Progressivism and World War I

Throughout American history, there remains continuity between eras and periods denoted only due to common themes and events.  Thus when we study the era of progressivism and later WWI, we must not forget it relation to the period we just studied.  Progressivism was a direct response to the events of the later half of the nineteenth century, particularly with respect to big business, gilded politics, and expansion.  World War I can also be seen as a war based on imperialism.  So keep the “past” in mind when we discuss the past.

Progressivism:

During the 1890s a severe depression, bitter labor violence, political upheaval, and foreign entanglements shook the nation.  Many of the promises of industry had been fulfilled, but great suffering encompassed many in the country.  Many regarded industrialists as monsters who controlled markets, wages, and prices for the sole purpose of maximizing profits.  Government seemed corroded by bosses and henchmen who used position to enrich themselves.  Society was beginning to fragment.

By 1900, there was cause for optimism.  The social and political protests began to die.  American had emerged from war victorious and a new political era of strong leaders was emerging.  The resulting sense of renewal served both to heighten anxiety over continuing social and political problems and to raise hopes that such problems could somehow be fixed.  Consequently, broad and complex reform campaigns took place that were hard to identify as one.  Calling themselves “progressives”, these reformers formed  a political party and represented the reformist spirit of the era.  The Progressive Era between 1895 and 1920 was characterized by a series of movements, each aimed in one way or another at renovating or restoring American society, its values, and its institutions. 

Progressive urge for reform had many sources.  Labor strife, spoiling of nat. resoruces, abuse of corporate power, cities bred poverty, disease, crime, and pol. Corruption as they expanded, increased immigrants, rise of managerial class, and that the equality of opportunity belief was a myth. 

Goals of Progressives: 1. Sought to end abuses of power. 2. Aimed to supplant corrupt power with reformed traditional institutions as schools, charities, medical clinics, and families.  Took belief that society contributed to the making of a poor class, that the individual was not entirely to blame. 3. Wanted to apply scientific principles and efficient management to economic, social, and political institutions.  Get rid of wasteful energy.

Befitting their name, progressives had a faith in the ability of humankind to create a better world.   More than ever before, Americans looked to government as an agent of the people.  As such, government could and should intervene in society and the economy to protect the common good and elevate the public interest above self-interest.

The Composition of Progressivism and Society:

As discussed before, disillusionment in politics took hold after the election of 1896.  This lowering of involvement in the polls led to opening of multiple and shifting interest groups that championed reform.  These groups lobbied their own goals and needs.  Because they were not usually tied to either of the established political parties, these organizations made politics much more fragmented and issue-focused than in earlier eras.  Although some of the cherished beliefs of the Populists influenced progressivism such as political democracy, moral regeneration, and anti-monopolism, the prevailing values of the movement were urban.  The progressive quest for social justice, educational and legal reform, and the streamlining of gov’t drew on urban reform goals of the previous half century.  The growth of cities led to the growth of problem and then growth of reform societies to combat.  The growing efficiency of travel and communication made reform national. 

The vanguard of reform for the three major progressive themes—opposition to abuse of power, cooperation, and scientific efficiency—was found in the new middle class, that of the professions of medicine, law, engineering, social work, religion, teaching, and business.  Offended by inefficiency and immorality, these groups sought to apply education in their professions to solve society’s problems.  Motivated by personal indignation at corruption and injustice, many of these middle-class progressives sought an end to corruption.  Dubbed muckrakers, they fed the public’s taste for scandal and sensation by investigating and attacking social, economic, and political wrongs.  Found in magazines, the articles of these muckrakers exposed corruption at all levels.  Probably the most well-known of these was the novel by Upton Sinclair The Jungle, which attacked the meat-packing industry.

Middle-class indignation also expressed itself as opposition to interest-group political system that arose in the 1890s. Most deplored the political bargaining and self-serving that dominated the boss-ridden parties.  These reformers sought to bring back politics to the people, though the “people” excluded blacks, immigrants, and the white native-born working class and woman. Progressives advocated nominating candidates through direct primaries instead of party caucuses and holding nonpartsian elections to prevent bribery and fraud bred by party loyalties.  They also advocated three reforms to make legislators more responsible: the initiative, which would permit voters to propose new laws on their own; the referendum, which would enable voters to accept or reject a law; and the recall, which would allow voters to remove offedning officials and judges from office before their term was up.  The goal was efficiency in government.  They wanted an accountable management chosen by a responsible electorate.  Though they recoiled from party politics, these middle-class reformers turned to the government for aid.  They turned to government to bring efficiency and scientific management to achieve social and political reform.

The progressive spirit also stirred elite business leaders. Some supported gov’t regulation and political reforms to protect their interests from more radical elements.  Some were humanitarians who worked unselfishly for social justice.  Some supported limited political and economic reform aimed to stabilize society by running schools, hospitals, and local government like efficient businesses.  Elite women served as reformers in organizations like the Young Women’s Christian Association, which aided growing numbers of unmarried working women who moved away from their families, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which participated in more than abstinence in drinking. 

Not all reformers were of the middle and upper classes.  Vital elements of what would be become modern American liberalism grew out of the working class urban experience.  Many urban workers by 1900 were pressing for government intervention in maing the workplace safe.  They wanted safe factories, shorter working hours, workers’ compensation, better housing, health safeguards, and other “bread-and –butter reforms.”  Though these same people supported political bosses, who were opposed to most reform, they cultivated this relationship because the bosses did provide political support in urban work reform.  After 1900, voters from the inner-city districts began to elect progressives.  Trained in the boss system, these men worked for reform.  Their chief goal was to have government take responsibility for alleviating hardships that resulted from urban-industrial growth.  They opposed reforms like prohibition, Sunday closing laws, civil service, and nonpartisna politics all of which conflcited from their constinuents wants.  They were interested more with labor and social reform. 

Some deeply frustrated workers wanted more than progressive reform; they wanted a different society.  These people turned to the socialist movement, a bland of immigrant intellectuals, industrial workers, disaffected populists, miners, lumbermen, and some women’s rights activists.  The majority united under Eugene Debs who drew nearly 100,000 votes in the 1900 election.  Though he never developed a consistent program beyong opposition to war and bourgeois materialsim, he was spellbinding speaker.  As Socialist Party’s candidate in 1904 he won 400, 000 and in 1912, his pinnacle, 900,000. 

He and his fellow socialists made overtures to reformers.  But most progressives avoided radical attacks against enterprise.  Government control would lead to too big a change in thesystem.  Progressives had too much in stake if the capitalist system was overturned.  Many progressives turned to conservatives in fact to stop socialist from gaining too much power.  Few humanitarians were upset when Debs was jailed for giving an antiwar speech in 1918. 

It would be a mistake to assume that a progressive spirit captured all of American society. Many still elected to Congress felt that the government interference was wrong.  Further, capitalists like Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan did not want interference.  Most Progressives, however, were moderate believing that laissez faire was obsolete but avoiding a radical shift from capitalism.  They believed in the conscience and will of the people but also a strong central government in reaching those ideals. 

Governmental and Legislative Reform:

The first corruption to be attacked was that found in cities.  Between 1870 and 1900, reformers supported poverty relief, an end to the boss system, housing improvement, and pro-labor laws.  Most were in it for economic reform in government.  Progressive governors in the mid-west like Robert M. La Follette rose to bring political efficiency and election reform to their states.  They found business reform and more equitable taxes and regulation of railroads.  Though they were successes, these groups also struggled to break away from conservative courts.  Nevertheless, these were steps in changing the political arena. 

New state laws aimed at promoting social welfare had a greater impact than government reform.  Many states enacted factory inspection laws under the auspices that the state had to protect the safety of its inhabitants.  By 1916, nearly two-thirds of all state shad provided workers’ comp legislation.  Some state legislation provided relief to single working mothers.  Nearly every state under pressure form the National Child Labor Committee set a minimum age for employment (ranging from 12 to 16) and prohibited employers from working children more than eight to ten hours a day.  These laws were hard enforced and many families needed the extra income.

Several groups came together to limit working hours for women.  After the Supreme Court upheld Oregon’s ten hour limit in 1908, many other states followed in protecting female workers. 

Nevertheless, defenders of free enterprise came together to lobby politicians to withhold funds needed to regulate worker reform.  They felt that government interference undermined individual initiative and the ideas of the survival of the fittest. 

Moral reform became an issue as well though some argued that moral regeneration could not be legislated but found in church work and humanitarianism.  The Anti-Saloon League, formed in 1893, intensified the long-standing campaign against drink and its effects.  They made the excellent connection between drink and worker efficiency.  The war on saloons forced many local governments to restrict the sale of drink.  But consumption of alcohol increased after 1900.  This convinced prohibitionists that a national law was needed.  In 1918 prohibitionists convinced Congress to pass the 18^th Amendment outlawing the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of alcoholic products.  Not all American was happy but the 18^th Amendment can be seen as an expression of the progressive urge to cleanse society and to elevate morality through reform legislation.  There was a backlash as well on prostitution.  Middle-class moralists, already fearful of the perceived connection between immigration and prostitution called government to investigate the fear of white slavery, which was the kidnapping of women by state and international rings to be used as prostitutes.  Government reports revealed that poverty, ignorance, and desperation drove women, especially immigrants and blacks, into prostitution.  But it also remarked that it was a male perpetuated problem.  It would only change when the hearts of men changed.  Though it did not show any international rings, it revealed that women were making the choice because of need for money.  Moralists believed that women’s sexuality need to be controlled and thus pressured Congress in 1910 to pass the Mann Act which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for immoral acts.  By 9115, most states had outlawed brothels and the solicitation of sex.  Like prohibition, the Mann Act revealed a belief that government could regulate morality.  Reformers believed that the source of evil was not human nature but the social environment.  And if evil was created by humans, it could be eradicated by human effort.  Intervention in the form of laws could help build a heaven on earth. 

New ideas in Education, Law, and the Social Sciences:

While legislation anchored the reform impulse, equally important changes in schools, courts, and settlement houses.  With the growth in efficiency and scientific management as well as changing theories such as evolution, new forms of social organization were needed.  The number of children in schools increased the number of schools by compulsory attendance laws.  The development of the student became the focus of education rather than the focus on the development of the subject matter.  Education would based on experience and not memorization.  Progressive education was uniquely American in that learning should focus on real-life problems and that children should be taught to apply their intelligence and ingenuity as instruments for controlling their environment.  Books like John Dewey’s The School and Society (1899) and Democracy and Education (1916) expressed these views for a mass public, or at least, mass academic world. 

Personal growth became the driving principle behind college education as well.  Initially started to prepare a select few, by the late 1800s, institutions of higher education mutliplied.  New academic professions sprung out of the movement towards a more affordable tuition and new areas of study were sociology and political science.  With rise in educational institutions, the creation of separate but never equal black institutions arose from government land grants to go with traditionally black institutions.  Further women enrollment expanded though there was continual racism and sexism.

The legal profession also embraced a new emphasis on experience and scientific principles.  Many embraced the view that social reality should influence legal thinking.  This movement towards social reality fostered a break from the use of precedent and the beginnings of viewing society’s needs for legal decisions.  The Supreme Court backlashed against these reforms particularly when laws challenged the fourtheenth amendment and the right of government to regulate.  The judiciary did do some good by upholding laws for public safety and gave the federal government the right to sustain federal legislation like the Pure Food and Drug Act and the likes to protect the welfare of the citizens. 

In public welfare arose the National Consumers league (NCL) which fought for the rights of women on issues of suffrage and child labor laws.  But it also focused on the licensing of food vendors and inspection of dairies. Awareness of health issues expanded greatly in this period. 

Education reform gave reformers the sense that a new middle class educated with the ideals of efficiency and with hope of progress could foster changes vital to the nation’s well-being.

Challenges to Racial and Sexual Discrimination:

The problems of African-Americans remained largely a regional one though racism existed everywhere.  Nine out of ten blacks still lived in the South in 1900 and this had led to the formation of stricter Jim Crow laws.  Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). (segregation) Race riots in Atlanta over the fear of black rape.  Nevertheless, leaders arose to attempt to combat this situation and to assimilate blacks into white society.  Two leaders represented the two point of views.  Booker T. Washington- Accommodation, Tuskegee Institute and Atlanta Compromise (1895) and W.E.B. Du Bois—Talented Tenth.  This sentiment had an appeal to middle class white liberals than sharecroppers. In 1909, he forms the NAACP, which aimed to end racial discrimination by pursuing legal redress in the courts, the leadership was made up of progressives. 

Nevertheless, discrimination even in the federal government expanded in this period, particularly under Woodrow Wilson.  It gave a sense of twoness to blacks, that of being an American but also a black one.  For all to end, racial pride would have to be combined with national pride. 

The problems for African-American and their identity haunted Native Americans.  The formation of the Society of Americans Indians (SAI) by educated middle class Indians worked for better education, civil rights, and health care.  It also sponsored American Indian Days to cultivate Indian pride and offset Anglo images of tribal peoples seen in shows.  Yet, its emphasis on racial pride was squeezed by the pressures of assimilation.  It never could accommodate both sides and or diverse the population of Indians.  It folded by the 1920s torn by doubts and internal disputes.

During the same period, the progressive challenge to established social assumptions also stirred women to seek liberation from the confines of hearth and home.  Their struggle raised questions of identity like those faced by blacks: What tactics should be used? What should be their role? Could women achieve equality with men and at the same time change male-dominated society?

The answers women found involved a subtle but important shift in women’s politics.  Before 1910, those involved saw themselves within the women’s movement. This label was used to characterize middle-class women striving to move beyond the home into social-welfare, higher education, and paid labor.  They saw legal and voting rights as indispensable for this move.  They their claims based on the theory that women’s special, even superior, traits as guardians of family and morality would humanize all of society.  The formation of Women’s Clubs represented these beliefs in that they fought more for social justices in the workplace, education, etc. than government reform. 

Around 1910, some those concerned began to use a new term to refer to their efforts, feminism.  Feminists focused more explicitly on the identity as women, spoke of rights and self-development.  Feminism, however, contained an inherent contradiction, arguing on the one hand that all women should unite in the struggle for rights because of their shared disadvantage as women, and on the other, that sex-typing—differential treatment of women and men—must wither because it resulted in discrimination.  Thus feminists were advancing the self-contradictory position that women unite as a gender to abolish all gender-based distinctions. 

Feminism focused on economic and sexual independence.  Feminists articulated that domesticity and female innocence were obsolete and attacked male monopoly on economic opportunity.  Women should enter industry and domestics should be handled by paid employees.  They also called for sex rights or a single standard for male and female behavior.  A number of feminists joined the birth-control movement to foster the terrible conditions that took women with child who were unwed and poor.  The leader, Margaret Sanger, was forced to flee the country because many thought she was undermining family and morality. Most states continued to disallow contraceptives but discussion had began. 

Feminist debates over work and class pervaded into the suffrage movement.  The movement succeeded in 190 with the ratification of the 19^th Amendment.  It came with a change as the leadership changed.  Earlier leader like Stanton felt only upperclass women could lead, but the new leadership saw all women as workers and significant within the movement. Feminism altered the old suffragist societies.  Feminists fostered suffrage earlier in western states by 1912.  The War only propelled the movement further.

The activities of women’s clubs, suffragists, and feminists failed to create an interest group united or powerful enough to dent the political, economic, and social ascendency of men.  Voting rights did not mean much if social views did not change.  Further liberation would require another forty to fifty years.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Revival of the Presidency

The Progressive Era’s theme of reform drew attention to government, especially the federal government as the foremost agent of change.  At first, the government was incapable of assuming such responsibility.  Dominated by two parties devoted to special interests, the federal gov’t acted only on behalf of those interests and itself.  That changed with the assassination of McKinley in September of 1901.  It vaulted Teddy Roosevelt into the presidency.  Roosevelt would infuse the presidency with the vigor that defined the position within the 20^th century. 

In marked contrast to his predecessors, Roosevelt lacked the polish and dignified appearance of the position. Yet, he did not let his physical limitations (nearsightedness, asthma as a child) limit him and exerted extreme manliness. From an aristocratic Dutch family, he had the wealth to indulge in activities like ranching and wrestling.  Yet he inherited a sense of civic responsibility which translated into his political career.  As a state leader and as assistant secretary of the Navy, he had earned a reputation as a combative, politically crafted leader.  In 1898, he had thrust himself into the limelight by organizing the rough Riders to fight in Cuba.  Though having very little impact, his dramatic act excited the public’s imagination.  He was made into a folk hero and was elected governor of NY, then vice president.

As president, he came to the same conclusions about government that the progressives had reached.  He envisioned that Jefferson’s belief in small government could not exist in the industrial age.  Instead, economic government required a Hamiltonian system of government powerful enough to guide national affairs.  Like his progressive supporters, he believed in the wisdom and talents of a select few, whose superior backgrounds qualified them to coordinate public and private enterprise.  He became a hero amongst progressive circles. Yet, his brash patriotism, admiration for big business, and dislike of anything effeminate deviated from the path recalling the unbridles expansionist thought of the previous era. 

Nevertheless, the federal regulation of economic affairs that characterize 20^th century American history began with his presidency.  He first turned towards big business.  He went after the combination movement that had produced giant trusts.  Although he won a reputation as a trustbuster, he believed consolidation the most efficient means to achieve material progress.  He believed rather in regulating good and bad trusts.  He therefore instructed the Justice Dept. to prosecute the railroad, meat-packing, and oil trusts, which he believed exploited the people.  His greatest success was the S.C. breakup of the Northern Security Company owned by J.P. Morgan, railroad combination.  He also worked with businesses to improve situations rather than completely break up combinations. 

He also pushed for regulatory legislation.  In 1906, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Hepburn Act, which imposed stricter control of the railroads.  It gave the ICC more authority to regulate railroad rates. 

Roosevelt showed similar interest to compromise on legislation to ensure the purity of food and drugs.  After reading Sinclairs’ novel, he ordered an investigation.  He supported the Meat Inspection Act (1906).  It reinforced the principle of federal regulation.  It had several weak clauses but it was welcomed by most companies restoring confidence in American meat in foreign markets.  The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) addressed consumer abuses of the patent medicine industry.  Many wild claims were being used to advertise medicine and alcohol and narcotics were being used in them.  Though these products were not banned yet, the law required a list of ingredients providing the people with the truth. 

Within big business, he used the federal government to give all “a square deal.” He had the right to determine like combinations whether or not unions were good and bad.  By forcing big business and workers to deal with their situation, he could foster this gov’t role. 

He also used gov’t power and a spirit of compromise to bring about conservation.  He added almost 150 million acres to preserve resources and passed legislation for irrigation in the west.  Yet, in times of economic crisis he did not enforce his plans as strictly as possible.  He also compromised on economic issues to alleviate the fear of investors allowing the formation of trusts. 

Nevertheless, in his last years in office, Roosevelt drew away from the Republican party’s traditional friendliness to big business.  He supported stronger regulation of business and heavier taxation of the rich.  Promising not to run for re-election, he gave way to his friend Sec. Of War William Howard Taft for nomination in 1908 hoping taft would continue his initiatives.  The Democrats nominated Bryan again who lost for the third time. 

When Taft entered the presidency, he faced problems that Roosevelt had postponed to answer.  Foremost was the rise in the tariff which Taft—reluctant than Roosevelt to interfere in legislative process—signed and became known as the Payne-Aldrich Tariff.  In the eys of progressives, Taft had failed the test of filling Roosevelt’s shoes. The progressive and conservative wings of the Republican party drifted quickly apart.  Taft was as sympathetic towards reform as Roosevelt.  He prosecuted more trusts, expanded the national forest reserves, gave more power to the ICC, supported labor reforms like the 8 hour day and mine safety.  He initiated the Sixteenth Amendment, federal income tax, and the Seventeenth amendment, direct elections of senators.  He lacked the political ability to maneuver and publicize his positions that Roosevelt held.  Unlike Roosevelt, Taft believed in the strict restraint of law unlike Roosevelt’s firm belief in power.  Nevertheless, when Roosevelt returned from Africa, he was disappointed by Taft.  He then with progressives in the Republican party formed a new party, the Bull Moose (Progressive) Party.  In the election of 1912, Taft (Rep), Roosevelt (Bull moose), W. Wilson (Dem.), and Debs (Socialists).  The ensuing campaign exposed voters to the most thorough evaluation of the American system in nearly a generation.

Woodrow Wilson and the Extension of Reform:

The nation during the election of 1912 was looking for reform and justice.  The election’s outcome illustrated the extent at which electorate had been swept by the moral pronouncements of every candidate.  Wilson won with 42 percent of the popular vote—he was a minority president, though he captured 435 of the 531 electoral votes.  Roosevelt got 27, Taft got 23, and Debs got 6 percent.  Fully three-quarters of the electorate supported some alternative to the restrained approach that Taft represented. 

Sharp debate over the fundamentals of progressive government had characterized the campaign.  Roosevelt offered the voters a system called New Nationalism. Roosevelt foresaw a new era of national unity in which government authority would coordinate and regulate economic activity.  He would not destroy big business but establish regulatory commissions, groups of experts who would protect the citizens’ interests and ensure wise use of concerted economic power. 

Wilson offered a more idealistic scheme in his plan coined New Freedom.  Wilson believed that concentrated economic power threatened individual liberty and that monopolies had to be broken up so that marketplace could again become genuinely open.  But he did not want to restore laissez faire.  Like Roosevelt, Wilson proposed to enhance governmental authority to protect and regulate.  But he did stop short of advocating the cooperation between business and government inherent in Roosevelt’s New Nationalism.  In the campaign at least, he spoke in evangelical tones of economic emancipation, not being trapped by big business.

Roosevelt and Wilson stood closer together than their rhetoric implied.  Roosevelt, despite his regulatory stance, believed as strongly in individual freedom.  Wilson was not really hostile to concentrated power.  Both men strongly supported equality of opportunity (chiefly for white males), conservation of natural resources, fair wages, and social betterment of all classes.  And neither would hesitate to expand the scope of government through strong personal leadership and bureaucratic reform. Thus, even though he was a minority president, Wilson interpreted the results as a popular mandate to subdue trusts and broaden the federal government’s role in social reform.

Woodrow Wilson never was held in the same affection as Teddy Roosevelt by the public.  He was born to a Presbyterian minister in 1856 in the South.  Instead of the church, he decided to become an academic earning a B.A. from Princeton, law degree at VA, and Ph.D from Hopkins, eventually becoming a professor of history, jurisprudence, and political economy.  Between 1885 and 1908 he published several books on American history and government that established him as a respected scholar.

He did not exude any of TR’s flamboyance.  Wilson sermonized rather than lectured like Roosevelt.  He was superb orator and effective and charismatic leader.  His eloquence utilized religious imagery to give a picture of American idealism.  His convictions led him to reform.  In 1902, he became president of Princeton where he battled traditionalists in changing the curriculum. In 1910, he became the Democratic candidate for governor in NJ. When he won, he broke from the party’s political bosses and pushed progressive reform.  Though his anger did not allow him to compromise, his accomplishments attracted national attention and won him the Democratic nomination in 1912.

As president, he found it necessary blend elements of the New Freedom commitment to competition with that of New Nationalism regulation and in doing so he set the direction of federal economic policy for much of the 20^th century.  The corporate merger movement had proceeded so far that restoration of free competition proved impossible.  Thus Wilson could only acknowledge economic concentration and try to prevent abuses through regulation.  His administration pushed the Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) and a bill creating the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  The Clayton Act extended the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 by outlawing quasi-monopolistic practices like price discrimination and interlocking directorates (management of two or more competing companies by the same executive).  The FTC was to investigate corporations and issue cease-and-desist orders for unfair trade practices.  As in the ICC rulings, the companies could appeal in court, but the FTC was another step. 

Wilson broadened the federal regulation of finance with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which established the nation’s first central banking system since Andrew Jackson had destroyed the Second Bank of the U.S. in 1832.  Twelve new district banks were created to hold the reserves of member banks in the nation.  The district banks would loan money to member banks at a low interest rate called the discount rate. By adjusting this rate (and thus the amount of money a bank could afford to borrow), district banks could increase or decrease the amount of money in circulation.  In other words, depending on the nation’s needs, the reserve bank could loosen or tighten credit.  Monetary affairs would no longer depend on the supply of gold, and interest rates would be fairer, especially for small borrowers. 

Perhaps the only act of Wilson’s first administration that promoted free competition was the Underwood tariff (1913).  Because of high tariffs, many consumers had no enjoyed the benefits of an industrial society because the importation of cheaper foreign goods was discouraged.  The tariff encouraged imports by drastically reducing or eliminating tariffs.  To replace revenue collected from the tariffs, the act levied a graduated income tax on U.S. residents—an option possibly when the 16^th Amendment was ratified earlier that year.  It was rather tame.  All salaries below $4000 were exempt thus excluding factory workers and farmers.  Between 4000 and 20000 had to pay 1 percent and rates rose higher gradually reaching a maximum at 6 percent for all income over 500,000.  Such rates tore no holes in the pockets of the rich and the income tax become an institutional feature of American life. 

The outbreak of WWI and election of 1916 made Wilson propose stronger reforms.  He supported the Federal Farm Loan Act, which created twelve federally supported banks that lent money at a moderate interest to farmers who belonged to credit institutions—like the subtreasury plan.  He also pushed passage of the Adamson Act, which mandated an eight-hour work day and time-and-a-half pay for railroad workers to avoid a major strike.  He supported of a Jew, Louis Brandeis, a strong advocate of progressive reform to the Supreme Court.  He also courted reformers by providing laws that outlawed child labor and provided workers comp for federal employees who suffered work-related illness or injury.

In the election of 1916, the Republicans ran Charles Evens Hughes over TR.  Wilson ran on a platform of peace, progressivism, and on the slogan “He kept Us out of war.”  The Republicans could not muzzle TR who spoke of going to war and gave the impression that was the goal of the Rep.   Wilson barely won the electoral vote but the Socialist party was hurt even more because many socialists had been won over by Wilson’s reforms and the ailing Eugene Debs was not the party’s standard-bearer anymore. 

U.S. involvement in WWI during Wilson’ second term brought about a shift away from competition toward interest-group politics and government regulation.  During his first term, Wilson had become convinced that regulatory boards should not govern social and economic behavior.  They same commissions could easily be corrupted by special interests.   The war effort, he came to believe, required government coordination of production and cooperation between the public and private sectors.  After the war, Wilson dropped most cooperative and regulatory measures, including farm price supports, guarantees of collective bargaining, and high taxes.  This move would stimulate the ascendance of business in the 1920s.

The Progressive Era brought about social awareness in all aspects of society and changed government interaction completely. Though reforms were not always successful or complete, the awareness of the haves and the have-nots created a new society that shaped what America represented throughout the 20^th century.

World War One:

The war that erupted in August 1914 grew from years of European competition over trade, colonies, allies, and armaments. Two powerful alliances had formed: the triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy and the Triple Entente of Britain, France, and Russia.  All had imperial holdings and ambitions for more, but Germany seemed particularly bold as it rivaled Britain for world leadership.  Americans saw Germany as a threat to U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere and viewed them an excessively militaristic people who embraced autocracy.

Strategists said Europe enjoyed a balance of power but series of crises in the Balkans started a chain of events and propelled European nations into battle.  Slavic nationalists sought to enlarge Serbia but annexing Bosnia (Austria-Hungary).  In June 1914, at Sarajevo, the heir to the Austria-Hungary throne was assassinated by the Slavs. Germany reccomended toughness with the Serbians and Serbia looked to their Russian allies for help who looked to France.  In late July, Austria-Hungary declared was against Serbia, on the grounds that the Serbian government tolerated anti-Austrian terrorists.  Russia then began to mobilize its armies. 

Germany—having goaded A-H into war and certain was coming o Berlin—struck first on Aug 1^st in Russia and two days later in France.  The British hesitated but when Germany slashed through Belgium to get at France, the British declared war on August 4^th. Turkey joined Germany and A-H (Central Powers) and Japan and Italy teamed with Britain, France, and Russia (Allies).  Japan took advantage of the European war to seize Germany’s Chinese sphere of influence.

Wilson sought to distance the country by issuing a proclamation of neutrality—the traditional U.S. Policy towards European wars.  He also asked Americans to refrain from taking sides.  His ideals of neutrality collided at home with three realities. 1. Ethnic groups in the U.S. naturally took sides. Many German-American and Irish-americans supported the Central powers.  Others rooted for the other side.

2^nd, U.S. economic links with the Allies rendered neutrality impossible.  Britain was one of America’s chief customers. Now the British flooded the U.S. with orders for products.  Sales to the Allies pulled America out of a recession.  Between 1914 and 1916, American exports to Britain and France grew 365 percent. Exports to Germany in the same period dropped 90 percent. Much of the trade with the Allies was financed through loans from private American banks. These loans totaled 2.3 billion to the Allies, Germany 27 million.  Wilson frowned on this but he saw it was vital for America’s economic health.  From the German’s perspective, this showed America was on the side of the Allies. Yet, cutting ties with Britain would be seen as an unneutral act in favor of Germany. Under international law, Britain could buy contraband and noncontraband from neutral countries. It was Germany’s responsibility to stop such trade in a way that international law prescribed—that is, by an effective blockade of the enemy’s territory, by the seizure of contraband from neutral ships, or by the confiscation of contraband from belligerent ships.  Germans judged U.S. trade as unneutral.

3^rd, Wilson’s pro-Allied sympathies.  At his wife’s dying bed, he drafted a message offering a U.S. mediation to end the war on Aug. 4, 1914.  Two days later she died.  He soon received a letter from the British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey who had lost his wife.  Wilson replied, “that we are bound together by common principle and purpose.” He was not only talking about their tragedies but also the shared conviction that a German victory would destroy free enterprise and government by law.

The President and his advisors felt his principles stood a better chance of acceptance if Britian won the war.  Wilsonianism—the cluster of ideas Wilson espoused—consisted of traditional American principles and an evolving ideology of internationalism whose central tenet was that the U.S. had become such a special nation that it could best lead world affairs into a new, peaceful era.  Wilson’s world would be open in every sense: no barriers to commerce, no impediments to democratic politics, no secret diplomatic deals.  Empires would be dismantled to allow self-determination.  He wanted also free-market nonexploitative capitalism.  His critics said he violated his own principles by forcing them on others.  All agreed, however, that these principles best served America best.  In this way, idealism and realism were married. 

He also articulated American exceptionalism. Blended with pragmatism, he wanted to bring American progressive thought to the world, even if it meant using military intervention.  Therefore, it is impossible to say that America was ever neutral.

Americans got caught in the Allied-Central Power crossfires.  British naval policy was designed to sever neutral trade with Germany in order to cripple the German economy .  the British declared a blockade of entrances to Germany and mined the North Sea.  They also harassed neutral ships by seizing cargoes and defined a broad list of contraband.  That prohibited neutrals from shipping to Germany.  Furthermore, to counter German u-boats, the British flouted international law by arming their merchant ships and flying neutral flags.  Wilson frequently protested British violations but London deftly defused American criticism by paying for confiscated cargoes and German provocations made British behavior appear less offensive. Germans frustrated by the British actions looked to victory at sea with submarines.  In Fed, 1915, German declared a war zone around the British Isles.  All enemy ships there would be sunk.  Neutral vessels were told t stay out so not to be mistaken and sunk.  Neutral citizens were asked to stay off Allies ships.  Nevertheless, the Germans began to sink vessels. Wilson complained arguing that law said that attacking ships had to warn merchant or passenger ship before attacking to allow passenders to get on lifeboats.  These laws predated submarines and the Germans complained that surfacing would deny U-boats the element of surprise and for their easy destruction (flimsy). The naval crisis would become life and death.

War for America:

Over the next few months the U-boats sank ship after ship.  In May 1915, the swift, luxurious British passenger liner Lusitania left NY carrying twelve hundred passengers and a cargo of food and contraband, including 4.2 million rounds of amo.  Before her departure, the newspapers printed an unusual announcement from the German embassy that travelers on British vessels were warned that Allied ships were liable for destruction.  Few passengers paid attention.  On Mat 7, off the irish coast, submarine U-20 unleashed torpedoes at the vessel.  The ship sank quickly, taking 1, 198 people, 128 Americans included.

Despite its cargo, Wilson said that it was a brutal assault on innocent people.  But he ruled out a military response.  Sec. Of State, William Jennings Bryan advised that Americans be prohibited from travel on belligerent ships.  The president rejected his counsel, insisting on the right of Americans to sail on any ship and demanding that Germany cease its inhumane submarine warfare. Bryan would resign in protest to Wilson’s refusal to ban Americans from belligerent ships.  From this point, Wilson’s attitude towards the German would harden.  Germany, seeking to avoid war with the U.S., told its U-boats to stop attacking passenger liners.  But in mid-august, another British vessel, the Arabic, was sunk and two Americans were killed.  It raised the debate on what to do, particularly that only three Americans died on American ships but 190 on belligerent ships.  Relations on both sides were becoming more strained at three more Americans were injured in a U-boat attack of the coast of France with Wilson threatening to sever tied with Berlin and with the British over their constriction of American trade with the Central Powers and their treatment of the Irish.

As the United States became more entangled in the Great War, many Americans urged Wilson to keep the nation out of conflict.  In late 1915, some pacifist progressives organized an antiwar coalition, the American Union Against Militarism.  Women Suffragists organized the Woman’s Peace Party.  Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford spent money in these organizations promoting peace.  In addition, socialists like Deb lent their voice to the peace talk.

The various messages of these antiwar advocates were that war drained a nation of its youth, resources, and impulse for reform; that it fostered a repressive spirit at home; that it violated Christian morality; and that wartime barons reaped huge benefits at the expense of the people. These people wanted America to stay out of war at all costs and even Wilson ran on a 1916 peace platform hoping to convince the European countries at war to reach a peace without victory.

In early Feb, 1917, Germany launched unrestricted submarine warfare.  All vessels would attack if sighted in the declared war zone.  The bold decision represented a calculated risk that submarines would impede U.S. munitions shipments to England and thus defeat the Allies before American troops could be ferried across the Atlantic. Wilson quickly broke diplomatic relations with Berlin. 

The German challenge to American neutral rights and economic interests were soon followed by a threat to U.S. security. British intelligence intercepted, decoded, and passed to American officials a telegram from the German foreign Security Arthur Zimmerman to the German minister in Mexico.  The minister promised to the Mexican government help in regaining all land lost in the Mexican War in 1848 and the addition of some western states if they joined in a military alliance against the U.S. He hoped to keep the Americans busy on their side of the world. 

American officials took this message seriously because Mexican-American relations had not been good.  The Mexican Revolution, a bloody civil war with strong anti-American overtones, threatened U.S. interests when the Mexican government began to take steps at nationalization of extensive American owned property.  Wilson had twice ordered American troops onto Mexican soil.  (Pershing chasing Pancho Villa)The nationalistic Mexican president, Carranza, demanded the U.S. depart, as they did in Jan. 1917 at American attention grew to entering the war in Europe.  Wilson saw Zimmerman’s Telegram as a conspiracy against the U.S.

Soon after the telegram, Wilson asked Congress for “armed neutrality.” He requested authority to arm American merchant ships and to employ other methods necessary.  In the midst of the debate, he released the telegram to the public. Americans expressed outrage.  Congress still saw his asking as a blank check to start war and they filibustered.  He proceeded to arm despite this but the action came too late as some American ships were sunk.  On April 2, 1917 the president stepped in front of Congress to ask for a declaration of war.  He called for the Americans to protect democracy in the world.  Congress quickly declared war against Germany by a vote of 373 to 50 in the House and 82 to 6 in the Senate. 

Wilson declared that America go to war for principle, for morality, for reform, for honor, for commerce, and for security.  He said the reason that forced American involvement was the U-Boat.  Critics like Bryan and La Follette saw Americans descent into war through Wilson strict reading of international law, his politics as unneutral.  They lost the debate however.  Americans felt that the Germans needed to be checked for an open and orderly world in which American principles and interests could be safe. 

In the broadest sense, America went to war to reform world politics, not to destroy Germany.  Wilson was convinced that America could not claim a place at the peace table unless they entered the war.  In the end, he decided for war to gain an American-fashioned peace based on Wilsonian principles.

Taking up arms and Winning the war:

When broke out in Europe, Wilson took steps to prepare the army.  He had the National Defense Act passed in 1916, which provided for increases in the army and National Guard.  The Navy Act also began to boost up the navy.  The government accomplished this by passing the Revenue Act of 1916 placing higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations.  

To raise an army after the declaration, Congress in May 1917 passed the Selective Service Act, requiring all males of ages between 20 and 30 (later 18 and 45) to register.  The draft would prepare an army but also impose democratic principles.  By June 5, more than 9.5 million men had registered and by the war’s end, 24 million.  More than 4.8 million served with 2 million in France.  Approximately 3 million evaded draft registration.  Most were never discovered.  Hundreds of thousand also decided to enlist, rather than be drafted. 

The typical American soldier—21-23, white, single, and poorly educated, 18% foreign born, 400,000 African-American.  Camp life-demanding. 17^th hour days of training, ate well but slept on straw mattresses.  Never enough weapons to go around, so some trained without them. Many were ignorant of why they were fighting so U.S. officials put copies of Wilson’s speech in their backpacks. Army officials also tried to rid the soldiers of vice speaking out about saloons and sex.  Jim Crowism existed with many politicians opposing the draft of blacks.  The NAACP and Du Bois urged blacks to join the fight in the hope that the war would make the world safe for democracy but also blur the color line at home. Instead blacks experienced discrimination every step they took.  Segregated camp facilities, discouraged blacks from being officers, assigned blacks to menial positions. Constantly harassed, African-American troops in Houston retaliated killing fourteen whites.  19 blacks were executed.

In Europe, Gen. John Pershing, the head of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), insisted that his troops remain an independent army.  He was not about to put his “doughboys”—called by the French for being so clean—under the leadership of Allied commanders who had been wedded to deadly trench warfare.  This had produced a military stalemate and ghastly casualties.  Concept of trench warfare with “no man’s land”, use of machine guns, chlorine gas.  Little was ever gained.  At the Battle of the Somme in 1916 the British and French suffered 600,000 dead or wounded to earn 150 square miles; the German lost 500,000 men.

The influx of American men and material decided the outcome of the war. With both sides exhausted, America tipped the balance to the Allies.  Americans did not actually engage in much combat until after the lull of fighting in the winter if 1917-1918.  The Germans launched a major offensive in March 1918 knocking Russia out of the war (The Russian Revolution contributed) and shifted troops to France.  By May, the German’s were within 50 miles of Paris.  U.S. marines came in and blunt the German attack in almost sacrificial frontal assaults against German machine guns at a series of battles at Cantigny and Chateau-Thierry.  After this costly victory, the AEF adapted to the change in warfare.  They also quickly experienced the horrors of war and many suffered shell shock.  Helping these men were 10,000 Red Cross nurses and literary figures such as Hemingway served as ambulance drivers. What devastated the Army the worst were venereal disease that infected more than 15 % of all Americans troops.  The Army responded with education and even court martial to stop the problem.

Allied victory in the 2^nd Battle of the Marne in July 1918 seemed to turn the tide against the German.  In Sept, French and American forces took St. Mihiel and the Allies began the massive Meuse-Argonne offensive.  More than 1 million Americans joined British and French troops in weeks of fierce combat made all the more difficult by cold, rainy weather.  More than 26,000 American died before the Allies claimed the Argonne Forest on Oct. 10, 1918.  For Germany, its ground war was in shambles, its troops and cities mutinous, and its aliies Turkey and Austria dropping out, peace was imperative.  The Germans accepted an armistice on Nov. 11, 1918.

The belligerents counted awesome casualties.  8 million soldiers and 6.6 mil civilians and 21.3 mil wounded dead. 50,000 Americans died in battle and another 62,000 by disease many from the influenza pandemic (40 million in world).

For the surviving doughboys, the army years were memorable, a turning point in their lives. They shed some of their parochialism, their localism.

President Wilson welcomed the armistice, not only because it ended the bloodshed but because it was signed on his terms.  The combatants agreed that the president’s Fourteen Points, enunciated in Jan, would lead the peace talks.  The Allies initially balked but Wilson scared them into acceptance by threatening a separate peace with Germany.  The 14 points summarized Wilson’s internationalism.  The first five called for diplomacy “in the public view,” freedom of the seas, lower tariffs, reductions in armaments, and the decolonization of empires.  The next eight points specified the evacuation of foreign troops from Russia, Belgium, and France and appealed for self-determination for nations in Europe. For Wilson the fourteenth point was the most important—the mechanism for achieving all the others, to create the League of Nations.  Having won the war, the resolute Wilson set out to win peace and build a stable world order in accordance with American principles.

War on the Homefront:

During the war, government and big business worked very closely in order to produce enough for the country.  As a consequence, big business became much bigger.  Further, government became bigger as new agencies were created to maintain order and production.  For example, as strikes threatened the telephone and telegram compansies, the federal government seized and ran them.  The largest of these superagencies was the War Industrial Board (WIB) and it was designed as a clearing-house to coordinate the national economy, the WIB made purchases, allocated supplies, and fixed prices at levels that business requested.  It also standardized goods to save material.  The performance was mized for organizations like this with massive increases in production like in steel and the failed arrival of quotas like in coal through a bloated bureaucracy.

Organized labor sought a partnership with the government as well but its gains were far less spectacular. Labor gained through the full-employment wartime economy with increased earnings. Yet, the higher cost of living through inflation brought little improvement to economic condition.  For unions, the war seemed to offer opportunities for recognition and better pay.  Samuel Gompers threw the AFL’s loyalty to Wilson promising to deter strikes.  He and others were awarded positions to work labor disputes and forbade strikes and lockouts.  Union membership climbed from 2.6 million in 1916 to more than 4 million in 1919.  The AFL could not curb strikes by the more radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or rebellious AFL locals, especially those with antiwar socialists.  In the 19 moth war, six thousand strikes expressed work discount.

As more than 16% of the male population went to war and immigration dropped off, women filled vacancies in the workforce.  Although it was a moderate gain of women in the labor force, it was the move into male dominated realms that was significant.  At least 20% of all workers in wartime industries were women.  As white women took these opportunities, black women took old white women positions. Overall, most women stayed in female orientated jobs though.  With the war’s end, women would lose most of the gains made.  Women participated in the war effort in other ways.  As volunteers, they prepared nurses in the Red Cross.  Organizations like the Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense brought together women at all levels in promoting government mobilization campaigns, encouraged home gardens, sponsored drives to sell Liberty Bonds, and pushed for social walfare.  This patriotic work helped push 19^th Amendment.

This period also saw southern blacks migrate to northern cities to work in industry.  Between 1910 and 1920, the black population in Cleveland-300%, Detriot-600%, and Chicago-150%.  All told, about a half-million moved to the North.  Most were male—young, unmarried, and skilled or semiskilled.  Provided an escape for low wages, sharecropping, tenancy, crop liens, debt peonage, floods, lynchings, and political disenfranchisement. But new opportunity did not erase racism.  Lynchings actually increased during the war and the Klan was reborn in the mid-teens. Between 1914 and 1920, 382 blacks were lynched, some in military uniform.  Riots occurred in northern cities when many blacks returned.  Some Americans concluded social reform was needed at home before it could be done abroad.  For blacks, the war, one for democracy, had changed little at home.

Trampling on Civil Liberties:

“Woe be to the man that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution,” warned President Wilson.  As a result, an official and unofficial campaign to silence dissenters began.  This “americanziation” crusade cut a gaping wound into American democracy.  Civil liberties were trampled.  All who opposed the war were targets of abuse. 

Shortly after the declaration of war in 1917, the president set up the Committee on Public Information (CPI).  Employing some of the nation’s writers and scholars, the CPI set out to shape American opinion.  The committee urged the press to practice self-censorship and encourage people to spy on their neighbors. 

The Wilson Administration also guided through an obliging Congress the Espionage  Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918).  The first forbade “false statements” to impede the draft or promote military insubordination and banned from the mail materials considered treasonous. The Sedition Act made it unlawfully to obstruct the sale of war bond sand to use disloyal or abusive language against the government, Constitution, and flag.  With a loose interpretation, the Justice Department went about arresting people.  Eugene Debs was arrested for giving a speech extolling socialism and criticizing Wilson.  Receiving a ten year sentence in 1918, he was released in 1921.  Informal mobs also formed to attack those who protested.  The government did not provide protection and the Supreme Court even defended the constitutionality of these acts. (In war, 1^st Amendment could be restricted) Many agreed in the end that the Wilson administration compiled one of the worst civil liberties records in American history.

The Red Scare was a result of the fear brought on by the war but also the radicalism of the war’s end.  It was greatly a response to pro-Bolshevik dissenters.  When the new Russian government made peace with Germany in early 1918 under Lenin, Americans grew angry with the closing of the eastern front.  Many lashed out at American radicals labeling all red.  Wilson went as far to send troops to Russia under false pretensions to attempt to crush the infant Bolshevik government.  He also participated in blockades of Russian ports in order to create riots against the Russian government. He also refused to recognize the Bolshevik government.  At the Paris Peace conference, Russia was denied a seat.  These interventions in civil-war-torn Russia, troops did not leave Siberia until spring 1920, immediately embittered Washington-Moscow relations—legacy that would persist deep into the 20^th century.  At home, the Wilson Administration moved against radicals and other imprecisely defined Bolsheviks or Communists.  The creation of the Comintern made matters worse.

A rash of labor strikes in 1919 sparked the Red Scare.  All told, 4 million laborers jolted the nation.  Strike leaders were considered radicals and were arrested.  The Socialist Party was fragmented in the reaction and the Communist Labor Party in 1919 was founded with the American Communist Party the next.  Then never drew great numbers but they did frighten the public.  The American Legion also formed to counteract these radical actions. Initially a lobby for veterans’ rights, the legion preached for American conformity and against the evils of communism that led to the Red Scare.

Wilson’s attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer also insisted on American conformity.  A progressive reformer, a Quaker, and an aspirant to the 1920 Democratic presidential nomination, Palmer claimed that “the blaze of revolution” was destroying the American way of life.  To stamp out the radical fire, Palmer created a new Bureau of Investigation and appointed J. Edgar Hoover to run it.  He had just two years previously joined the Justice Department.  The ambitious official compiled index cards bearing the names of allegedly radical individuals and organizations.  During 1919, agents jailed members of the IWW and deported alien radicals to Soviet Russia. 

Again, state and local governments took their cue from Washington.  States passed sedition acts which led to the arrest of hundreds. Vigilante and mobs flourished with arrival of troops from Europe.  The Red Scare reached its climax in January of 1920 when the attorney general staged his Palmer Raids.  Using Hoover’s files, government agents in thirty three cities broke into meeting halls and homes without search warrants.  More than four thousand people were jailed and denied council. In Boston, some four hundred were detained on cold Deer Island with two dying of pneumonia and two committed suicide.  Eventually most were released, some six hundred were deported.  Eventually Palmer’s violation of civil liberties bothered Wilson’s administration particularly to his growing fear of a Bolshevik revolution in the U.S. Nevertheless, the end of Wilson’s presidency is tarnished partially by these violations.

The Peace Conference, League of Nations and Postwar World:

As the Red Scare threatened American democracy, W. Wilson was struggling to make his 14 points a reality.  He faced both a challenge domestically as well as abroad on the issue.  Americans had elected a Republican Congress in 1918 in response to high inflation thus making a situation in which a treaty had to be passed by a hostile legislative body and lowering Wilson’s stature in the eyes of foreign leaders. He made his situation by not naming a Republican to accompany him to Paris or consult with Senate Foreign Relations committee. 

Further, the Allies wanted to impose a harsh, vengeful peace on the Germans against Wilson’s wishes.  Georges Clemenceau of France, David Llloyd George of Britian, and Vittorio Orlando—with Wilson, the Big Four—became formidable adversaries.  They had made secret treaties with each other breaking up Germany.  They scoffed at the headstrong, pious Wilson. 

The Paris Peace Conference held at Versailles were a meeting of the titans held behind closed doors.  Critics said that Wilson had already abandoned his first point.  The victors demanded that Germany pay huge reparations.  Wilson called for a small indemnity, fearing that a resentful and economically hobbled Germany might turn to Bolshevism or disrupt the postwar community in another war. (Just became fascist and nazi)Unable to moderate this position, he gave in agreeing to a clause blaming the war on Germany and to the creation of a commission to determine the amount of reparations (33 billion).

As for empire breaking and self-determination, wilson delivered very little.  Most vital, breaking up of austria Hungary into austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.  Japan was given Germany colonies in the East and Wilson helped create buffer zone of new westward-looking nations (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania around Russia to quarantine the Bolshevik contagion.

Wilson worked hardest for the charter for the League of Nations.  In the long run, he believed it could moderate the harshness placed on the Germans and temper imperial tendencies.  The League reflected the power of large nations like the United States: it consisted of influential council of five permanent members and elected delegates from smaller states, an assembly of all members, and a World Court.  The main aim of the organization was to counteract aggression. The charter became part of the peace treaty.

Initially the German reps. Refused to accept it but ultimately signed it in June 1919. In so doing, they gave up 13% territory, 10 % population, and a huge portion of wealth. Many wondered if the League could survive in such a poisoned postwar atmosphere but Wilson was convinced of its success.

Americans vigorously debated the treaty.  U.S. senators, 39 and an adequate numbers to stop the passage of the treaty, questioned if the League protected American interests.  Wilson was angered but adapted changes in the charter not allowing intervention on issues like the Monroe Doctrine and domestic events. 

There were greater criticism of Wilson who allowed Japanses imperialism, killed a provision calling for racial equality in the world, no mention of tariffs or freedom of the seas. The discussions were in private and reparations too high. For many, Wilson had allowed his points to fall apart just to keep the fourteenth.  He argued back saying compromise was needed in this time. 

In sept 1919, Wilson embarked on a speaking tour of the U.S. to convince the public of the treaty’s importance.  Exhausted and heckled, he used Red Scare terms to address his enemies.  In Colorado, he passed out at a speech.  A few days later in Washington, he suffered a stroke that paralyzed his left side.  He quickly became incapable of his position but still demanded the treaty’s passage. Twice in November, the Senate rejected the treaty.  Had Wilson permitted Democrats to compromise—to accept reservations—he could have achieved his fervent goal of U.S. membership in the League of Nations.

The root of the reason why Wilson did not compromise is based more on American foreign policy rather than his vanity, he had plenty of room to compromise but refused.  The basic issue was whether the United States would endorse collective security or continue to travel the path of unilateralism articulated in Washington’s Farewell Address and in the Monroe Doctrine.  Americans did not want to be bound to imperialist states unwilling to subordinate their selfish acquisitive ambitions to an international organization.

In the end, Wilson failed to create a new world order through reform.  Yet, america emerged out a greater power than before.  By 1920, U.S. world’s leading economic power, producing 40% coal, 70% petroleum, and half of pig iron.  American business also expanded overseas like Goodyear (rubber). 

The disillusionment widespread after the failure of the Versailles caused the U.S. to adopt a policy of isolationist withdrawal. The League of Nation started up without U.S. membership, though Americans participated sometimes on an informal level.  But in general Americans stayed out of Europe affairs. Americans also sought to bring professionalism to the military and researched forms of national defense.

The international system born in these years was unstable and allowed for leaders like Ho Chi Minh of Indochina and Gandhi to call for independence.  Communism became a disruptive force in the world.  Germany and the smaller states formed remained very unstable in the period following.  Wilson’s world of order did not become a reality and this lack of reality within a decade would lead to greater crises.

Thus World War One changed the world by ending the desire for reform, for progressivism.  But the world did not change as drastically as some would have desired.