
CHAPTER III
THE SUBMARINE
Early in the winter of 1914-1915 President Wilson apparently foresaw
something of the complications likely to arise from the measures and
counter-measures taken by the belligerents to secure control of overseas
commerce, and sent his personal adviser, Colonel House, across the
Atlantic to study the possibilities of reaching a _modus vivendi_. There
was no man so well qualified for the mission. Edward Mandell House was a
Texan by birth, but a cosmopolitan by nature. His hobby was practical
politics; his avocation the study of history and government. His
catholicity of taste is indicated by the nature of his library, which
includes numerous volumes not merely on the social sciences but also on
philosophy and poetry. His intellectual background was thus no less
favorable than his political for the post which he assumed as Wilson's
personal adviser. Disqualified by physical delicacy from entering the
political arena himself and consistently refusing office, he had for
years controlled the political stage in his own State; in 1912,
exercising strong influence in the national party organization, he had
done much to crystallize sentiment in favor of Wilson as presidential
candidate. Slight in stature, quiet in manner and voice, disliking
personal publicity, with an almost uncanny instinct for divining the
motives that actuate men, he possessed that which Wilson lacked--the
capacity to "mix," to meet his fellow mortals, no matter what their
estate, on a common ground.
Courteous and engaging, Colonel House was an unexcelled negotiator: he
had a genius for compromise, as perfect a control of his emotions as of
his facial expression, and a pacific magnetism that soothed into
reasonableness the most heated interlocutor. His range of acquaintance in
the United States was unparalleled. Abroad, previous to the war, he had
discussed international relations with the Kaiser and the chief statesmen
of France and England. His experience of American politics and knowledge
of foreign affairs, whether derived from men or from books, were matched
by an almost unerring penetration in the analysis of a political
situation, domestic or European. As a liberal idealist and pacifist, he
saw eye to eye with Wilson; his sense of political actualities, however,
was infinitely more keen.
But even the skill of Colonel House was not sufficient to induce Germany
to hold her hand, and, as spring advanced, it became increasingly clear
that she was resolved to carry her threats of unrestricted submarine
warfare into effect. The quality of Wilson's pacifism was about to be put
to the test. In March a British steamer, the _Falaba_, was sunk and an
American citizen drowned; some weeks later an American boat, the
_Cushing_, was attacked by a German airplane; and on the 1st of May,
another American steamer, the _Gulflight_, was sunk by a submarine with
the loss of two American lives. When was Wilson going to translate into
action his summary warning of "strict accountability?" Even as the
question was asked, we heard that the Germans had sunk the _Lusitania_.
On the 7th of May, 1915, at two in the afternoon, the pride of the
British merchant marine was struck by two torpedoes fired from a German
submarine. She sank in half an hour. More than eleven hundred of her
passengers and crew were drowned, among them one hundred and twenty-four
Americans, men, women, and children.
The cry that went up from America was one of anguish, but still more one
of rage. This attack upon non-combatant travelers, citizens of a neutral
state, had been callously premeditated and ruthlessly executed in cold
blood. The German Government had given frigid warning, in a newspaper
advertisement, of its intention to affront the custom of nations and the
laws of humanity. A wave of the bitterest anti-German feeling swept down
the Atlantic coast and out to the Mississippi; for the first time there
became apparent a definite trend of opinion demanding the entrance of the
United States into the war on the side of the Entente. On that day Wilson
might have won a declaration of war, so strong was popular sentiment; and
despite the comparative indifference of the Missouri valley and the Far
West, he might have aroused enthusiasm if not unity.
But a declaration of war then would, in all probability, have been a
mistake. Entrance into the war at that time would have been based upon
neither judgment nor ideals, but merely upon emotion. The American people
were in no way prepared to bring material aid to the cause of justice,
nor did the nation yet appreciate the moral issues involved. It would
have been a war of revenge for American lives lost. The President was by
temperament disinclined to listen to the passionate demands for
intervention, and, as historian, he must have had in mind the error
committed by McKinley when he permitted the declaration of war on Spain,
after the sinking of the _Maine_ in 1898. Sober afterthought has
generally agreed that Wilson was right. But he was himself led into a
serious error that produced consequences which were not soon to be
dissipated. Speaking three days after the event, when the world looked to
him to express the soul of America, and dealing with the spirit of
Americanism, he permitted an unfortunate phrase to enter his address and
to cloud his purpose. "There is such a thing," he said, "as a man being
too proud to fight." The phrase was by no means essential to the main
points of his address; it was preceded by one of greater importance,
namely that "the example of America must be a special example ... of
peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world
and strife is not." It was followed by another of equal importance, that
a nation may be so much in the right "that it does not need to convince
others by force that it is right." These two phrases expressed what was
in the President's mind clearly and definitely: the United States was
consecrated to ideals which could not be carried into effect through
force, unless every other method dictated by supreme patience had failed.
But the world did not notice them. All that it remembered was that the
United States was "too proud to fight." What did this mean to the average
man except that the country was afraid to fight? The peoples of the
Entente powers were contemptuous; Germans were reassured; Americans were
humiliated.
Wilson the phrase-maker was betrayed by a phrase, and it was to pursue him
like a Fury. The chorus of indignation and shame aroused by this phrase
covered completely the determination and skill with which he entered upon
the diplomatic struggle with Germany. His purpose was definite. He had
gone on record in February that the United States Government would protect
the rights of American citizens, and he was bound to secure from Germany a
promise that merchant ships should not be torpedoed without warning or
assuring the lives of crew and passengers. And yet by virtue of his
pacific principles this promise could not be forcibly extracted until
every other possible method had been attempted in vain. Unquestionably he
was supported in his policy by many, perhaps most, thoughtful people,
although wherever support was given him in the East it was generally
grudging. Such a representative and judicial mind as that of ex-President
Taft favored cool consideration and careful action. But the difficulties
encountered by the President were tremendous. On the one hand he met the
bitter denunciations of the group, constantly increasing in numbers, which
demanded our immediate intervention on the side of the Entente. Led by
Roosevelt, who no longer felt as in the previous September, that the
United States had no immediate interest in the war, this group included
influential men of business and many writers. They had lost patience with
Wilson's patience. His policy was, in their opinion, that of a coward. On
the other hand, Wilson was assailed by pro-Germans and die-hard pacifists;
the former believed that the British blockade justified Germany's
submarine warfare; the latter were afraid even of strong language in
diplomatic notes, lest it lead to war. At the very outset of the
diplomatic controversy with Germany, before the second _Lusitania_ note
was dispatched, the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, resigned,
in the belief that the President's tone was too peremptory. For Bryan was
willing to arbitrate even Germany's right to drown American citizens on
the high seas. The defection of this influential politician a year
previous would have weakened Wilson seriously, but by now the President
had won secure control of the party. He was, indeed, strengthened
diplomatically by Bryan's resignation, as the latter, in a conversation
with the Austrian Ambassador, had given the impression that American
protests need not be taken over-seriously. His continuance in office might
have encouraged German leaders to adopt a bolder tone.
From the very beginning of his attempts to obtain from Germany a disavowal
for the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and a promise not to sink without
warning, the President took his stand upon high ground. Not merely did he
insist upon the rights guaranteed to neutrals by the law of nations; he
took the controversy out of the class of ordinary subjects of diplomatic
discussion and contended "for nothing less high and sacred than the rights
of humanity." To this he recurred in each of his notes. Germany avoided
the issue. At first she insisted that the _Lusitania_ was armed, carrying
explosives of war, transporting troops from Canada, and thus virtually
acting as a naval auxiliary. After the falsity of this assertion was
shown, she adduced the restrictions placed by Great Britain on neutral
trade as excuse for submarine operations, and contended that the
circumstances of naval warfare in the twentieth century had so changed
that the principles of international law no longer held good.
Each time Wilson returned to his point that the "rights of neutrals are
based upon principle, not upon expediency, and the principles are
immutable. Illegal and inhuman acts ... are manifestly indefensible when
they deprive neutrals of their acknowledged rights, particularly when
they violate the right to life itself. If a belligerent cannot retaliate
against an enemy without injuring the lives of neutrals, as well as their
property, humanity, as well as justice and a due regard for the dignity
of neutral powers should dictate that the practice be discontinued."
Wilson terminated his third note to Germany with a warning, which had the
tone, if not the form, of an ultimatum: there must be a scrupulous
observance of neutral rights in this critical matter, as repetition of
"acts in contravention of those rights must be regarded by the Government
of the United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately
unfriendly."
The exchange of notes consumed much time and proved a severe test for
American patience. The first _Lusitania_ note was sent on the 13th of
May and it was not until the 1st of September that the German Government
finally gave a pledge that was acceptable to Wilson. In the meantime
there had been continued sinkings, or attempts to sink, in clear
violation of the principles for which the President was contending. The
_Nebraskan_, the _Armenian_, the _Orduna_, were subjected to submarine
attacks. On the 19th of August the _Arabic_ was sunk and two Americans
lost. The ridicule heaped upon the President by the British and certain
sections of the American press, for his writing of diplomatic notes, was
only equaled by the sense of humiliation experienced by pro-Entente
elements in this country. _Punch_ issued a cartoon in which Uncle Sam
pointed to Wilson as having outstripped the record made by Job for
patience. Nevertheless Wilson obtained the main point for which he was
striving. On September 1, 1915, the German Government gave the definite
pledge that "Liners will not be sunk by our submarines without warning
and without safety of the lives of non-combatants, provided that the
liners do not try to escape or offer resistance." Wilson had sought to
safeguard a principle by compelling from Germany a written acknowledgment
of its validity. So much he had won and without the exercise of force.
Even those whose nerves were most overwrought by the long-drawn-out
negotiations, admitted that it was a diplomatic victory.
The victory was not clean-cut, for Germany had not yet disavowed the
sinking of the _Lusitania_, nor did the category "liners" seem to include
all merchant vessels. How real was even the partial victory remained to
be seen. Within three days of the German pledge the _Hesperian_ was sunk
and an American citizen drowned. On the 7th of November the _Ancona_ was
torpedoed in the Mediterranean by an Austrian submarine with the loss of
more American lives. It is true that after each case a disavowal was made
and a renewal of promises vouchsafed. But it seemed obvious that Germany
was merely playing for time and also that she counted upon pro-German and
pacifist agitation in this country. For a brief period it appeared as if
her hopes were not to be entirely disappointed. British merchant vessels,
following long-established custom, had for some months been armed for
purposes of defense. The German Government on February 10, 1916,
announced that henceforward such armed merchantmen would be regarded as
auxiliary cruisers and would be sunk without warning. It was unfortunate
that Robert Lansing, who had succeeded Bryan as Secretary of State, had
proposed on January 18, 1916, to the diplomatic representatives of the
Allied forces that they cease the arming of merchantmen as a means of
securing from Germany a pledge which would cover all merchantmen as well
as passenger liners; this proposal gave to Germany a new opportunity for
raising the issue of the submarine. But either Lansing's proposal had
been made without Mr. Wilson's sanction or the President changed his
mind, since on the 10th of February Wilson declared that he intended to
recognize the right of merchantmen to arm for purposes of defense. Once
more he insisted that the rules of war could not be changed during war
for the advantage of one side.
His declaration led at once to something like a revolt of Congress.
Already some of those who especially feared intervention had been
suffering from an attack of panic as a result of Wilson's recent decision
to support the preparedness movement. They were further terrified by the
possibility that some American citizen traveling on an armed merchantman
might lose his life and that the demand for entrance into the war might
thus become irresistible. Bryanites, pro-German propagandists, and Irish
combined against the President, and were reinforced by all the
discontented elements who hoped to break Wilson's control of the
Democratic party. The combination seemed like a new cave of Adullam.
Resolutions were introduced in the Senate by Thomas P. Gore and in the
House by Jeff McLemore, based upon suggestions made by Bryan nine months
before, that American citizens should be warned not to travel on armed
merchant vessels. Senator Stone, of the Foreign Relations Committee,
supported these resolutions and it appeared probable that Germany would
find her strongest support in the American Congress.
Wilson struck sharply. Not merely his leadership of the party and the
country was at stake, but also that moral leadership of neutral nations
and the world toward which the struggle with Germany was to take him.
Refusing to receive Senator Stone, he sent him a letter in which the
cardinal points of his position were underlined. "Once accept a single
abatement of right," he insisted, "and many other humiliations would
certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might
crumble under our hands piece by piece. What we are now contending for in
this matter is the very essence of the things that have made America a
sovereign nation. She cannot yield them without conceding her own
impotency as a Nation and making virtual surrender of her independent
position among the nations of the world." This definite enunciation was
in effect an appeal to the American people, which came as a relief to
those who had suffered from presidential patience under German outrages.
The storm of public feeling aroused against the rebellious Congressmen
was such that Wilson's victory became assured. Demanding concrete
justification of his stand, he insisted that the resolutions be put to
the vote. The issue was somewhat confused in the Senate so that the vote
was not decisive; but in the House the McLemore resolution was defeated
by a vote of 276 to 142.
And yet the submarine issue was not finally closed. Less than a month
after the rights of American citizens were thus maintained, the British
passenger steamer _Sussex_, crossing the English Channel, was torpedoed
without warning. It was the clearest violation of the pledge given by the
German Government the previous September. Once again Wilson acted without
precipitancy. He waited until the Germans should present explanations
and thereafter took more than a week in which to formulate his decision.
Finally, on April 19, 1916, he called the two houses of Congress in joint
session to lay before them his note to Germany. Unlike his _Lusitania_
notes, this was a definite ultimatum, clearly warranted by the undeniable
fact that Germany had broken a solemn pledge. After recounting the long
list of events which had so sorely tried American patience, Wilson
concluded that "unless the Imperial German Government should now
immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of
warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels this Government
can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the Government
of the German Empire altogether." The force of the ultimatum was
emphasized by the general tone of the note, in which, as in the
_Lusitania_ notes, the President spoke not so much for the legal rights
of the United States, as in behalf of the moral rights of all humanity.
He stressed the "principles of humanity as embodied in the law of
nations," and excoriated the "inhumanity of submarine warfare"; he
terminated by stating that the United States would contemplate a
diplomatic break with reluctance, but would feel constrained to take the
step "in behalf of humanity and the rights of neutral nations." This note
of emphasis upon America's duty to mankind rather than to herself formed
the main theme of a speech delivered two days previous: "America will
have forgotten her traditions whenever upon any occasion she fights
merely for herself under such circumstances as will show that she has
forgotten to fight for all mankind. And the only excuse that America can
ever have for the assertion of her physical force is that she asserts it
in behalf of the interests of humanity."
Germany yielded before Wilson's ultimatum, though with bad grace, and
promised that no more merchant ships would be sunk "without warning and
without saving human lives." But she also tried to make her promise
conditional upon the cessation by Great Britain of methods of warfare
which Germany called illegal, implying that her pledge might be withdrawn
at her pleasure: "the German Government ... must reserve itself complete
liberty of action." This condition Wilson, in taking note of Germany's
pledge, definitely waved aside: "the Government of the United States
notifies the Imperial Government that it cannot for a moment entertain,
much less discuss, a suggestion that respect by German naval authorities
for the rights of American citizens upon the high seas should in any way
or in the slightest degree be made contingent upon the conduct of any
other government affecting the rights of neutrals and non-combatants.
Responsibility in such matters is single, not joint; absolute, not
relative." By its silence the German Government seemed to acquiesce and
the crisis was over. The country had been close to war, but intervention
might yet be avoided if Germany kept her word. That, however, was a
condition upon which people were learning not to rely.
It is obvious that by the early summer of 1916 President Wilson's
attitude on foreign affairs had undergone a notable transformation from
that parochial spirit of 1914 which had led him to declare that the war
was no concern of America; he had given over completely the tradition
that if we keep our own hands clean we fulfill our duty. He had begun to
elaborate an idealistic policy of service to the world, not unreminiscent
of the altruistic schemes of Clay and Webster for assisting oppressed
republicans in Europe during the first third of the nineteenth century.
Wilson, like those statesmen, had always felt that the position of the
United States in the world was of a special sort, quite different from
that of the European states, and circumstances were forcing him to take
the stand that the nation must assume the lead in the world in order to
ensure the operation of the principles that Americans believe in. "We are
in some sort and by the force of circumstances the responsible spokesman
of the rights of humanity." He still opposed active intervention in the
war; the mission of the United States was a higher one than could
adequately be fulfilled through war; the kind of service we could best
give was not fighting. Yet he was brought to admit, even before the
_Sussex_ crisis (February 26, 1916), that in the last instance war might
be necessary if the American people were to assume the rôle of champion
of liberty in the world at large, as they had championed it in the
Americas; for the rights of humanity must be made secure against menace:
"America ought to keep out of this war ... at the expense of everything
except this single thing upon which her character and history are
founded, her sense of humanity and justice.... Valor withholds itself
from all small implications and entanglements and waits for the great
opportunity, when the sword will flash as if it carried the light of
heaven upon its blade." Thus the possibility of ultimate force was
implied. Eighteen months previous, peace had been for Wilson an end in
itself. Now it was subordinated to the greater end implied in maintaining
the principle of justice in the world.
During this period popular sentiment also underwent a notable
development. Americans reacted sharply to German threats and outrages,
and were thrown off their comfortable balance by the events which touched
American honor and safety so closely. Like Wilson, they were shaken out
of that sense of isolation which enveloped them in 1914, and they were
thus prepared for the reception of broader ideals. The process of
education was slow and difficult. It was hampered by the confusion of
foreign issues. Propagandists took advantage of the controversy with
Great Britain in order to obscure the principles upon which the
discussions with Germany were based. The increasing stringency of British
control of commerce and the blacklisting of various American firms by the
British authorities resulted in numerous American protests and to some
warmth of feeling. Wilson was no particular friend of the British, but he
rightly insisted upon the distinction between the dispute with Germany,
which involved the common right of humanity to life, and that with Great
Britain, which involved merely rights of property. Nevertheless that
distinction was blurred in the minds of many Americans, and their
perception of the new ideals of foreign policy was necessarily confused.
The education of the American people to the significance of the issue was
also hampered by the material change that came over the country during
the latter part of 1915 and the spring of 1916. The influx of gold and
the ease with which fortunes were accumulated could not but have
widespread effects. The European war came at a moment when the United
States was passing through a period of comparatively hard times.
Stringency was naturally increased by the liquidation of foreign
investments in 1914 and the closing of European markets to American
commerce. Business was dull. But this condition was rapidly altered
through the placing of large contracts by the Entente Governments and the
most extensive buying by foreign purchasers. New markets were found among
the neutral states, which were unable to buy in Europe. Naturally there
developed a rapid extension of industrial activities. New manufacturing
concerns grew up, large and small, as a result of these adventitious
conditions, which paid enormous returns. Activities upon the stock market
were unparalleled. New and sudden fortunes were made; millionaires
became common. The whole world was debtor to America and a golden stream
flowed across the Atlantic. Prices rose rapidly and wages followed.
Inevitably materialism conquered, at least for the moment. The demand for
luxuries was only equaled by the craze for entertainment. Artisans and
shopgirls invaded the jewelry stores of Fifth Avenue. Metropolitan life
was a succession of luncheons and teas, where fertile brains were busied
with the invention of new dancing steps rather than the issues of the
European war. Cabarets were crowded and seats for midnight beauty shows
must be secured well in advance or by means of gargantuan tips to
plutocratic head waiters. Much of the materialism was simply external. In
every town American women by the thousand gave lavishly of their time and
strength to knit and roll bandages for the fighters and wounded overseas.
America was collecting millions for the relief of Belgium, Serbia, and
for the Red Cross. The American Ambulance in France was served by men
imbued with the spirit of sacrifice. Thousands of American youths
enlisted in the Canadian forces. The general atmosphere of the country,
however, was heavy with amusement and money-making. Not yet did America
fully realize that the war was a struggle of ideals which must concern
every one closely. In such an atmosphere the idealistic policy of Wilson
was not easily understood.
The President himself cannot escape a large share of the blame for
America's blindness to the issue. During the first twelve months of the
war, when the country looked to him for leadership, he had, purposely or
otherwise, fostered the forces of pacifism and encouraged the advocates
of national isolation. He had underlined the separation of the United
States from everything that went on in Europe and insisted that in the
issues of the war the American people had no interest. In deference to
the spirit of pacifism that engrossed the Middle West, he had opposed the
movement for military preparedness. When, late in 1915, Wilson changed
his attitude and attempted to arouse the country to a sense of American
interest in world affairs and to the need of preparing to accept
responsibility, he encountered the opposition of forces which he himself
had helped to vitalize.
Popular education, especially upon the Atlantic coast, was further
hampered by the personal irritation which the President aroused. Disliked
when inaugurated, he had attracted bitter enmity among the business men
who dominate opinion in New England and the Eastern States. They accused
him of truckling to labor. They were wearied by his idealism, which
seemed to them all words and no deeds. They regarded his handling of
foreign affairs, whether in the Mexican or submarine crises, as weak and
vacillating. He was, in Rooseveltian nomenclature, a "pussyfooter." Hence
grew up the tradition, which was destined to endure among many elements
of opinion, that everything advocated by Wilson must, simply by reason of
its authorship, be essentially wrong. The men of Boston, New York, and
Philadelphia were beginning to give over their attitude of isolation and
admit with Roosevelt that the United States ought to stand with the
Entente. The Wilsonian doctrine of service to the world, however, was not
to their taste, partly because they did not like Wilson.
It was to the rural districts of the upper Mississippi and to the South
that the President looked most eagerly for support of his new policy.
These were the regions where indifference to and ignorance of foreign
affairs had been most conspicuous, but they were also the regions where
the President's personal influence was strongest; finally they were the
districts where extreme pacifism was most deeply embedded. If Wilson's
championship of the rights of liberty throughout the world could be
accomplished by pacific methods, they would follow him; but if it meant
war, no one could guarantee what their attitude might be. Bryan was
popular in those parts. As yet Wilson, while he had formulated his policy
in broad terms, had not indicated the methods or mechanism by which his
principles were to be put into operation. He would without question
encounter strong opposition among the German-Americans; he would find the
attitude of the Irish foes of the Entente hostile; he would find the
Pacific coast more interested in Japanese immigration than in the ideals
of the European war. Fortunately events were to unify the heterogeneous
elements of the country, at least for the moment, in a way that
simplified greatly the President's problem. Not the least of the unifying
forces was to be found in German psychology, which led the Imperial
Government to believe that the United States could be rendered helpless
through the intrigues of German spies.
CHAPTER IV
PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS
The Government of the German Empire was inspired by a spirit that was at
once modern and medieval, and this contradictory spirit manifested itself
in the ways and means employed to win the sympathy of the United States
and to prevent it, as a neutral power, from assisting the Entente.
Germany worked on the one hand by means of open propaganda, which is the
method of modern commercial advertisement translated into the political
field, and on the other by secret intrigue reminiscent of the days of
Louis XI. Her propaganda took the form of organized campaigns to
influence opinion through speeches, pamphlets, and books, which were
designed to convince the country of the justice of Germany's cause and
the dangers of becoming the catspaw of the Entente. Her plans of intrigue
were directed towards the use of German-Americans or German spies to
assist in the return of German officers from this country, to hinder the
transport of Canadian troops, to destroy communications, and to hamper
the output of munitions for the Entente by strikes, incendiary fires, and
explosions.
During the first weeks of the war a German press bureau was established
in New York for the distribution of pro-German literature and the support
of the German-American press. Its activities were chiefly directed by Dr.
Bernhard Dernburg, who defended Germany from the charge of responsibility
for the war and expatiated upon her efficiency and the beneficence of her
culture in the same breath that he attacked the commercial greed of Great
Britain, the cruel autocracy of Russia, and the imperialistic designs of
Japan in the Pacific. Its pamphlets went so far as to excoriate allied
methods of warfare and to level accusations of inhumanity against the
Belgians. It distributed broadcast throughout the country an appeal
signed by ninety-three German professors and intellectuals, and
countersigned by a few notable Americans, which besought the American
people not to be deceived by the "lies and calumnies" of the enemies of
Germany.
This propaganda left all cold except those who already sympathized with
Germany. Indeed it reacted unfavorably against the German cause, as soon
as the well-authenticated reports came of German atrocities in Belgium,
of the burning of the Louvain library, and of the shelling of Rheims
cathedral. The efforts of German agents then shifted, concentrating in an
attack upon the United States Government for its alleged unneutral
attitude in permitting the export of munitions to the Entente. In some
sections of the country they were able to arouse an opinion favorable to
the establishment of an embargo. In the Senate, on December 10, 1914, a
bill was offered by John D. Works of California providing for the
prohibition of the sale of war supplies to any belligerent nation and a
similar bill was fathered in the House by Charles L. Bartlett of Georgia.
These efforts were warmly supported by various associations, some of
which were admittedly German-American societies, although the majority
attempted to conceal their partisan feeling under such titles as
_American Independence Union_ and _American Neutrality League_. The
latter effectively displayed its interest in America and in neutrality by
tumultuous singing of _Deutschland über Alles_ and _Die Wacht am Rhein_.
Of sincerely pacifist organizations there were not a few, among which
should not be forgotten the fantastic effort of Henry Ford in December,
1915, to end the war by sending a "Peace Ship" to Europe, designed to
arouse such public opinion abroad in favor of peace that "the boys would
be out of the trenches by Christmas." The ship sailed, but the
expedition, which was characterized by equal amounts of honesty and
foolishness, broke up shortly in dissension. For the most part pacifism
and pro-Germanism went hand in hand--a tragic alliance of good and evil
which was to hamper later efforts to evolve an international organization
for the preservation of peace.
The attempts of German propagandists to influence the policy of the
Government met, as we have seen, the stubborn resolve of the President
not to favor one camp of the belligerents by a departure from
international custom and law during the progress of the war. Their
efforts, however, were not entirely relaxed. Appeals were made to workmen
to stop the war by refusing to manufacture munitions; vigorous campaigns
were conducted to discredit the Administration by creating the belief
that it was discriminating in favor of the British. But more and more
Germany took to secret intrigue, the strings of which were pulled by the
military and naval attachés, von Papen and Boy-Ed. The German Ambassador,
von Bernstorff, also took a lively interest in the plans to control
public opinion and later to hamper munitions production. With his
approval, German manufacturing companies were organized at Bridgeport and
elsewhere to buy up the machinery and supplies essential to the
production of powder, shrapnel, and surplus benzol; arrangements were
made with the Bosch Magneto Company to enter into contracts with the
Entente for fuses and at the last moment to refuse to complete the
contract. Von Bernstorff was careful to avoid active participation in
plots for the destruction of property; but his interest and complicity,
together with that of Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, Financial Adviser of the
German Embassy, are evidenced by the checks drawn on their joint account
and paid to convicted criminals.
One of the first of the plots was the attempted blowing up of the
international bridge at Vanceboro, Maine, on December 31, 1914. The
materials for this explosion were collected and the fuse set by a German
reservist lieutenant, Werner Horn, who admitted that he acted under the
orders of von Papen. Another plan of the German agents was the
destruction of the Welland Canal, which was entrusted to a brilliant and
erratic adventurer, von der Goltz, who later confessed that he was under
the supervision of von Papen and had secured his materials from Captain
Hans Tauscher, the agent in New York of the Hamburg-American Line. This
company was involved in securing false manifests for vessels that carried
coal and supplies to German cruisers, thus defrauding the United States,
and in obtaining false passports for German reservists and agents; it
acted, in fact, as an American branch of the German Admiralty. More
serious yet was an attempt of the naval attaché, Boy-Ed, to involve the
United States and Mexico in a dispute by a plot to bring back Huerta.
This unhappy Mexican leader was arrested on the Mexican border in June,
1915, and shortly afterwards died.
For some months the existence of such activities on the part of German
agents had been suspected by the public. A series of disclosures
followed. In July, 1915, Dr. Albert, while riding on a New York elevated
train, was so careless as to set his portfolio on the seat for a few
moments; it was speedily picked up by a fellow passenger who made a hasty
exit. Soon afterwards the chief contents of the portfolio were published.
They indicated the complicity of the German Embassy in different
attempts to control the American press and to influence public opinion,
and proved the energy of less notable agents in illegal undertakings.
Towards the end of August, the Austrian Ambassador, Dr. Constantin Dumba,
made use of an American correspondent, James F. J. Archibald by name, to
carry dispatches to the Central Empires. He was arrested by the British
authorities at Falmouth, and his effects proved Dumba's interest in plans
to organize strikes in American munitions plants. "It is my impression,"
wrote the Austrian Ambassador, "that we can disorganize and hold up for
months, if not entirely prevent, the manufacture of munitions in
Bethlehem and the Middle West, which in the opinion of the German
military attaché, is of great importance and amply outweighs the
expenditure of money involved." Archibald also carried a letter from von
Papen to his wife in which he wrote: "I always say to these idiotic
Yankees that they had better hold their tongues." Its publication did not
serve to allay the warmth of American feeling.
It was with great satisfaction, therefore, that the public learned in
September that President Wilson had requested the recall of Ambassador
Dumba in the following words: "By reason of the admitted purpose and
intent of Ambassador Dumba to conspire to cripple legitimate industries
of the people of the United States and to interrupt their legitimate
trade, and by reason of the flagrant diplomatic impropriety in employing
an American citizen protected by an American passport, as a secret bearer
of official despatches through the lines of the enemy of
Austria-Hungary.... Mr. Dumba is no longer acceptable to the Government
of the United States." The two German attachés were given a longer
shrift, but on the 30th of November von Bernstorff was told that they
were no longer acceptable; von Papen sailed on the 22d of December and
was followed a week later by Boy-Ed.
During the two preceding months there had been a constant series of
strikes and explosions in munitions plants and industrial works, and
public opinion was now thoroughly aroused. The feeling that Germany and
Austria were thus through their agents virtually carrying on warfare in
the United States was intensified by the revelations of Dr. Joseph
Gori[)c]ar, formerly an Austrian consul, but a Jugoslav who sympathized
with the Entente; according to his statement every Austrian consul in
the country was "a center of intrigue of the most criminal character."
His charges came at the moment when Americans were reading that the
number of strikes in munitions plants was unparalleled, no less than one
hundred and two in a few months, of which fifty were in Bridgeport,
which was known to be a center of German activities. Explosions and
fires at the plants of the Bethlehem Steel Company and the Baldwin
Locomotive Works, and at the Roebling wire-rope shop in Trenton were of
mysterious origin.
To what extent explosions in munitions plants were the result of German
incendiarism and not of an accidental nature, it is difficult to
determine. But the Department of Justice was so thoroughly convinced of
the far-reaching character of German plots that President Wilson, in his
annual message of December, 1915, frankly denounced the "hyphenates" who
lent their aid to such intrigues. "I am sorry to say that the gravest
threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within
our own borders. There are citizens of the United States ... who have
poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national
life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our
Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought
it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to
debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue." His attack drew
forth the bitter resentment of the foreign language press, but was hailed
with delight in the East, where German intrigues aroused as great
excitement against the Fatherland as the submarine campaign. Nor was it
calmed by the continuance of fires and explosions and the evident
complicity of German officials. During the spring of 1916 a German agent,
von Igel, who occupied the former offices of von Papen, was arrested, and
the activities of Franz von Rintelen, who had placed incendiary bombs on
vessels leaving New York with food and supplies for the Allies, were
published. Taken in conjunction with the sinking of the _Sussex_, German
plots were now stimulating the American people to a keen sense of their
interest in the war, and preparing them effectively for a new attitude
toward foreign affairs in general.
It was inevitable that such revelations should have created a widespread
demand for increased military efficiency. The nation was approaching the
point where force might become necessary, and yet it was in no way
prepared for warfare, either on land or sea. During the first months of
the war the helplessness of the United States had been laid bare by
General Leonard Wood, who declared that we had never fought a really
first-class nation and "were pitifully unprepared, should such a calamity
be thrust upon us." The regular army "available to face such a crisis"
would be "just about equal to the police forces of Boston, New York, and
Philadelphia." The "preparedness movement" thus inaugurated was
crystallized by the formation of the National Security League, designed
to organize citizens in such a way "as may make practical an intelligent
expression of public opinion and may ensure for the nation an adequate
system of national defense." Pacifists and pro-Germans immediately
organized in opposition; and the movement was hampered by President
Wilson's unwillingness to coöperate in any way. He was flatly opposed, in
the autumn of 1914 and the spring of the following year, to compulsory
military service: "We will not ask our young men to spend the best years
of their lives making soldiers of themselves." He insisted that the
American people had always been able to defend themselves and should be
able to continue to do so without altering their military traditions. It
must not be forgotten that at this time Wilson still believed in absolute
isolation and refused to consider force as an element in our foreign
policy. His attitude was sufficient to render fruitless various
resolutions presented by Congressman Augustus P. Gardner and Senator
George E. Chamberlain, who proposed improvements in the military system.
Congress was pacifically-minded. This was the time when many Congressmen
were advocating an embargo on arms, and so far from desiring to learn how
to make and use munitions of war they concentrated their efforts on
methods of preventing their export to the Allies.
The preparedness movement, none the less, spread through the country and
the influence of the National Security League did much to inform the
public. In the summer of 1915 there was organized at Plattsburg, New
York, under the authority of General Wood, a civilian camp designed to
give some experience in the rudiments of military science. It was not
encouraged by the Administration, but at the end of the year the
President himself confessed that he had been converted. He was about to
abandon his policy of isolation for his new ideal of international
service, and he realized the logical necessity of supporting it by at
least a show of force. Mere negative "neutrality" no longer sufficed. His
fear that greater military strength might lead to an aggressive spirit in
the country had been obliterated by the attacks of submarines and by the
German plots. He admitted frankly that he had changed his mind. "I would
be ashamed," he said, "if I had not learned something in fourteen
months." To the surprise of many who had counted upon his pacific
tendencies to the end, he did what he had not heretofore done for any of
his policies; he left his desk in Washington and took to the platform.
During January and February, 1916, President Wilson delivered a
succession of speeches in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, St.
Louis, and other places in the upper Mississippi Valley, emphasizing his
conversion to preparedness. Aware that his transformation would be
regarded as anti-German and tending to draw the United States into the
conflict, he apparently sought out pro-German and pacifist centers, and
for the first time utilized something of the traditional "patriotic"
style to rouse those citizens who, as yet, failed to appreciate the
significance of the international situation. "I know that you are
depending upon me to keep the nation out of war. So far I have done so,
and I pledge you my word that, God helping me, I will--if it is possible.
You have laid another duty upon me. You have bidden me see that nothing
stains or impairs the honor of the United States. And that is a matter
not within my control. That depends upon what others do, not upon what
the Government of the United States does, and therefore there may be at
any moment a time when I cannot both preserve the honor and the peace of
the United States. Do not exact of me an impossible and contradictory
thing, but stand ready and insist that everybody that represents you
should stand ready to provide the means for maintaining the honor of the
United States." And later: "America cannot be an ostrich with its head in
the sand. America cannot shut itself out from the rest of the world....
Do you want the situation to be such that all the President can do is to
write messages, to utter words of protest? If these breaches of
international law which are in daily danger of occurring should touch the
very vital interests and honor of the United States, do you wish to do
nothing about it? Do you wish to have all the world say that the flag of
the United States, which we all love, can be stained with impunity?" What
a transformation from those days of December, 1914, when he believed that
military preparation would prove that the American people had been thrown
off their balance by a war with which they had nothing to do! And what a
revelation of the wounds inflicted by the barbed taunts cast against the
President for his patience in the writing of diplomatic notes!
Had the President carried his enthusiasm into actual accomplishment and
provided for effective military and naval preparation, his claim to the
title of great statesman would be more clear. Unfortunately when it came
to forcing Congress to take the necessary steps, he failed. The inertia
and reluctance of pacifist or partisan representatives would have been
broken by Roosevelt. But Wilson did mere lip-service to the principle of
military efficiency. The bills introduced in Congress were denounced by
military experts as half-measures likely to produce no efficient result,
and the President, who in most matters was determined to dominate, in
this permitted congressional committees to have their way. The protests
of the Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, led to his resignation; and
(most curious development) the President replaced him by a man, Newton D.
Baker, who, whatever his capacity, was generally known as a pacifist.
Wilson's intelligence told him that military preparation was necessary,
if his policy of international service was to be anything more than
academic; but his pacific instincts prevented him from securing real
military efficiency.
An example of the unreadiness of the United States was furnished in the
late spring and summer of 1916, when relations with Mexico became strained
almost to the breaking point. President Wilson's handling of the knotty
Mexican problem had been characteristic. He had temporized in the hope
that anything like a break might be avoided and was resolutely opposed to
formal armed intervention. But after refusing to recognize Huerta, who had
gained his position of provisional president of Mexico through the murder
of Madero, in which he was evidently implicated, the President had ordered
the occupation of Vera Cruz by United States troops in retaliation for the
arrest of an American landing party and Huerta's refusal to fire an
apologetic salute. Huerta was forced to give up his position and fled, but
the crisis continued and American-Mexican relations were not improved. The
country was left in the hands of three rival presidents, of whom Carranza
proved the strongest, and, after an attempt at mediation in which the
three chief South American powers participated, President Wilson decided
to recognize him. But Mexican conditions remained chaotic and American
interests in Mexico were either threatened or destroyed. In the spring of
1916 an attack on American territory led by a bandit, Francisco Villa,
again roused Wilson to action. He dispatched General John J. Pershing
across the border to pursue and catch Villa. The expedition was difficult,
but well-conducted; it extended far south of the frontier and provoked the
protests of Carranza. At the moment when Pershing's advance guard seemed
to have its hands on the bandit, orders were given to cease the pursuit.
The opponents of the Administration had some excuse for laughing at the
"inglorious and ineffectual war" thus waged. It had failed to result in
the capture of Villa and it gave rise to serious danger of an open break
with Mexico. On the 21st of June an attack at Carrizal by Carranza's
troops resulted in the capture of some United States cavalrymen and the
mobilization of the national guard troops for the protection of the
border. But President Wilson was not to be drawn into intervention. He
might be compelled to exercise force in carrying out his ideals of
international service against an international criminal like Germany; he
would not use it against a weaker neighbor and particularly at the moment
when the United States must be free to face European complications. But
the Mexican crisis proved definitely the weakness of the military system.
Though the regulars who accompanied Pershing proved their worth, the
clumsy inefficient mobilization of the National Guard, on the other hand,
indicated as plainly as possible the lack of trained troops and officers.
The President's determination not to intervene in Mexico probably assured
him many votes in the pacifist regions of the Middle West in the
presidential election of 1916. That he would be renominated by the
Democrats was a foregone conclusion. He had alienated the machine leaders
by his strict domination of Congress and the party; if he had permitted
certain political leaders to distribute offices for necessary organization
interests, he had seen to it, none the less, that the Democratic bosses
had no share in the determination of policies. Still they could not hope
to prevent his nomination. Whatever chance the party might have in the
coming election lay in the personal strength of Wilson with the masses. In
the South and the districts west of the Mississippi he was regarded as the
greatest Democrat since Jackson. His patience in dealing with Germany, as
with Carranza, convinced them of his desire for peace; the slogan, "He has
kept us out of war," was a powerful argument in those regions. His
attitude towards labor had been friendly, so that the support of the
unions in the large industrial centers might be expected. Placards were
posted showing a poor man's family with the caption, "He has protected me
and mine," in answer to the Republican posters which showed a widow and
orphans (presumably of a drowned American citizen) and the caption, "He
has neglected me and mine." The remnants of the Progressives, who were not
purely Roosevelt supporters, were attracted by Wilson's legislative
programme and record of accomplishment. He could look to an independent
vote such as no other Democrat could hope for.
Despite this strength, the Republican leaders, if they could succeed in
effecting a reunion of their party, awaited the results of the election
with confidence. They counted chiefly upon the personal unpopularity of
Wilson on the Atlantic seaboard and the normal Republican vote in the
industrial centers of the Middle West. His foreign policy, east of the
Mississippi, was generally looked upon as anæmic and nebulous. He had
permitted, so the Republicans contended, the honor of the country to be
stained and Americans to be destroyed, without effective action. His
early opposition to preparedness and the half-hearted measures of army
reform had proved his weakness, at least to the satisfaction of
Republican stump orators. He had won the hearty dislike of the bankers,
the manufacturers, and the merchants by his attacks on capitalist
interests and by his support of labor unions. The Clayton Act, which
exempted strikes from Federal injunctions, and the Adamson Act, which
granted, under threat, the immediate demands of the striking railroad
employees, were cited as clear proof of his demagogic character.
Furthermore, while he alienated the pro-Entente elements in New England
and the Eastern States, he had drawn upon himself the hatred of the
German-Americans by his attacks upon hyphenates and his refusal to accept
an embargo on American munitions.
Had the Republicans been willing to accept Theodore Roosevelt, victory
would probably have come to them. He alone could have gathered in the
Progressive and independent vote, and that of the Pacific coast, which
ultimately went to Wilson. But the Old Guard of the Republicans refused
to consider Roosevelt; they could not take a man who had broken party
lines four years before; above all they wanted a "safe and sane"
President, who would play the political game according to rule--the rule
of the bosses--and they knew that were Roosevelt elected they could not
hope to share in the spoils. The Republican convention ultimately settled
upon Charles E. Hughes, who certainly was not beloved by the bosses, but
who was regarded as "steadier" than Roosevelt. The latter, in order to
defeat Wilson, refused the offer of the Progressives, practically
disbanded the party he had created, and called upon his friends to return
with him to their first allegiance.
Hughes did not prove a strong candidate. Whereas Wilson had stated his
position on the German-American problem plainly, "I neither seek the
favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien element among us which
puts loyalty to any foreign power before loyalty to the United States,"
Hughes was ordered by his party managers not to offend foreign-born
voters, and in his attempt to steer a middle course, gave a clear
impression of vacillation. Many of those who had been most thoroughly
disgusted with Wilson turned back to him again, as the weeks passed and
Hughes more and more sought refuge in vague generalizations. In a
campaign in which the issues were largely personal the Republican
candidate's failure to evolve a constructive policy greatly weakened him,
especially as Wilson had the advantage of the maxim that it is best not
to change horses in the middle of the stream. Finally, Hughes did not
prove adept in reconciling the Progressives. Indeed it was said to be a
political _gaucherie_ on his part, or that of his advisers, which
alienated the friends of Governor Hiram Johnson of California and threw
the electoral vote of that State to Wilson.
California turned the scale. When on the evening of the 7th of November
the first returns came in and it was seen that Wilson had lost New York
and Illinois, the election of Hughes was generally conceded. Even the
_New York Times_ and the _World_ admitted Wilson's defeat. But the next
morning, news from the west indicated that the President still had a
chance. Later in the day the chance grew larger; he had won Ohio;
Minnesota and California were doubtful. In both States voting was close;
if Wilson won either the election would be his. It was not until the 11th
of November that the returns from California definitely showed a small
Wilson plurality, and only on the 21st that the Republicans finally
abandoned hope. Wilson had secured 277 electoral votes to 254 for
Hughes. He had been saved by the pacifist Middle and Far West, in
combination with the South. But the victory meant something far different
from peace at any price.
CHAPTER V
AMERICA DECIDES
The presidential campaign of 1916, taken in conjunction with the
increasing tension of European relations, forced Wilson to a further
development of his international ideals and a more definite formulation of
the means by which to attain them. As we have observed, the spring of that
year saw him reject the doctrine of isolation. "We are participants," he
said on the 27th of May, "whether we would or not, in the life of the
world. The interests of all nations are our own also. We are partners with
the rest. What affects mankind is inevitably our affair as well as the
affair of the nations of Europe and of Asia." This recognition of our
interest in world affairs immediately took him considerably beyond the
position he had assumed during the earlier stages of the submarine
controversy. Until the spring of 1916 he had restricted his aims to the
championship of neutral and human rights in time of war. But now he began
to demand something more far-reaching, namely a system that would prevent
unjust war altogether and would protect the rights of all peoples in time
of peace. He insisted, in this same speech of the 27th of May, before the
League to Enforce Peace at Washington, "First that every people has a
right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live.... Second,
that the small states of the world have a right to enjoy the same respect
for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that great and
powerful nations expect and insist upon. And, third, that the world has a
right to be free from every disturbance of its peace that has its origin
in aggression and disregard of the rights of peoples and nations." These
words sum up the gist of his international aims during the three following
years. His later speeches are merely refinement of details.
In order that these ends might be secured it was necessary that some
international system be inaugurated other than that which had permitted
the selfishness of the great powers to produce war in the past. In his
search for a concrete mechanism to realize his ideals and secure them
from violation, Wilson seized upon the essential principles of the
League to Enforce Peace, of which William Howard Taft was president. The
basis of permanent peace, Wilson insisted, could be found only by
substituting international coöperation in place of conflict, through a
mobilization of the public opinion of the world against international
lawbreakers: "an universal association of the nations to maintain the
inviolate security of the highway of the seas for the common and
unhindered use of all the nations of the world, and to prevent any war
begun either contrary to treaty covenants or without warning and full
submission of the causes to the opinion of the world--a virtual guarantee
of territorial integrity and political independence." These were the
principles and methods which formed the keynote of his foreign policy
until the end of the Peace Conference. The first part of the programme,
that which concerned the security of the seas and which originated in the
particular circumstances of 1915, faded from his sight to a large extent;
the second portion, more general in its nature, became of increasing
importance until, as Article X of the League Covenant, it seemed to him
the heart of the entire settlement.
The unselfish nature of his idealism, as well as his continued detachment
from both camps of the belligerents, was obvious. "We have nothing
material of any kind to ask for ourselves," he said, "and are quite aware
that we are in no sense or degree parties to the present quarrel. Our
interest is only in peace and in its future guarantees." But _noblesse
oblige_, and we must serve those who have not had our good fortune. "The
commands of democracy are as imperative as its privileges are wide and
generous. Its compulsion is upon us.... We are not worthy to stand here
unless we ourselves be in deed and truth real democrats and servants of
mankind."
That the United States might be drawn into the conflict evidently seemed
possible to the President, despite pacific whispers that came from
Germany in the spring and summer of 1916. There was a note of
apprehension in his speeches. No one could tell when the extremist
faction in Berlin might gain control and withdraw the _Sussex_ pledge.
The temper of Americans was being tried by continued sinkings, although
the exact circumstances of each case were difficult to determine. The
attacks made by the German U-53 immediately off the American coast and
the deportation of Belgian civilians into Germany made more difficult the
preservation of amicable relations. In view of the possibility of war
Wilson wanted to define the issue exactly. "We have never yet," he said
at Omaha, a peace center, on the 5th of October, "sufficiently formulated
our programme for America with regard to the part she is going to play in
the world, and it is imperative that she should formulate it at once....
It is very important that the statesmen of other parts of the world
should understand America.... We are holding off, not because we do not
feel concerned, but because when we exert the force of this nation we
want to know what we are exerting it for." Ten days later at Shadowlawn
he said: "Define the elements, let us know that we are not fighting for
the prevalence of this nation over that, for the ambitions of this group
of nations as compared with the ambitions of that group of nations; let
us once be convinced that we are called in to a great combination to
fight for the rights of mankind and America will unite her force and
spill her blood for the great things which she has always believed in and
followed." He thus gave warning that the United States might have to
fight. He wanted to be certain, however, that it did not fight as so many
other nations have fought, greedily or vindictively, but rather as in a
crusade and for clearly defined ideals.
His reëlection gave to the President an opportunity for bringing before
the world his international aims. He purposed not merely to end the
existing conflict but also to provide a basis for permanent peace and the
security of democracy. During the early summer of 1916 he had received
from Berlin hints that his mediation would not be unacceptable and it is
possible that he planned at that time new efforts to bring the war to a
close. But such a step was bound to be regarded as pro-German and in the
state of opinion immediately after the _Sussex_ crisis would have
produced a storm of American protests. Then the entrance of Rumania into
the war so encouraged the Entente powers that there seemed little chance
of winning French and British acceptance of mediation. The presidential
election further delayed any overt step towards peace negotiations.
Finally the wave of anti-German feeling that swept the United States in
November, on account of Belgian deportations, induced Wilson to hold back
the note which he had already drafted. But it was important not to delay
his pacific efforts over-long, since news came to Washington that unless
Germany could obtain a speedy peace the extremist group in Berlin would
insist upon a resumption of "ruthless" submarine warfare. In these
circumstances, early in December, the President prepared to issue his
note.
But Germany acted more rapidly. Warned of Wilson's purpose the Berlin
Government, on December 12, 1916, proposed negotiations. The occasion
seemed to them propitious. Rumania had gone down to disastrous defeat.
Russia was torn by corruption and popular discontent. On the western
front, if the Germans had failed at Verdun, they were aware of the deep
disappointment of the Allies at the paltry results of the great Somme
drive. German morale at home was weakening; but if the Allies could be
pictured as refusing all terms and determined upon the destruction of
Germany, the people would doubtless agree to the unrestricted use of the
submarine as purely defensive in character, even if it brought to the
Allies the questionable assistance of America. The German note itself
contained no definite terms. But its boastful tone permitted the
interpretation that Germany would consider no peace which did not leave
Central and Southeastern Europe under Teuton domination; the specific
terms later communicated to the American Government in secret, verified
this suspicion. A thinly veiled threat to neutral nations was to be read
between the lines of the German suggestion of negotiations.
Although it was obvious that he would be accused of acting in collusion
with Germany, President Wilson decided not to postpone the peace note
already planned. He looked upon the crisis as serious, for if peace were
not secured at this time the chances of the United States remaining out
of the war were constantly growing less. If he could compel a clear
definition of war aims on both sides, the mutual suspicion of the warring
peoples might be removed; the German people might perceive that the war
was not in reality for them one of defense; or finally the Allies, toward
whom Wilson was being driven by the threats of German extremists, might
define their position in such terms as would justify him before the world
in joining with them in a conflict not waged for selfish national
purposes but for the welfare of humanity. Issued on December 18, 1916,
his note summed up the chief points of his recently developed policy. It
emphasized the interest of the United States in the future peace of the
world, the irreparable injury to civilization that might result from a
further continuance of the existing struggle, the advantages that would
follow an explicit exposure of belligerent purposes, and the possibility
of making "the permanent concord of the nations a hope of the immediate
future, a concert of nations immediately practicable."
As a step towards peace the note was unsuccessful. Germany was evasive.
There was nothing her Government wanted less than the definite exposure
of her purposes that Wilson asked. Her leaders were anxious to begin
negotiations while German armies still held conquered territories as
pawns to be used at the peace table. They would not discuss a League of
Nations until Germany's continental position was secured. The Allies on
the other hand would not make peace with an unbeaten Germany, which
evidently persisted in the hope of dominating weaker nationalities and
said no word of reparations for the acknowledged wrongs committed.
Feeling ran high in England and France because Wilson's note had seemed
to place the belligerents on the same moral plane, in its statement that
the objects on both sides "are virtually the same, as stated in general
terms to their own people and to the world." The statement was verbally
accurate and rang with a certain grim irony which may have touched
Wilson's sense of humor. But the Allies were not in a state of mind to
appreciate such humor. Their official answer, however, was frank, and in
substance accepted the principles of permanent peace propounded by
Wilson. It was evident to most Americans that the main purpose of Germany
was to establish herself as the dominating power of the continent and
possibly of the world; the aim of the Allies, on the other hand, seemed
to be the peace of the world based upon democracy and justice rather than
material force.
The President's attempt thus cleared the air. It made plain to the
majority of Americans that in sympathy, at least, the United States must
be definitely aligned with Great Britain and France. Furthermore the
replies of the belligerents gave to Wilson an opportunity to inform the
world more definitely of the aims of the United States, in case it should
be drawn into the war. This he did in a speech delivered to the Senate on
January 22, 1917. America would play her part in world affairs, he said,
but the other nations must clearly understand the conditions of our
participation. The basis of peace must be the right of each individual
nation to decide its destiny for itself without interference from a
stronger alien power. "I am proposing as it were, that the nations should
with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of
the world: that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any
other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to
determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered,
unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful."
Instead of the old system of alliances there should be a general concert
of powers: "There is no entangling alliance in a concert of powers. When
all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose, all act in
the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a common
protection." As the result of such a concert no one power would dominate
the sea or the land; armaments might safely be limited; peace would be
organized by the major force of mankind. As a guarantee of future justice
and tranquillity the terms that settled the present war must be based
upon justice and not be of the sort ordinarily dictated by the victor to
the vanquished. It must be a "peace without victory." Thus while Wilson
warned Germany that her ambitions for continental domination would not be
tolerated, he also warned the Allies that they could not count upon the
United States to help them to crush Germany for their selfish individual
purposes.
This speech, despite the unfortunate phrase, "peace without victory," was
hailed in all liberal circles, amongst the Allies and in the United
States, as a noble charter of the new international order. Wilson had
expressed the hope that he was "speaking for the silent mass of mankind
everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak their real
hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already
upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear." This hope was
doubtless realized. The first reaction in France and England was one of
rather puzzled contempt, if we may judge by the press. But the newspaper
writers soon found that what Wilson said many people had been thinking,
and waiting for some one to say. Hall Caine wrote to the _Public Ledger_,
"Let President Wilson take heart from the first reception of his
remarkable speech. The best opinion here is one of deep feeling and
profound admiration." From that moment Wilson began to approach the
position he was shortly to hold--that of moral leader of the world.
The President had been anxious to make plain his principles, before the
United States became involved in the conflict through the withdrawal of
German submarine pledges, as well as to convince the world that every
honest effort possible had been made to preserve the peace. He was only
just in time. Already the advocates of ruthlessness in Berlin had
persuaded the Kaiser and Bethmann-Hollweg. They recognized that the
resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare meant, in all probability,
the intervention of the United States, but they recked little of the
consequences. On January 16, 1917, the Kaiser telegraphed: "If a break
with America is unavoidable, it cannot be helped; we proceed." The same
day the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Zimmermann, telegraphed to the
German Minister in Mexico, instructing him to form an alliance with
Mexico in the event of war between Germany and the United States, and to
offer as bribe the States of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas; he also
suggested the possibility of winning Japan from her allegiance to the
Entente and persuading her to enter this prospective alliance.
On the 31st of January, von Bernstorff threw off the mask. The German
Ambassador informed our Government of the withdrawal of the _Sussex_
pledge. On and after the 1st of February, German submarines would sink on
sight all ships met within a delimited zone around the British Isles and
in the Mediterranean. They would permit the sailing of a few American
steamships, however, provided they followed a certain defined route to
Falmouth and nowhere else, and provided there were marked "on ship's hull
and superstructure three vertical stripes one meter wide, to be painted
alternately white and red. Each mast should show a large flag checkered
white and red, and the stern the American national flag. Care should be
taken that during dark, national flag and painted marks are easily
recognizable from a distance, and that the boats are well lighted
throughout." Other conditions followed. There might sail one steamship a
week "in each direction, with arrival at Falmouth on Sunday and departure
from Falmouth on Wednesday." Furthermore the United States Government
must guarantee "that no contraband (according to the German contraband
list) is carried by those steamships." Such were the orders issued to the
United States. No native American could escape the humor of the
stipulations, which for a moment prevented the national irritation from
swelling into an outburst of deep-seated wrath.
There seems to have been little hesitation on the part of the President.
On April 19, 1916, he had warned Germany that unrestricted submarine
warfare meant a severance of diplomatic relations. Now, on February 3,
1917, addressing both houses of Congress, he announced that those
relations had been broken. Von Bernstorff was given his papers and the
American Ambassador, James W. Gerard, was recalled from Berlin. No other
course of action could have been contemplated in view of the formality of
the President's warning and the definiteness of Germany's defiance.
Despite the protests of scattered pacifists, the country was as nearly a
unit in its approval of Wilson's action as its heterogeneous national
character permitted. All the pent-up emotions of the past two years found
expression in quiet but unmistakable applause at the departure of the
German Ambassador.
The promptitude of the President's dismissal of von Bernstorff did not
conceal the disappointment which he experienced from Germany's revelation
of her true purposes. He seems to have hoped to the end that the German
liberals would succeed in bringing their Government to accept moderate
terms of peace. Even now he expressed the hope that Germany's actions
would not be such as to force the United States into the War: "I refuse
to believe that it is the intention of the German authorities to do in
fact what they have warned us they will feel at liberty to do.... Only
actual overt acts on their part can make me believe it even now." But
"if American ships and American lives should in fact be sacrificed by
their naval commanders in heedless contravention of the just and
reasonable understandings of international law and the obvious dictates
of humanity, I shall take the liberty of coming again before the Congress
to ask that authority be given me to use any means that may be necessary
for the protection of our seamen and our people in the prosecution of
their peaceful and legitimate errands on the high seas. I can do nothing
less. I take it for granted that all neutral governments will take the
same course." He was careful, moreover, to underline the fact that his
action was dictated always by a consistent desire for peace: "We wish to
serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and
in action to the immemorial principles of our people.... These are the
bases of peace, not war. God grant we may not be challenged to defend
them by acts of willful injustice on the part of the Government of
Germany!"
But Germany proceeded heedlessly. Warned that American intervention would
result only from overt acts, the German Admiralty hastened to commit such
acts. From the 3d of February to the 1st of April, eight American vessels
were sunk by submarines and forty-eight American lives thus lost.
Because of the practical blockade of American ports which followed the
hesitation of American shipping interests to send boats unarmed into the
dangers of the "war zone," President Wilson came again to Congress on the
26th of February to ask authority to arm merchant vessels for purposes of
defense. Again he stressed his unwillingness to enter upon formal warfare
and emphasized the idealistic aspect of the issue: "It is not of material
interests merely that we are thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental
human rights, chief of all the right of life itself. I am thinking not
only of the rights of Americans to go and come about their proper
business by way of the sea, but also of something much deeper, much more
fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights of humanity without
which there is no civilization.... I cannot imagine any man with American
principles at his heart hesitating to defend these things."
Blinded by prejudice and tradition, a handful of Senators, twelve
"willful men," as Wilson described them, blocked, through a filibuster,
the resolution granting the power requested by the President. But the
storm of popular obloquy which covered them proved that the nation as a
whole was determined to support him in the defense of American rights.
The country was stirred to the depths. The publication of the plans of
Germany for involving the United States in war with Mexico and Japan came
merely as added stimulus. So also of the story of the cruelties heaped by
the Germans on the American prisoners of the _Yarrowdale_. There was so
much of justice in the cause that passion was notable by its absence.
When finally on the 17th of March news came of the torpedoing of the
_Vigilancia_ without warning, America was prepared and calmly eager for
the President's demand that Congress recognize the existence of a state
of war.
The demand was made by Wilson in an extraordinary joint session of
Congress, held on the 2d of April. In this, possibly his greatest speech,
he was careful not to blur the idealistic principles which, since the
spring of 1916, he had been formulating. War existed because Germany by
its actions had thrust upon the United States the status of belligerent.
But the American people must meet the challenge with their purpose
clearly before them. "We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will
not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the
nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we
are only a single champion.... The wrongs against which we now array
ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human
life." He went on to define the objects of the war more specifically,
referring to his earlier addresses: "Our object now, as then, is to
vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as
against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really
free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and
action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles."
Democracy must be the soul of the new international order: "A steadfast
concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of
democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep
faith within it or observe its covenants.... Only free peoples can hold
their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the
interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own." Because the
existing German Government was clearly at odds with all such ideals, "We
are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about
them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the
liberation of its peoples, the German people included: for the rights of
nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose
their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for
democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of
political liberty."
Wilson thus imagined the war as a crusade, the sort of crusade for
American ideals which Clay and Webster once imagined. He was in truth
originating nothing, but rather resuscitating the generous dreams which
had once inspired those statesmen. In conclusion, he reiterated his love
of peace. "But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight
for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts,--for
democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice
in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations,
for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as
shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at
last free." At the moment of the declaration of war Wilson was still the
man of peace, and the war upon which the nation was embarking was, in his
mind, a war to ensure peace. To such a task of peace and liberation, he
concluded in a peroration reminiscent of Lincoln and Luther, "we can
dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and
everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day
has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for
the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she
has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other."
How many Americans caught the real significance of Wilson's thought with
all its consequences is doubtful. The country certainly looked upon the
war as a crusade. But there was in the national emotion much that did not
accord with the ideals of Wilson. The people hated Germany for the
sinking of the _Lusitania_ and all the other submarine outrages, for her
crimes in Belgium, for the plots and explosions in this country, for the
Zimmermann note, and finally for her direct and insulting defiance of
American rights. They recognized that the Allies were fighting for
civilization; they sympathized with the democracies of Europe, of which,
since the Russian revolution of March, the Allied camp was composed, and
they wanted to help them. They feared for America's safety in the future,
if Germany won the war. Most Americans entered the struggle, therefore,
with a sober gladness, based partly on emotional, partly on quixotic, and
partly on selfish grounds. But nearly all fought rather to beat Germany
than to secure a new international order. Hence it was that after Germany
was beaten, Wilson was destined to discover that his idealistic preaching
had not fully penetrated, and that he had failed to educate his country,
as completely as he believed, to the ideal of a partnership of democratic
and peace-loving peoples as the essential condition of a new and safe
world.
CHAPTER VI
THE NATION IN ARMS
When Congress declared that the United States was in a state of war with
Germany, on April 6, 1917, the public opinion of the country was unified
to a far greater extent than at the beginning of any previous war. The
extreme patience displayed by President Wilson had its reward. When the
year opened the majority of citizens doubtless still hoped that peace was
possible. But German actions in February and March had gone far towards
the education of the popular mind, and the final speeches of the President
crystallized conviction. By April there were few Americans, except those
in whom pacifism was a mania, who were not convinced that war with Germany
was the only course consistent with either honor or safety. It is probable
that many did not understand exactly the ideals that actuated Wilson, but
nine persons out of ten believed it absolutely necessary to fight.
But, however firmly united, the country was completely unprepared for war
in a military sense, and must now pay the penalty for President Wilson's
opposition to adequate improvement of the military system in 1915 and for
the half-hearted measures taken in 1916. Total military forces, including
regular army, national guard, and reserves amounted to hardly three
hundred thousand men and less than ten thousand officers. Even the regular
army was by no means ready for immediate participation in the sort of
fighting demanded by the European war; and, even if adequate troops were
raised, the lack of trained officers would create the most serious
difficulties. No wonder that the German General Staff ranked the United
States, from the military point of view, somewhere between Belgium and
Portugal. Furthermore, military experts had been discouraged by the
attitude of the Administration. The Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, had
failed, either through lack of administrative capacity or because of
pacifistic tendencies, to prepare his department adequately. He had done
nothing to rouse Congress or the nation from its attitude of indifference
towards preparation. By faith a pacifist, he had been opposed to universal
military service. An extreme liberal, he distrusted the professional
military type and was to find it difficult to coöperate with the captains
of industry whose assistance was essential.
Thus with a President and War Secretary, both of whom had been
instinctively opposed to a large army and who had expressed their fear of
the development of a militaristic spirit, and with a majority in Congress
favoring the traditional volunteer system, adherence to which had cost
the British thousands of lives that might better have been used at home,
the building of an effective army seemed a matter of extreme doubt. Great
credit must go to both President Wilson and Secretary Baker for sinking
their natural instincts and seeking, as well as following, the advice of
the military experts, who alone were capable of meeting the problems that
arose from a war for which the nation was not prepared.
The President must face not only the special problems caused by
unreadiness, but also the general difficulties which confront every
American war-President and which had tried nearly to the breaking-point
even the capacity of Lincoln. The President of the United States in time
of war is given the supreme unified command of the army and navy. But
while the responsibility is his, actual control often rests in the hands
of others. Members of Congress always take a keen interest in army
matters; many of them have been or are militia-men. They have always
opposed a single army which could be recruited, trained, and operated as
a unit, and approved the system of State militia which makes for
decentralization and gives to the separate States large influence in the
formation of military policy. Even the President's control of the Federal
army, regulars and volunteers, is limited by the decentralized
organization of the different army bureaus, which depend upon Congress
for their appropriations and which operate as almost independent and
frequently competing units. The creation of a single programme for the
army as a whole is thus a task of extreme difficulty.
President Wilson, as historian, was well aware of the tremendous price
that had been paid in past wars for such decentralization, accompanied as
it was, inevitably, by delays, misunderstandings, and mistakes. He was
determined to create a single coördinating command, and his war policies
were governed from beginning to end by this purpose. He set up no new
machinery, but utilized as his main instrument the General Staff, which
had been created in 1903 as a result of the blunders and confusion that
had been so painfully manifest in the Spanish War. When the United States
entered the World War the General Staff had by no means acquired the
importance expected by those who had created it.[3] But to it the
President turned, and it was this body enlarged in size and influence
that ultimately put into operation Wilson's policy of centralization. It
was in accordance with the advice of the men who composed the General
Staff that the President elaborated the larger lines of the military
programme, and they were the men who supervised the operation of details.
[Footnote 3: In April, 1917, the General Staff consisted of fifty-one
officers, only nineteen of whom were on duty in Washington. Of these,
eight were occupied with routine business, leaving but eleven free for
the real purpose for which the staff had been created--"the study of
military problems, the preparation of plans for national defense, and
utilization of the military forces in time of war."]
None of the processes which marked the transition of the United States
from a peace to a war basis are comprehensible unless we remember that
the President was constantly working to overcome the forces of
decentralization, and also that the military programme was always on an
emergency basis, shifting almost from week to week in accordance with
developments in Europe.
The original programme did not provide for an expeditionary force in
France. During the early days of participation in the war it was generally
believed that the chief contributions of the United States to Allied
victory would not be directly upon the fighting front. If the United
States concentrated its efforts upon financing the Allies, furnishing them
with food, shipping, and the munitions which had been promised--so many
persons argued--it would be doing far better than if it weakened
assistance of that sort by attempting to set up and maintain a large
fighting force of its own. The impression was unfortunately prevalent in
civilian circles that Germany was on her last legs, and that the outcome
of the war would be favorably settled before the United States could put
an effective army in the field. Military experts, on the other hand, more
thoroughly convinced of German strength, believed that the final campaigns
could not come before the summer of 1919, and did not expect to provide a
great expeditionary force previous to the spring of that year if indeed it
were ever sent. Thus from opposite points of view the amateur and the
professional deprecated haste in dispatching an army to France. From the
moment the United States entered the war, President Wilson certainly
seems to have resolved upon the preparation of an effective fighting
force, if we may judge from his insistence upon the selective draft,
although he did not expect that it would be used abroad. But it may be
asked whether he did not hope for the arrangement of a negotiated peace,
which if not "without victory" would at least leave Germany uncrushed. It
is probable that he did not yet perceive that "force to the utmost" would
be necessary before peace could be secured; that realization was to come
only in the dark days of 1918.
A few weeks after America's declaration of war, however, France and Great
Britain dispatched missions led by Balfour, Viviani, and Joffre, to
request earnestly that at least a small American force be sent overseas
at once for the moral effect upon dispirited France. The plea determined
the President to send General Pershing immediately with a force of about
two thousand, who were followed in June and July, 1917, by sufficient
additional forces to make up a division. Wilson had been authorized by
Congress, under the Selective Service Act, to send four volunteer
divisions abroad under the command of Roosevelt. But he refused to
interfere with the plans of the military experts, who strongly objected
to any volunteer forces whatever. Neither the valiant ex-President nor
the prospective volunteers were trained for the warfare of the moment,
and their presence in France would bring no practical good to the Allied
cause; moreover the officers whom Roosevelt requested were sorely needed
in American training camps.
General Pershing, to whom was now entrusted the military fortunes of the
American army abroad, was an officer fifty-seven years old, who had
undergone wide military and administrative experience in Cuba and the
Philippines; he had been given extraordinary promotion by President
Roosevelt, who had jumped him from the rank of captain to that of
Brigadier General; and he had been selected to lead the punitive force
dispatched in pursuit of Villa in the spring of 1916. Distinguished in
appearance, with superb carriage, thin lips, and squarely-chiselled chin,
he possessed military gifts of a sound rather than brilliant character. A
strict disciplinarian, he failed to win from his troops that affection
which the _poilus_ gave to Pétain, while he never displayed the genius
that compelled universal admiration for Foch. Neither ultimate success
nor the stories of his dramatic remarks (as at the grave of La Fayette:
"La Fayette, we are here!") succeeded in investing him with the heroic
halo that ought to come to a victorious commander. As time passes,
however, Pershing takes higher rank. His insistence upon soldierly
qualities, his unyielding determination to create American armies under
an independent command, his skill in building up a great organization,
his successful operations at St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne drive,
despite faulty staff work--all these facts become more plain as we
acquire perspective. If historians refuse to recognize him as a great
general, they will surely describe his talents as more than adequate to
the exigencies of the military situation.
The sending of the Pershing expedition did not at once alter
fundamentally the original programme for raising an army of about a
million men to be kept in the United States, as a reserve in case of
emergency. There was no intention of sending to France more troops than
would be needed to keep filled the ranks of the small expeditionary
force. But the urgent representations of the Allies and reports from
American officers induced a radical change in policy. The latter
emphasized the unsound military position of our Allies and insisted that
the deadlock could be broken and the war won only by putting a really
effective American army beside the French and British by the summer of
1918. A programme was drawn up in France and sent to the War Department,
according to which an army of thirty divisions should be sent abroad
before the end of that year. Throughout 1917 this plan remained rather a
hope than a definite programme and it was not until early in 1918 that it
was officially approved. It was thus of an emergency character and this
fact combined with the indefiniteness prevalent during the autumn of 1917
to produce extreme confusion. In July, 1918, an eighty-division programme
was adopted and more confusion resulted. Furthermore the entire problem
was complicated by the question as to whether or not ships could be found
for transportation. It had been assumed that it would take six months to
transport five hundred thousand troops. But in May, 1918, and thereafter
nearly three hundred thousand troops a month were carried to France,
largely through tonnage obtained from the British. Such a development of
transportation facilities was not and could not be foreseen. It increased
the confusion. In the face of such difficulties, the problems of
man-power, training, and supplies had to be met and ultimately solved,
largely through the centralization carried into effect by the General
Staff.
The problem of man-power had been carefully considered during the weeks
that preceded our entrance into the war and the declaration of war found
the Government prepared with a plan for a selective draft. On the 7th of
April, the day after the declaration of war, President Wilson insisted
that "the safety of the nation depended upon the measure."
Congress, however, was slow to accept the principle of conscription, and
the President encountered fierce opposition on the part of the advocates
of the volunteer system, who were led by men of such influence as Speaker
Champ Clark, House Leader Claude Kitchin, and the chairman of the House
Committee on Military Affairs, Stanley H. Dent. The President was
inflexible, declaring that the Administration would not "yield an inch of
any essential parts of the programme for raising an army by conscription,"
and exercised his personal influence to its fullest extent in order to
secure a favorable vote. He was ably seconded by Julius Kahn, the ranking
Republican member of the House Military Committee, who was himself born in
Germany. The failure of House and Senate to agree on the matter of age
liability delayed action for some weeks. Finally, on May 18, 1917, what
is popularly known as the Selective Service Act became law.
This Act gave to the President power to raise the regular army by
enlistment to 287,000 men, to take into the Federal service all members
of the national guard, and to raise by selective draft, in two
installments, a force of a million troops. All men between the ages of
twenty-one and thirty, both inclusive, were registered on the 5th of
June; this with the subsequent registration of men coming of age later,
produced an available body of more than ten millions. And when in the
following year, the draft age was extended to include all men between the
ages of eighteen and forty-five, both inclusive, thirteen millions more
were added. From this body the names of those who were to serve were
drawn by lot. All men registered were carefully classified, in order that
the first chosen might be those not merely best fitted for fighting, but
those whose absence on the firing line would least disturb the essential
economic life of the nation. Liberal exemptions were accorded, including
artisans employed in industries necessary to war production and men upon
whom others were dependent. On the 20th of July the first drawings were
made, and by the end of the year about half a million of the drafted men,
now called the National Army, were mustered in. In the meantime
enlistments in the regular army and the national guard had raised the
total number of troops to about a million and a quarter and of officers
to more than one hundred thousand. Less than a year later, when the
armistice was signed, the army included over three and a half millions,
of whom nearly two millions were in France.
The real military contribution of the United States to allied victory lay
in man-power. It could not of its own resources transport the troops nor
equip them completely, but the raising of an enormous number of fresh
forces, partially trained, it is true, but of excellent fighting caliber,
made possible the maneuvers of Foch that brought disaster to German arms.
When once these armies arrived in numbers on the battle-line in France,
the realization of the inexhaustible man-power of America did more than
anything else to revive the spirit of the Allies and discourage the
enemy.
Infinitely more difficult than the problem of man-power were those of
training and supplies. As we have seen, these problems were complicated
by the decision to send abroad an effective fighting force, a decision
which completely changed the entire military situation. The original
plan of maintaining an army only in the United States, as a reserve,
permitted the questions of camps, supplies, equipment, munitions, and
training to be undertaken at comparative leisure. But if a large army was
to be placed in France by 1918, these problems must be solved immediately
and upon an emergency basis. Hence resulted the confusion and expense
which nearly led to the breakdown of the whole programme in the winter of
1917-18. The War Department faced a dilemma. If it waited until supplies
were ready, the period of training would be too short. On the other hand,
if it threw the new draft armies immediately into the camps, assuming
that the camps could be prepared, the troops would lack the wool uniforms
and blankets necessary for protection, as well as the equipment with
which to drill. The second alternative appeared the less dangerous, and
in September the first draft calls were made and by December the camps
were filled.[4]
[Footnote 4: The size of the army raised in 1917 demanded the building of
enormous cantonments. Within three months of the first drawings sixteen
complete cities of barracks had sprung up, each to accommodate 40,000
inhabitants. They had their officers' quarters, hospitals, sewage
systems, filter plants, and garbage incinerators, electric lighting
plants, libraries, theaters. By the 4th of September the National Army
cantonments were ready for 430,000 men, two-thirds of the first draft. A
single camp involved the expenditure of approximately $11,000,000. Camp
Grant, at Rockford, Illinois, included 1600 buildings with space for
45,000 men and 12,000 horses. The water, which before use was tested and
filtered, was supplied from six huge wells drilled 175 feet deep, carried
through 38 miles of water main, and stored in reservoir tanks holding
550,000 gallons. For lighting purposes there were 1450 miles of electric
wire, 1200 poles, 35,000 incandescent lamps. During the period of
construction, 50 carloads of building material were daily unloaded, and
for several weeks an average of 500,000 board feet of lumber set up
daily. The entire construction of the camp demanded 50,000,000 feet of
lumber, 700 tons of nails, 4,000,000 feet of roofing, and 3,000,000
square feet of wall board.]
Many apprehensions were fulfilled in fact, when the terrible winter
weather came, the worst in years. The northern camps faced it with
insufficient clothing. Pneumonia made its invasion. Artillerymen were
trained with wooden guns; infantrymen with wooden rifles or antiquated
Krags. But all the time the essential training proceeded and the calls
for replacements sent by General Pershing in France were met.
The first and vital need was for officers to train the willing but
inexperienced recruits. To meet this need a series of officers' training
camps had been established in the spring of 1917 and continued for a year.
Each camp lasted for three months, where during twelve hours a day the
candidates for commissions, chiefly college graduates and young business
men, were put through the most intensive drill and withering study. All
told, more than eighty thousand commissions were granted through the
camps, and the story of the battlefields proved at once the caliber of
these amateur officers and the effectiveness of their training. Special
camps, such as the school of fire at Fort Sill, carried the officers a
step further, and when they went overseas they received in schools in
France instruction in the latest experience of the Allied armies. The
colleges of the country were also formed into training schools and
ultimately about 170,000 young men, under military age, in five hundred
institutions of learning, joined the Students' Army Training Corps.
In all the army schools French and British officers coöperated as
instructors and gave the value of their three years' experience on the
fighting front. But the traditions of the American regular army,
formulated in the Indian and frontier fights, rather than the siege
methods of the trenches, formed the basic principles of the instruction;
General Pershing was insistent that an offensive spirit must be instilled
into the new troops, a policy which received the enthusiastic endorsement
of the President. The development of "a self-reliant infantry by thorough
drill in the use of a rifle and in the tactics of open warfare" was always
uppermost in the mind of the commander of the expeditionary force, who
from first to last refused to approve the extreme specialization in trench
warfare that was advised by the British and the French.
The emergency nature of the military programme, resulting from the sudden
decision to send a large army to France, the decentralization of army
affairs, and the failure to prepare adequately in the years preceding
entrance into the war--all these factors made a shortage of supplies in
the training camps inevitable.
The first appropriation bill which was to provide the funds to purchase
clothing, blankets, and other necessities was not passed until the 15th of
June, leaving a pitifully brief space of time for the placing of contracts
and the manufacture and transport of supplies. Many factories had to be
built, and many delays resulted from the expansion of the Quartermaster
Department, which had not been manned or equipped for such an emergency.
The shortage of clothing was felt the more because of the extreme severity
of the winter. After the initial difficulties had been passed supplies of
this kind were furnished in profusion; but lack of preparation on the
part of the War Department and the slowness of Congress to appropriate
promptly produced a temporary situation of extreme discomfort and worse.
The provision of food supplies was arranged more successfully. Soldiers
would not be soldiers if they did not complain of their "chow." But the
quality and variety of the food given to the new troops reached a higher
degree than was reasonably to have been expected. The average soldier
gained from ten to twelve pounds after entering the service. Provision was
also made for his entertainment. Vaudeville, concerts, moving pictures
formed an element of camp life, much to the surprise of the visiting
French officers and Civil War veterans.
Americans naturally look back with pride to the making of their new army.
The draft was accomplished smoothly and rapidly. Demonstrations against
conscription, which in view of the Civil War draft riots had caused some
apprehension, were almost unheard of and never serious. Of the three
million called for service on the first draft, all but 150,000 were
accounted for, and of those missing most were aliens who had left to
enlist in their own armies. The problem of the slacker and of the
conscientious objector, although vexatious, was never serious. The
educative effect of the training upon the country was very considerable.
All ranks and classes were gathered in, representing at least fifty-six
different nationalities; artisans, millionaires, and hoboes bunked side by
side; the youthful plutocrat saw life from a new angle, the wild
mountaineer learned to read, the alien immigrant to speak English. Finally
the purpose of the training was achieved, for America sent over a force
that could fight successfully at the moment of crisis.
Amateur critics had assumed that the problem of raising an effective
number of troops would prove far more difficult than that of producing
the necessary equipment and munitions. It was generally believed that the
industrial genius of America was such that American factories could
provide all the artillery, small-arms, and aircraft that the armies could
use. The most fantastic prophecies were indulged in. Experience showed,
however, that it is easier to raise, train, and organize troops of
superior sort in a brief period than it is to arm them. It stands as a
matter of record that foreign artillery and machine guns alone made
possible the attack on the St. Mihiel salient and the advance in the
Argonne. As for military airplanes, had the Government relied upon those
of American manufacture there would have been no American squadrons
flying over the German lines previous to August, 1918, and not many
between then and the signing of the armistice.
Such a statement should not imply blanket criticism of the Ordnance
Department. The Government was perhaps slow, even after the United States
entered the war, to realize the serious character of the military
situation abroad and to appreciate the extent to which American aid would
be necessary to allied victory. Hence the changes in the military
programme which inevitably created confusion. But the decision to ensure
against unforeseen disaster by preparing heavily for 1919 and 1920 and
partially disregarding 1918 was based upon sound strategical reasoning.
The war was brought to a close sooner than had been expected; hence the
period of actual hostilities was devoted to laying down the foundations
of a munitions industry, and the munitions actually produced, in the
words of Assistant Secretary Crowell, "might almost be termed casual to
the main enterprise, pilots of the quantities to come." Such a policy was
possible because of the surplus production of the Allies. The latter
stated that their production of artillery was such that they could equip
all American divisions as they arrived in France during the year
1918.[5] This gave time "to build manufacturing capacity on a grand scale
without the necessity of immediate production, time to secure the best in
design, time to attain quality in the enormous outputs to come later as
opposed to early quantities of indifferent class."
[Footnote 5: As a result of the agreement thus made the United States
shipped overseas between the time of the declaration of war and the
signing of the armistice only 815 complete pieces of mobile artillery,
including all produced for France and Great Britain as well as for
American troops. Of the 75's only 181 complete units were shipped abroad,
the American Expeditionary Force securing 1828 from the French. Of the
155 millimeter howitzers none of American manufacture reached the front.
French deliveries amounted to 747.--_America's Munitions_, 1917-1918
(Report of Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secretary of War), p. 90.]
The lack of preparation in the matter of machine guns has received wide
publicity. In this, as in artillery, the deficiency was made good by the
Allies up to the final weeks of the war. In April, 1917, the army
possessed only a small number of machine guns entirely inadequate even
for the training of the new troops and half of which would not take
American service cartridges. Less than seven hundred machine rifles were
on hand. Manufacturing facilities for machine guns were limited; there
were only two factories in the United States actually producing in
quantity. Orders for four thousand Vickers had been placed the preceding
December, but deliveries had not been made by the beginning of April.
Either because of jealousy in the department, or because of justifiable
technical reasons, various experts demanded a better machine gun than any
used by the Allies, and Secretary Baker took the responsibility of
delaying matters so as to hold the competition recommended by a board of
investigation. This competition was planned for May 1, 1917, with the
result that we entered the war without having decided upon any type of
machine gun, and it was not until some weeks later that the Browning was
approved.
First deliveries of this gun could not be made until April, 1918, a year
after the declaration of war. In the meantime, the War Department
utilized existing facilities to the limit, and placed large orders for
Colt, Lewis, and Vickers machine guns. But the heavy machine guns and
automatic rifles used by our troops in the field were furnished by the
French and the British until May, 1918. During that month and June the
eleven American divisions that sailed were provided with American-made
Vickers, although they still used the French-made Chauchat automatic
rifles. After June, all American troops to sail received a full equipment
of Brownings, both heavy machine guns and automatic rifles. Altogether
27,000 heavy Brownings and 29,000 light Brownings were shipped to the
American Expeditionary Force, sufficient by the time of the armistice to
equip completely all the American troops in France. They were not used in
combat until the Meuse-Argonne battle, where they amply justified the
faith of General Pershing.
The policy of delaying production in order to obtain the best quality was
not followed in the case of the rifle, and the results unquestionably
justified the plan, ultimately adopted, of accepting a slightly inferior
type which could be produced at once in quantity. The American army
rifle, the Springfield, was generally regarded as the most accurate the
world had seen. Unfortunately there was little hope of expanding the
production of Springfields sufficiently to meet the necessities of the
new National Army. For several years previous to 1917 the Government,
with myopic vision, had cut down expenditures for the manufacture of
small-arms and ammunition, with the result that artisans skilled in
making Springfields had been scattered. Even if the two factories that
had been turning out Springfields could be restaffed, their combined
production would be insufficient. Private plants could not be utilized
for early quantity production, because of the time that would be taken in
building up an adequate manufacturing equipment and training the
artisans. Fortune intervened. It happened that three large American firms
were about to complete important contracts for supplying Enfield rifles
to the British Government. Their plants and skilled labor might be turned
to account, but the Enfield was not regarded as satisfactory, principally
because its ammunition was inferior to that taken by the Springfield. The
War Department decided to attempt a change in the bore of the Enfield so
that it would use Springfield cartridges, and to make other minor
simplifications and improvements. The experiment proved successful to the
highest degree. The modified Enfields were reported to be only slightly
inferior to the Springfields and by the end of December, 1917, five
thousand a day were being turned out. Altogether American manufactories
produced during the war about two and a half million rifles, of which all
but three hundred thousand were modified Enfields.
In the matter of airplane production the record is far less satisfactory.
It is, perhaps, too early to distribute with justice the blame for the
delays in production, and full cognizance should be taken of the
difficulties which had to be overcome. But whatever explanations are to be
found, it is an undeniable fact that not until August, 1918, three months
before the armistice, was an American squadron equipped with American
planes. The Allies had looked to America for the production of combat
planes in quantity and Congress, responding to popular enthusiasm, had in
the first days of the war appropriated more than half a billion dollars
for their manufacture. An Aircraft Production Board was organized, with
Howard E. Coffin as chairman, although the actual manufacture of the
machines was under the supervision of the Signal Corps. Promises were made
that by the spring of 1918 the Germans would be completely at the mercy of
American airmen.
But difficulties developed. A new type of motor had to be produced,
capable of serving in any kind of airplane; this was rapidly and
successfully accomplished, and in July, 1917, the Liberty Motor was
approved. But just as manufacturing was about to begin changes in the
design were demanded, with ensuing delays. There was confusion between
the jurisdiction of the Aircraft Board and that of the Signal Corps. The
organization of the latter was less efficient than had been expected,
and men who knew little or nothing of the technique of aircraft were
placed in charge of production. When orders were given for planes to be
constructed in France, seven thousand American machinists had to be sent
over to release the French machinists who were to work on these
contracts, with consequent delays to American production. Repeated
alterations in the designs of airplanes must be made to meet changing
requirements sent from the front, and large numbers of planes almost
ready for delivery had to be scrapped. Two of the types manufactured
proved to be unsatisfactory and were condemned, with an estimated loss of
twenty-six million dollars. Finally the bitter cold of the winter made it
difficult to secure the indispensable spruce from the northwestern
forests, and lumbering operations were hampered by extensive strikes,
which were said to have resulted from German intrigues.
General disappointment at the failure to produce airplanes in quantity by
the spring of 1918 was the more bitter because of the high hopes that had
been aroused by those in authority. Instead of confessing the serious
nature of the delays, the War Department attempted to conceal not merely
the mistakes made but the fact that airplanes could not possibly reach
France in any numbers before the autumn of 1918. Thus when at last, in
February, a single combat plane was completed and shipped, the War
Department issued the statement: "The first American-built battle planes
are to-day _en route_ to France. This first shipment, although not in
itself large, marks the final overcoming of many difficulties met in
building up a new and intricate industry." When General Wood returned
from France in March and reported that not one American-built plane was
in action there, and when the Senate investigation committee unearthed
the existence of all the delays, the disillusioned public gave vent to
fierce criticism. It was to some extent calmed by the appointment, in
April, of John D. Ryan, of the Anaconda Copper Company, as director of
aircraft production for the army. By this time many of the most serious
difficulties had been passed. When the armistice was signed about twelve
thousand airplanes had been produced by American plants, of which a third
were service-planes.[6]
[Footnote 6: Ayres. _The War with Germany_, 87-90.]
It is impossible here to trace the activities of the various departments
in the herculean task of arming the nation. But one should not forget
that there was much which never received wide publicity. The development
of ordnance carried with it the manufacture of quantities of ammunition
hitherto undreamt of, the building of railway and motorized artillery,
the improvement of sight and fire-control apparatus, the making of all
sorts of trench-warfare _matériel_. The Air Service had to concern itself
with the manufacture of radio telephones, armament for airplanes, the
synchronizing of machine guns to fire through propeller blades, airplane
bombs, air photography, and pyrotechnics. The Chemical Warfare Service
was busy with the making of toxic gases and gas defense equipment, using
the peach stones and cocoanut shells which every one was asked to save.
The enormous quantities of medical and dental supplies must be gathered
by the Quartermaster Department, which also had charge of the salvage
service and the thousand gargantuan household occupations, such as
laundering and incineration of garbage, that went with the maintenance of
the army in camp. The Signal Corps must produce wire, telegraphs,
telephones, switchboards, radio equipment, batteries, field glasses,
photographic outfits, and carrier pigeons.
Upon its navy the United States has always relied chiefly for defense and
in this branch of the service the country was better prepared for war in
1917 than in the army. Indeed when the nation entered the struggle many
persons believed that the sole practical fighting assistance the United
States should give the Allies would be upon the sea. Josephus Daniels,
the Secretary of the Navy, was a Southern politician, of limited
administrative experience and capacity. During the first years of his
appointment he had alienated navy officers through the introduction of
pet reforms and his frank advocacy of a little navy. Resiliency, however,
was one of his characteristics and he followed President Wilson in 1916,
when the latter demanded from Congress authority for an expansion in the
navy which seemed only prudent in view of international conditions.
Largely owing to the efforts of the Assistant Secretary, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, the months immediately preceding the declaration of war
witnessed strenuous preparations to render aid to the Allies in case the
United States should participate. Thereafter Secretary Daniels tended to
sink his personality and judgment in the conduct of the naval war and to
defer to the opinion of various officers, of whom Admiral William S.
Benson, Chief of Naval Operations was the most influential. When war was
declared two flotillas of destroyers were at once sent to Queenstown to
assist in chasing and sinking submarines, and were placed under the
command of Admiral William S. Sims. Battleships and cruisers followed,
though by no means with the expedition nor in the numbers desired by
Sims, who believed that by using practically the entire naval force at
once the submarine could be exterminated and the war ended.
At home, the Navy Department entered upon a process of expansion which
increased its personnel from 65,000 to 497,000 when the armistice was
signed. A rapid development in naval construction was planned, with
emphasis upon destroyers. The effects of this programme became visible
within a year; during the first nine months of 1918 no less than
eighty-three destroyers were launched, as against sixty-two for the
preceding nine years. Submarine chasers of a special design were built
and many private yachts taken over and adapted to the war against the
submarine. During the course of the war two battleships and twenty-eight
submarines were completed. Expansion in naval shipbuilding plans was
paralleled by the construction of giant docks; by camps sufficient for
the training of two hundred thousand men; and by a naval aircraft
factory from which a seaplane was turned out seven months after work on
the factory was begun. Naval aviators returning from the Channel coasts
superintended flying schools and undertook the patrol of our Atlantic
seaboard.
If much of these military preparations was not translated into
accomplishment before the war ended, it was because the United States was
preparing wisely for a long struggle and it seemed necessary that the
foundations should be broad and deep. "America was straining her energies
towards a goal," said the Director of Munitions, "toward the realization
of an ambition which, in the production of munitions, dropped the year
1918 almost out of consideration altogether, which indeed did not bring
the full weight of American men and _matériel_ into the struggle even in
1919, but which left it for 1920, if the enemy had not yet succumbed to
the growing American power, to witness the maximum strength of the United
States in the field." It was the knowledge of this preparation which, to
some extent, helped to convince the German General Staff of the futility
of further resistance and thus to bring the war to an early end.
The dependence of the United States upon the Allies for equipment and
munitions does not deserve the vitriolic anathemas of certain critics.
The country did not enter the struggle as if it expected to fight the war
single-handed. Distribution of labor and supplies between the United
States and the Allies was merely a wise and economic measure. At their
own request, the Allies were furnished with that which they most
needed--money, food, and man-power. In return they provided the United
States with the artillery and machine guns which they could spare and
which they could manufacture more cheaply and rapidly. Finally there is
the outstanding fact, of which America may always be proud, that this
heterogeneous democracy, organized, so far as organization existed, for
the pursuits of peace, was able in the space of sixteen months, to
provide an army capable of fighting successfully one of the most
difficult campaigns of the war, and that which led directly to the
military defeat of Germany.
The ultimate success of President Wilson's war policies could hardly have
been achieved except by the process of centralization which he never lost
from view. His insistence upon centralized responsibility and control in
political matters was paralleled in the military field. Nothing
illustrates this principle better than the centralization of the American
Expeditionary Force under the absolute and unquestioned command of General
Pershing. The latter was given free rein. The jealousies which so weakened
the Union armies during the first years of the Civil War were ruthlessly
repressed. No generals were sent to France of whom he did not approve.
When the Allies threatened to appeal to Washington over Pershing's head,
President Wilson turned a deaf ear.
In the United States, the President sought similar centralization through
the General Staff. It was this body which prepared the different plans for
the Draft Act, the Pershing expedition, and finally for the gigantic task
of putting a million men in France by the summer of 1918. To the staff was
given the formulation of the training programme along the lines
recommended by Pershing. Always, however, it was hampered by the multiple
responsibility that characterized the old-style army machine with its
bureau chiefs competing with each other, with the navy, and with the
Allies. Quartermaster Department, Ordnance Department, Signal Corps, and
the other bureaus were uncoördinated, and inevitable waste and
inefficiency followed all their operations. It was the crisis that arose
from the problem of supplies, in the winter of 1917, that furnished the
President with the opportunity to cut red-tape and secure the
centralization he desired. That opportunity came with the blanket powers
bestowed upon him by the Overman Act, the full significance of which can
only be appreciated after a consideration of the measures taken to
centralize the industrial resources of the nation.
CHAPTER VII
THE HOME FRONT
On May 18, 1917, President Wilson issued a proclamation in which are to
be found the following significant sentences:
In the sense in which we have been wont to think of armies there are
no armies in this struggle, there are entire nations armed. Thus,
the men who remain to till the soil and man the factories are no
less a part of the army that is in France than the men beneath the
battle flags. It must be so with us. It is not an army that we must
shape and train for war--it is a Nation. To this end our people must
draw close in one compact front against a common foe. But this
cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose. All must pursue one
purpose. The Nation needs all men, but it needs each man, not in the
field that will most pleasure him, but in the endeavor that will
best serve the common good. Thus, though a sharpshooter pleases to
operate a trip-hammer for the forging of great guns, and an expert
machinist desires to march with the flag, the Nation is being served
only when the sharpshooter marches and the machinist remains at his
levers. The whole Nation must be a team, in which each man shall
play the part for which he is best fitted.
If President Wilson deserves severe criticism for his failure to endorse
adequate plans of preparation for war while his country was at peace, he
should be given due credit for his appreciation that the home front must
be organized if the fighting front was to be victorious. He perceived
clearly that it was necessary to carry into the industrial life of the
nation that centralizing process which characterized his military policy.
That the nation at home was made to feel itself part of the fighting
forces and coöperated enthusiastically and effectively in the organization
of the national resources was not the least of the triumphs of the United
States. Such organization demanded great sacrifice, not merely of luxuries
or comforts, but of settled habits, which are difficult to break. It must
necessarily be of an emergency character, for the United States possessed
no bureaucratic system like that which obtains on the continent of Europe
for the centralization of trade, manufactures, food production, and the
thousand activities that form part of economic life. But the event proved
that both the spirit and the brains of the American people were equal to
the crisis.
The problem of coördinating the national industries for the supply of the
army was complicated by the military decentralization described in the
preceding chapter, which President Wilson was not able to remedy before
the final months of the war. The army did not form or state its
requirements as one body but through five supply bureaus, which acted
independently and in competition with each other. Bids for materials from
the different bureaus conflicted with each other, with those of the navy,
and of the Allies. Not merely was it essential that such demands should
be coördinated, but that some central committee should be able to say how
large was the total supply of any sort of materials, how soon they could
be produced, and to prevent the waste of such materials in unessential
production. If the army was decentralized, American industry as a whole
was in a state of complete chaos, so far as any central organization was
concerned. On the side of business every firm in every line of production
was competing in the manufacture of essential and unessential articles,
in transportation, and in bidding for and holding the necessary labor.
Mr. Wilson set himself the task of evolving order out of this chaos.
The President, as in the purely military problem where he utilized the
General Staff as his instrument, prepared to adapt existing machinery,
rather than to create a completely new organization. For a time he seems
to have believed that his Cabinet might serve the function. But it was
ill-adapted to handle the sort of problems that must be solved. It was
composed of men chosen largely for political reasons, and despite much
public complaint it had not been strengthened after Wilson's reëlection.
Franklin K. Lane, the Secretary of the Interior, was generally recognized
as a man of excellent business judgment, willing to listen to experts, and
capable of coöperating effectively with the economic leaders of the
country. His influence with the President, however, seemed to be
overshadowed by that of Newton D. Baker and William G. McAdoo, Secretaries
of War and of the Treasury, who had inspired the distrust of most business
men. McAdoo in particular alienated financial circles because of his
apparent suspicion of banking interest, and both, by their appeals to
laboring men, laid themselves open to the charge of demagogic tactics.
Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, had won recognition as an expert
international lawyer of long experience, but he could not be expected to
exercise great influence, inasmuch as the President obviously intended to
remain his own foreign secretary. Albert S. Burleson, Postmaster-General,
was a politician, expert in the minor tactics of party, whose conduct of
the postal and telegraphic systems was destined to bring a storm of
protest upon the entire Administration. Thomas W. Gregory, the
Attorney-General, had gained entrance into the Cabinet by means of a
railroad suit which had roused the ire of the transportation interests.
The other members were, at that time, little known or spoken of. Wilson
spent much time and effort in defending his Cabinet members from attacks,
and yet it was believed that he rarely appealed to them for advice in the
formulation of policies. Thus the Cabinet as a whole lacked the very
qualities essential to a successful organizing committee: ability to
secure the coöperation and respect of the industrial leaders of the
country.
Titular functions of an organizing character, nevertheless, had been
conferred upon six members of the Cabinet in August, 1916, through the
creation of a "Council of National Defense"; they were charged with the
"coördination of industries and resources for the national security and
welfare." The actual labor of coördination, however, was to be exercised
by an advisory commission of seven, which included Howard E. Coffin, in
charge of munitions, Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, in charge of transportation, Julius Rosenwald, president of the
Sears-Roebuck Company, in charge of supplies including clothing, Bernard
M. Baruch, a versatile financial trader, in charge of metals, minerals,
and raw materials, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation
of Labor, in charge of labor and the welfare of workers, Hollis Godfrey
in charge of engineering and education, and Franklin H. Martin in charge
of medicine. The commission at once prepared to lay down its programme,
to create sub-committees and technical boards, and to secure the
assistance of business leaders, without whose coöperation their task
could not be fulfilled.
Following plans developed by the Council of National Defense, experts in
every business likely to prove of importance were called upon to
coördinate and stimulate war necessities, to control their distribution,
to provide for the settlement of disputes between employers and
wage-earners, to fix prices, to conserve resources. Scientific and
technical experts were directed in their researches. The General Medical
Board and the Committee on Engineering and Education were supervised in
their mobilization of doctors and surgeons, engineers, physicists and
chemists, professors and graduate students in the university laboratories.
Everywhere and in all lines experience and brains were sought and
utilized. State Councils of Defense were created to oversee the work of
smaller units and to establish an effective means of communication between
the individual and the national Government. Naturally much
over-organization resulted and some waste of time and energy; but the
universal spirit of voluntary coöperation evoked by the Councils
overbalanced this loss and aided greatly in putting the country on an
effective war basis. As Wilson said, "beyond all question the highest and
best form of efficiency is the spontaneous coöperation of a free people."
In return for their efforts the people received an education in public
spirit and civic consciousness such as could have come in no other way.
Of the committees of the Council, that on munitions developed along the
most elaborate lines, becoming of such importance that on July 28, 1917,
it was reorganized as the War Industries Board. As such it gradually
absorbed most of the functions of the Council which were not transferred
to other agencies of the Government. During the autumn of 1917 the
activities of the Board underwent rapid extension, but it lacked the
power to enforce its decisions. As in the case of the General Staff, it
was important that it should have authority not merely to plan but also
to supervise and execute. Such a development was foreshadowed in the
reorganization of the Board in March, 1918, under the chairmanship of
Bernard M. Baruch, and when the President received the blanket authority
conferred by the Overman Act, he immediately invested the War Industries
Board with the centralizing power which seemed so necessary. Henceforth
it exercised an increasingly strict control over all the industries of
the country.
The purpose of the Board was, generally speaking, to secure for the
Government and the Allies the goods essential for making war
successfully, and to protect the civil needs of the country. The supply
of raw materials to the manufacturer as well as the delivery of finished
products was closely regulated by a system of priorities. The power of
the Board in its later development was dictatorial, inasmuch as it might
discipline any refractory producer or manufacturer by the withdrawal of
the assignments he expected. The leaders of each of the more important
industries were called into council, in order to determine resources and
needs, and the degree of preference to which each industry was entitled.
Some were especially favored, in order to stimulate production in a line
that was of particular importance or was failing to meet the exigencies
of the military situation; shipments to others of a less essential
character were deferred. Committees of the Board studied industrial
conditions and recommended the price that should be fixed for various
commodities; stability was thus artificially secured and profiteering
lessened. The Conservation Division worked out and enforced methods of
standardizing patterns in order to economize materials and labor. The
Steel Division coöperated with the manufacturers for the speeding-up of
production; and the Chemical Division, among other duties, stimulated the
vitally important supply of potash, dyes, and nitrates. Altogether it has
been roughly estimated that the industrial capacity of the country was
increased by twenty per cent through the organizing labors and authority
of the War Industries Board.
The success of this Board would have been impossible without the building
up of an extraordinary _esprit de corps_ among the men who were brought
face to face with these difficult problems of industry and commerce.
Their chairman relied, of course, upon the coöperation of the leaders of
"big business," who now, in the hour of the country's need, sank their
prejudice against governmental interference and gave freely of their
experience, brains, and administrative power. Men whose incomes were
measured in the hundreds of thousands forgot their own business and
worked at Washington on a salary of a dollar a year.
The same spirit of coöperation was evoked when it came to the conservation
and the production of food. If steel was to win the war, its burden could
not be supported without wheat, and for some months in 1917 and 1918
victory seemed to depend largely upon whether the Allies could find enough
to eat. Even in normal times Great Britain and France import large
quantities of foodstuffs; under war conditions they were necessarily
dependent upon foreign grain-producing countries. The surplus grain of the
Argentine and Australia was not available because of the length of the
voyage and the scarcity of shipping; the Russian wheat supply was cut off
by enemy control of the Dardanelles even before it was dissipated by
corrupt officials or reckless revolutionaries. The Allies, on the verge of
starvation, therefore looked to North America. Yet the stock of cereals
when the United States entered the war was at a lower level than it had
been for years and the number of food animals had also been reduced.
To meet the crisis President Wilson called upon one of the most
interesting and commanding personalities of modern times. Herbert Clark
Hoover was a Californian mining engineer, of broad experience in
Australia, China, and England, who in 1914 had been given control of
Allied Relief abroad. The following year he undertook the difficult and
delicate task of organizing food relief for Belgium. He was able to
arouse the enthusiastic sympathy of Americans, win financial support on a
large scale, procure the much-needed food, and provide for its effective
distribution among the suffering Belgians, in spite of the suspicions of
the Germans and the hindrances thrown in his path. A master organizer,
with keen flair for efficient subordinates, of broad vision never muddied
by details, with sound knowledge of business economics, and a gift for
dramatic appeal, Hoover was ideally fitted to conduct the greatest
experiment in economic organization the world had seen. Unsentimental
himself, he knew how to arouse emotion--a necessary quality, since the
food problem demanded heavy personal sacrifices which would touch every
individual; brusque in manner, he avoided giving the offense which
naturally follows any interference with the people's dinner and which
would destroy the essential spirit of voluntary coöperation.
Five days after the declaration of war, President Wilson, through the
Council of National Defense, named a committee on food supply, with Hoover
at its head, and shortly thereafter named him food commissioner. Hoover
began his work of educating the people to realize the necessity of economy
and extra-production; but he lacked the administrative powers which were
essential if his work was to prove effective, and it was not until August
that Congress passed the Lever Act which provided for strict control of
food under an administrator. This measure encountered strong opposition in
the Senate and from the farmers, who feared lest the provisions against
hoarding of food would prevent them from holding their products for high
prices. Wilson exerted his personal influence vigorously for the bill in
the face of congressional opposition, which demanded that large powers of
control should be given to a Senate committee of ten, and he was finally
successful in his appeal. He thereupon appointed Hoover Food Administrator
with practically unlimited powers, legalizing the work already begun on
his own initiative.
Hoover at once made arrangements to prevent the storage of wheat in large
quantities and to eliminate speculative dealings in wheat on the grain
exchanges. He then offered to buy the entire wheat crop at a fair price
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