Wilson, Woodrow 3 in United States

Wilson, Woodrow 3

See:

• Wilson, Woodrow 1
• Wilson, Woodrow 2
• Wilson, Woodrow 4

Wilson was renominated. The Democratic platform simply approved the Wilson policies and asked that he be returned to office on the ground that as President he had kept the country out of war. Wilson was re-elected, his plurality reaching 581,941 votes. Yet so close was the contest in the Electoral College that a reversal of 2,000 votes in California would have made Mr. Hughes President. During the campaign Wilson had said that the rôle of neutrality had been about played out. The President’s attitude at this time toward the struggle in Europe is best gathered from his address at Omaha on 5 Oct 1916, in which he said: “It will take the long enquiry of history to explain this war, but Europe ought not to misunderstand us. 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. . . . We want to know whenever we act what the purpose is — what the ultimate goal is.” In the request for the passage of the so-called Adamson law, of the preceding September, he had asked for the extension of the United States eight-hour law to include workers in the railroad trains service. A great strike was averted. He was about to make one more effort to bring the European war to an end, when Germany on 12 December asked for a conference of the warring powers for the purpose of securing peace. Germany did not disclose her conditions. Wilson submitted the German proposal to the Allied powers. The reply was a quick refusal. On 22 Jan. 1917, Wilson spoke to the Senate in what was at once called a remarkable address. The principal ideas that later became famous in the fourteen points were now suggested to Europe as a basis of peace. He even said that a lasting peace could only be secured by a “peace without victory.” He meant that the bitterness of a war to the “last man” ought to be avoided.

His effort failed. On the last day of January the German Ambassador in Washington handed the government a note in which the German government announced its intention to declare a submarine blockade about England France and Italy and warned all nations to beware on penalty of having their ships and their people sunk without notice. Wilson’s reply was to dismiss the German Ambassador and request Congress to declare the country in a state of armed neutrality. Congress failed to grant the request and Wilson set about preparing for American entrance into the conflict. When the regular session of that Congress came to an end, he promptly summoned the new Congress in extra session for 2 April “to receive a communication concerning grave matters of national policy.” On 2 April he addressed Congress in a great speech recommending that Congress declare “the recent course of the Imperial German government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States.” On 6 April war was declared by large majorities. But Wilson took pains to insist to the country and all the world that the United States did not go to war for any material interests or any imperialistic purposes of any of the powers concerned. It was to be a war to “make the world safe for democracy.” He endeavored to convince the people of the United States that annexations and commercial exploitation were the natural causes of war; and he sought to impress Europe with the idea that democracy was the only safe rule for governments and that absolute equality among all peoples, great and small, was the only safe rule of national conduct. From 2 April 1917 to 11 Nov. 1918, Wilson’s career is in great part world history; he swayed the whole world as no other statesman had ever swayed it. An English Liberal has said that “it was like the voice of God talking over our heads to the continent and to the nations of the world.” The sum of it all was expressed on 8 Jan. 1918, in the marvelous address in which the Fourteen Points, now so well known to the world, were laid down. He wished to commit all men to the freedom of the seas, the self-determination of peoples, open diplomacy, the freest possible trade among nations, access of inland nations to harbors, disarmament everywhere and a League of Nations that should lead and guide mankind into better ways. Upon such a basis would the United States conclude peace. From public statements of European leaders and from the avowals of responsible diplomats, these points were accepted, although thoughtful men everywhere doubted whether, at the end, the greater European powers would actually abide by such a program of self-denial.

There was a strenuous protest in the industrial centres of the United States against the possibility of free trade. Colonel Roosevelt denied in a vigorous campaign in the autumn of 1917 that the United States fought to make the world safe for democracy. In January 1918 he and many other prominent leaders, both Democratic and Republican, tried to press through Congress a bill which would have set up a war cabinet to assist the President. Wilson opposed the movement and it failed. But the fight upon the President and his war platform was continued till the Congressional election of 1918. Wilson asked the country in a formal statement to return Democrats to Congress in order that he might the better carry the war to a conclusion. It was a close election in which the Republicans won a majority in the Senate by two votes and in the House by a larger margin. Much money was spent in the campaign and one of the senators was still defending himself in court, late in 1919, against the charge of corrupt use of money. It was the first time that Wilson was confronted with the prospect of a hostile Congress, a fact which appeared the more significant as the near approach of a breakdown of Germany and her allies became known. When an armistice was proposed by Germany, the Allied governments agreed that Wilson should be the common spokesman; but Colonel Roosevelt and Senator Lodge gave out a statement of Republican conditions of peace which were supposed to be more hostile to Germany than Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The Republicans announced that they were unwilling to allow Wilson to represent the country in the peace conference.