Chapter Twenty-Two

World War I, 1914—1920

"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political

importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of

corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against

democracy."

Alex Carey

Part One:

Introduction

This chapter begins with the activist foreign policy of Progressive presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. America became more interventionist in the Western Hemisphere, but when war broke out in Europe in 1914, most Americans did not see any national interest at stake. But eventually the U.S. joined the Allies when Germany broke its pledges to restrict the use of the submarine. Americans mobilized rapidly, accepting unprecedented governmental control. A drive to mobilize Americans' minds led to domestic hostility toward ethnic groups and "reds," and serious violations of civil rights that went largely unpunished. The war also affected women and African Americans. Wilson took his "Fourteen Points" to the Peace Conference in Paris with the goal of establishing a new international order, but opponents in Europe, at home, and Wilson's own uncompromising attitude ultimately defeated him. U.S. victory in World War I did not prevent the country from becoming a reluctant, even "isolationist" world power. In the 1920 election, Americans overwhelmingly chose Republican Warren Harding's "normalcy" and sought to put the turbulence of

the Progressive and war years behind them.

Introduction

• Schenk v. United States: "clear and present danger" test• Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine• Proclamation of neutrality • Lusitania , 1915• General John J.”Black Jack” Pershing • George Creel’s Committee on Public Information [CPI]• Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin’s Communism• 1917 War Industries Board, 1918 National War Labor Board• Bernard Baruch , Government/Business/Labor• President Wilson’s 14 Points• Collective Security v. Balance of Power • 18th and 19th Amendments• Treaty of Versailles – Article 10• William Appleman Williams – “open” v. “closed” door US policy

Sources

• David Kennedy, Over Here [1980] • Walter LaFeber, The American Age [1989] • Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson: War, Revolution, and Peace

[1979] and Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era [1954]• William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Foreign

Policy [1988]

`The essence of American foreign relations is so obvious as tooften have been ignored or evaded. It is the story of theevolution of one fragile settlement planted precariously on theextreme perimeter of a vast and unexplored continent into aglobal empire.'10In the first instance this expansion was territorial, as theoccupants of the original thirteen states moved westwards toclaim most of the rest of the North American continent. Oncecontinental expansion was complete, however, the United Stateslooked overseas. But US overseas expansion did not (with notableexceptions such as the Philippines) take the form of formalcolonization. Instead America's leaders pursued a strategy of`informal empire' that sought to ensure that the rest of theworld remained open to American economic penetration. Thispolicy was officially formalized in the `Open Door' notes of1899-1900 and `the philosophy and practice of secular empirethat was embedded in the Open Door notes became the centralfeature of American foreign policy in the twentieth century.'11 America's intervention in two world wars, its confrontation with the Soviet Union after 1945 and its repeated interventions in the Third World are all explained by the determination to maintain the `Open Door.'12 [Steven Hurst]

Chronology

1903 U.S. obtains canal rights in Panama 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine justifies U.S.

intervention in Central and South America 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt mediates peace treaty

between Japan and Russia at Portsmouth Conference 1908 Root-Takahira Agreement with Japan affirms status quo in Asia

+ Open Door policy in China; Mexican Revolution1914 U.S. forces invade Mexico

Panama Canal opens First World War begins in Europe President Woodrow Wilson proclamation of neutrality

1915 Germany declares war zone around Great Britain; German U-boat sinks Lusitania

1916 Pancho Villa raids New Mexico and is pursued by General John J. Pershing

Wilson is reelected; National Defense Act establishes preparedness program

1917 February: Germany declares new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare

March: Zimmermann note, suggesting German + Mexican, shocks Americans

April: U.S. declares war on the Central Powers; Committee on Public Information established May: Selective Service Act passed June: Espionage Act passed July: Race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois; War

Industries Board established August: Food Administration and Fuel

Administration and Fuel Administration established November: Bolshevik Revolution in Russia

1918 January: Wilson unveils Fourteen Points April: National War Labor Board established May: Sedition Act passed June: Eugene Debs arrested for defending

antiwar protesters; U.S. troops serve in Russia November: Armistice ends war

1919 January: 18th Amendment (Prohibition) ratified; Wilson serves as Chief U.S. negotiator at Paris Peace Conference

June: Versailles Treaty signed in Paris July: Race riot breaks out in Chicago; Steel strike begins in several Midwestern cities September: Wilson suffers stroke while touring

country in support of Versailles Treaty November: Henry Cabot Lodge's version of the Versailles Treaty is rejected by the Senate;

Palmer raids begin 1920 March: Senate finally votes down Versailles Treaty and League of Nations

August: 19th Amendment (woman suffrage) ratified November: Warren G. Harding is elected president

Woodrow Wilson’s 14 PointsI. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there

shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected

along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together

against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

Chapter Focus Questions • How did America’s international role expand?• How did the United States move from neutrality to participation in

the Great War?• How did the United States mobilize the society and the

economy for war?• How did Americans express dissent and how was it

repressed?• Why did Woodrow Wilson fail to win the peace?• Explain the connection between American pursuit of empire,

the progressive movement and the United States’ experience in World War I. [6 to 8 sentences for max of 12 points]

• Evaluate the role of George Creel's Committee on Public Information during World War I [11 points]

• Compare balance of power to collective security with regard to US foreign policy.

Part Two:

American Communities

Vigilante Justice in Bisbee, Arizona

• In 1917 armed men began rounding up strikers at a copper mine in Bisbee, Arizona.

• Of the 2,000 men kept under armed guard, 1,400 refused to return to work and were taken on a freight train to a small town in the desert.

• The radical Industrial Workers of the World (“Wobblies”) had organized a peaceful strike that won support from over half the town’s miners.

• The sheriff and town’s businessmen justified vigilantism by invoking patriotism and racial purity.

• Neither the federal nor the state government would act. • The Arizona mines operated without unions into the 1930s and

with very few immigrant workers.

Part Three:

Becoming a New World Power

Roosevelt: The Big Stick

• Americans believed that they had a God-given role to promote a moral world order. Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick” approach called for intervention.

• He secured a zone in Panama for a canal, completed in 1914.

• He expanded the Monroe Doctrine to justify armed intervention in the Caribbean where the United States assumed management of several nations’ finances.

• In Asia, the United States pursued the “Open Door” policy.

• TR mediated a settlement of the Russo-Japanese War.

Taft: Dollar Diplomacy

• His successor, William Howard Taft, favored “dollar diplomacy” that substituted investment for military intervention.

• American investment in Central America doubled.• Military interventions occurred in Honduras and

Nicaragua.• In Asia, the quest for greater trade led to worsening

relations with Japan over the issue ownership of Chinese railroads.

Wilson: Moralism and Realism in Mexico

• Woodrow Wilson had no diplomatic experience before becoming president.

• He favored expanding the Open Door principle of equal access to markets.

• He saw expansion of American capitalism in moral terms.• The complex realities of power politics interfered with his moral

vision. • Unable to control the revolution in Mexico, Wilson sent

troops to Vera Cruz and northern Mexico. • When relations with Germany worsened, Wilson accepted an

international commission’s recommendation and withdrew U.S. troops from Mexico.

Part Four:

The Great War

The Guns of August

• An incident in 1914 in the Balkans plunged Europe into the most destructive war in its history.

• Competition between Britain and Germany had led to competing camps of alliances. The assassination of the Archduke of Austria escalated into a general war.

• Wilson and most Americans wanted to stay neutral. • Both sides bombarded the Americans with propaganda, but

more crucial were economic ties with the Allies and the British blockade.

Preparedness and Peace

• Germany declared the waters around Britain to be a war zone and began submarine attacks.

• In May 1915 Germans sank the Lusitania, a British passenger ship secretly loaded with armaments, killing 1,198 people including 128 Americans.

• In March 1916, Germany changed its submarine policy, but Wilson pushed for greater war preparation.

• Opponents mobilized on the streets and in Congress.• In 1916, Wilson won re-election with the slogan “He Kept

Us Out of War.”

Safe for Democracy

• Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917 gambling that they could destroy the Allies before America intervened.

• Wilson broke diplomatic relations but anti-war senators blocked his effort to arm merchant ships.

• The Zimmerman note provoked an outpouring of anti-German feeling.

• On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war.

Part Five:

American Mobilization

Selling the War

• Uncertain about public backing for the war, Wilson appointed George Creel to head the Committee on Public Information that tried to promote public support.

• Creel enlisted over 150,000 people to promote the cause. • The CPI:

– published literature– sponsored huge rallies featuring movie stars– portrayed America as a unified moral community

engaged in a crusade for peace and freedom– depicted Germans as bestial monsters

Fading Opposition to War

• Many progressives and intellectuals identified with Wilson’s definition of the war as a defense of democracy. [John Dewey, Walter Lipmann

• Women’s suffrage leaders who had initially opposed war preparedness threw themselves behind the war effort.

• Only a minority maintained their opposition to the war.

“You’re in the Army Now”

• Recruiting a large army required a draft that met with only scattered organized resistance.

• Nearly 10 million men registered for the draft and 3.8 million served in the military. Recruits took a range of psychological and intelligence tests.

• Some praised the army for promoting democratic equality among the troops.

Racism in the Military

• Black troops were organized into separate units and subjected to white harassment.

• Most had non-combat jobs, but those African Americans who did fight served with distinction, and were well treated by the French.

Americans in Battle

• Initially, American support for the war effort concentrated on protecting shipping. In 1918, fresh American troops shored up defensive lines to stop a German advance that came within 50 miles of Paris.

• Americans joined the counter-offensive that followed and helped force the Germans into signing an armistice.

• Approximately 112,000 Americans died, half from disease, and twice that number were wounded, far less than the millions of losses suffered by European nations.

Part Six:

Over Here

Organizing the Economy

• In a sense, WWI was the ultimate progressive crusade. • Wilson established the War Industries Board to coordinate

industrial mobilization. Headed by Bernard Baruch, the WIB forced industries to comply with government plans.

• Herbert Hoover ran the Food Administration.• The Fuel Administration introduced daylight-saving time.• Financing the war required new taxes. • Most of the needed financing came from Liberty Bond drives.

The Business of War

• Industrialists saw the war as an opportunity for expansion and high profits.

• Henry Ford pioneered efficient mass production techniques. • Businessmen and farmers saw the war years as a golden

age of high demand and high profits. • The need to coordinate war mobilization:

– required more efficient management– resulted in an unprecedented business-government

partnership• Government cooperation helped to create new

corporations like RCA that set the stage for the new radio broadcasting industry of the 1920s.

Labor and the War

• The wartime labor shortage led to higher wages and a growth in union membership. The National War Labor Board (NWLB) included AFL President Samuel Gompers and former President Taft.

• It mediated wage disputes and arbitrated solutions that generally led to higher wages. The NWLB supported workers’ rights to organize unions and the eight-hour day. Immigration laws were eased in the Southwest to recruit Mexican workers.

• The radical IWW was destroyed as businesses and government cracked down on it. Over 300 “Wobblies” were arrested in a single government roundup, effectively destroying it.

Women at Work

• The war allowed women to shift from low paid domestic service to higher-paying industrial jobs.

• The Women in Industry Service advised industry on the use of women workers and won improved conditions.

• Women earned much less than their male counterparts.

• At the end of the conflict, nearly all women lost their war-related jobs.

Woman Suffrage

• The war also brought a successful conclusion to the women’s suffrage campaign. Prior to WWI, women in several western states had won the vote.

• Most suffragists had opposed entry into the war. • Carrie Chapman Catt, a key leader, convinced her organization to

back the war effort. Militants like Alice Paul pursued a strategy of agitation.

• Catt won Wilson’s support and by 1920 the 19th amendment became law.

Prohibition

• During the war, the temperance movement benefited from:– anti-German feeling that worked against breweries with

German names– the need to conserve grain

• Prohibition gained during the war leading to passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.

Public Health

• The war effort also addressed public health issues.• The government attempted to safeguard the soldiers’

moral health by discouraging drinking and educating troops on the dangers of venereal disease.

• Both the war and a worldwide flu epidemic that killed 20 million people in 1918-1919 influenced Congress to appropriate money for public health after the return of peace.

Part Seven:

Repression and Reaction

Muzzling Dissent

• WWI intensified social tensions in American life, leading to oppression of dissent. The Espionage Act of June 1917: – set severe penalties for anyone found guilty of aiding

the enemy– excluded from the mails, periodicals the postmaster

considered treasonous. • The Military Intelligence police force grew and a civilian

Bureau of Intelligence (precursor to the FBI) was established.

• The Sedition Act widened the government’s power to crush anti-war opposition.

• The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these prosecutions. [Schenk v. United States: "clear and present danger" test]

The Great Migration

• Economic opportunity triggered a mass African American migration out of the South and into northern cities.

• Kinship and community networks were pivotal to the Great Migration.

• Most migrants settled for lower-paid jobs as laborers, janitors, porters, etc.

Racial Tensions

• In the North, white outrage at the African American influx exploded in a series of riots.

• African Americans who had hoped their service in the war would be rewarded were quickly disillusioned.

• Many returned with an increased sense of militancy. • 1920s, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Labor Strife

• Peace in Europe shattered the labor peace at home. • Postwar labor unrest was caused by:

– inflation– non-recognition of unions– poor working conditions– concerns about job security

• In 1919, there were 3,600 strikes involving four million workers.

• The steel strike involved 350,000 workers but failed.

Part Eight:

An Uneasy Peace

The Fourteen Points

• Delegates from 27 countries met in Versailles to work out a peace settlement.

• The leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and the United States dominated the conference. Wilson offered his vision for peace in a series of 14 points.

• Ho Chi Minh of Indochina not allowed to participate• Wilson envisioned collective security through a League of

Nations as a way to maintain a stable world.

Wilson in Paris

• Wilson’s fellow negotiators shared little of his idealism. • His ideal of self-determination found limited expression when

independent states were carved out of the homelands of the beaten Central Powers.

• The victorious Allies seized control of the former German colonies.

• Germany was forced to take full responsibility for starting the war and to accept a reparations bill of $33 billion.

• Wilson was unhappy with many of the compromises in the final treaty but was pleased by the commitment to the League of Nations.

The Treaty Fight

• The League did not enjoy wide support at home, however.• Republicans had won control of Congress and many

senators opposed American participation in any treaty. • Some senators were adamant isolationists; others were racist

xenophobes. • Senate majority leader Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts

and many others feared the League would impinge on American autonomy.

• Wilson went on a grueling speaking tour to drum up support for the League. He collapsed and had a stroke.

• Wilson opposed any compromise and the treaty did not pass Congress. The United States never joined the League.

The Russian Revolution

• The Bolshevik victory in 1917 changed the climate of foreign and domestic affairs. Wilson sympathized with the overthrow of the czar.

• In August 1918, Wilson sent American troops into northern and eastern Russia purportedly to protect railroad connections.

• The troops actually participated in the Russian civil war against the Bolsheviks.

The Red Scare

• In the United States, the charge of Bolshevism became a weapon against dissent.

• A growing fear of foreigners fueled a new round of government repression.

• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer rounded up 6,000 alleged radicals, despite the absence of any evidence against them. [Role of trials – Saddam, Osama post – 9/11]

• Business groups found “redbaiting” to be an effective tool for keeping unions out of factories.

• The election of Warren G. Harding in 1920 showed that Americans wanted to retreat from the turmoil of international affairs and “return to normalcy.”

• [Loyalty oaths of 1950s and 1960s -- USA flags on lapels]