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diff --git a/29850.txt b/29850.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a020498 --- /dev/null +++ b/29850.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4962 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Woodrow Wilson's Administration and +Achievements, by Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements + + +Author: Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan + + + +Release Date: August 29, 2009 [eBook #29850] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOODROW WILSON'S ADMINISTRATION +AND ACHIEVEMENTS*** + + +E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Michael, and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 29850-h.htm or 29850-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29850/29850-h/29850-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29850/29850-h.zip) + + + + + +WOODROW WILSON'S ADMINISTRATION AND ACHIEVEMENTS + + + Americanism + + Patriotism consists in some very practical things--practical in + that they belong to the life of every day, that they wear no + extraordinary distinction about them, that they are connected with + commonplace duty. The way to be patriotic in America is not only to + love America, but to love the duty that lies nearest to our hand + and know that in performing it we are serving our country.--_From + President Wilson's Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July + 14, 1914._ + + +WOODROW WILSON'S ADMINISTRATION AND ACHIEVEMENTS + +_Being a Compilation from the Newspaper +Press of Eight Years of the World's +Greatest History, particularly as +Concerns America, Its +People and their +Affairs_ + +by + +FRANK B. LORD and JAMES WILLIAM BRYAN + + + + + + + +James William Bryan Press +Washington, D.C. + +Copyright, 1921 +by +Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan + +All Rights Reserved + + + + +CONTENTS + + + _Page_ + +AMERICANISM--From President Wilson's Independence Hall Address, +Philadelphia, July, 1914 2 + +HISTORY'S PROVING GROUND 7-8 + +PORTRAIT in typophotogravure of President Wilson at America's +Entry in the War--_Charcoal Sketch by Hattie E. Burdette_ 10 + +WOODROW WILSON'S ADMINISTRATION--Eight Years of the World's +Greatest History--_Courtesy of the New York Times_ 11-69 + +EARLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF ADMINISTRATION 15 + +FOREIGN POLICIES, 1913-1914 22 + +LANDMARKS IN MEXICAN POLICY 23 + +APPEALS FOR MEDIATION 30 + +THE EUROPEAN WAR, 1914-1916 30 + +FEDERAL RESERVE--From President Wilson's Address to +Congress, April, 1913 31 + +TYPOPHOTOGRAVURE of Governor Woodrow Wilson and Joseph P. Tumulty +with Newspaper Men, 1912 32 + +SENATOR GLASS ON WOODROW WILSON, 1921--_Courtesy of the New York +Times_ 36 + +PERSONAL MESSAGES TO CONGRESS from President Wilson's First +Address to Congress, April 8, 1913 39 + +TYPOPHOTOGRAVURE of President Wilson Reading First Message to +Congress, April 8, 1913 40 + +MEDIATION EFFORTS, 1916-1917 43 + +HAMILTON HOLT'S TRIBUTE 44 + +UNITED STATES IN THE WAR 46 + +RURAL CREDITS from President Wilson's Remarks on Signing +Bill, July, 1916 48 + +TYPOPHOTOGRAVURE of the President in 1918 50 + +THE FOURTEEN POINTS 58-59 + +PEACE CONFERENCE AND TREATY, 1919 61 + +THE CLOSING YEAR, 1920-1921 66 + +CARTOON--The Founders of the League of Nations, _by Baldbridge +in the Stars and Stripes_ 70 + +VERSE--Beware of Visions, _by Alfred Noyes_ 70 + +POEM--In Flanders Fields, _by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrea_ 71 + +POEM--America's Answer, _by R. W. Lillard._--_Courtesy of +New York Evening Post_ 71 + +SONNETS--Recessional _by Richard Linthicum--Courtesy of the +New York World_ 72 + +WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION--From President Wilson's Speech of +Acceptance, 1916 73 + +TYPOPHOTOGRAVURE of Portrait of President Wilson at Peace +Conference, _by George W. Harris_ 74 + +WOODROW WILSON'S PLACE IN HISTORY--An Appreciation by General +The Right Honorable Jan Christian Smuts, 1921 75-79 + +CARTOON--Without the Advice or Consent of the Senate, _by Kirby +in the New York World_ 80 + +WE DIE WITHOUT DISTINCTION--From the President's Address at +Swarthmore College, 1913 80 + +WOODROW WILSON--An Interpretation--_Courtesy of the New York +World_ 81-93 + +TYPOPHOTOGRAVURE of the President on Board Ship Returning +from Peace Conference 87 + +THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEACE TREATY 87 + +TYPOPHOTOGRAVURE of the President at the Last Meeting with +his Cabinet, 1921 88 + +TWO PICTURES--From Address by Joseph P. Tumulty 88 + +THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 93-100 + + + + +HISTORY'S PROVING GROUND + + +The modern newspaper through its intensive, minute and zealous +activities in searching out, presenting and interpreting each day the +news of the entire world, is tracing with unerring accuracy the true +and permanent picture of the present. This picture will endure as +undisputed history for all time. + +Let us concede that the newspaper writer sometimes, in the passion of +the hour, goes far afield. It is equally true that no statement of +importance can thus be made that is not immediately challenged, +answered and reanswered until, through the fierce fires of controversy +the dross is burned away and the gold of established fact remains. Not +alone the fact stands out, but also the world's immediate reaction to +that fact, the psychology of the event and the man dominating the cause +and the effect. + +The modern newspaper is the proving ground of history. To illustrate +let us suppose that our newspaper press, as we know it today, had +existed in Shakespeare's time. Would there now be any controversy over +the authorship of the world's greatest dramas? + +Could the staff photographer of a Sunday supplement as efficient as one +of our present day corps have snapped Mohammed in his tent and a keen +reporter of today's type questioned him as to his facts and data, would +not all of us now be Mohammedans or Mohammed be forgot? Had such +newspapers as ours followed Washington to Valley Forge and gone with +him to meet Cornwallis, would the father of his country be most +intimately remembered through the cherry tree episode? Consider the +enlightenment which would have been thrown upon the pages of history +had a corps of modern newspaper correspondents reported the meeting of +John and the Barons at Runnymede or accompanied Columbus on his voyages +of discovery. + +Would not even Lincoln be more vivid in our minds and what we really +know of him not so shrouded in anecdote and story? + +In Washington's time America became a Nation. In Lincoln's time our +country was united and made one. In Wilson's time our Nation received +recognition as the greatest of the world powers. It remained, however, +for Wilson alone to reach the highest pinnacle of international +prominence in the face of the pitiless cross fires of today's newspaper +press. Yet this inquisition, often more than cruel, was not without its +constructive value, for it has searched out every fact and established +every truth beyond the successful attack of any future denial. + +This little volume--the first perhaps of its kind concerning any man or +event--presents with no further word of its compilers a summary of +Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements--eight years of the +world's greatest history--taken entirely from the newspaper press. + +It contains not one statement that has not been accurately weighed in +the critical scales of controversy. Its object is simply to present the +truth and have this truth early in the field so that the political +canard which was so shamelessly indulged in during the close of the +Wilson Administration may not be crystalized in the public mind and +cloud for a time the glorious luster of his name. + +It shall be as Maximilian Harden, the keenest thinker of the defeated +Germans said: "Only one conqueror's work will endure--Wilson's +thought." + +FRANK B. LORD and OPEN COVENANTS + + +[Illustration: (C) _James Wm. Bryan_ + March 5, 1916: Portrait of Mr. Wilson drawn in charcoal + by Miss Hattie E. Burdett, and considered by many as the + President's best likeness at the entrance of America + into the World War] + + + + +_Woodrow Wilson's Administration_ + +_Eight Years of the World's Greatest History_ + + +Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office as President on March 4, 1913, +after one of the most sweeping triumphs ever known in Presidential +elections. Factional war in the Republican Party had given him 435 +electoral votes in the preceding November, to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's +8; and though he was a "minority President," he had had a popular +plurality of more than 2,000,000 over Roosevelt and nearly 3,000,000 +over Taft. + +Moreover, the party which was coming back into control of the +Government after sixteen years of wandering in the wilderness had a +majority of five in the Senate and held more than two-thirds of the +seats in the lower house. With the opposition divided into two wings, +which hated each other at the moment more than they hated the +Democrats, the party seemed to have a fairly clear field for the +enactment of those sweeping reforms which large elements of the public +had been demanding for more than a decade. + +With this liberalism, which was not disturbed at being called +radicalism, Mr. Wilson in his public career had been consistently +identified. During his long service as a university professor and +President he had been brought to the attention of a steadily growing +public by his books and speeches on American political problems, in +which he had spoken the thoughts which in those years were in the minds +of millions of Americans on the need for reforms to lessen those +contacts between great business interests and the Government which had +existed, now weaker and now stronger, ever since the days of Mark +Hanna. + +The ideas of Mr. Wilson as to governmental reform, to be sure, went +further than those of many of his followers, and took a different +direction from the equally radical notions of others. An avowed admirer +of the system of government which gives to the Cabinet the direction of +legislation and makes it responsible to the Legislature and the people +for its policies, he had been writing for years on the desirability of +introducing some of the elements of that system into the somewhat rigid +framework of the American Government, and in his brief experience in +politics had put into practice his theory that the Executive, even +under American constitutional forms, not only could but should be the +active director of the policy of the dominant party in legislation as +well. But a public addicted to hero worship, little concerned with +questions of governmental machinery, and inclined to believe that +certain parts of the work of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had +been accomplished under divine inspiration, had comparatively little +interest in the Wilson concepts of reform in political methods. They +regarded him, in the language of those days, as a champion of the +"plain people" against "the interests." They had seen in his long +struggle with antagonistic influences in Princeton University--a +struggle from which he retired defeated, but made famous and prepared +for wider fields by the publicity which he had won by the conflict--a +sort of miniature representation of this antithesis between the people +and big business and they had learned to regard Mr. Wilson as a fighter +for democratic principles against aristocratic tendencies and the money +power. + +This reputation he had vastly expanded during his two years as Governor +of New Jersey. His term had been distinguished not only by the passage +of a number of reform measures consonant with the liberal ideas of the +period, but by a spectacular struggle between the Governor and an +old-time machine of his own party--the very machine which had nominated +him. In this fight, as in his conflict at Princeton, he had been for a +time defeated, but here again the fight itself had made him famous and +won him a hundred supporters outside of his own State for every one he +lost at home. + +At the very outset of his term, he had entered, against all precedent, +into the fight in the Legislature over a Senatorial election. Demanding +that the Legislature keep faith with the people, who in a preferential +primary had designated a candidate for United States Senator who did +not command the support of the organization, he had won his fight on +this particular issue and set himself before the public as a sort of +tribune of the people who conceived it his duty to interpose his +influence wherever other officials showed a tendency to disregard the +popular will. + +In the legislative fight for the enactment of reform legislation, too, +the Governor had continually intervened in the character of "lobbyist +for the people," and while the opposition of the old political +organization, which he had aroused in the fight for the Senatorship, +had partially halted the progress of this program, the great triumph in +November, 1912, had returned a Legislature so strong in support of the +Governor that before he left Trenton for Washington practically all of +the measures included in his scheme had become laws. Mr. Wilson, then, +was known to the country not only as a reformer but as a successful +reformer; and his victories over the professional politicians of the +old school had removed most of the latent fear of the ineffectuality of +a scholar in politics. In point of fact, the chief interest of this +particular scholar had always lain in politics, and it was partly +chance and partly economic determinism that had diverted him in early +life from the practice of politics to the teaching of its principles +and history. + +Abroad, where his election was received with general satisfaction, he +was still regarded as the scholar in politics, for a Europe always +inclined to exaggerate the turpitude of professional politicians in +America liked to see in him the first fruits of them that slept, the +pioneer of the better classes of American society coming at last into +politics to clean up the wreckage made by ward bosses and financial +interests. Scarcely any American President ever took office amid so +much approbation from the leading organs of European opinion. + +His radicalism caused no great concern abroad and was regarded with +apprehension only in limited circles at home--and even here the +apprehension was more over the return to power of the Democratic Party +than on account of specific fears based on the character of the +President-elect. The business depression of 1913 and 1914 would +probably have been inevitable upon the inauguration of any Democratic +President, particularly one pledged to the carrying out of extensive +alterations in the commercial system of the country. For in 1912 Wilson +had been in effect the middle-of-the-road candidate, the conservative +liberal. Most of the wild men had followed Roosevelt, and the most +conservative business circles felt at least some relief that there had +been no re-entry into the White House of the Rough Rider, with a gift +for stinging phrases and a cohort of followers in which the lunatic +fringe was disproportionately large and unusually ragged. + +So Woodrow Wilson entered the Presidential office under conditions +which in some respects were exceptionally favorable. His situation was +in reality, however, considerably less satisfactory than it seemed. To +begin with, he was, in spite of everything, a minority President and +the representative of a minority party. He had even, during a good part +of the Baltimore Convention, been a minority candidate for the +nomination. If the two wings of the Republicans should during the +ensuing Administration succeed in burying their differences and coming +together once more, the odds were in favor of their success in 1916. +Moreover, the Democrats were definitely expected to do something. +Dissatisfaction with the general influence of financial interests in +public life, a dissatisfaction which had gradually concentrated on the +protective tariff as the chief weapon of those interests, had been +growing for years past. In 1908 a public aroused by Roosevelt but +afraid of Bryan had decided to trust the Republican Party to undo its +own work, and the answer of the party had been the Payne-Aldrich +tariff. That tariff broke the Republican Party in two and paved the way +for the return of Roosevelt; it had also, in 1910, given the Democrats +the control of the House of Representatives. + +Now, at last the Democrats had full control of both Legislature and +Executive, and the country expected them to do something: unreasonably, +it was at the same time rather afraid that they would do something. To +do something but not too much, to meet the popular demands without +destroying the economic well-being which the Republican ascendency had +undoubtedly promoted, to insure a better distribution of wealth without +crippling the production of wealth--this was the problem of a President +who had had only two years in public life, and most of whose assistants +would have to be chosen from men almost without executive experience. + +The chief peculiarity of President Wilson's political position lay in a +theory of American Government which had first come to him in his +undergraduate days at Princeton and which had been steadily developing +ever since. That theory, briefly, was that the American Constitution +permitted, and the practical development of American politics should +have compelled, the President to act not only as Chief of State but as +Premier--as the active head of the majority party, personally +responsible to the people for the execution of the program of +legislation laid down in that party's platform. Fanciful as it had +seemed when first put forward by him many years before, that concept of +the Presidency was now, perhaps for the first time, within the reach of +practical realization. + +Dissatisfaction with the general secrecy and irresponsibility of +Congressional committees which had charge of the direction of +legislation, in so far as there was any direction, had been growing for +years; and an incident of the revolt against the Payne-Aldrich tariff +and the break in the Republican Party had been the internal revolution +in the House of Representatives, taking away from the Speaker the power +of controlling legislation which he had for some time enjoyed, and +which would have been a serious obstacle to Presidential leadership +such as Wilson had in mind. Moreover, the activity of Cleveland and +Roosevelt had shown the public that even in time of peace an energetic +President had a much wider field of action than most Presidents had +attempted to cover, and the more recent example of Taft had increased +the demand for a President who would act, would not leave action to +those men around him who "knew exactly what they wanted." + + + _Early Accomplishments of Administration_ + + _Underwood-Simmons tariff, establishing the lowest average of + duties in seventy-five years, enacted October 3, 1913._ + + _Federal Reserve act, organizing the banking system and stabilizing + the currency, December 23, 1913._ + + _Clayton Anti-Trust law._ + + _Creation of Federal Trade Commission._ + + _Repeal of Panama Canal tolls exemption._ + + _End of dollar diplomacy._ + + _Negotiation of a treaty (never ratified) with Colombia to satisfy + the Colombian claim in Panama._ + + +There were, however, two great obstacles to the operation of Mr. +Wilson's theory. The first was constitutional. In Europe the Premier +who directs the legislative policy of the Government is answerable not +only in Parliament but to the people whenever his policy has ceased, or +seems to have ceased, to command public confidence. The President of +the United States finishes out his term, no matter how bad his +relations with Congress or how general his unpopularity among the +people. The check upon his leadership, as Mr. Wilson presently +realized, could come only at the end of his term, when the President as +a candidate for re-election came before the public for approval or +rejection. So, even before his first inauguration, Mr. Wilson had +written to A. Mitchell Palmer, then a Congressman, expressing +disapproval, quite aside from any personal connection with the issue, +of the proposal to restrict the President to a single term. That had +been a plank in the Democratic platform of the year before; already it +was apparent that this phase of the party's program would have to be +sacrificed in order to make the party leader responsible in the true +sense for the program as a whole. But that plank had not been seriously +intended, and by 1916 the march of events had made it a dead letter. + +A more serious difficulty, in March, 1913, lay in the fact that the +President was not the party leader. There was an enormous amount of +Wilson sentiment over the country, and there were many enthusiastic +Wilson men; but a good many of these were of the old mugwump type, or +men who had hitherto held aloof from politics. In 1912, as later in +1917 and 1918, there was seen the anomaly of a leader who was himself +an orthodox and often narrow partisan, yet drew most of his support +from independent elements or even from the less firmly organized +portions of the opposition. And not only were most of the Wilson men +independents or political amateurs; a still greater stumbling block lay +in the fact that very few of them had been elected to office. In the +great Democratic landslide of 1912 the Democrats who had got on the +payroll were mostly the old party wheel-horses who had been lingering +in the outer darkness of opposition for sixteen years past, or more or +less permanent representatives of the Solid South. + +In so far as the party had a leader at that time, it was Bryan. Bryan +had played the leading part in the Baltimore Convention. If he had not +exactly nominated Wilson, he had at least done more than anybody else +to destroy Wilson's chief competitors. There were not enough Bryan men +in the country to elect Bryan, not even enough Bryan men in the party +to nominate Bryan a fourth time; but there were enough Bryan Democrats +to ruin the policy of the incoming President if he did not conciliate +Bryan with extreme care. + +So the first efforts of the new Administration had to be a compromise +between what Wilson wanted and what Bryan would permit. This was seen +first of all in the composition of the Cabinet, which Bryan himself +headed as Secretary of State. Josephus Daniels, who as Secretary of the +Navy was to be one of the principal targets of criticism for the next +eight years, was also a Bryan man. Of the "Wilson men" of the campaign, +William G. McAdoo was chosen as Secretary of the Treasury, not without +some grave misgivings as to his ability, which were not subsequently +justified by his conduct of the office. The rest of the Cabinet was +notable chiefly for the presence of three men from Texas, a State whose +prominence reflected not only its growing importance and its fidelity +to the party but also the influence of Colonel Edward Mandell House, a +private citizen who had risen from making Governors at Austin to take a +prominent part in the making of a President in 1912. At the beginning +of the Administration and throughout almost all of President Wilson's +tenure of office he was the President's most influential adviser, a +sort of super-Minister and Ambassador in general; and his position from +the first caused a certain amount of heartburning among the politicians +who resented this prominence of an outsider who had never held office. + +Perhaps because many of his official aids and assistants were more or +less imposed upon him, the President showed from the first a tendency +to rely on personal agents and unofficial advisers. And this was to +become more prominent as the years passed, as new issues arose of which +no one would have dreamed in the Spring of 1913, issues for which the +ordinary machinery and practice of American Government were but little +prepared. + +For the eight years which began on March 4, 1913, were to be wholly +unlike any previous period in American history. An Administration +chosen wholly in view of domestic problems was to find itself chiefly +engaged with foreign relations of unexampled complexity and importance. +The passionate issues of 1912 were soon to be forgotten. Generally +speaking, the dominant questions before the American people in 1912 and +1913 were about the same as in 1908, or 1904, or even earlier. But from +1914 on every year brought a changed situation in which the issues of +the previous year had already been crowded out of attention by new and +more pressing problems. + +No American President except Lincoln had ever been concerned with +matters of such vital importance to the nation; and not even Lincoln +had had to deal with a world so complex and so closely interrelated +with the United States. Washington, Jefferson and Madison had to guide +the country through the complications caused by a great world war; but +the nation which they led was small and obscure, concerned only in +keeping out of trouble as long as it could. The nation which Wilson +ruled was a powerful State whose attitude from the very first was of +supreme importance to both sides. And the issues raised by the war +pushed into the background questions which had seemed important in +1913--and which, when the war was over, became important once more. + +None of this, of course, could have been predicted on March 4, 1913. A +new man with a new method had been elected President and intrusted with +the meeting of certain pressing domestic problems. At the moment the +public was more interested in the man than in his method; and not till +the crisis had been successfully passed did popular attention +concentrate on the manner of accomplishment rather than on the things +accomplished. + + +_Problems at Home, 1913-1914_ + +One of the passages of President Wilson's inaugural address contained a +list of "the things that ought to be altered," which included: + + A tariff which cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of + the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the + Government a facile instrument in the hands of private interests; a + banking and currency system based upon the necessity of the + Government to sell its bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted + to concentrating cash and restricting credits; an industrial system + which, take it on all sides, financial as well as administrative, + holds capital in leading strings, restricts the liberties and + limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits without renewing or + conserving the natural resources of the country; a body of + agricultural activities never yet given the efficiency of great + business undertakings or served as it should be through the + instrumentality of science taken directly to the farm, or afforded + the facilities of credit best suited to its practical needs. + +The items had been set down in the order of their immediate importance. +First came the tariff, for the tariff had come to be in the minds of +many Americans a symbol of the struggle between the "plain people" and +"the interests." The Payne-Aldrich tariff, enacted by a party pledged +to tariff revision, had been not only an injury but an insult, and if +any American Presidential election could ever be interpreted as a +popular referendum on any specific policy the election of 1912 meant +that the Payne-Aldrich tariff must be revised. At the time of the +enactment of that bill Mr. Wilson had written a critical article in +_The North American Review_ which expressed a widespread popular +sentiment in its criticism of "the policy of silence and secrecy" +prevalent in the committee rooms when this and other tariffs had been +drawn up and a demand for procedure in the open where the public could +find out exactly who wanted what and why. Joined with this objection to +the methods of tariff making were some observations by Mr. Wilson on +the principles of tariff revision. He saw and said that a complete +return to a purely revenue tariff was not then possible even if +desirable, and that the immediate objective of tariff reform should be +the adjustment of rates so as to permit competition and thereby +necessitate efficiency of operation. + +The ideas which in March, 1909, were merely the criticism of a college +professor had become in March, 1913, the program of the President of +the United States, the leader of the majority party, determined to get +his program enacted into law. Congress was convened in special session +on April 7, and the President delivered a message on the one topic of +the tariff. Going back to the precedent of Washington and Adams, broken +by Jefferson and never resumed again, he read his message in person to +the Congress as if to emphasize the intimate connection between the +Executive and legislation which was to be a feature of the new +Administration. The principle of tariff reform laid down in that bill +was a practical and not a theoretical consideration, the need of ending +an industrial situation fostered by high tariffs wherein "nothing is +obliged to stand the tests of efficiency and economy in our world of +big business, but everything thrives by concerted agreement.... The +object of the tariff duties henceforth laid must be effective +competition, the whetting of American wits by contest with the wits of +the world." + +The measure which Democratic leaders had already prepared for that +purpose and which eventually became known as the Underwood-Simmons Act +was intended to accomplish its end only gradually. Notoriously +outrageous schedules of the Payne-Aldrich Act, such as that dealing +with wool, were heavily reduced, and the general purport of the bill is +perhaps expressed in the phrase of Professor Taussig, that it was "the +beginning of a policy of much moderated protection." It went through +the House without much difficulty, passing on May 8, and then it struck +the Senate committee rooms, from which no tariff bill had ever emerged +quite as innocent as it entered. The usual expeditionary forces of +lobbyists concentrated in Washington and the Senate talked it over, +while Summer came on and Washington grew hotter and hotter. In course +of time Senators began to come to the President and tell him that it +was hopeless to get the bill through at that session and that +Washington was getting pretty hot. The President replied that he knew +it was hot, but that Congress would have to stay there till that bill +was passed. Already he had given the lower house something to keep it +busy while the Senate wrestled with the tariff. + +As for the lobby, the President had his own method of dealing with +that. On May 26 he issued a public statement calling attention to the +"extraordinary exertions" of lobbyists in connection with the tariff. +"The newspapers are being filled," he said, "with paid advertisements +calculated to mislead not only the judgment of the public men, but also +the public opinion of the country itself. There is every evidence that +money without limit is being spent to maintain this lobby.... It is of +serious interest to the country that the people at large should have no +lobby and be voiceless in these matters, while the great bodies of +astute men seek to create an artificial opinion and to overcome the +interests of the public for their private profit." The outraged dignity +of Senators and Representatives, not to mention lobbyists, rose to +protest against this declaration. A Republican Senator even declared +that the President, who had been actively urging his views on +legislators just as he had done in New Jersey, was himself the chief +lobbyist in connection with the Tariff Bill. A Senate Committee was +appointed to find out if there had been any lobbying, and discovered +that there had. Meanwhile the bill was being argued out in the Senate, +and the President stood firm against any substantial modification. It +was finally passed on Oct. 3. + +It was a vindication of the platform promise and a fulfillment of the +duty with which the party had been charged in the last election, and it +was a notable triumph for the personal policy of the President-Premier, +who more than anybody else had literally forced the bill through +Congress. The tariff had taken such a prominent place in the fight +against business influence in the Government that the passage of a bill +which made a material reduction in rates was a moral victory for +progressivism at large, and for President Wilson in particular. + +The actual effect of the tariff, or rather the actual effect that it +might have had, is something impossible to estimate at this time. +Before it had been in operation a year, before the country had had a +chance to study the new conditions brought in by the legislation of the +first year of the Wilson Administration, the war broke out in Europe. +The conditions which had prevailed through half a century of tariff +making had ceased to exist. They have not yet returned. A subsidiary +feature of the Underwood-Simmons Act, however, was to attain enormous +importance in the course of the Wilson Administrations. To supply the +deficiency in revenue which the lowered duties might be expected to +produce there was added an income tax law, which had recently been +permitted by constitutional amendment. Even the light duties of the +first year, with their $3,000 exemption, were denounced by +conservatives as a rich man's tax; but within four years more the +exemption was to be lowered to $1,000, and the peak of the tax raised +to tenfold its original height. + +So long as the Wilson Administration was reducing the tariff, it was +carrying out the traditional policy of the Democratic Party; but the +next task which the President laid before Congress was much more +delicate and much more important. As the event showed, the result was +to be of infinitely greater benefit to the nation. Reform of the +currency had long been an evident necessity, and the panic of 1907 had +recently called attention to the dangers of the system based on +emergency measures of the Civil War period. Mr. Wilson himself had said +much of the necessity of freeing business from unnatural restrictions, +among which the makeshift currency system was included. During the +previous Administration Senator Aldrich's plan for a centralized +reserve bank had been widely discussed, and innumerable modifications +had been suggested. Democratic leaders were already working on plans +for currency reform when the new Administration came in, and on June 26 +a bill was introduced in the House by Carter Glass and in the Senate by +Robert L. Owen. + +It took six months of hard work to get this adopted, but it was a +marvelous achievement to get it adopted at all. For a large faction of +the Democratic Party, including its most influential leader, still +represented the old hostility to the "money power," which regarded the +overthrow of the United States Bank as the great triumph of the +American Democracy. The Glass-Owen bill differed from Senator Aldrich's +scheme largely in the direction of decentralization and giving more +control to the Government and less to the banks, but, even so, it was a +suspicious document to those numerous Democrats whose economic ideas +were obtained from the Greenback and Populist Parties of former years. +And it was not satisfactory to the majority of the articulate bankers +of the country, who wanted a central bank instead of the regional +division of the reserve functions, and who thought that the banks +should have a good deal to say about appointments to the Federal +Reserve Board. + +As late as the beginning of December there were still three separate +bills before Congress, but the party organization under the +President-Premier held together, and on December 23 the Glass-Owen +Bill, with some modifications acquired en route, was signed by the +President. The pressure on the White House during that struggle was +perhaps the hardest which President Wilson encountered during his +entire eight years. Many an honest Democrat thought the fundamental +principles of the party were being betrayed, and many a Senator or +Representative who regarded the reserve banks with profound alarm felt, +nevertheless, that if the iniquitous things were going to be +established there ought to be one in his home town. When Paul M. +Warburg, a Wall Street banker, was appointed as one of the members of +the Federal Reserve Board, there were more protests from politicians +who professed to believe that the nation was being delivered over to +the money power, while the complaints of bankers who thought that the +banks were being given over to politicians had not yet died down. But +when the act once went into operation criticism almost disappeared; and +in the course of a few months the unprecedented financial strain +attendant on the outbreak of the European war made it plain to almost +anybody that without this timely reform of the banking system 1914 +would have seen a disaster far worse than that of 1907. + +The work of "striking the shackles off business" was continued in 1914 +by the introduction of bills to carry out the President's +recommendations for prohibiting interlocking directorates, clarifying +the anti-trust laws, establishing an Interstate Trade Commission, and +supervising the issue of railroad securities. The chief results of this +discussion were the creation of the Trade Commission, a body of which +much more was expected at the time than it has accomplished, and the +passage of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which exempted farmers' +combinations and labor unions from the anti-trust laws, and wrote into +the statutes the declaration that labor is not a commodity. The La +Follette Seamen's Bill, drawn by Andrew Furuseth of the Seamen's Union, +was introduced in 1913 and not enacted until much later. Its friends +declared that it would at least establish decent living conditions for +sailors, and its opponents, including nearly all the shipping +interests, asserted that, so long as foreign ship owners were not under +similar restrictions, the bill would ruin the American Merchant Marine. +Of the actual workings of this law there has really been no fair test, +as conditions which arose during the war unsettled the entire shipping +situation. + +The domestic program of the first year and a half of the Wilson +Administration comprised, then a long-needed and immeasurably valuable +reform of the banking and currency system, a revised tariff, which was +at least a technical victory for Democratic principles, and a number of +minor measures which seem less important in retrospect than they did at +the time. The program neither completely unshackled business nor opened +the door to a new era of cooperation and human brotherhood, but it was +a large and on the whole decidedly creditable accomplishment, and it +was above all the work of President Wilson, who had led the fight that +carried the Administration measures through Congress, quite as any +Prime Minister might have done. He had not done it without exposing +himself to severe criticism. Ex-Senator Winthrop Murray Crane, for +example, declared that he had "virtually obliterated Congress." But he +had got most of what he wanted, and by the end of his first year in +office Mr. Bryan was no longer the most powerful individual in the +Democratic Party. + + +_Foreign Policies, 1913-1914_ + +In _The North American Review_ for March, 1913, edited by Colonel +George Harvey, the original Wilson man, who had mentioned Wilson as a +Presidential possibility back in 1904, when such a suggestion was +regarded as only a playful eccentricity, who had begun to work hard for +him in 1911, and who had finally been asked by Wilson himself to give +up his activity because the connection of one of Harvey's magazines +with J. P. Morgan & Co. was hurting Wilson in the West--there appeared +an article entitled "Jefferson--Wilson: A Record and a Forecast." It +consisted of eight pages of quotations from Wilson's "History of the +American People," dealing with the beginning of Jefferson's +Administration. The reader's attention was arrested by the startling +parallel between the division in the Federalist Party and the quarrel +between Hamilton and Adams that facilitated Jefferson's election, and +the situation which led to Wilson's victory in November, 1912. Wilson, +writing a dozen years before the fight between Taft and Roosevelt, had +unconsciously drawn a parallel closer perhaps than the facts warranted; +and the reader who had been attracted by this similarity read on into +Wilson's characterization of Jefferson an introduction to the +achievements of his Administration with a growing hope--if he happened +to be a Wilson man--that after as before election Wilson's record would +duplicate Jefferson's. + +Colonel Harvey was as good a prophet in 1913 as in 1904. Wilson's +achievement in domestic affairs in the first year of his Administration +was not likely to suffer much by comparison with Jefferson's. But it +could not have crossed anybody's mind in March, 1913, that +complications of international politics such as had almost ruined the +country under Jefferson would in the latter part of Wilson's first term +expose him to as much criticism as Jefferson, and for the same reasons. + +America was still new as a world power, but was beginning to feel more +at home. In Taft's Administration, with Philander C. Knox as Secretary +of State, there had been for the first time the beginnings of what +might fairly be called a consistent foreign policy. True, it was not a +very lofty policy, nor was it by any means generally approved in +America. It was called by its friends "dollar diplomacy," meaning the +promotion of American commercial interests by diplomatic agencies. It +had been exemplified principally in Central America, where its +operations had not always commanded admiration, and in China, where +Knox had made a well-intentioned but not very skillful effort to +prevent the absorption of Manchuria by Russia and Japan. + + + _Landmarks in Wilson's Mexican Policy_ + + _Program for armistice and elections to end civil war, August, + 1913._ + + _"Watchful waiting," 1913-14._ + + _Capture of Vera Cruz, April 21, 1914._ + + _A B C mediation, April 25, 1914._ + + _Flight of Huerta, July, 1914._ + + _Recognition of Carranza, September, 1915._ + + _Villa's raid on Columbus and Pershing's expedition into Mexico, + March, 1916._ + + _Flight and death of Carranza, May, 1920._ + + +However primitive this organization of foreign policy, none the less +Taft and Knox had taken a great step forward in the improvement of +American diplomatic machinery. The diplomatic service and the State +Department were beginning to be regarded as two parts of the same +agency, and for the first time diplomacy had begun to be a career with +possibilities. The practice of promoting able young secretaries to +chiefs of legation, begun by Roosevelt, had been widely extended by +Taft; and though the highest posts were still filled by wealthy +amateurs it seemed that at last the American diplomatic service offered +some attraction to an ambitious man. It was the general expectation in +Europe and still more in America that President Wilson, who by training +and inclination might be expected to approve of the elevation of +standards in the diplomatic service, would continue and extend this +work. Instead of that, he undid it, or rather permitted it to be +undone. + +Mr. Bryan had of necessity been made Secretary of State, and it may be +supposed that there was equal necessity for opening up the diplomatic +service as a happy hunting ground for the Bryan men--"deserving +Democrats," as Mr. Bryan called them in a famous letter. The chief +European posts, to which the Taft Administration had not begun to apply +the merit system, were filled chiefly by Mr. Wilson's own nominees. +These included several well-known men of letters, and with one or +two exceptions the amateur diplomats serving as the heads of the +missions in Europe did satisfactory and even brilliant service +under the unprecedented strain which the war brought on them. The +service in Latin America, however, which Knox had almost entirely +professionalized, was given over bodily to personal followers of Bryan. +In what was in 1913 perhaps the most important of our diplomatic posts, +the embassy to Mexico, Mr. Wilson was compelled to rely provisionally +on Henry Lane Wilson, a holdover appointee from the previous +Administration. + +It was soon made clear that there was to be no more dollar diplomacy. +The Knox policies in Central America were dropped--although American +troops continued to dominate Nicaragua--and in 1914 the Administration +successfully discouraged American participation in a six-power loan to +China. The Russo-Japanese absorption of Manchuria was to be treated as +the accomplished fact that it was; and in general the policy of the new +Administration was anything but aggressive. It would not use diplomacy +to advance American commercial interests, nor was it prepared to accept +the assistance of American financiers in promoting the policies of +diplomacy. + +But it was evident from the outset that the most quiescent foreign +policy could not prevent foreign complications. Growing anti-Japanese +sentiment in California led to the passage of a State law against +Japanese land holdings. There was much resentment in Japan, and protest +was made to the Federal Government. Mr. Bryan, as Secretary of State, +had to make a personal trip to Sacramento to intercede with the +Californians; and at one time (May, 1913) military men appeared to feel +that the situation was extremely delicate. But the crisis passed over, +the Californians modified the law, and though in its amended form it +suited neither the Californians nor the Japanese, the issue remained in +the background during the more urgent years of the war. Toward the very +end of the Wilson Administration it was to come back into prominence. + +Another question which caused much disturbance to the new +Administration was the question of Panama Canal tolls. An act passed in +1912 had exempted American coastwise shipping passing through the canal +from the tolls assessed on other vessels, and the British Government +had protested against this on the ground that it violated the +Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901, which had stipulated that the canal +should be open to the vessels of all nations "on terms of entire +equality." Other nations than England had an interest in this question, +and there was a suspicion that some of them were even more keenly if +not more heavily interested; but England took the initiative and the +struggle to save the exemption was turned, in the United States, into a +demonstration by the Irish, Germans and other anti-British elements. +Innate hostility to England, the coastwise shipping interests, formed +the backbone of the opposition to any repeal of this exemption, but the +Taft Administration had held that the exemption did not conflict with +the treaty (on the ground that the words "all nations" meant all +nations except the United States), and British opposition to the +fortification of the canal, as well as the attitude of a section of the +British press during the Canadian elections of 1911, had created a +distrust of British motives which was heightened by the conviction of +many that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty had been a bad bargain. + +It was understood early in President Wilson's Administration that he +believed the exemption was in violation of the treaty, but not until +October did he make formal announcement that he intended to ask +Congress to repeal it. The question did not come into the foreground, +however, until March 5, 1914, when the President addressed this request +to Congress in ominous language, which to this day remains unexplained. +"No communication I addressed to Congress," he said, "has carried with +it more grave and far-reaching implications to the interests of the +country." After expressing his belief that the law as it stood violated +the treaty and should be repealed as a point of honor, he continued: "I +ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the Administration. +I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater +delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it to me in +ungrudging measure." + +It has been most plausibly suggested that this obscure language had +reference to the Mexican situation, which a few weeks later was to lead +to the occupation of Vera Cruz. The European powers were known to be +much displeased at the continuing disturbances in Mexico and the +American policy of "watchful waiting," and the belief has been +expressed that repeal of the exemption was a step to get British +support for continued forbearance with Mexico. Other critics have seen +a reference to the unsettled issues with Japan and a fear that England +might give more aggressive support to her ally if the tolls question +were left unsettled. The attempt of a writer of biography to maintain +that even in March, 1914, the President and Colonel House foresaw the +European war and wanted to arrange our own international relations by +way of precaution has been generally received with polite skepticism. + +At any rate, the President's intervention in the question, against the +advice of his most trusted political counselors, brought down on him a +shower of personal abuse from Irish organs and from the group of +newspapers which presently were to appear as the chief supporters of +Germany. The arguments against the repeal were unusually bitter, and +even though Elihu Root took his stand beside the President and against +the recent Republican Administration, partisan criticism seized upon +the opening. Nevertheless the tolls exemption was repealed in June, and +events of July and August gave a certain satisfaction to those who had +stood for the sanctity of treaties. + +As a part of what might be called the general deflation of overseas +entanglements, the new Administration brought about a material change +in the treatment of the Philippines. From the beginning great changes +were made in the personnel of the Philippines Commission and of the +Administration of the country. Many American officials were replaced by +Filipinos, but the separatist agitation in the islands was not much +allayed by the extension of self-government. In October, 1914, the +Jones Bill, which practically promised independence "as soon as a +stable government shall have been established," was passed by the House +of Representatives, but Republican opposition was strengthened by those +who remembered Bryan's anti-imperialism in 1900 and by the supporters +of a strong policy in the Pacific. This issue, like others of the early +period, came back into greater prominence in the last years of the +second Wilson Administration, when war issues were temporarily disposed +of. + +A specially conciliatory policy toward Latin America was one of the +chief characteristics of the early period of the Administration. At the +Southern Commercial Congress in Mobile, on October 27, 1913, the +President declared that "the United States will never seek one +additional foot of territory by conquest;" a statement which was +understood in direct relation to the demand for intervention in Mexico, +and which had a very considerable effect on public sentiment in Central +and South America. The passing of "dollar diplomacy," too, was +generally satisfactory to Latin America, and, though Mr. Bryan's +inexperienced diplomats made a good many blunders and could not help, +as a rule, being compared unfavorably with the professionals who had +held the Latin-American posts in the previous Administration, the +general policy of Wilson created much more confidence in the other two +Americas than did the spasmodic aggressiveness of Roosevelt or the +commercialized diplomacy of Taft. + +One specific attempt was made to heal a sore spot left by Roosevelt in +relations with Latin America by the new Administration. Negotiations +with Colombia to clear up the strained situation left by the revolution +in Panama had been under way in the Taft Administration, but had come +to nothing. Under Wilson they were resumed, and on April 7, 1914, a +treaty was signed by which the United States was to pay to Colombia a +compensation of $25,000,000 for Colombian interests in the Isthmus. The +treaty further contained a declaration that the Government of the +United States expressed its "sincere regret for anything that may have +happened to disturb the relations" between the two countries, and this +suggestion of an apology for Roosevelt's action in 1903 roused the +violent hostility of Republicans and Progressives. The opposition was +so strong that in spite of repeated efforts the Administration could +never get the treaty ratified by the Senate; but the undoubtedly +sincere efforts of the Executive had of themselves a considerable +effect in mollifying the suspicions of Latin America. + +But all problems south of the Isthmus were insignificant compared with +the difficulties in Mexico which had begun with the Madero Revolution +against Diaz in 1910. Just at the close of the Taft Administration +Madero had been overthrown and killed by Huerta, who then ruled in +Mexico City and was recognized by England and Germany in the Spring of +1913. Villa and Carranza were in arms against Huerta in the north, +calling themselves the champions of the Constitution; Orozoco and +Zapata were in arms against everybody in the south; foreign life and +property were unsafe everywhere except in the largest cities. The +demand for intervention, which had been strong ever since the troubles +began, was increasing in 1913. Huerta professed to be holding office +only until a peaceful election could determine the will of the nation, +but the date of that peaceful election had to be constantly put off. +The embargo on shipments of arms from the United States still existed, +preventing Huerta from supplying his troops; but there was a good deal +of smuggling to the revolutionary armies in the north. Of the +interventionists some wanted intervention against Huerta and some +wanted intervention for Huerta; and the pressure of economic interests +in Mexico was complicating all phases of the situation. + +From the first President Wilson had expressed his disapproval of the +methods by which Huerta had attained office. Ambassador Wilson, on the +other hand, thought that Huerta ought to be supported, and when his +policy did not commend itself to the President he resigned in August, +1913. But already the President had been getting information about +Mexico from extra-official sources. His first envoy was William Bayard +Hale, author of one of his campaign biographies. Ambassador Wilson was +virtually replaced in August by another special representative, John +Lind, who carried to Huerta the proposals of President Wilson for +solution of the Mexican problem. They included a definite armistice, a +general election in which Huerta should not be a candidate, and the +agreement of all parties to obey the Government chosen by this +election, which would be recognized by the United States. Huerta +refused and presently dissolved Congress. When the elections were +finally held on October 2 Huerta won, and there was no doubt that he +would have won no matter how the voting had happened to go. + +The President's program for Mexican reform, it may be said, was not as +evidently impracticable in 1913 as it seems in retrospect. It was +widely criticised at the time, and the phrase "watchful waiting" which +he invented as a description of his Mexican Policy was made the object +of much ridicule. Throughout the first winter of the new Administration +the American Government was apparently waiting for something to happen +to Huerta or for Huerta to reform, and President Wilson several times +sharply criticised the actions of the Mexican dictator. But Huerta did +not reform and nothing sufficient happened to him; it began to look as +if watchful waiting might continue indefinitely when a trivial incident +furnished the last straw. + +A boatload of American sailors from the warships anchored off Tampico +to protect American citizens had been arrested by the Mexican military +authorities. They were released, with apologies, but Admiral Mayo +demanded a salute to the American flag by way of additional amends, and +when Huerta showed a disposition to argue the matter the Atlantic Fleet +was (April 14, 1914) ordered to Mexican waters. A week later, as +negotiations had failed to produce the salute, the President asked +Congress to give him authority to use the armed forces of the United +States "against Victoriano Huerta." There was much criticism of the +policy which had endured serious material injuries for more than a year +to threaten force at last because of a technical point of honor, and +besides those who did not want war at all the President found himself +opposed by many Congressmen who thought that the personal attack on +Huerta was rather undignified, and that the President should have asked +for a downright declaration of war. + +While Congress was debating the resolution the American naval forces +(on April 21) seized the Vera Cruz Custom House to prevent the landing +of a munition cargo from a German ship. This led to sharp fighting and +the occupation of the entire city. General Funston with a division of +regulars was sent to relieve the naval landing parties; and war seemed +inevitable. Even the Mexican revolutionaries showed a tendency to +prefer Huerta to the intervention of the United States. But on April 25 +the Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Chile proposed mediation, +which Wilson and Huerta promptly accepted. A conference met at Niagara +Falls, Ontario, and through May and June endeavored to reach a +settlement not only between the United States and Mexico, but between +the various Mexican factions. The President was still attempting to +carry out his policy of August, 1913, and the chief obstacle was not +Huerta, but Carranza, who had refused to consent to an armistice and +for a long time would not send delegates to Niagara Falls. Meanwhile +Huerta made one concession after another. Watchful waiting had indeed +ruined him; for President Wilson's opposition had made it impossible +for him to get any money in Europe--and in the early part of 1914 some +European nations would still have considered Mexico a good risk. +Moreover, from February to April the embargo on arms had been lifted, +and the Constitutionalists armies in the north, munitioned from the +United States, were steadily conquering the country. On July 15 Huerta +resigned, and soon afterward sailed for Spain; and on August 20 +Carranza entered Mexico City. + +Despite the criticism that had been heaped on the President's handling +of the Tampico-Vera Cruz affair, he had got rid of Huerta without +getting into war. A still more important consequence, the full effect +of which was not immediately apparent, was the enormous increase in the +confidence felt by Latin America in the good intentions of the Wilson +Administration. The acceptance of A-B-C mediation in 1914 made possible +the entry of most of the Latin-American powers into the European War in +1917 as allies of the United States. And for a time it was to appear as +if this had been about the only tangible profit of the episode; for +Carranza presently proved almost as troublesome as Huerta. The Fall of +1914 saw the outbreak of a new civil war between Villa and Carranza, in +which Zapata, Villa's ally, for a long time held Mexico City. Obregon's +victories in 1915 drove Villa back to his old hunting grounds. + +By this time the European war was occupying most of the attention of +the American people, but Mexico was a constant irritant. Carranza +carried the Presidential art of biting the hand that fed him to an +undreamed-of height. Wilson, Villa and Obregon had enabled him to +displace Huerta, and Obregon had saved him from Villa. Yet he had +quarreled with Villa, he was eventually to quarrel with Obregon; and +though the United States and the chief Latin-American powers had given +him formal recognition in September, 1915, his policy toward Wilson +continued to be blended of insult and obstruction. Henry Prather +Fletcher, the ablest of the diplomats accredited to Latin-American +capitals, had been called back from Santiago de Chile to represent the +United States in Mexico; but despite his skill, despite the infinite +forbearance of the Administration, Mexico sank deeper and deeper into +misery, foreign lives and property were unsafe throughout most of the +country, and there was a continuing succession of incidents on the +border. + +These were the fault of bandits, chiefly of Villa, whose repeated +murders of American citizens led to futile attempts to get satisfaction +out of Carranza. The culmination of these outrages came on March 9, +1916, when Villa raided across the border, surprised the garrison of +Columbus, N.M., and killed some twenty Americans. A punitive expedition +of regulars under General Pershing was promptly organized. It pushed +about 200 miles into Mexico, destroyed several small parties of +Villistas, and wounded Villa himself. But it did not catch him nor any +of his principal leaders, and in April outlying parties of Americans +came into skirmishing with Carranza forces at Parral and Carrizal. It +was evident that further advance meant war with Carranza; and indeed +much American sentiment aroused by the capture of American soldiers by +Carranzistas, demanded war already. But relations with Germany were +very acute at the moment, so Pershing dug in and held his position +throughout the Summer and Fall. In May the National Guard was ordered +out to protect the border, and remained in position for months without +taking active steps. + + + _President Wilson's Appeals for Mediation_ + + _Formal offer of mediation to all belligerents, August 5, 1914._ + + _German proposal of peace conference, December 12, 1916._ + + _President's appeal to the belligerents to state their terms, + December 18, 1916._ + + _German refusal to state terms, December 26, 1916._ + + _Allied statement of war aims, January 11, 1917._ + + _President's "peace without victory" speech, January 22, 1917._ + + _Notification of unrestricted submarine war, January 31, 1917._ + + _Diplomatic relations with Germany broken, February 3, 1917._ + + _Declaration of war, April 6, 1917._ + + +The Mexican policy of the Administration was one of the chief points of +attack during the campaign of 1916, but the re-election of President +Wilson and the progress of events in Europe presently threw the issue +into the background. In February and March, 1917, when war with Germany +seemed inevitable, the expeditionary force under Pershing was recalled. + +Carranza's pro-Germanism, or rather anti-Americanism, was hardly +disguised during the war, and the confiscatory policy of his +Administration in dealing with foreign oil and mineral properties +threatened to do much damage to American interests. When the war in +Europe had ended, the question of Mexico once more came back to the +foreground of attention. Carranza's Administration had not been stained +by so much guilt as Huerta's, and the opposition to it was on the scale +of banditry rather than revolution; but Mexico was far worse off after +years of the war than it had been in 1913, and disregard of American +rights was still the cardinal policy of the Government. Carranza's +security, however, was illusory. In the Spring of 1920 Presidential +elections were announced at last, and Carranza's attempt to force +Ygnacio Bonillas, his Ambassador in Washington, into the Presidential +chair led to a revolt which eventually attracted the leadership of +Obregon. Carranza fled from Mexico City and was murdered on May 22, +1920, and, after the interim Presidency of Adolfo de la Huerta, Obregon +came into office in the Fall. + + +_The European War, 1914-1916_ + +When in the last week of July, 1914, a war of unparalleled intensity +and magnitude suddenly fell upon a world which for forty years had been +enjoying unprecedented well-being and security, the practically +unanimous sentiment of Americans was gratitude that we were not +involved. The President's first steps, a formal proclamation of +neutrality and equally formal tender of mediation to the belligerents, +"either now or at any other time that might be thought more suitable," +had general approval. + + +[Illustration: _Federal Reserve_ + We must have a currency, not rigid as now, but readily, + elastically responsive to sound credit, the expanding + and contracting credits of everyday transactions, the + normal ebb and flow of personal and corporate dealings. + Our banking laws must mobilize reserves; must not permit + the concentration anywhere in a few hands of the + monetary resources of the country or their use for + speculative purposes in such volume as to hinder or + impede or stand in the way of other more legitimate, + more fruitful uses.--_From the President's Address to + Congress, April 23, 1913._] + +[Illustration: _Courtesy New York Times_ + July 3, 1912: Governor Wilson receiving congratulations + from newspaper correspondents on his nomination for the + Presidency] + +But a sharp division of sentiment showed itself when, on August 18, he +issued an address to the American people warning against partisan +sympathies and asking that Americans be "impartial in thought as well +as in action," in order that the country might be "neutral in fact as +well as in name." The great majority of the American people, or of such +part of it as held opinions on public questions, had already made up +their minds about the war, and most of the others were in process of +being convinced. Some of them had made up their minds from racial +sympathies, but others had thought things out. And among these last, +particularly, there was a revolt against the assumption that in the +presence of such issues any impartiality of thought was possible. + +Moreover, the world-wide extent of the war, and the closer +inter-relations of nations which had grown up in recent years, made +almost from the first a series of conflicts between the interests of +the United States and those of one or the other set of belligerents. +Preservation of neutrality against continual petty infractions was +hard, and was rendered harder by the active sympathy felt for the +different belligerents by many Americans. A further complication came +from the growing feeling that America's military and naval forces were +far from adequate for protection in a world where war was after all +possible. The Autumn of 1914 saw the beginning for better national +preparedness, and counter to that the rise of organized +peace-at-any-price sentiment which from the first drew much support +from pro-German circles. + +The President appeared to incline toward the pacifists. He called the +discussion of preparedness "good mental exercise," and referred to some +of its advocates as "nervous and excitable," and in the message to +Congress in December, 1914, he took the position that American +armaments were quite sufficient for American needs. In this it was +apparent that he was opposed by a large part of the American people; +how large no one could yet say. But the Congressional elections of 1914 +had conveyed a warning to the Democrats. They were left with a majority +in both houses, but the huge preponderance obtained in 1912 had +disappeared. And the reason was even more alarming than the fact; the +Progressive Party almost faded off the map in the election of 1914. +Most of the voters who had been Republicans before the Chicago +Convention of 1912 were Republicans once again. Of the Progressive +Party, there was nothing much left but the leaders, and many of these +were obviously thinking of going back to the old home. + +The Government had already had occasion to protest against British +interference with allied commerce when, on February 4, 1915, the +Germans proclaimed the waters about the British Isles a war zone open +to submarine activities. The President promptly warned the German +Government that it would be held to "strict accountability" if American +ships were sunk or American lives lost in the submarine campaign. Along +with this a message was sent to the British Government protesting +against British restriction of neutral commerce. There was good ground +for objection to the practices of both Governments, and the +simultaneous protests emphasized the neutral attitude of the United +States. Not until later was it evident that to the Germans this policy +seemed to indicate the possibility of putting pressure on England +through America. + +"Strict accountability" seemed to be a popular watchword, except among +pacifists and German sympathizers, but Americans soon began to be +killed by the submarines without provoking the Government to action. +When the Lusitania was sunk on May 7, 1915, and more than a hundred of +the 1,200 victims were Americans a great part of the nation which had +been growing steadily more exasperated felt that now the issue must be +faced. The President was the personal conductor of the foreign policy +of the Administration; Mr. Bryan's sole interest in foreign affairs +seemed to be the conclusion of a large number of polite and valueless +treaties of arbitration, and it was certain that with Germany, as with +Mexico, the President would deal in person. In the few days after the +sinking of the Lusitania the nation waited confidently for the +President's leadership, and public sentiment was perhaps more nearly +unanimous than it had been for eight months past, or was to be again +for two years more. + +The President's note on May 13 met with general approval. It denied any +justification for such acts as the sinking of the Lusitania, and warned +the Germans that the Government of the United States would not "omit +any word or act" to defend the rights of its citizens. But some of the +effect of that declaration had already been destroyed by a speech the +President had made two days before, in which he had said that "there is +such a thing as a man being too proud to fight," and the Germans, it +was learned presently, had been still further reassured by a +declaration of Mr. Bryan (entirely on his own authority) to the +Austrian Ambassador that the note was intended only for home +consumption. + +At any rate, the note was not followed by action. Throughout the whole +Summer the President maintained a correspondence with the Germans, +distinguished by patient reasoning on his part and continual shiftings +and equivocations on theirs. Meanwhile nothing was done; the public +sentiment of the first days after the Lusitania had been sunk had +slackened; division and dissension had returned and redoubled. Pacifism +was more active than ever and German agents were spreading propaganda +and setting fire and explosives to munition plants. Mr. Bryan, who +apparently alone in the country was fearful that the President might +needlessly involve the nation in war, resigned as Secretary of State on +June 8. Aside from a certain relief, the public almost ignored his +passing; the man who had been the strongest leader of the party in +March, 1913, had in the last two years sunk almost into obscurity. +Attention was now concentrated on the policy which the President, whose +new Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, was hardly more than a +figurehead, was pursuing toward Germany. + +In August two more American passengers were drowned in the sinking of +the liner Arabic, and in other submarine exploits of the Summer a +number of American seamen lost their lives. The President's persistence +at last had the effect of getting from the Germans, on September 1, a +promise to sink no more passenger boats, and on October 5 they made a +formal expression of regret for the Arabic incident. Meanwhile some of +the acts of sabotage against American industries had been traced back +to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, and the Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, was +sent home in September. A few months later Papen and Boy-Ed, the +Military and Naval Attaches of the German Embassy, followed him for a +similar reason. + +But the German outrages continued, and so did the submarine sinkings, +though these were now transferred to the Mediterranean and Austria was +put forward as the guilty power. Also, nothing had been done about the +Lusitania. The country had apparently been divided by internal +discords. The condition which the President had hoped to prevent by his +appeal for "impartiality in thought as well as in action" had come +about. Also, the danger of war had revealed the inadequacy of America's +military establishment, and a private organization, whose moving spirit +was General Leonard Wood, had undertaken to supply the deficiencies of +the Government by establishing officers' training camps. Toward Wood +and his enterprise the Government seemed cold, and he was reprimanded +by the Secretary of War for permitting Colonel Roosevelt to make an +indiscreet speech at the training camp at Plattsburg. But when Congress +assembled in December the President deplored and denounced that new +appearance in American public life, the hyphenate, and urged upon +Congress that military preparation which he had derided a year before. + +Congress, it was soon evident, was far less convinced than the +President that anything had happened during 1915. In December, 1915, +and in January, 1916, Mr. Wilson made a speaking tour through the East +and Middle West in support of his new policy. His demand for a navy +"incomparably the most adequate in the world," which Mr. Daniels +translated into the biggest navy in the world, aroused some doubts in +the minds of the public as to where the Administration thought the +chief danger lay, and German influences did their best during the +Winter to stir up anti-British sentiment in Congress--the more easily +since the controversy over British interference with American commerce +was still unsettled. + +Eventually, and largely as a result of the President's speaking tour, +Congress adopted a huge naval program, which was destined to remain on +paper for some years. Military reform, however, had a different fate. +The President had supported the policy favored by the Secretary of War, +Lindley M. Garrison, of supplementing the regular line by a federalized +"Continental army" of 400,000 men. The House Committee on Military +Affairs, led by James Hay, would not hear of this and insisted on +Federal aid to the National Guard. The President, declaring that he +could not tell a Congressional committee that it must take his plan or +none, appeared to be ready to give in to Hay, and Garrison resigned in +protest. Hay had his way, and Garrison was succeeded by Newton D. +Baker, previously regarded as inclined to the pacifist side of the +controversy. + + + _Senator Glass on Woodrow Wilson_ + + _It is my considered judgment that Woodrow Wilson will take a place + in history among the very foremost of the great men who have given + direction to the fortunes of the nation. No President of the United + States, from the beginning of the Republic, ever excelled him in + essential preparation for the tasks of the office. By a thorough + acquisition of abstract knowledge, by clear and convincing precept + and by a firm and diligent practical application of the outstanding + principles of statecraft, no occupant of the Executive chair up to + his advent was better furnished for a notable administration of + public affairs. And Wilson's Administration has been notable. Its + achievements, in enumeration and importance, have never been + surpassed; and it may accurately be said that most of the things + accomplished were of the President's own initiative._ + + _Of the President's personal traits and characteristics I cannot as + confidently speak as those persons whose constant and intimate + association with him has given them observation of his moods and + habits. To me he always has been the soul of courtesy and + frankness. Dignified, but reasonably familiar; tenacious when sure + of his position, but not hard to persuade or to convince in a cause + having merit, I have good reason to be incredulous when I hear + persons gabble about the unwillingness of President Wilson to seek + counsel or accept advice. For a really great man who must be + measurably conscious of his own intellectual power, he has + repeatedly done both things in an astonishing degree during his + Administration; and when certain of a man's downright honesty, I + have never known anybody who could be readier to confide serious + matters implicitly to a coadjutor in the public service._ + + _CARTER GLASS_ + _Written for The New York Times,_ + _February 18, 1921._ + + +Meanwhile the submarine issue was still an issue. Little satisfaction +had been obtained for events in the Mediterranean, and in March the +Sussex, a cross-Channel passenger boat, was torpedoed in plain +violation of the German promise of September 1. There followed another +interchange of notes, but the usual German efforts to deny and evade +were somewhat more clumsy than usual. On April 19 the President came +before Congress and announced that "unless the Imperial Government +should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present +methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying +vessels" diplomatic relations would be broken off. The threat had its +effect; the Germans yielded, grudgingly and in language that aroused +much irritation, but on the main question they yielded none the less, +and promised to sink no more merchantmen without warning. + +During this crisis the President had had to contend with a serious +revolt in Congress, which took the form of the Gore Resolution in the +Senate and the McLemore resolution in the House, warning American +citizens off armed merchantmen. The President took the position that +this was a surrender of American rights, and upon his insistence both +resolutions were brought to a vote and defeated. The Lusitania question +was still unsettled, but on the general issue of submarine war the +Germans had at last given way to the President's demand, and through +most of 1916 the submarine issue was in the background. + +During the year there was a continuation of diplomatic action against +the British Government's interference with neutral commerce and with +neutral mails. But, aside from the comparative unimportance of these +issues beside the submarine assassinations, the Lusitania and similar +episodes had stirred up so much indignation that not many Americans +were seriously interested in action against England which could only +work to the advantage of Germany. The year saw the institution of the +Shipping Board, which was to look after the interests of the American +merchant marine brought into being by the war, and also some efforts to +extend American commerce in South America. Of more eventual importance +for Latin-American relations was the necessity for virtually +superseding the Government of the Dominican Republic, which had become +involved in civil war and financial difficulties, by an American Naval +Administration, as had been done in Haiti the year before. + +The principal domestic event of the year was the threatened railroad +strike, which came at the end of the Summer. The President summoned the +heads of the four railroad brotherhoods and the executives of the +railroad lines to Washington for a conference in August, and attempted +without success to bring them to an agreement. A program to which he +eventually gave his approval provided for the concession by the +employers of the basic eight-hour day, with other issues left over +until the working of this proposal could be studied. The railroad +executives refused this, and while the negotiations were thus at a +deadlock it became known that the brotherhoods had secretly ordered a +strike beginning September 4. To avert this crisis the President asked +Congress to pass a series of laws accepting the basic eight-hour day, +providing for a commission of investigation, and forbidding further +strikes pending Government inquiry. + +None of these proposals except the eight-hour day, the center of the +whole dispute, met the approval of the brotherhoods, and none of them +except the eight-hour day and the commission of investigation was +adopted. But, with A. B. Garreston, of the Brotherhood of Conductors, +holding a stopwatch in the gallery, Congress hastily passed these laws +and the strike was called off. + +The eight-hour issue was the last item on the record on which President +Wilson came up for re-election in the Fall of 1916. Despite the +single-term plank in the Democratic platform of 1912, it had been +evident long before the end of Mr. Wilson's first term that he was the +only possible candidate. In March, 1913, he had seemed almost like an +outside expert called in for temporary service in readjusting some of +the problems of public life; he was by no means the leader of the +party. But long before Bryan resigned in alarm at the tendencies of a +foreign policy over which the Secretary of State had no control the +President had become the leader of the party, and by 1916 he was almost +the only leader of prominence. + +In the record on which the electorate was to express its judgment only +a minor place was taken by the issues which had seemed of such +importance in 1913. The Federal Reserve Act had already proved its +value so well that it was being taken as a matter of course, and people +were forgetting that they had ever had to depend on a currency which +ran for cover in every crisis and on a banking system where each bank +was a source of weakness to its neighbors instead of strength. What +effect the Underwood-Simmons Tariff and other measures of the first +year might have had on American business no man could say, for +conditions created by the war had left America the only great producer +in a world of impatient consumers whose wants had to be met at any +price. + +Mexico, which had provided the most pressing problem in foreign affairs +during the Taft Administration, was still an unsolved problem in 1916, +and more disturbing than ever. The President had indeed avoided war +with Mexico, but had become involved in two invasions of the country +and in an expensive mobilization. During the 1916 election the nation +had in Mexico most of the drawbacks of war without any of the possible +benefits. In forcing out Huerta the President had indeed won a notable +diplomatic triumph, but he had not succeeded either in winning greater +security for American life and property or in getting a Mexican +Government more disposed to good relations with the United States; and +the Republicans maintained that war had been avoided only at the +sacrifice of both American prestige and American interests. + + + _Personal Messages to Congress_ + + I am very glad, indeed, to have this opportunity to address the two + Houses directly and to verify for myself the impression that the + President of the United States is a person, not a mere department + of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island of + jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and with + his own voice--that he is a human being trying to cooperate with + other human beings in a common service. After this pleasant + experience I shall feel quite normal in all our dealings with one + another.--_From the President's First Address to Congress, April + 8, 1913_ + + +[Illustration: (C) _Harris & Ewing_ + April 8, 1913: Mr. Wilson reading his first message to + Congress] + +But Mexico, despite the emphasis placed upon it by the Republicans, was +a secondary issue in the campaign of 1916. The great issue was the +conduct of American relations with Germany, and the ultimate Republican +failure in the election may be laid primarily to the inability of the +Republican Party to decide just where it stood on the main issue. + +The President had in this field also won a diplomatic victory. Like his +victory over Huerta, it was more apparent than real, for the submarines +were still active, and even during the campaign several incidents +occurred which looked very much like violations of the German promise +made in May. The most serious incident, that of the Lusitania, was +still unsettled and the opponents of the President charged him with +having bought peace with Germany, like peace with Mexico, at the cost +of national interest and honor. Still the technical victory in the +submarine negotiations had remained with the President, and he had +succeeded in winning at least a nominal recognition of American rights +without going into a war which, as every one realized, would be a much +more serious enterprise than an invasion of Mexico. German propaganda +and terrorist outrages, which had been so serious in 1915, fell off +materially in 1916 largely on account of the energetic work of the +Department of Justice, which had sent some of the most prominent +conspirators to jail and driven others out of the country. But a +considerable section of the population had made up its mind that +Germany was already an enemy and was dissatisfied with the President's +continual efforts to preserve impartiality of thought as well as of +action. + +The President was renominated at the Democratic Convention in St. +Louis, and the platform expressed a blanket endorsement of the +achievements of his Administration. But the chief incident of that +convention was the keynote speech of Martin H. Glynn, which was based +on the text, "He kept us out of war." His recital of the long list of +past occasions in American history when foreign violations of American +rights and injuries to American interests had not led to war was +received with uproarious enthusiasm by the convention and completely +overturned the plans which had been made by the Administration managers +to emphasize the firmness of the President in defense of American +rights. + +But the Republicans presently gave that issue back to them. The party +passed over Colonel Roosevelt; the memory of 1912 was still too bitter +to permit the old-line leaders to accept him. On the other hand, the +Colonel and his following had to be conciliated, so the Republican +Convention nominated Charles E. Hughes, who had viewed the party +conflict of 1912 from the neutrality of the Supreme Court bench. The +Progressive Party duly had its convention and nominated Roosevelt; and +when Roosevelt announced that Hughes's views on the preservation of +American interests were satisfactory and that the main duty was to beat +Wilson, a good many Progressives followed the Colonel back into camp. A +rump convention, however, nominated a Vice Presidential candidate, and +virtually went over to Wilson. + +Justice Hughes's views on public issues were not known before he was +nominated, and on the great issue of the campaign they were never very +clearly known until after the election, when it was too late. He had +strong opinions on Democratic misgovernment and maladministration and +outspoken opinions on Mexico, but whenever he tried to say anything +about the war in Europe he used up most of his energy clearing his +throat. A large element in the American people, which was influential +out of proportion to its numbers because it included most of the +intelligent classes and most of the organs of public opinion, felt that +the President had been too weak in the face of German provocation. To +this element, chiefly in the East, Colonel Roosevelt appealed with his +denunciation of German aggression and of the President's temporizing +with Germany; but Colonel Roosevelt was not running for President. +There was another minority, considerably smaller and far less +reputable, which consisted of bitter partisans of the German cause. +This minority was fiercely against the President because he had dared +to challenge Germany at all; and though Mr. Hughes gave it no +particular encouragement, it supported him because there was nobody +else to support. + +So, in the Eastern States, where anti-German sentiment was strongest, +the Democrats advocated the re-election of Wilson as the defender of +American rights against foreign aggression, while in the West he was +praised as the man who had endured innumerable provocations and "kept +us out of war." When Hughes swept everything in the East, it was +confidently assumed on election night that Wilson had been repudiated +by the country; but later reports showed that the East was no longer +symptomatic of the country's sentiment. For three days the election was +in doubt. It was finally decided by California, where the Republican +Senator whom Hughes had snubbed was re-elected by 300,000 majority, +while the Democratic electoral ticket won by a narrow margin. Wilson +had carried almost everything in the West. Those parts of the country +which lay further away from Europe and European interests had +re-elected him because he had "kept us out of War." + + +_Mediation Efforts, 1916-1917_ + +It has been stated by Count von Bernstorff that, if Hughes had been +elected, President Wilson would immediately have resigned, along with +the Vice President, after appointing Hughes as Secretary of State, in +order to give the President-elect an opportunity to come into office at +once and meet the urgent problems already pressing on the Executive. +Whether the President actually entertained any such intention or not, +it would have been a logical development of his theory of the Chief +Executive as Premier. But the President-Premier had received a vote of +confidence, and was free to deal with the new situation created by the +various peace proposals of the Winter of 1916-1917. The negotiations +which followed during December and January were obscure at the time and +are by no means clear even yet. The fullest account of them is that of +Bernstorff, whose personal interest in vindicating himself would make +him a somewhat unreliable witness even if there were nothing else +against him. And at the time, when the President's motives were unknown +to a public which had not his advantage of information as to what was +going to happen in Europe, almost every step which he took was +misconstrued, and his occasional infelicities of language aroused +suspicions which later events have shown to be entirely unjustified. + +Reports of American diplomats in the Fall of 1916 indicated that the +party in Germany which favored unrestricted submarine war without +consideration for neutrals was growing in strength. It was opposed by +most of the civilian officials of the Government, including the +Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg; Jagow and Zimmermann, the successive +Foreign Secretaries, and Bernstorff, the Ambassador in Washington. But +the Admirals who supported it were gradually winning over the +all-powerful Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, and it appeared only a +question of time until the promise to America of May, 1916, should be +broken. And, as Bernstorff has expressed it, the President realized +after the Sussex note there could be no more notes; any future German +aggression would have to be met by action or endured with meekness. + +In these circumstances the President was driven to seek opportunity for +the mediation which he had been ready to offer, if asked, from the very +beginning of the war. But to offer mediation, so long as the war was +undecided, was a matter of extreme delicacy. The majority of +intelligent Americans were strong partisans of the allied cause and +firmly believed that that cause was bound to win in the long run. There +was a minority which had equal sympathy for Germany and equal +confidence in her ultimate success. To offer mediation while the war +was still undecided would have been to offend both of these elements, +as well as the warring nations themselves, all of which were still +confident of victory. Specifically, to offer mediation during the +course of the Presidential election would have been to drive over to +Hughes all the pro-Ally elements in America, which in the state of mind +of 1916 would have seen in such a proposal only a helping hand extended +to a Germany whose cause was otherwise hopeless. + +So, though during 1916 the President would have welcomed a request for +mediation, he did not dare suggest it on his own account. And neither +side dared to propose it, for such a request would have been taken as +an admission of defeat. Nineteen hundred and sixteen was an indecisive +year, but the fortune of war gave now one side and now the other the +conviction that a few months more would bring it to complete victory. +In such circumstances the losers dared not make a proposal which would +hearten their enemies and the victors would not suggest the stopping of +the war when they hoped that a few months more would see them in a much +more favorable position. + + + _A Sympathetic Tribute_ + + _Hamilton Holt, head of a delegation that visited the White House + on October 27, 1920, in connection with the campaign advocating our + entry into the League of Nations, said in the course of his address + to President Wilson:_ + + _"It was you who first focused the heterogeneous and often diverse + aims of the war on the one ideal of pure Americanism, which is + democracy. It was you who suggested the basis on which peace was + negotiated. It was you, more than any man, who translated into + practical statesmanship the age-old dream of the poets, the + prophets and the philosophers by setting up a league of nations to + the end that cooperation could be substituted for competition in + international affairs._ + + _"These acts of statesmanship were undoubtedly the chief factors + which brought about that victorious peace which has shorn Germany + of her power to subdue her neighbors, has compelled her to make + restitution for her crimes, has freed oppressed peoples, has + restored ravaged territories, has created new democracies in the + likeness of the United States, and above all has set up the League + of Nations."_ + + +But by December Germany's situation was more fortunate than at any time +since the early Summer. Rumania, which had come into the war three +months before, had been defeated and overrun in a spectacular campaign +which had brought new prestige to the German armies. The triumph was of +more value in appearance than in reality, for no decision had been +reached on the main fronts and none of the chief belligerents was +willing to give up. Germany was under a terrible strain, and the +civilian Government concluded that the end of 1916 offered an +opportunity to make a peace proposal, without loss of prestige, which +might lead to a settlement of the war that would leave Germany +substantially the victor. For it was known that unless some such +decisive result were soon attained the military party would unloose the +submarines in the effort to win a complete victory, and thereby bring +about complications too serious for the civilian officials to +contemplate with any sense of security. + +So on Dec. 12 Bethmann Hollweg proposed a peace conference. He +mentioned no terms which Germany would consider; he spoke in the +arrogant tones of a victor; and the total effect of his speech was to +convince the world that he was trying to influence the pacifist +elements in the allied countries rather than to bring about an end of +the war. But his step caused profound uneasiness in Washington, for he +had anticipated the action which the President had long been +considering. If Mr. Wilson could not have offered mediation before the +election, he might have tried it in November had not the German +deportation of Belgian workingmen just then aroused such a storm of +anti-German feeling in America that it would have been unsafe to take a +step which public opinion would have generally regarded as favorable to +Germany. Now that Bethmann Hollweg had anticipated him, it was evident +that any proposal which the President might make would be regarded as a +sort of second to the German motion. + +Nevertheless, the situation was urgent, and the President seems to have +felt that his interposition could perhaps accomplish something which +the German initiative could not. Colonel House in the last two years +had made a number of trips to Europe as a sort of super-Ambassador to +all the powers in the endeavor to find out what their Governments +regarded as suitable terms of peace. Mr. Wilson's own interest lay +first of all in the establishment of conditions that would reduce--or, +as men would have said in 1916, prevent--the possibility of future +wars. On May 27, 1916, he had delivered a speech before the League to +Enforce Peace in which he favored the formation of an international +association for the delay or prevention of wars and the preservation of +the freedom of the seas. Later speeches contained doctrines most of +which were eventually written into the League covenant, and were based +on the central theory that all nations must act together to prevent the +next war, as otherwise they would all be drawn into it. On Oct. 26 he +had declared that "this is the last war the United States can ever keep +out of." + + + _The United States in the War_ + + _Declaration of war, April 6, 1917._ + + _American warships in European waters, May 4, 1917._ + + _First Liberty Loan offered, May 14, 1917._ + + _Selective Service act operative, May 18, 1917._ + + _First American troops in France, July 1, 1917._ + + _Fourteen Points speech, January 8, 1918._ + + _"Force to the utmost" speech, April 6, 1918._ + + _Americans in action at Cantigny, May 28, 1918._ + + _Chateau-Thierry, June 1-5, 1918._ + + _Marne-Aisne offensive, July 15-August, 1918._ + + _St. Mihiel offensive, September 12, 1918._ + + _Meuse-Argonne offensive, September 26-November 11, 1918._ + + _Austrian peace proposal, September 15, 1918._ + + _First German peace note, October 4, 1918._ + + _Armistice ending the war, November 11, 1918._ + + +Yet the President also had ideas on the nature of the peace terms by +which the war then going on should be concluded, though he felt that no +good could be obtained by the proposal of such terms from a neutral. On +Dec. 18, accordingly, he addressed the belligerent Governments with an +invitation to state the specific conditions which each of them regarded +as essential to a just peace, in the hope that they would find they +were nearer agreement than they knew. Unfortunately, the President made +the observation that the objects of the two alliances, "as stated in +general terms to their own people and the world," were "virtually the +same." That was true; each side had said that it was fighting in +self-defense in order to preserve international justice, the rights of +nationalities, and a number of other worthy interests. But the public, +both in America and in the allied countries, saw in this renewed effort +at "impartiality of thought as well as of action" an indication that +the President saw no moral difference between the two sides. From that +moment any good result of the President's suggestion, in America or in +the allied countries, was out of the question; and if any hope had +remained, the Germans presently destroyed it. They wanted a peace +conference with no terms stated beforehand, where they could play on +the divergent interests of the allied countries; nor did they want the +President to have anything to do with the making of peace, lest, as +Bethmann Hollweg expressed it to Bernstorff, the Germans should be +"robbed of their gains by neutral pressure." So the German reply on +Dec. 26 politely observed that a direct conference between the +belligerents would seem most appropriate, which conference the German +Government proposed. For the general idea of a League of Nations the +Germans expressed their approval, but they wanted peace of their own +kind first. + +The allied reply was delayed until Jan. 11, but at least it met the +President's request for details. It laid down the specifications of +what the allied powers would regard as a just peace, and the bulk of +that program was eventually to be written into the Treaty of +Versailles. But at the time, of course, it was evident that the +belligerents were further from agreement than they thought, or at any +rate than the President thought. Of such terms Germany would hear +nothing; nor would her Government give to the President, even in +confidence, its own idea of the specifications of a just peace. + +So the President, determined to carry out his program in spite of all +obstacles, finally went before the Senate on Jan. 22, 1917, and laid +down some general considerations of what he thought a just peace should +be like. It was the logical next step in his effort to stop the war +before America should become involved, but it was taken under +conditions which made success impossible. As a matter of fact, the +Germans had already decided to resume the unrestricted submarine war; +the decision had been taken on Jan. 9, but was not to be announced till +Jan. 31. Moreover, in America and the allied countries public sentiment +was unprepared for anything like the speech of Jan. 22. Few people in +the United States realized the danger. Mr. Lansing had followed upon +the December note with a statement to correspondents that if the war +were not soon stopped America might be drawn into it. That was the +fact, but it depended on information unknown to the public; and though +the most natural inference was that a new crisis with Germany was at +hand no one knew exactly how to take it--particularly as Lansing, on +orders from the White House, hastened to explain that he had been +misunderstood. + +Moreover, the President was still desperately striving to keep in good +understanding with the German Government, and in pursuance of this +policy James W. Gerard, the Ambassador to Germany, had declared at a +dinner in Berlin on Jan. 6 that the relations between America and +Germany had never been better than they were at that moment. This, +also, the public in the United States found it hard to understand. If +Lansing's reference to the danger of war had meant anything, what did +this mean? + +So the President's address to the Senate on Jan. 22 did not and could +not have the reception that he hoped. He set forth his idea of the +necessity of a League of Nations, he declared that the peace must be +based on democratic principles and on the doctrine that was to become +famous before long under the name of self-determination. There must be +no more forcible conquests, no more bartering of unwilling populations. +The peace that ended this war, he said, must be guaranteed by a League +of Nations--of all nations; and if America was to enter that League she +must be assured that the peace was a peace worth guaranteeing. + +So far every one might have followed him, in America at least; but the +President called such a peace a "peace without victory," and to the +supporters of the Allies in America, rendered suspicious by a course +whose motives they could not see, that meant a peace without allied +victory and consequently an unjust peace. Few of the President's public +addresses have been more unfavorably received. + +Wilson had stated his peace terms--of course, only in general +principles; the Allies had stated theirs in detail. Except for an +article in a New York evening newspaper, inspired by Bernstorff but +bearing no mark of authority, the German terms had not even been +suggested. On the day following his Senate speech, according to +Bernstorff, the President volunteered to issue a call for an immediate +peace conference if only the Germans would state their terms. But they +did not state them until the 29th, when a note for the President's +private information detailed a program which was as obviously +unacceptable to the allied powers as the Allies' terms were to the +Germans. In any case this program had only an academic interest, for +along with it came a formal notice that unrestricted submarine war +would begin on Feb. 1. + +The German Government had deliberately broken its promises of Sept. 1, +1915, and May 5, 1916. Moreover, that Government, which for months past +had been sending the President private assurances of its hearty +approval of his efforts toward peace, had by its intrusion and its +refusal to deal openly wrecked those efforts when at last he had +brought them to a head. There was only one thing to do, and the +President did it. On Feb. 3 he announced to Congress the rupture of +diplomatic relations with Germany. + +But breaking of relations did not mean war. The President told Congress +that if the threat against American lives and property conveyed by the +resumption of submarine war were followed by overt acts of actual +injury to Americans he would come before Congress once more and ask for +authority to take the necessary steps to protect American interests. +But for the moment he seems to have felt that only a warning was +necessary; that the Germans, if convinced that America meant business, +would reconsider their decision. And he added, "I take it for granted +that all neutral Governments will take the same course." Logically they +should have done so, since the proclamation of submarine war was +virtually a declaration of war on all neutrals; but the European +neutrals did not dare to run the risk even if they had been so minded. + +The submarines set to work and more ships were sunk, some of them ships +with American passengers. The nation began to demand war to end an +impossible situation. For the moment the President's aspirations were +more moderate, and he asked Congress in the closing days of his first +term for authority to arm American merchant ships for defense against +submarines. The bill readily passed the House and commanded the support +of seven-eighths of the Senate; but a dozen pacifists, pro-Germans and +professional obstructionists, whom the President denounced as "a little +group of willful men," filibustered it to death in the Senate in the +last hours of the session. Almost the first act of the President after +his inauguration, however, was the preparation to arm the ships by +Executive authority. + + + _Rural Credits_ + + The farmers, it seems to me, have occupied hitherto a singular + position of disadvantage. They have not had the same freedom to get + credit on their real assets that others have had who were in + manufacturing and commercial enterprises, and while they sustained + our life, they did not in the same degree with some others share in + the benefits of that life.--_From President Wilson's remarks on + signing the Rural Credits Bill, July 17, 1916._ + + +[Illustration: (C) _Paul Thompson_ + 1918: The President acknowledging greetings at a + military review] + +Meanwhile secret agents had discovered an attempt by the German Foreign +Office to enlist Mexican and Japanese support in the prospective war +against America by promising annexations in the Southwest and on the +Pacific Coast. Publication of this on March 1 converted a good many +Americans of the interior who had hitherto been slow to recognize the +seriousness of the German danger; and as the submarine campaign +continued and no European neutrals followed the American example, the +sentiment in favor of declaration of war grew every day. + +But for the President this involved considerable logical difficulty. +From the first he had striven to maintain "impartiality of thought," or +at least of speech. He had said that the war was no concern of +America's; it would be the task of long historical research to assign +the responsibility for its outbreak; that "with its causes and objects +we are not concerned. The obscure foundations from which its tremendous +flood has burst forth we are not interested to search for and explore." +It was a war which should be ended by a peace without a victory. +Whatever meaning the President attached to these statements when he +made them, the meaning attached to them by the public was a serious +obstacle to the man who was going to have to lead the nation into war. +But he solved the dilemma by a change of base which affected the whole +political complexion of the war thereafter, which introduced a new and +overriding issue--an issue which, addressing Congress on April 2, he +introduced to the world in his most famous phrase and the most +effective of his speeches. America, he said, had no quarrel with the +German people; that people had not made the war. But the Germans were +ruled by an autocratic Government which had made neutrality impossible, +which had shown itself "the natural foe of liberty." That Government +had forced America to take up the sword for the freedom of peoples--of +all peoples, even of the German people. America must fight "to make the +world safe for democracy." On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war. + + +_America at War, 1917-1918_ + +Once committed to war, the President found behind him a nation more +thoroughly united than could ever have been hoped in the dark days of +1915. Again, as in the week after the sinking of the Lusitania, he was +the universally trusted leader of the people; and to a considerable +extent the unity of the nation at the entrance into war could be traced +back to the very policies of delay which had been so sharply +criticised. The people who had been on the side of the Allies from the +first and who had seen through German pretenses long before were now +solidly behind the President, for he had at last come over to their +views. But other and important elements which might have been hostile +two years before were now convinced of the necessity for fighting the +Germans. + +And the President's call to a crusade for democracy won the support, +permanent or temporary, of many of those liberals who otherwise, in +America and the allied countries, were inclined during the whole war to +see in the Kaiser and Ludendorff the natural allies of liberalism. +There was a feeling of great ideas stirring the world in the Spring of +1917. The Russian revolution had just overthrown the most reactionary +and apparently the most firmly established of autocratic Governments, +and no one in Western Europe or America doubted that Russia would jump +in six months as far as England, France and America had painfully +toiled in two centuries, and become and remain a free democracy. If +Russia had had a revolution, might not Germany have a revolution, too? +Would not the German people, whose injuries at the hands of their own +rulers the President had so well pointed out, rise up and overthrow +those rulers and bring about a just and lasting peace? Many people in +the Spring of 1917 expected exactly that; the millennium was just +around the corner. + +Moreover, it seemed that perhaps the Allies would win the war in the +field before America could get into it. A British offensive in Artois +had important initial successes, and Nivelle's bloody failure on the +Aisne was for a long time represented to the world as a brilliant +victory. War, for America, might involve a little expenditure of money, +but hardly any serious effort, according to the view widely current +among the population in the Spring of 1917; it was more than anything +else an opportunity for the display of commendable moral sentiments, +and for enthusiastic acclamations to the famous allied leaders who +presently began to come to the United States on special missions. It is +hardly too much to say that most of the American people went into this +war in the triumphant mood usually reserved for the celebration of +victory. + +It may some day be regarded as one of the chief merits of the Wilson +Administration that it was not affected by this popular delusion. While +a large part of the people seemed to expect a cheap and speedy victory +by some sort of white magic, the Administration was getting ready to +work for victory. And thanks largely to the unity which had been bought +by the President's caution in the two previous years, Congress and the +people assented to measures of exertion and self-denial such as no man +could have expected America to undertake until compelled by bitter +experience. + +The first step was the dispatch of American naval forces to aid the +Allies in the fight against the submarines, which for a few months were +to come dangerously near justifying the confidence that had been placed +in them. The process of naval reinforcement was slow, and not till 1918 +did the American Navy become a really important factor in the +anti-submarine campaign; but every destroyer added to the allied forces +was of immediate value. The American Treasury was opened for vast +credits to the Allies, who by their enormous purchases of war materials +in the United States had created the abounding prosperity of 1916, and +had pretty nearly exhausted their own finances in doing so. More than +that, the Administration began at once to prepare for the organization +of a vast army; and faced with this most important duty of the conduct +of the war, the President took the advice of the men who knew. The army +officers knew that if America were to take a serious part in the war +the regular army and the National Guard would not be enough, nor even +Garrison's Continental Army which had been rejected in 1916. A big army +would be needed, and the right way to raise it was by conscription. + +So the Selective Service act was introduced in Congress and passed in +May, without very serious opposition. At the very start the American +people had accepted a principle which had been adopted in the crisis of +the Civil War only after two years of disaster and humiliation. It was +the estimate of experts that this army would need a year of training +before it would be fit for the front line, and a huge system of +cantonments was hastily constructed to house the troops, while the +nucleus of men trained in the Plattsburg camps was increased by the +extension of the Plattsburg system all over the country. + +For the leadership of this army General Pershing was selected, not +without considerable criticism from those who thought General Wood +deserved the position. The reasons which led to the selection of +Pershing are not yet officially known to the public, but Pershing's +record was to be a sufficient justification of the appointment. + +But military and naval measures were only a part of the work needed to +win this war. Allied shipping was being sunk by the submarines at an +alarming rate, and new ships had to be provided. An enormous American +program was laid out, and General Goethals, in whom there was universal +confidence, was made head of the Emergency Fleet Corporation charged +with its execution. But Goethals could not get along with William +Denman, head of the Shipping Board, and changes of personnel were +constant through the year until in 1918 Charles M. Schwab was finally +put in chief control of the shipbuilding program. + +For this and the development of the industrial program necessary for +military efficiency the support of labor was essential. Mr. Wilson now +reaped once more the benefit of a policy which had previously brought +him much criticism. His retreat before the railroad brotherhoods in +August of 1916, as well as the general policy of his Administration, +had won him the invaluable support of the American Federation of Labor, +and this good understanding, together with the unprecedented wage +scales which came into operation in most industries with the war +emergency, gave to the United States Government much more firm support +from organized labor than most of the allied countries had been able to +obtain. + +But this war touched every department of human affairs. The Allies were +short of food, and one of the first achievements of the American +Government was the institution of a limited food control in the United +States, under the directorship of Herbert Hoover. Saving of food by +voluntary effort was popularized, and increased production and reduced +consumption prevented the appearance of any serious food crisis in the +allied countries. Later a fuel control was instituted under Dr. Harry +A. Garfield, and the principle of voluntary self-denial established by +the Food Administration was carried on into the field of news, where +the newspapers submitted to voluntary restriction of the publication of +news that might unfavorably affect military and naval movements. The +Committee on Public Information, headed by George Creel, was in general +supervision of this work, and, though it was, on the whole, unpopular +and accomplished no very useful purpose at home, it developed during +1918 a service of European propaganda which was of immense value in +heartening the Allies, informing the neutrals and discouraging the +enemy. + +For all this money was needed, and in May and June the first Liberty +Loan of $2,000,000,000 was put before the public in an intensive +campaign of publicity. Mr. McAdoo proved himself an extremely able +advertiser of the public finances, and with the vigorous cooperation of +banks and business men the loan was more than 50 per cent +oversubscribed. There were other and larger loans later, but after the +success of the first one there was no doubt that they would be taken; +the first great accomplishment in national financing was almost as much +of a surprise to the public as the ready acceptance of the draft. + +Early in April the railroads were put in charge of a committee of five +railroad Presidents, who were given great powers in the combination of +facilities for better service. But the system did not work well, and on +Dec. 26, 1917, the President announced the assumption by the Government +of control of the railroads for the war emergency, with Mr. McAdoo as +Director General. + +Nineteen hundred and seventeen, then, saw the Wilson Administration +undertaking far heavier burdens than any previous Administration had +attempted, and meeting with a measure of success which was beyond all +prediction. The most powerful nation in the world was getting ready for +war on an enormous scale, getting ready slowly, to be sure, but with a +surprising ease and a surprising harmony. The nation which had +re-elected the President in November because he had kept it out of war +was whole-heartedly behind him from April on as he led it into war. + +But great as was the President's moral authority at home, it was still +greater abroad. The principles proclaimed in his address of April 2, +and repeated and elaborated later in the year, became the creed of +almost every political element in Europe except the German military +party. The Russian revolution was still a liberalizing influence, in +the early part of the year, and self-determination began to be +proclaimed over all Europe as the central principle of any satisfactory +peace settlement. In the allied countries, where Mr. Wilson's +forbearance toward Germany had been heaped with ridicule for the last +two years, he became over night the interpreter of the ideals for which +the democratic peoples were fighting. Hereafter in any negotiations +with Germany the President by general consent acted as the spokesman of +all the allied Governments, and the peoples of the allied countries +accepted his declarations as a sort of codification of the principles +of the war. It must be left for the historian of the future to decide +how much of this deference was due to appreciation of the President's +service in clarifying the allied ideals, and how much to his position +as head of the most powerful nation in the world, whose intervention +was expected to bring victory to the Allies. + +But in other countries as well, Wilson's ideals had become a dogma to +which everybody professed allegiance no matter what his views. The +President's principles, as publicly expressed in his speeches, had been +in effect a declaration of worthy ends, such as all right thinking +persons desired. He had been less concerned with the means to those +ends, and consequently all who agreed with his principles were inclined +to assert that the President's ideals were exemplified by their own +practices. In 1917 the President enjoyed the unusual experience of +seeing American liberals, British Laborites, three or four kinds of +Russian Socialists, neutral Socialists, neutral clericals, neutral +pacifists and even certain groups in the enemy countries all +proclaiming their adherence to the ideals of President Wilson. + +For a time, indeed, it seemed that the war might be decided by moral +force. Beginning to take alarm at the activity of America, and not yet +certain of the effect of the Russian revolution (which was having grave +consequences in Austria-Hungary) the Germans inclined during the Summer +of 1917 to a new peace offensive. Bethmann Hollweg was dropped on July +14, and five days later a majority of the Reichstag voted for a peace +virtually on the basis of the status quo ante. In August the Vatican +issued a peace proposal suggesting a settlement on that general +principle, with territorial and racial disputes to be left for later +adjustment; and the Socialists of Europe were preparing to meet at +Stockholm for a peace conference of their own influenced by the same +ideas. + +But the President had changed his opinion that America had no concern +with the causes and the objects of the war; he had had to search for +and explore the obscure foundations from which the tremendous flood had +burst forth. His Flag Day speech on June 14 showed that he was now +thinking of the political and economic aspects of the German drive for +world supremacy; and when the allied powers intrusted him with the task +of answering the Pope's peace suggestion in the name of all of them, he +declared that "we cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany +as a guarantee for anything that is to endure." The German Government +could not be trusted with a peace without victory. + +That peace offensive died out in early Fall. The Germans had lost +interest, for they seemed likely to reach their objective in other +ways. Things were going badly for the Allies. The offensives in the +west had broken down and France's striking power seemed exhausted. +Italy suffered a terrific defeat in October. America was preparing, but +had not yet arrived, and the chief result of the Russian revolution had +been the collapse of the eastern front. When in November the Bolsheviki +overthrew Kerensky and prepared to make peace at any price, it was +evident that the German armies in France would soon be enormously +reinforced. So the Winter of 1917-18 saw a new peace offensive, but +this time most of the work was done by the Allies, and the object was +to detach Austria-Hungary from Germany. + +The item of principal interest in the long-range bombardment of +speeches on war aims by which the statesmen of the various powers +conducted this exchange of views was the proclamation of the famous +Fourteen Points, in which the President for the first time put his +ideas as to the conditions of a just peace into somewhat specific form. +The origin of this program, which was eventually to become the basis of +the peace treaty, is still a matter of conjecture. Lloyd George on Jan. +5, 1918, had stated war aims in some respects identical with those +which the President embodied in the Fourteen Points three days later. A +good deal of the program had been included in the allied statement of +Jan. 11, 1917, but the Fourteen Points were somewhat more moderate. +They seemed to be, indeed, a rather hasty recension of old programs in +the effort to modify allied aspirations so that Austria would accept +them; for while the Fourteen Points professed to contain the scheme of +a just peace, they were set forth as a step in the endeavor to persuade +Austria to desert her ally. As it happened, Austria could not have +deserted Germany even if she had desired; and, in any event, the effort +to compromise was quite impracticable. The section referring to +Austrian internal problems, for instance, proposed a solution which the +Austrian Government had rejected only a few weeks before, and which the +Austrian subject nationalities would no longer have been willing to +accept + +Whatever the origin of the Fourteen Points, their immediate effect was +slight. The Austrians, and to a lesser extent the Germans, professed +interest, but it was soon apparent that the Germans at least were not +ready to approach the allied point of view. And the Treaty of +Brest-Litovsk, forced upon Russia on March 3, was in such stark +contrast with the benevolent professions of German statesmen that the +President realized that nothing could be gained by debate and +compromise. On April 6, in a speech at Baltimore, he declared that only +one argument was now of use against the Germans--"force to the utmost, +force without stint or limit." The process of conversion from the +viewpoint of January, 1917, was complete. + +As a matter of fact, however, the application of force had already +begun. On March 21 Ludendorff had opened his great offensive in France +which was to bring the war to a German victory, and for the next few +months Foch, and not Wilson, was the dominant personality among the +Allies. And for a time it seemed that however much America had +contributed to the moral struggle between the alliances, she would be +able to furnish comparatively little force. The winter of 1917-18 had +been full of humiliations. The railroad disorganization which had led +to the proclamation of Government control at the end of December was +being cleared up only slowly. The Fuel Administration was in an even +worse tangle, and in January business and industry had to shut down for +several days throughout the whole Eastern part of the country in order +to find coal to move food trains to the ports. Great sums of money and +enormous volumes of boasting had been expended on airplane construction +without getting any airplanes. Hundreds of millions had been poured +into shipyards and ships were only beginning to come from the ways. The +richest nation in the world allowed hundreds of its soldiers to die in +cantonment hospitals because of insufficient attention and inadequate +supplies. Artillery regiments were being trained with wooden guns and +only 150,000 Americans, many of them technical troops, were in France. + +The Secretary of War, called before a Congressional committee to answer +questions on these shortcomings, had created the impression that he +either did not know that anything was wrong or did not care. On Jan. 19 +Senator Chamberlain, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military +Affairs, declared that "the military establishment of the United States +has broken down; it has almost stopped functioning," and that there was +"inefficiency in every bureau and department of the Government." The +next day he introduced bills for a War Cabinet and a Director of +Munitions, which would practically have taken the military and +industrial conduct of the war out of the President's hands. + +The President met the challenge boldly with the declaration that +Senator Chamberlain's statement was "an astonishing and unjustifiable +distortion of the truth," and must have been due to disloyalty to the +Administration. Chamberlain's reply, while admitting that he might have +overstated his case, was a proclamation of loyalty to his +Commander-in-Chief and an appeal for getting down to the business of +winning the war. + + + _The Fourteen Points_ + + _President Wilson's program for the world's peace was outlined in + the Fourteen Points, which constituted part of an address delivered + before Congress January 8, 1918, as follows:_ + + + _No Private Understandings_ + + 1 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. + + + _Freedom of the Seas_ + + 2 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. + + + _No Economic Barriers_ + + 3 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. + + + _Reduce National Armaments_ + + 4 ADEQUATE GUARANTEES given and taken that national armaments will + be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. + + + _Colonial Claims_ + + 5 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. + + + _Russian Territory_ + + 6 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. + + + _Restoration of Belgium_ + + 7 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. + + + _Alsace-Lorraine to France_ + + 8 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. + + + _New Frontiers for Italy_ + + 9 A READJUSTMENT of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along + clearly recognizable lines of nationality. + + + _Autonomy in Austria-Hungary_ + + 10 THE PEOPLES of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we + wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest + opportunity of autonomous development. + + + _Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro_ + + 11 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. + + + _Autonomy in Turkey_ + + 12 THE TURKISH portions 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. + + + _For an Independent Poland_ + + 13 AN INDEPENDENT Polish State should be erected which should + include the territory 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. + + + _League of Nation_ + + 14 A GENERAL association of nations must be formed under specific + covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guaranties of + political independence and territorial integrity to great and small + States alike. + + +But the war did not go on into 1919. If America could contribute no +aircraft and guns to the campaign of 1918, she could at least +contribute men. The emergency of March and April brought forth a +prodigious effort, and soldiers began to be shipped across the Atlantic +by hundreds of thousands. By July 4 there were a million, before the +end of the year over 2,000,000; and they could fight. At the end of the +Summer the Germans realized that the war was lost; and realizing it, +they turned back to President Wilson's mediation which they had +rejected eighteen months before, and to the Fourteen Points which had +been looked on so coldly in the previous Winter. + +The first move was made by the Austrians, who on Sept. 15 proposed a +conference for a "preliminary and non-binding" discussion of war aims. +The President refused the next day, with the observation that America's +war aims had been stated so often that there could be no doubt what +they were. But it was evident that more peace proposals would follow, +and on Sept. 27 the President delivered an address in the Metropolitan +Opera House in New York in which his latest conception of the duties of +the Peace Conference was set forth. He had realized that peace without +victory was unsafe in view of the character of the German Government; +it must be a peace with guarantees, for nobody would trust the Germans. +But it must be a peace of impartial justice, "involving no +discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to +whom we do not wish to be just," and the guarantee must be provided by +a League of Nations which the Peace Conference itself--and not a +subsequent general conference, as the President had held in the days of +his neutrality--must organize. The development was logical; nearly all +the American powers had entered the war, and neutrals were far less +numerous than in 1916. And he argued that the League of Nations must be +formed at the Peace Conference, to be "in a sense the most essential +part" of its work, because it was not likely that it could be formed +after the conference, and if formed during the war it would only be an +alliance of the powers associated against Germany. + +The Germans apparently thought these pronouncements offered some hope. +Their Government was hastily being covered with a false front of +democratic institutions to suit his insistence, and on Oct. 4 the new +Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, appealed to the President to call a +peace conference at once, the basis of peace to be the Fourteen Points +and conditions set forth in the President's later addresses, +specifically that of Sept. 27. There ensued an interchange of notes +lasting throughout an entire month, in which the President acted +nominally as intermediary between the Germans and the Allies, though +actually he was in constant touch with allied statesmen. What began as +a duel of diplomatic dexterity presently developed into a German +diplomatic rout as the German armies, retreating everywhere, drew +nearer and nearer German soil. Positions which the German Government +had hoped to defend were successively abandoned; the Germans agreed to +accept without argument the Fourteen Points, with discussion at the +conference limited only to details of their practical application, and +to recognize the alterations which had been made in some of them by +subsequent decisions of the American Government. They accepted the +President's insistence that a peace conference must be conditional on +an armistice which would imply complete evacuation of allied territory +and the assurance of "the present supremacy" of the allied armies, and +they strove desperately to convince him that the democratization of the +German Government was real. Delegates went to Marshal Foch to discuss +the armistice terms, and on Nov. 5 the Allies formally notified the +President that they accepted the Fourteen Points, with the reservation +of the freedom of the seas and subject to a definition of the +restitution which the Germans must make for damage done. + +On the same day sailors of the German High Sea Fleet, ordered out to +die fighting in a last thrust at the British, mutinied and began a +revolution that spread all over the empire. From the balcony of the +Imperial Palace in Berlin Karl Liebknecht proclaimed the republic; the +Kaiser fled across the Dutch border between two days; and on Nov. 11 +the fighting ended and the Germans submitted to the terms imposed by +Marshal Foch. + + +_Peace Conference and Treaty, 1919_ + +So the war had been ended by the military defeat of the Germans. In +arranging the preliminaries of peace Mr. Wilson's influence had been +dominant. But the personal aspect of his triumph was far more imposing +in 1918 than it could possibly have been in 1916. Had his mediation +ended the war before America entered it would have been bitterly +resented in the allied countries and by American sympathizers of the +Allies. But in the interval the President had appeared as the leader of +the nation which furnished the decisive addition to allied strength +that brought the final victory; he had at last condemned in strong +terms the German Government, toward which he had to maintain a neutral +attitude earlier in the war, and he had had the satisfaction of seeing +that Government overthrown at last when the German people realized that +it had cost them more than it was worth. So now the war was ended in +victory, but still ended by Wilson's mediation, and moreover on terms +which he himself had laid down--another triumph that would have been +unthinkable two years earlier. In November, 1918, Woodrow Wilson was +exalted in the estimation of the world more highly than any other human +being for a century past, and far more highly than any other American +had ever been raised in the opinion of the peoples of Europe. + +But he had just suffered a surprising defeat at home. It became evident +to Democratic leaders in the early Fall of 1918 that they were likely +to lose the Congressional elections. Democratic leadership in the House +of Representatives had been so notoriously incompetent that most of the +war measures had had to be carried through under the leadership of +Republicans, and there was grave dissatisfaction with some of the +members of the Cabinet. The appeals of Democrats in danger were heard +sympathetically at the White House, and on Oct. 25 the President had +issued a statement asking the people to vote for Democratic +Congressional candidates "if you have approved of my leadership and +wish me to continue to be your unembarrassed spokesman in affairs at +home and abroad." He admitted that the Republicans in Congress had +supported the war, but declared that they had been against the +Administration and that the time was too critical for divided +leadership. It was the sort of appeal that any European Premier might +have made upon "going to the country," and the President ended with the +statement that "I am your servant and will accept your judgment without +cavil." + +If this statement had never been issued, the results of the ensuing +election might not have been accepted as a repudiation of the +President. But he had made it a "question of confidence," to borrow a +term from European politics, and the result was disastrous. The +elections gave the Republicans a majority of thirty-nine in the lower +house and a majority of two in the Senate, which by a two-thirds vote +would have to ratify the peace treaty which the Executive would +negotiate. In such a situation a European Premier would, of course, +have had to resign, but the President of the United States could hardly +resign just as the war was coming to an end. The attempt to fit the +parliamentary system into the framework of the American Constitution +had failed. The President made no comment on the outcome of the +election, but he continued to be the unembarrassed spokesman of America +in affairs at home and particularly abroad. It soon became known that +he intended to go to the Peace Conference in person--at the request, it +was intimated, of Clemenceau and Lloyd George. The criticism of this +plan was by no means confined to Republicans, but the President +persisted in it. There was a widespread demand for a non-partisan Peace +Commission, but the apparent concession which the President finally +made to this sentiment--the appointment of Henry White, long out of the +diplomatic service and never very active in politics, as the sole +Representative on a commission of five--satisfied the bulk of +Republican sentiment not at all. It should be observed however, that +behind the five official delegates there was a host of experts--military, +economic, legal and ethnological--some of whom did very important +service at the conference; and in the selection of this body no party +lines had been drawn. + +On December 4 the President sailed from New York on an army transport, +accompanied by Mrs. Wilson and by a whole caravan of savants loaded +down with statistics and documents. He left a nation whose sentiment +was divided between sharp resentment and a rather apprehensive hope for +the best, but he landed on a continent which was prepared to offer to +Woodrow Wilson a triumphal reception such as European history had never +known. The six weeks between his landing at Brest and the opening of +the Peace Conference were devoted to a series of processions through +England, France and Italy, in which the Governments and the people +strove to outdo each other in expressing their enthusiasm for the +leader of the great and victorious crusade for justice and democracy. +Sovereigns spiritual and temporal and the heads of Governments heaped +him with all the honors in their power, and crowds of workingmen stood +for hours in the rain that they might see him for a moment at a +railroad station. Even from neutral Holland, divided Ireland and +hostile Germany came invitations to the President, and he would +probably have been received by those peoples as enthusiastically as by +British, French and Italians. + +For the war had been ended on the basis of the ideals of President +Wilson. Those ideals had been expressed in vague and general terms, and +every Government thought that its own war aims coincided with them. +Every people, suddenly released from the long and terrible strain of +the war, thought that all its troubles were suddenly to be ended by the +principles of President Wilson. Jugo-Slavs and Italians claimed Istria +and Fiume, and each felt itself supported by the principles of +President Wilson. To Frenchmen those principles meant that Germany must +pay for the war forced on France, and to Germans they meant that a +ruined France and an uninvaded Germany could start again on the same +footing. + +The Peace conference that began on January 18 was bound to disillusion +a great many people, including President Wilson himself. Principles had +to be translated into practice, and every effort to do so left one +party to the dispute, if not both, convinced that the principles had +been betrayed. The treaty which was eventually produced led American +liberals to complain that the President had surrendered to European +imperialism, and brought from such Republicans as still admired the +Allies the complaint that he had betrayed allied interests at the +promptings of pacifism. Equally diverse opinions might have been +obtained from all types of extremists in Europe. The Fourteen Points +were susceptible of varying interpretations, according to individual +interests; and at the very outset the American delegates found some of +the allied leaders contending that they need not be considered, since +the Germans had surrendered, not because they regarded the principles +of President Wilson as just, but because they had been beaten. There +was undoubtedly a great deal of truth in this contention, but the +American delegates succeeded in holding the conference to the position +that having accepted the German surrender on certain terms it would +have to abide by those terms. The terms had to be interpreted, however, +and every agreement on the details led to a protest from somebody that +the President had abandoned the Fourteen Points. + +All this, together with the growing Republican opposition at home which +was making itself heard in Europe, led to a rapid decline in the +President's prestige. So long as it was a question of generalities he +was the moral leader of the peoples of the world, but after a few weeks +of getting down to particulars he was only the head of the peace +delegation of a single State--and a State in which there was already +serious opposition to his policy. This altered standing was made +evident toward the end of April, when a protracted disagreement with +the Italian delegation over the Adriatic question led the President to +issue a declaration of his position which was virtually an appeal to +the Italian people over the heads of their own representatives. Nowhere +had the President been received with more enthusiasm than in his trip +through Italy four months before; but now Dr. Orlando, the Italian +Premier, went home and promptly got a virtually unanimous vote of +confidence from his Parliament, which was supported by the overwhelming +majority of the people. + +The treaty was finally signed on June 28, and the President left at +once for home to take up the fight to get it through the Senate--a +fight which, it was already apparent, would be about as hard as the +struggle to get any treaty evolved at all out of the conflicting +national interests in Paris. There was a demonstration for him at Brest +as he left French soil, but nothing like the enthusiasm that had +greeted his arrival. This was perhaps the measure of his inevitable +decline in the estimation of Europe; it remained to be seen how he +stood at home. As early as January 1, before the Peace Conference met, +Senator Lodge, Republican leader in the Senate, had declared that the +conference ought to confine itself to the Peace Treaty and leave the +League of Nations for later discussion. + +On February 14, after the first reading of the League covenant, the +President had made a hurried trip home to talk it over with the Senate +Committee on Foreign Relations--a committee that had been loaded up +with enemies of the League of Nations. The members of the committee +dined with him at the White House on February 26, and the covenant was +discussed for several hours. But the President could not convert the +doubters; on March 3 Senator Lodge announced that thirty-seven +Republican Senators were opposed to the League in its present form, and +that they regarded a demand for its alteration as the exercise of the +Senate's constitutional right of advice on treaties. The President took +up the challenge, and on the following day, just before sailing back to +Paris, he declared in a public address that the League and treaty were +inextricably interwoven; that he did not intend to bring back "the +corpse of a treaty," and that those who opposed the League must be deaf +to the demands of common men the world over. + +The fight was now begun. Some modifications were made in the covenant +in the direction of meeting criticisms by Elihu Root, but it was +adopted. On July 10 the treaty was laid before the Senate and referred +to the Committee on Foreign Relations, which at once began to hear +opinions on it. The President himself appeared before the committee on +August 19. Outside the Senate party lines were breaking up; the Irish +and German elements who had come into line during the war, but had felt +that their interpretation of President Wilson's ideals had been +violated by the treaty, were aligned in support of the Republican +opposition; and a certain element of the Democratic Party which +inclined to admire the theory of traditional isolation found itself in +harmony with the Republicans. On the other hand, many moderate +Republicans supported the President, chief among them Mr. Taft; and in +the churches and colleges support of the League commanded an +overwhelming majority. + +Convinced that the people were behind him against the Senate, or would +be behind him if they understood the issue, the President left +Washington on September 3 for another appeal to the country. Declaring +that if America rejected the League it would "break the great heart of +the world," he went to the Pacific Coast on a long and arduous speaking +tour, another request, in effect, for a vote of confidence for his work +as Premier. The effort was too much; he broke down at Wichita, Kan., on +September 26, and was hurried back to the White House, where for weeks +he lay disabled by an illness whose nature and seriousness were +carefully concealed at the time, and even yet but imperfectly +understood. Meanwhile the treaty had been reported out of committee, +and the offering of a multitude of amendments, all of which were +defeated, led eventually to the drawing up of the "Lodge reservations," +finally adopted on November 16. + +Nobody knew how sick the President was, but Senator Hitchcock, who had +led the fight for the treaty in the Senate, saw him on November 18 and +was told that in the President's opinion the Lodge reservations +amounted to nullification of the treaty. So the Democrats voted against +the treaty. Lodge's refusal to accept Wilson's treaty was as unshakable +as Wilson's refusal to accept Lodge's treaty. When the special session +ended and the regular session began the President eventually yielded a +little and consented to interpretative reservations proposed by Senator +Hitchcock. But this would not satisfy the Republicans; and on March 20 +the rejected treaty was finally sent back to the White House. + + +_The Closing Year, 1920-1921_ + +The President's recovery was slow, and the first incidents of his +return to the management of public affairs were rather startling, in +view of the abrupt manner with which he resumed the direction of +executive policy. During his illness the Cabinet had met from time to +time and in a fashion had carried on the routine work of the executive +department. Had it not done so, had the gravity of the President's +illness been generally known, the demand which was heard for an +explanation of the constitutional reference to the "disability of the +President" and an understanding of the circumstances under which the +Vice-President might assume the office would have been much stronger. +There was a good deal of apprehension, therefore, when Secretary of +State Lansing resigned, and the published correspondence showed that +the President had regarded his action in calling Cabinet meetings as a +usurpation of Presidential authority. It was evident from the +correspondence that another and perhaps stronger reason for the +President's disapproval had been the action of the Secretary in +conducting a Mexican Policy on his own initiative, during the +President's illness, which showed considerable divergence from the +President's own. Nevertheless, the manner of the action caused some +uneasiness and there was much surprise when Mr. Lansing was replaced by +Bainbridge Colby, a comparatively recent proselyte from the Progressive +Party. + +There was still further uncertainty as to the condition of the +President when he re-entered with a series of rather sharp notes into +the Adriatic controversy, which England, France and Italy had been +trying to settle, without consulting the Jugoslavs, during his illness; +and a letter to Senator Hitchcock on March 8, asserting that the +militarist party was at that time in control of France, aroused grave +misgivings on both sides of the Atlantic. These, however, were +unjustified; the President's improvement, though gradual, continued. +But the work of the Executive during 1920 was far less important than +in previous years, for the interest of the country was concentrated on +the Presidential election. + +On January 8 a letter from the President had been read at the Jackson +Day dinner in Washington, in which he refused to accept the Senate's +decision on the treaty as the decision of the nation. "If there is any +doubt as to what the people of the country think about the matter," he +added, "the clear and single way out is ... to give the next election +the form of a great and solemn referendum." Once more, as in 1918, the +President had asked for a verdict on his leadership. There was some +perturbation among the Democratic leaders, for into a Presidential +election so many issues enter that it would be difficult to regard it +as a referendum on any particular issue. It might have been so accepted +if the President himself had come forward as a candidate for a third +term, but there was no sign from the White House as to his attitude on +this issue, and there was no spontaneous demand for him outside. The +leading candidate during the pre-convention campaign was William G. +McAdoo, the President's son-in-law, who had resigned as Secretary of +the Treasury and Director General of Railroads after making a +successful record during the war, and before the criticism of the +Wilson Administration as a whole had become acute. McAdoo had the +powerful support of organized labor and most of the Federal +office-holders, but whether or not he had the support of the White +House no man knew. The Republicans assumed it for their own purposes, +and Senator Lodge's keynote speech at the Chicago Convention was full +of denunciations of the "Wilson dynasty"; but if McAdoo were Wilson's +candidate the President showed no sign of knowing it. + +That McAdoo was not nominated, however, can be ascribed very largely to +his relationship to the President and the suspicion that he was the +President's candidate. The Democratic Convention at San Francisco +adopted a platform praising and indorsing the President's record in all +details. The convention had to do that; the President's record was the +party's record. Homer Cummings as Temporary Chairman kept the +convention cheered up by a keynote speech of eulogy of that record, +which moved the assembled Democrats to such enthusiasm that Secretary +of State Colby, who had not been a Democrat long enough to know much +about the behavior of the species, declared that at any movement that +day the rules could have been suspended and the President renominated +by acclamation. But when the convention came down to the work of +nomination the President was not considered, and the delegates devoted +themselves to finding the most available man who had not had any +connection with the Administration. James M. Cox was finally nominated +on Woodrow Wilson's record and sent out to the great and solemn +referendum. + +Aside from a formal proclamation of unity of ideals and intentions with +the candidate, the White House took practically no part in the +campaign. Not until October, when a delegation of pro-League +Republicans called at the White House, was it known that the +President's health had temporarily taken a turn for the worse and that +active participation would have been impossible. It could hardly have +affected the result very much in either direction. + +Whether or not the President had intended to turn over the Government +to Hughes in November, 1916, he did nothing so unkind to Harding in +November, 1920. The President-elect was allowed plenty of time to try +to choose his Cabinet and his policies, but the Administration had +gradually withdrawn from all connection with European affairs, and it +was made known soon after Congress met in December that nothing would +be done which might embarrass the new Administration in its handling of +foreign relations and interrelated problems. + +The history of Woodrow Wilson's Administration virtually ends with the +rejection of the treaty; but the business of government had to be +carried on through the final year. During 1920 old issues that had long +been hidden behind the war clouds came out into the open again. Obregon +overthrew Carranza and entered into power in Mexico, but the Wilson +Administration maintained neutrality during the brief struggle. +Ambassador Fletcher had resigned, but Henry Morgenthau, appointed to +succeed him, did not obtain the confirmation of the Senate, and the new +Administration had not been formally recognized at the end of President +Wilson's term. A controversy over the status of American oil rights was +one of the chief impediments to recognition, though Obregon's general +attitude was far more friendly to America than that of Carranza. + +The President in November announced the boundaries of Armenia, which he +had drawn at the request of the European Allies. But these boundaries +were of no particular interest by that time, since the Turks and the +Bolsheviki were already partitioning Armenia; and the mediation between +the Turks and Armenians which the Allies requested the President to +undertake was forestalled by the Bolshevist conquest of the remnant of +the country. The Adriatic dispute, in which the President had taken +such a prominent part in 1919, was finally settled without him by +direct negotiation between Italy and Jugoslavia. In one other +international problem, however, that of Russia, the United States +Government still exerted some influence. The President during 1918 had +showed more willingness to believe in the possibility of some good +coming out of Bolshevist Russia than most of the European Governments, +and the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia took no active part in +the fighting there. At the Peace Conference the President had been +willing to call the various Russian parties to the Prinkipo conference, +but nothing came of this; and America eventually took up a middle +ground toward Russia. While the British seemed ready to make friends +with the Bolsheviki and the French remained irreconcilably hostile, the +American Government--whose policy was fully set forth in a note of +August 10, 1920--refused to attack them, but also to have any dealings +with them. This policy was much criticised as being purely negative, +but toward the end of Mr. Wilson's Administration both England and +France were tending to follow it through the force of circumstances, +England's effort to find a basis of trade relations with Bolshevist +Russian being as futile as France's support of anti-Bolshevist +revolutionary movements. + +The Republicans and their Irish supporters in the 1920 campaign revived +the old demand for the exemption of American shipping from the Panama +Canal tolls, but this and various other differences with England which +arose toward the end of Mr. Wilson's Administration were left over for +settlement by the new President. More urgent, however, was another +ancient issue now revived--the California land question. In 1917, when +America was just entering the war and could not afford any dangerous +entanglements on the Pacific, the Lansing-Ishii agreement was +negotiated with Japan. By this the United States recognized Japan's +"special interests" in China, particularly in "the parts to which her +territory is contiguous," while both powers professed agreement on the +principles of Chinese independence and territorial integrity, and the +open door. However necessary this concession in order to protect an +exposed flank in time of war, it was regarded with much alarm by +friends of China, whose wrath was later aroused by the action of the +President at the Peace Conference in agreeing to the cession of +Shantung to Japan. There was a renewed antagonism between American and +Japanese interests in certain quarters, and the American Army in +Siberia, if it did nothing else, at least kept the Japanese from +seizing Vladivostok until the Americans had left. + +With this background, the situation created by the revival of +anti-Japanese agitation in California seemed more or less disquieting, +but when a more stringent land law was enacted by the Californians in +November negotiations between the two Governments began at once and are +still going on at the close of the Administration with good prospect of +agreement. + +The President's unpopularity had been so violently expressed by the +election of November 2 that it was bound to be mitigated soon after, +and this natural reaction was aided by the failure of the Republican +Congress to accomplish anything in the short session and by +President-elect Harding's slowness in deciding among candidates offered +for the Cabinet and policies put forward for his attention. As +President Wilson prepared to turn over the executive duties to his +successor there was already evidence that the American public was +returning to a greater appreciation of his services. As a token of the +estimation in which he was still held by the more intelligent circles +abroad, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him in December, 1920; and +European statesmen who had opposed him at the Peace Conference were +already expressing surprise at learning that Mr. Harding believed that +the League of Nations was dead. + +_Copyright_ New York _Times_. + +_Published through the courtesy of the New York Times._ + + + + + In Flanders Fields + + By Lieut. Col. John McCrea + + + In Flanders fields the poppies grow + Between the crosses, row on row, + That mark our place, and in the sky + The larks still bravely singing, fly, + Scarce heard amid the guns below. + + We are the dead. Short days ago + We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, + Loved and were loved, and now we lie + In Flanders fields. + + Take up our quarrel with the foe! + To you from failing hands we throw + The torch. Be yours to lift it high! + If ye break faith with us who die + We shall not sleep, tho poppies blow + In Flanders fields. + + + + + America's Answer + + By R. W. Lillard + + + Rest ye in peace, ye Flanders dead! + The fight that ye so bravely led + We've taken up! And we will keep + True faith with you who lie asleep, + With each a cross to mark his bed, + And poppies blowing overhead + Where once his own life blood ran red! + So let your rest be sweet and deep + In Flanders fields! + + Fear not that ye have died for naught, + The torch ye threw to us we caught! + Ten million hands will hold it high, + And Freedom's light shall never die! + We've learned the lesson that ye taught + In Flanders fields! + + + + + Recessional + + By Richard Linthicum + + + I + + The tide is at the ebb, as if to mark + Our turning backward from the guiding light; + Grotesque, uncertain shapes infest the dark + And wings of bats are heard in aimless flight; + Discordant voices cry and serpents hiss, + No friendly star, no beacon's beckoning ray; + We follow, all forsworn, with steps amiss, + Envy and Malice on an unknown way. + But he who bore the light in night of war, + Swiftly and surely and without surcease, + Where other light was not, save one red star, + Treads now, as then, the certain path to peace; + Wounded, denied, but radiant of soul, + Steadfast in honor, marches toward the goal. + + II + + The spirit that was Peace seems but a wraith, + The glory that was ours seems but a name, + And like a rotten reed our broken faith, + Our boasted virtue turned to scarlet shame + By the low, envious lust of party power; + While he upon the heights whence he had led, + Deserted and betrayed in victory's hour, + Still wears a victor's wreath on unbowed head. + The Nation gropes--his rule is at an end, + Immortal man of the transcendent mind, + Light-bearer of the world, the loving friend + Of little peoples, servant of mankind! + O land of mine! how long till you atone? + How long to stand dishonored and alone? + + _To Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1921._ + + +[Illustration: THE FOUNDERS OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS + BALDRIDGE IN _Stars and Stripes_ + + Make firm, O God, the peace our dead have won, + For folly shakes the tinsel on her head + And points us back to darkness and to hell, + Cackling, "Beware of Visions," while our dead + Still cry, "It was for visions that we fell." + + --Alfred Noyes] + + + + + _Workmen's Compensation_ + + We must hearten and quicken the spirit and efficiency of labor + throughout our whole industrial system by everywhere and in all + occupations doing justice to the laborer, not only by paying a + living wage but also by making all the conditions that surround + labor what they ought to be. And we must do more than justice. We + must safeguard life and promote health and safety in every + occupation in which they are threatened or imperiled. That is more + than justice, and better, because it is humanity and + economy.--_From President Wilson's Speech of Acceptance at Shadow + Lawn, September 2, 1916._ + + +[Illustration: (C) _Harris & Ewing_ + President Wilson as he looked during the Peace + Conference in Paris] + + + + +_Woodrow Wilson's Place in History_ + + _By General the Right Honorable Jan Christian Smuts, Premier of + the Union of South Africa_ + + + General the Right Honorable Jan Christian Smuts, premier of the + Union of South Africa, served with President Wilson on the League + of Nations commission of the peace conference. + + Gen. Smuts was an active leader of the Boer Army in the field in + the Boer war. He is a graduate of Cambridge University in England, + served as state attorney for the South African Republic, and was + known as a member of the bar at Cape Town. + + Accepting the outcome of the Boer war, he entered the service of + the British Government, becoming colonial secretary for the + Transvaal in 1907 and exercising a leading influence as a delegate + in the national convention in 1910, which drew up the constitution + for the present Union of South Africa. He was minister of the + defense of the South African Government and commanded the troops in + the campaign against the Germans in East Africa in 1916-17. + Promoted to be an honorary lieutenant-general, he was the South + African representative in the imperial war cabinet in 1917-18. This + led to his prominence in the peace conference and to his close + contact with President Wilson. On February 8, of this year, Premier + Smuts and the South African party won a decisive victory at the + polls over Gen. Hertzog and those who advocated the secession of + South Africa from the British Empire. + +WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK EVENING POST AND THE WASHINGTON HERALD + + +_Pretoria, South Africa, January 8, 1921._ + +It has been suggested that I should write a short estimate and +appraisal of the work of President Wilson on the termination of his +Presidency of the United States of America. I feel I must comply with +the suggestion. I feel I may not remain silent when there is an +opportunity to say a word of appreciation for the work of one with whom +I came into close contact at a great period and who rendered the most +signal service to the great human cause. + +There is a great saying of Mommsen (I believe) in reference to the +close of Hannibal's career in failure and eclipse: "On those whom the +gods love they lavish infinite joys and infinite sorrows." It has come +back to my mind in reference to the close of Wilson's career. For a few +brief moments he was not only the leader of the greatest State in the +world; he was raised to far giddier heights and became the center of +the world's hopes. And then he fell, misunderstood and rejected by his +own people, and his great career closes apparently in signal and tragic +defeat. + + +_Position of Terrible Greatness_ + +What is the explanation for this tremendous tragedy, which is not +solely American, which closely concerns the whole world? Of course, +there are purely American elements in the explanation which I am not +competent to speak on. But besides the American quarrel with President +Wilson there is something to be said on the great matters in issue. On +these I may be permitted to say a few words. + +The position occupied by President Wilson in the world's imagination at +the close of the great war and at the beginning of the peace conference +was terrible in its greatness. It was a terrible position for any mere +man to occupy. Probably to no human being in all history did the hopes, +the prayers, the aspirations of many millions of his fellows turn with +such poignant intensity as to him at the close of the war. At a time of +the deepest darkness and despair, he had raised aloft a light to which +all eyes had turned. He had spoken divine words of healing and +consolation to a broken humanity. His lofty moral idealism seemed for a +moment to dominate the brutal passions which had torn the Old World +asunder. And he was supposed to possess the secret which would remake +the world on fairer lines. The peace which Wilson was bringing to the +world was expected to be God's peace. Prussianism lay crushed; brute +force had failed utterly. The moral character of the universe had been +signally vindicated. There was a universal vague hope in a great moral +peace, of a new world order arising visibly and immediately on the +ruins of the old. This hope was not a mere superficial sentiment. It +was the intense expression at the end of the war of the inner moral and +spiritual force which had upborne the peoples during the dark night of +the war and had nerved them in an effort almost beyond human strength. +Surely, God had been with them in that long night of agony. His was the +victory; His should be the peace. And President Wilson was looked upon +as the man to make this great peace. He had voiced the great ideals of +the new order; his great utterances had become the contractual basis +for the armistice and the peace. The idealism of Wilson would surely +become the reality of the new order of things in the peace treaty. + + +_Saved the "Little Child"_ + +In this atmosphere of extravagant, almost frenzied expectation he +arrived at the Paris Peace Conference. Without hesitation he plunged +into that inferno of human passions. He went down into the Pit like a +second Heracles to bring back the fair Alcestis of the world's desire. +There were six months of agonized waiting, during which the world +situation rapidly deteriorated. And then he emerged with the peace +treaty. It was not a Wilson peace, and he made a fatal mistake in +somehow giving the impression that the peace was in accord with his +Fourteen Points and his various declarations. Not so the world had +understood him. This was a punic peace, the same sort of peace as the +victor had dictated to the vanquished for thousands of years. It was +not Alcestis; it was a haggard, unlovely woman with features distorted +with hatred, greed and selfishness, and the little child that the woman +carried was scarcely noticed. Yet it was for the saving of the child +that Wilson had labored until he was a physical wreck. Let our other +great statesmen and leaders enjoy their well-earned honors for their +unquestioned success at Paris. To Woodrow Wilson, the apparent failure, +belongs the undying honor, which will grow with the growing centuries, +of having saved the "little child that shall lead them yet." No other +statesman but Wilson could have done it. And he did it. + + +_People Did Not Understand_ + +The people, the common people of all lands, did not understand the +significance of what had happened. They saw only that hard, unlovely +Prussian peace, and the great hope died in their hearts. The great +disillusionment took its place. The most receptive mood for a new start +the world had been in for centuries passed away. Faith in their +governors and leaders was largely destroyed and the foundations of the +human government were shaken in a way which will be felt for +generations. The Paris peace lost an opportunity as unique as the great +war itself. In destroying the moral idealism born of the sacrifices of +the war it did almost as much as the war itself in shattering the +structure of Western civilization. + +And the odium for all this fell especially on President Wilson. Round +him the hopes had centered; round him the disillusion and despair now +gathered. Popular opinion largely held him responsible for the bitter +disappointment and grievous failure. The cynics scoffed; his friends +were silenced in the universal disappointment. Little or nothing had +been expected from the other leaders; the whole failure was put to the +account of Woodrow Wilson. And finally America for reasons of her own +joined the pack and at the end it was his own people who tore him to +pieces. + + +_Must Wait for Judgment_ + +Will this judgment, born of momentary disillusion and disappointment, +stand in future, or will it be reversed? The time has not come to pass +final judgment on either Wilson or any of the other great actors in the +drama at Paris. The personal estimates will depend largely on the +interpretation of that drama in the course of time. As one who saw and +watched things from the inside, I feel convinced that the present +popular estimates are largely superficial and will not stand the +searching test of time. And I have no doubt whatever that Wilson has +been harshly, unfairly, unjustly dealt with, and that he has been made +a scapegoat for the sins of others. Wilson made mistakes, and there +were occasions when I ventured to sound a warning note. But it was not +his mistakes that caused the failure for which he has been held mainly +responsible. + +Let us admit the truth, however bitter it is to do so, for those who +believe in human nature. It was not Wilson who failed. The position is +far more serious. It was the human spirit itself that failed at Paris. +It is no use passing judgments and making scapegoats of this or that +individual statesman or group of statesmen. Idealists make a great +mistake in not facing the real facts sincerely and resolutely. They +believe in the power of the spirit, in the goodness which is at the +heart of things, in the triumph which is in store for the great moral +ideals of the race. But this faith only too often leads to an optimism +which is sadly and fatally at variance with actual results. + + +_Says Humanity Failed_ + +It is the realist and not the idealist who is generally justified by +events. We forget that the human spirit, the spirit of goodness and +truth in the world, is still only an infant crying in the night, and +that the struggle with darkness is as yet mostly an unequal struggle. + +Paris proved this terrible truth once more. It was not Wilson who +failed there, but humanity itself. It was not the statesmen that failed +so much as the spirit of the peoples behind them. The hope, the +aspiration for a new world order of peace and right and +justice--however deeply and universally felt--was still only feeble and +ineffective in comparison with the dominant national passions which +found their expression in the peace treaty. Even if Wilson had been one +of the great demi-gods of the human race, he could not have saved the +peace. Knowing the Peace Conference as I knew it from within, I feel +convinced in my own mind that not the greatest man born of woman in the +history of the race would have saved that situation. The great hope was +not the heralding of the coming dawn, as the peoples thought, but only +a dim intimation of some far-off event toward which we shall yet have +to make many a long, weary march. Sincerely as we believed in the moral +ideals for which he had fought, the temptation at Paris of a large +booty to be divided proved too great. And in the end not only the +leaders but the peoples preferred a bit of booty here, a strategic +frontier there, a coal field or an oil well, an addition to their +population or their resources--to all the faint allurements of the +ideal. As I said at the time, the real peace was still to come, and it +could only come from a new spirit in the peoples themselves. + + +_Wilson Had to Be Conciliated_ + +What was really saved at Paris was the child--the covenant of the +League of Nations. The political realists who had their eye on the loot +were prepared--however reluctantly--to throw up that innocent little +sop to President Wilson and his fellow idealists. After all, there was +not much harm in it, it threatened no present national interest, and it +gave great pleasure to a number of good unpractical people in most +countries. Above all, President Wilson had to be conciliated, and this +was the last and the greatest of the fourteen points on which he had +set his heart and by which he was determined to stand or fall. And so +he got his way. But it is a fact that only a man of his great power and +influence and dogged determination could have carried the covenant +through that Peace Conference. Others had seen with him the great +vision; others had perhaps given more thought to the elaboration of the +great plan. But his was the power and the will that carried it through. +The covenant is Wilson's souvenir to the future of the world. No one +will ever deny that honor. + + +_Great Creative Document_ + +The honor is very great, indeed, for the covenant is one of the great +creative documents of human history. The peace treaty will fade into +merciful oblivion and its provisions will be gradually obliterated by +the great human tides sweeping over the world. But the covenant will +stand as sure as fate. Forty-two nations gathered round it at the first +meeting of the League at Geneva. And the day is not far off when all +the free peoples of the world will gather around it. It must succeed, +because there is no other way for the future of civilization. It does +not realize the great hopes born of the war, but it provides the only +method and instrument by which in the course of time those hopes can be +realized. Speaking as one who has some right to speak on the +fundamental conceptions, objects and methods of the covenant, I feel +sure that most of the present criticism is based on misunderstandings. +These misunderstandings will clear away, one by one the peoples still +outside the covenant will fall in behind this banner, under which the +human race is going to march forward to triumphs of peaceful +organization and achievements undreamt of by us children of an +unhappier era. And the leader who, in spite of apparent failure, +succeeded in inscribing his name on that banner has achieved the most +enviable and enduring immortality. Americans of the future will yet +proudly and gratefully rank him with Washington and Lincoln, and his +name will have a more universal significance than theirs. + + +[Illustration: THE NOBLE PEACE PRIZE 1920 + WITHOUT THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE. + KIRBY IN THE NEW YORK _World_ + + "We die without distinction if we are not willing to die the death + of sacrifice. Do you covet honor? You will never get it by serving + yourself. Do you covet distinction? You will get it only as a + servant of mankind." + + --Woodrow Wilson's Address + at Swarthmore College + Oct. 5, 1913.] + + + + +_Woodrow Wilson_ + +AN INTERPRETATION + +PUBLISHED THROUGH THE COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK _World_ + + +No other American has made so much world history as Woodrow Wilson, who +retires at noon today from the office of President of the United +States. No other American has ever bulked so large in the affairs of +civilization or wielded so commanding an influence in shaping their +ends. + +The great outstanding figure of the war, Mr. Wilson remains the great +outstanding figure of the peace. Broken in health and shattered in +body, Mr. Wilson is leaving the White House, but his spirit still +dominates the scene. It pervades every chancellery in Europe. It hovers +over every capital. Because Woodrow Wilson was President of the United +States during the most critical period of modern history international +relations have undergone their first far-reaching moral revolution. + +Mr. Harding is assuming the duties of the Presidency, but the main +interest in Mr. Harding is still a reflected interest, which is +concerned chiefly with the efforts that his Administration may make to +adjust itself to the forces that Mr. Wilson has set in motion. Stripped +of all the paraphernalia of his office, Mr. Wilson, by virtue of his +achievements, remains the most potent single influence in the modern +world; yet after this eight years in the White House it may be doubted +if even the American people themselves know him better or understand +him better than they did the day he was first inaugurated. + +Neither Mr. Wilson's friends nor his enemies have ever succeeded in +interpreting him or in explaining him, nor can any interpretation or +explanation be satisfactory which fails at the outset to recognize in +him the simplest and at the same time the most complex character in the +greatest drama ever played on the stage of human history. Even his +closest associates have never found it easy to reconcile a fervent +political democracy with an unbending intellectual aristocracy, or to +determine which of those characteristics was dominant in his day-to-day +decisions. + +No man ever sat in the President's chair who was more genuinely a +democrat or held more tenaciously to his faith in democracy than +Woodrow Wilson, but no other man ever sat in the President's chair who +was so contemptuous of all intellect that was inferior to his own or so +impatient with its laggard processes. + + +_A President Who Dealt in Ideas_ + +Mr. Wilson was a President who dealt almost exclusively in ideas. He +cared little or nothing about political organization and rarely +consulted the managing politicians of his party. When they conferred +with him it was usually at their request and not at his request. +Patronage hardly entered into his calculations as an agency of +government. He disliked to be troubled about appointments, and when he +had filled an office he was likely to be indifferent as to the manner +in which that office was subsequently administered, unless his own +measures were antagonized or his policies obstructed. + +No man was ever more impersonal in his attitude toward government, and +that very impersonality was the characteristic which most baffled the +American people. Mr. Wilson had a genius for the advocacy of great +principles, but he had no talent whatever for advocating himself, and +to a country that is accustomed to think in headlines about political +questions his subtlety of mind and his careful, precise style of +expression were quite as likely to be an obstacle to the communication +of thought as a medium for the communication of thought. That is how +such phrases as "too proud to fight" and "peace without victory" were +successfully wrested from their context by his critics and twisted into +a fantastic distortion of their true meaning. + +Mr. Wilson was likewise totally deficient in the art of advertising, +and advertising is the very breath of American politics. He held +himself aloof from all these points of public contact. _The World's_ +relations with him have certainly been as close and intimate as those +of any other newspaper; yet during the eight years in which Mr. Wilson +has been in the White House he never sought a favor from _The World_, +he never asked for support either for himself or any of his policies, +he never complained when he was criticised, he never offered to explain +himself or his attitude on any issue of government. In the troublesome +days of his Administration he often expressed his gratitude for +services that _The World_ had rendered in the interpretation of his +policies, but he never solicited such interpretation or took measures +to facilitate it. He was an eloquent pleader for the principles in +which he believed, but he had no faculty whatever for projecting +himself into the picture. + + +_The Experience of History_ + +Mr. Wilson's enemies are fond of calling him a theorist, but there is +little of the theorist about him, otherwise he could never have made +more constructive history than any other man of his generation. What +are commonly called theories in his case were the practical application +of the experience of history to the immediate problems of government, +and in the experience of history Mr. Wilson is an expert. With the +exception of James Madison, who was called "the Father of the +Constitution," Mr. Wilson is the most profound student of government +among all the Presidents, and he had what Madison conspicuously lacked, +which was the faculty to translate his knowledge of government into the +administration of government. + +When Mr. Wilson was elected President he had reached the conclusion +which most unprejudiced students of American government eventually +arrive at--that the system of checks and balances is unworkable in +practice and that the legislative and executive branches cannot be in +fact coordinate, independent departments. Other Presidents have acted +on that hypothesis without daring to admit it, and endeavored to +control Congress by patronage and by threats. Mr. Wilson without any +formality established himself as the leader of his party in Congress, +Premier as well as President, and the originator of the party's program +of legislation. + +Senators and Representatives denounced him as an autocrat and a +dictator. Congress was described as the President's rubber stamp, but +Mr. Wilson established something that more nearly resembled responsible +government than anything that had gone before, and Congress under his +direct leadership made a record for constructive legislation for which +there is no parallel. It was due to this kind of leadership that such +measures as the Federal Reserve Banking Law were enacted, which later +proved to be the one bulwark between the American people and a +financial panic of tragic proportions. + +But Mr. Wilson's domestic policies in spite of their magnitude have +been obscured by his foreign policies. Had there been no war, these +policies in themselves would have given to the Wilson Administration a +place in American history higher than that of any other since the Civil +War. What some of his predecessors talked about doing he did, and he +accomplished it by the process of making himself the responsible leader +of his party in Congress--a process that is simple enough but capable +of fulfillment only in the hands of a man with an extraordinary +capacity for imposing his will on his associates. Mr. Wilson's control +over Congress for six years was once described as the most impressive +triumph of mind over matter known to American politics. + + +_Mr. Wilson's Foreign Policies_ + +When we begin the consideration of Mr. Wilson's foreign policies we are +entering one of the most remarkable chapters in all history, and one +which will require the perspective of history for a true judgment. + +The first step in the development of these foreign policies came in Mr. +Wilson's refusal to recognize Huerta, who had participated in the plot +to murder President Madero and made himself the dictator of Mexico by +reason of this assassination. The crime was committed during Mr. Taft's +Administration. When Mr. Wilson came into office he served notice that +there would be no recognition of Huerta and no recognition of any +Mexican Government which was not established by due process of law. + +What was plainly in Mr. Wilson's mind was a determination to end +political assassination in Latin America as a profitable industry, and +compel recognition, to some extent at least, of democratic principles +and constitutional forms. On this issue he had to face the intense +opposition of all the financial interests in the United States which +had Mexican holdings, and a consolidated European opposition as well. +Every dollar of foreign money invested in Mexico was confident that +what Mexico needed most was such a dictatorship as that of Huerta or +American intervention. Mr. Wilson's problem was to get rid of Huerta +without involving the United States in war, and then by steady pressure +bring about the establishment of a responsible government that rested +on something at least resembling the consent of the governed. Only a +statesman of high ideals would ever have attempted it, and only a +statesman of almost infinite patience would have been able to adhere to +the task that Mr. Wilson set for himself. + +Mexico is not yet a closed incident, but Mr. Wilson's policy has been +vindicated in principle. For the first time since Mr. Roosevelt shocked +the moral sense and aroused the political resentment of all the +Latin-American states by the rape of Panama, faith in the integrity and +friendship of the United States has been restored among the other +nations of the Western Hemisphere. + +Of equal or even greater ethical importance was Mr. Wilson's insistence +on the repeal of the Panama Canal Tolls Act, which discriminated in +favor of American ships in spite of the plain provisions of the +Hay-Pauncefote treaty. This was the more creditable on Mr. Wilson's +part because he himself had been tricked during the campaign into +giving his support to this measure. When he began to perceive the +diplomatic consequences of this treaty violation Mr. Wilson reversed +himself and demanded that Congress reverse itself. Had he done +otherwise, the American people would have had scant opportunity to +protest against the German perfidy which turned a treaty into "a scrap +of paper." + +When Germany, at the beginning of August, 1914, declared war +successively on Russia, France and Belgium, thereby bringing Great +Britain into the most stupendous conflict of all the centuries, Mr. +Wilson did what every President has done when other nations have gone +to war. He issued a proclamation of neutrality. He then went further, +however, than any of his predecessors had done and urged the American +people to be not only neutral in deed but "impartial in thought." Mr. +Wilson has been severely criticised for this appeal. The more violent +pro-Germans and the more violent pro-French and pro-British regarded it +as a personal insult and an attempt on the part of the President to +stifle what they were pleased to regard as their conscience. + +Mr. Wilson asked the American people to be impartial in thought because +he knew as a historian the danger that threatened if the country were +to be divided into two hostile camps, the one blindly and unreasoningly +applauding every act of the Germans and the other blindly and +unreasoningly applauding every act of the Allies. In the early years of +his life the Republic was all but wrecked by the emotional and +political excesses of the pro-French Americans and the pro-British +Americans in the war that followed the French Revolution. The warning +against a passionate attachment to the interests of other nations which +is embodied in Washington's Farewell Address was the first President's +solemn admonition against the evils of a divided allegiance. Mr. Wilson +had no desire to see the country drift into a similar situation in +which American rights, American interests and American prestige would +all be sacrificed to gratify the American adherents of the various +European belligerents. Moreover, he understood far better than his +critics that issues would soon arise between the belligerents and the +United States which would require on the part of the American people +that impartiality of thought that is demanded of the just and upright +judge. He knew that the American people might ultimately become the +final arbiters of the issues of the conflict. + +The United States was the only great nation outside the sphere of +conflict. It was the only great nation that had no secret diplomatic +understandings with either set of belligerents. It was the only great +nation that was in a position to uphold the processes of international +law and to use its good offices as a mediator when the opportunity +arose. + +For two years Mr. Wilson genuinely believed that it would be possible +for the United States to fulfill this mission, and he never fully lost +hope until that day in January, 1917, when the German Government +wantonly wrecked all the informal peace negotiations that were then in +progress and decided to stake the fate of the empire on a single throw +of the U-boat dice. + + +_A United Country First_ + +Mr. Wilson perceived quite as quickly and quite as early as anybody the +possibility that the United States would be drawn into the war, but he +perceived also what most of his critics failed to perceive, that the +immediate danger of the country was not war but a divided people. While +he was engaging in framing the first Lusitania note he discussed the +situation with one of his callers at the White House in words that have +since proved prophetic: + + I do not know whether the German Government intends to keep faith + with the United States or not. It is my personal opinion that + Germany has no such intention, but I am less concerned about the + ultimate intentions of Germany than about the attitude of the + American people, who are already divided into three groups: those + who are strongly pro-German, those who are strongly pro-Ally, and + the vast majority who expect me to find a way to keep the United + States out of war. I do not want war, yet I do not know that I can + keep the country out of the war. That depends on Germany, and I + have no control over Germany. _But I intend to handle this + situation in such a manner that every American citizen will know + that the United States Government has done everything it could to + prevent war. Then if war comes we shall have a united country, and + with a united country there need be no fear about the result._ + +Mr. Wilson's policy from that day to April 2, 1917, must be read in the +light of those words. He plunged forthwith into that extraordinary +debate with the German Government over the submarine issue--the most +momentous debate ever held--but he was only incidentally addressing +himself to the rulers of Germany. He was talking to the conscience of +the civilized world, but primarily to the conscience of the United +States, explaining, clarifying, elucidating the issue. His reluctance +to countenance any extensive measures of preparedness was the product +of a definite resolution not to give Germany and her American +supporters an opportunity to declare that the United States, while +these issues were pending, was arming for war against the Imperial +Government. + +When Mr. Wilson began this debate he knew something which his critics +did not know and which for reasons of state he did not choose to tell +them. Weeks before the destruction of the Lusitania two-thirds of the +German General Staff were in favor of war with the United States as a +military measure in the interest of Germany. They were under the spell +of Tirpitz. They believed that the submarine could do all that the +Grand Admiral said it could do. They argued that inasmuch as the Allies +were borrowing money in the United States, obtaining food from the +United States and purchasing great quantities of munitions in the +United States Germany, by restricting submarine warfare in answer to +American protests, was paying an excessive price for what was in effect +a fictitious neutrality. In their opinion the United States as a +neutral was already doing more for the Allies than it could do as an +active belligerent if free scope were given to the U-boats. The +American Navy, they said, could be safely disregarded, because with +Germany already blockaded by the British Navy, and the German Grand +Fleet penned in, the addition of the American Navy, or a dozen navies +for that matter, would make little difference in respect to the actual +facts of sea power. On the other hand there was not enough shipping +available to feed the Allies and enable the United States to send an +army to Europe. If the United States tried to provide troops, the +British would starve. If the United States could not send troops, +Germany would be just as well off with the United States in the war as +out of the war, and would have the priceless additional advantage of +being able to employ her submarines as she saw fit, regardless of the +technicalities of international law. + +In the fall of 1916 Mr. Wilson decided definitely that the relations +between the United States and Germany were approaching a climax. If the +war continued much longer the United States would inevitably be drawn +in. There was no prospect of a decision. The belligerent armies were +deadlocked. Unwilling to wait longer for events, Mr. Wilson made up his +mind that he would demand from each side a statement of its aims and +objects and compel each side to plead its own cause before the court of +the public opinion of the world. This was done on December 18, 1916, in +a joint note which was so cold and dispassionate in its terms that its +import was hardly understood. + + +_With Clean Hands_ + +The President said that the aims and objects of the war on both sides +"as stated in general terms to their own people and the world" seemed +to be "virtually the same," and he asked for a bill of particulars. +Instantly there was wild turmoil and recrimination on the part of the +Allies and their friends in the United States. + +The President had declared, they said, that the Germans and the Allies +were fighting for the same thing. Mr. Wilson had expressed no opinion +of his own one way or the other and the obvious discovery was soon made +in London and Paris that the President had given to the Allies the +opportunity which they needed of officially differentiating their war +aims from those of the Germans. The German Government missed its +opportunity completely, and by their own answer to the President's note +the Allies succeeded in consolidating their moral positions, which was +something they had never previously been able to do in spite of all +their propaganda. + +Informal peace negotiations were still in progress, although conducted +in secret and carefully screened from the knowledge of all peoples +involved in the conflict. On January 22, 1917, Mr. Wilson made his last +attempt at mediation in the "peace without victory" address to the +Senate in which he defined what he regarded as the fundamental +conditions of a permanent peace. Most of the basic principles of this +address were afterward incorporated into the Fourteen Points. Here +again Mr. Wilson was the victim of his own precision of language and of +the settled policy of his critics of reading into his public utterances +almost everything except what he actually said. He himself has insisted +on giving his own interpretation of "peace without victory," and this +interpretation was instantly rejected by the super-patriots who +regarded themselves as the sole custodians of all the issues of the war. + + +[Illustration: (C) _Underwood & Underwood_ + 1919: On the bridge of the _George Washington_ on + the return from the Peace Conference] + + + _The President and the Treaty_ + + _President Wilson sails for Europe, December 4, 1918._ + + _Visits to England, France and Italy, December-January, 1918-19._ + + _Peace Conference opened, January 18, 1919._ + + _League Covenant adopted, February 14, 1919._ + + _President Wilson's trip home, February 24-March 5, 1919._ + + _The treaty signed, June 28, 1919._ + + _Submission to the Senate, July 10, 1919._ + + _The President's speaking tour, September 3-26, 1919._ + + _Adoption of the Lodge reservations, November 16, 1919._ + + _Final defeat of the treaty in the Senate, March 20, 1920._ + + +[Illustration: (C) _Edmonston_ + February 15, 1921: Mr. Wilson's latest photograph--made + at a meeting of the Cabinet] + + + TWO PICTURES + + By Joseph P. Tumulty + + + _Two pictures are in my mind. First, the Hall of Representatives + crowded from floor to gallery with expectant throngs. Presently it + is announced that the President of the United States will address + Congress. There steps out to the Speaker's desk a straight, + vigorous, slender man, active and alert. He is sixty years of age, + but he looks not more than forty-five, so lithe of limb, so alert + of bearing, so virile. It is Woodrow Wilson reading his great war + message. The other picture is only three and a half years later. + There is a parade of Veterans of the Great War. They are to be + reviewed by the President on the east terrace of the White House. + In a chair sits a man, your President, broken in health, but still + alert in mind. His hair is white, his shoulders bowed, his figure + bent. He is sixty-three years old, but he looks older. It is + Woodrow Wilson. Presently, in the procession there appears an + ambulance laden with wounded soldiers, the maimed, the halt and the + blind. As they pass they salute, slowly reverently. The President's + right hand goes up in answering salute. I glanced at him. There + were tears in his eyes. The wounded is greeting the wounded; those + in the ambulance, he in the chair, are alike, casualties of the + Great War._ + + _From address by Joseph P. Tumulty_ + _Thursday, Oct. 28, 1920_ + + +When the armistice was signed one of the most eminent of living British +statesmen gave it as his opinion that the war had lasted two years too +long, and that the task of salvaging an enduring peace from the wreck +had become well-nigh insuperable. It will always be one of the +fascinating riddles of history to guess what the result would have been +if Mr. Wilson's final proposals for mediation had been accepted. The +United States would not have entered the war, and a less violent +readjustment of the internal affairs of Europe would probably have +resulted. There would have been no Bolshevist revolution in Russia and +no economic collapse of Europe. Nor is it certain that most of the +really enduring benefits of the Treaty of Versailles could not have +been as well obtained by negotiation as they were finally obtained +through a military victory which cost a price that still staggers +humanity. + +Be that as it may, the German Government, now fighting to maintain the +dynasty and the Junker domination, took the issue out of Mr. Wilson's +hands. Ten days after his "peace without victory" address the German +autocracy put into effect its cherished programme of ruthless submarine +warfare. The only possible answer on the part of the United States was +the dismissal of Count von Bernstorff the German Ambassador, and from +that time war between the United States and Germany was only a matter +of days. But Mr. Wilson had achieved the great purpose that he had +formulated two years before. He had been balked in his efforts at +mediation, but he had united the American people on the issues of the +conflict. He had demonstrated to them that their Government had exerted +every honorable means to avoid war and that its hands were clean. There +was no uncertainty in their own minds that the responsibility for the +war rested solely on Germany, and Mr. Wilson now purposed to write the +terms of peace with the sword. + + +_A Call to a Crusade_ + +Mr. Wilson's War Address on the night of April 2, 1917, was the most +dramatic event that the National Capitol had ever known. In the +presence of both branches of Congress, of the Supreme Court, of the +Cabinet and of the Diplomatic Corps, Mr. Wilson summoned the American +people not to a war but to a crusade in words that instantaneously +captivated the imagination of the Nation: + + But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for + the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for + democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a + voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of + small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert + of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and + make the world at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our + lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that + we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come + when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the + principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which + she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. + +This was not Woodrow Wilson, the intellectual aristocrat, who was +speaking, but Woodrow Wilson, the fervent democrat, proclaiming a new +declaration of independence to the embattled peoples. + +No sooner had Congress declared war than Mr. Wilson proceeded to +mobilize all the resources of the Nation and throw them into the +conflict. This war was different from any other war in which the United +States had ever engaged, not only by reason of its magnitude but by +reason of the necessity for coordinating American military plans with +the military plans of the Allies. The Allies were not quite agreed as +to what they desired of the United States, aside from unlimited +financial assistance, and the solution of the general problem depended +more or less on the trend of events. + +The test of any war policy is its success, and it is a waste of time to +enter into a vindication of the manner in which the Wilson +Administration made war, or to trouble about the accusations of waste +and extravagance, as if war were an economic process which could be +carried on prudently and frugally. The historian is not likely to +devote serious attention to the partisan accusations relating to Mr. +Wilson's conduct of the war, but he will find it interesting to record +the manner in which the President brought his historical knowledge to +bear in shaping the war policies of the country. + +The voluntary system and the draft system had both been discredited in +the Civil War, so Mr. Wilson demanded a Selective-Service Act under +which the country could raise 10,000,000 troops, if 10,000,000 troops +were needed, without deranging its essential industries. It had taken +Mr. Lincoln three years to find a General whom he could intrust with +the command of the Union armies. Mr. Wilson picked his Commander in +Chief before he went to war and then gave to Gen. Pershing the same +kind of ungrudging support that Mr. Lincoln gave to Gen. Grant. The +Civil War had been financed by greenbacks and bond issues peddled by +bankers. Mr. Wilson called on the American people to finance their own +war, and they unhesitatingly responded. In the war with Spain the +commissary system had broken down completely owing to the antiquated +methods that were employed. No other army in time of war was ever so +well fed or so well cared for as that of the United States in the +conflict with Germany. + + +_Wilson as a War President_ + +Mistakes there were in plenty, both in methods and in the choice of +men, and errors of judgment and the shortcomings that always result +from a lack of experience, but the impartial verdict of history must be +that when everything is set forth on the debit side of the balance +sheet which can be set forth Mr. Wilson remains the most vigorous of +all the war Presidents. Yet it is also true that history will concern +itself far less with Mr. Wilson as a war President than with Mr. Wilson +as a peace-making President. It is around him as a peace-making +President that all the passions and prejudices and disappointments of +the world still rage. + +Mr. Wilson in his "peace without victory" address to the Senate +previous to the entrance of the United States into the war had sketched +a general plan of a cooperative peace. "I am proposing, as it were," he +said, "that the nations with one accord should adopt the doctrine of +President Monroe as the doctrine of the world." He returned to the +subject again in his War Address, in which he defined the principles +for which the United States was to fight and the principles on which an +enduring peace could be made. The time came when it was necessary to be +still more specific. + +In the winter of 1918 the morale of the Allies was at its lowest ebb. +Russia had passed into the hands of the Bolsheviki and was preparing to +make a separate peace with Germany. There was widespread discontent in +Italy, and everywhere in Europe soldiers and civilians were asking one +another what they were really fighting for. On January 8 Mr. Wilson +went before Congress and delivered the address which contained the +Fourteen Points of peace, a message which was greeted both in the +United States and in Europe as a veritable Magna Charta of the nations. +Mr. Wilson had again become the spokesman of the aspirations of +mankind, and from the moment that this address was delivered the +thrones of the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs ceased to be stable. + +Ten months later they were to crumble and collapse. Before the +armistice was signed on Nov. 11, 1918, Mr. Wilson had overthrown the +doctrine of Divine right in Europe. The Hapsburgs ran away. The Kaiser +was compelled to abdicate and take refuge in exile, justifying his +flight by the explanation that Wilson would not make peace with Germany +while a Hohenzollern was on the throne. This was the climax of Mr. +Wilson's power and influence and, strangely enough, it was the dawn of +his own day of disaster. + +For nearly six years Mr. Wilson had manipulated the Government of the +United States with a skill that was almost uncanny. He had turned +himself from a minority President into a majority President. He had so +deftly outmanoeuvred all his opponents in Congress and out of Congress +that they had nothing with which to console themselves except their +intensive hatred of the man and all that pertained to him. Then at the +very summit of his career he made his first fatal blunder. + +Every President in the off-year election urges the election of a +Congress of his own party. That is part of the routine of politics, and +during the campaign of 1918 Mr. Wilson's advisers urged him to follow +the precedent. What they forgot and he forgot was that it was no time +for partisan precedents, and he allowed his distrust of the Republican +leaders in Congress to sweep him into an inexcusable error that he, of +all men, should have avoided. The Sixty-fifth Congress was anything but +popular. The Western farmers were aggrieved because the price of wheat +had been regulated and the price of cotton had not. The East was +greatly dissatisfied with the war taxes, which it regarded as an unfair +discrimination, and it remembered Mr. Kitchin's boast that the North +wanted the war and the North would have to pay for it. There was +general complaint from business interests against the Southern +Democratic control of the legislative department, and all this +sentiment instantly crystallized when the President asked for another +Democratic Congress. Republicans who were loyally supporting the +Administration in all its war activities were justly incensed that a +party issue had been raised. A Republican Congress was elected and by +inference the President sustained a personal defeat. + +Misfortunes did not come singly in Mr. Wilson's case. Following the +mistake of appealing for the election of a Democratic Congress he made +an equally serious mistake in the selection of his Peace Commission. + +To anybody who knows Mr. Wilson, who knows Mr. Lloyd George, who knows +Mr. Clemenceau, nothing could be sillier than the chapters of Keynes +and Dillon in which they undertake to picture the President's unfitness +to cope with the European masters of diplomacy. Mr. Wilson for years +had been playing with European masters of diplomacy as a cat plays with +a mouse. To assume that Mr. Wilson was ever deceived by the transparent +tactics of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Clemenceau is to assume the +impossible. It would be as easy to conceive of his being tricked and +bamboozled by the United States Senate. + + +_The Peace Commission_ + +Mr. Wilson needed strong Republican representation on the Peace +Commission not to reinforce him in his struggles with his adversaries +at Paris but to divide with him the responsibility for a treaty of +peace that was doomed in advance to be a disappointment. Although the +popular sentiment of Europe was almost passionate in its advocacy of +President Wilson's peace program, all the special interests that were +seeking to capitalize the peace for their own advantage or profit were +actively at work and were beginning to swing all the influence that +they could command on their various Governments. It was inevitable from +the outset that Mr. Wilson could never get the peace that he had +expected. The treaty was bound to be a series of compromises that would +satisfy nobody, and when Mr. Wilson assumed all the responsibility for +it in advance he assumed a responsibility that no stateman who had ever +lived could carry alone. Had he taken Mr. Root or Mr. Taft or both of +them with him the terms of the Treaty of Versailles might have been no +different, but the Senate would have been robbed of the partisan +grievance on which it organized the defeat of ratification. + +Day after day during the conference Mr. Wilson fought the fight for a +peace that represented the liberal thought of the world. Day after day +the odds against him lengthened. The contest finally resolved itself +into a question of whether he should take what he could get or whether +he should withdraw from the conference and throw the doors open to +chaos. The President made the only decision that he had a moral right +to make. He took what he could get, nor are the statesmen with whom he +was associated altogether to blame because he did not get more. They +too had to contend against forces over which they had no control. They +were not free agents either, and Mr. Smuts has summed up the case in +two sentences: + + It was not the statesmen that failed so much as the spirit of the + peoples behind them. The hope, the aspiration, for a new world + order of peace and right and justice, however deeply and + universally felt, was still only feeble and ineffective in + comparison with the dominant national passions which found their + expression in the peace treaty. + +All the passions and hatreds bred of four years of merciless warfare, +all the insatiable fury for revenge, all the racial ambitions that had +been twisted and perverted by centuries of devious diplomacy--these +were all gathered around the council table, clamorous in their demand +to dictate the terms. + +Mr. Wilson surrendered more than he dreamed he was surrendering, but it +is not difficult to follow his line of reasoning. The League of Nations +was to be a continuing court of equity, sitting in judgment on the +peace itself, revising its terms when revision became necessary and +possible, slowly readjusting the provisions of the treaty to a calmer +and saner state of public mind. Get peace first. Establish the League, +and the League would rectify the inevitable mistakes of the treaty. + +It is a curious commentary on human nature that when the treaty was +completed and the storm of wrath broke, all the rage, all the +resentment, all the odium should have fallen on the one man who had +struggled week in and week out against the forces of reaction and +revenge and had written into the treaty all that it contains which +makes for the international advancement of the race. + + +_Why The Treaty Was Beaten_ + +Into that record must also go the impressive fact that the Treaty of +Versailles was rejected by the United States Senate, under the +leadership of Henry Cabot Lodge, not because of its acknowledged +defects and shortcomings, not because it breathed the spirit of a +Carthaginian peace in its punitive clauses, but because of its most +enlightened provision, the covenant of the League of Nations, which is +the one hope of a war-racked world. + +When people speak of the tragedy of Mr. Wilson's career they have in +mind only the temporary aspects of it--the universal dissatisfaction +with the treaty of peace, his physical collapse, his defeat in the +Senate and the verdict at the polls in November. They forget that the +end of the chapter is not yet written. The League of Nations is a fact, +whatever the attitude of the United States may be toward it, and it +will live unless the peoples of the earth prove their political +incapacity to use it for the promotion of their own welfare. The +principle of self-determination will remain as long as men believe in +the right of self-government and are willing to die for it. It was +Woodrow Wilson who wrote that principle into the law of nations, even +though he failed to obtain a universal application of it. Tacitus said +of the Catti tribesmen, "Others go to battle; these go to war," and Mr. +Wilson went to war in behalf of the democratic theory of government +extended to all the affairs of the nations. That war is not yet won, +and the Commander in Chief is crippled by the wounds that he received +on the field of action. But the responsibility for the future does not +rest with him. It rests with the self-governing peoples for whom he has +blazed the trail. All the complicated issues of this titanic struggle +finally reduce themselves to these prophetic words of Maximilian +Harden: "Only one conqueror's work will endure--Wilson's thought." + +Woodrow Wilson on this morning of the fourth of March can say, in the +words of Paul the Apostle to Timothy: + + "_For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is + at hand._ + + "_I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have + kept the faith._" + + Copyright 1921, New York _World_. + + + + +_The Covenant of the League of Nations_ + +ADOPTED BY THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE + +_Paris, April 28, 1919_ + + +Preamble + +In order to promote international cooperation and to achieve +international peace and security, by the acceptance of obligations not +to resort to war, by the prescription of open, just and honorable +relations between nations, by the firm establishment of the +understandings of international law as to actual rule of conduct among +governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect +for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with +one another, the high contracting parties agree to this Covenant of the +League of Nations. + + +Article One + +[Membership] + +The original members of the League of Nations shall be those of the +signatories which are named in the annex to this Covenant and also such +of those other states named in the annex as shall accede without +reservation to this Covenant. Such accessions shall be effected by a +declaration deposited with the Secretariat within two months of the +coming into force of the Covenant. Notice thereof shall be sent to all +other members of the League. + +Any fully self-governing state, dominion, or colony not named in the +annex, may become a member of the League if its admission is agreed by +two-thirds of the assembly, provided that it shall give effective +guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international +obligations, and shall accept such regulations as may be prescribed by +the League in regard to its military and naval forces and armaments. + +Any member of the League may, after two years' notice of its intention +so to do, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international +obligations and all its obligations under this Covenant shall have been +fulfilled at the time of its withdrawal. + + +Article Two + +[Executive and Administration Machinery] + +The action of the League under this Covenant shall be effected through +the instrumentality of an Assembly and of a Council, with a permanent +Secretariat. + + +Article Three + +[The Assembly] + +The Assembly shall consist of representatives of the members of the +League. + +The Assembly shall meet at stated intervals and from time to time as +occasion may require, at the seat of the League, or at such other place +as may be decided upon. + +The Assembly may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere +of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world. + +At meetings of the Assembly, each member of the League shall have one +vote, and may have not more than three representatives. + + +Article Four + +[The Council] + +The Council shall consist of representatives of the United States of +America, of the British Empire, of France, of Italy, and of Japan, +together with representatives of four other members of the League. +These four members of the League shall be selected by the Assembly from +time to time in its discretion. Until the appointment of the +representatives of the four members of the League first selected by the +Assembly, representatives of Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain shall be +members of the Council. + +With the approval of the majority of the Assembly, the Council may name +additional members of the League whose representatives shall always be +members of the Council; the Council with like approval may increase the +number of members of the League to be selected by the Assembly for +representation on the Council. + +The Council shall meet from time to time as occasion may require, and +at least once a year, at the seat of the League, or at such other place +as may be decided upon. + +The Council may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere +of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world. + +Any member of the League not represented on the Council shall be +invited to send a representative to sit as a member at any meeting of +the Council during the consideration of matters specially affecting the +interests of that member of the League. + +At meetings of the Council, each member of the League represented on +the Council shall have one vote, and may have not more than one +representative. + + +Article Five + +[Decision by Unanimity or Majority; Initial Meetings] + +Except where otherwise expressly provided in this Covenant, or by the +terms of this treaty, decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of +the Council shall require the agreement of all the members of the +League represented at the meeting. + +All matters of procedure at meetings of the Assembly or of the Council, +the appointment of committees to investigate particular matters, shall +be regulated by the Assembly or by the Council and may be decided by a +majority of the members of the League represented at the meeting. + +The first meeting of the Assembly and the first meeting at the Council +shall be summoned by the President of the United States of America. + + +Article Six + +[The Secretariat] + +The permanent Secretariat shall be established at the seat of the +League. The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such +secretaries and staff as may be required. + +The first Secretary-General shall be the person named in the annex; +thereafter the Secretary-General shall be appointed by the Council with +the approval of the majority of the Assembly. + +The Secretaries and the staff of the Secretariat shall be appointed by +the Secretary-General with the approval of the Council. + +The Secretary-General shall act in that capacity at all meetings of the +Assembly and of the Council. + +The expenses of the Secretariat shall be borne by the members of the +League in accordance with the apportionment of the expenses of the +International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union. + + +Article Seven + +[League Capital; Status of Officials and Property; Sex Equality] + +The seat of the League is established at Geneva. + +The Council may at any time decide that the seat of the League shall be +established elsewhere. + +All positions under or in connection with the League, including the +Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women. + +Representatives of the members of the League and officials of the +League when engaged on the business of the League shall enjoy +diplomatic privileges and immunities. + +The buildings and other property occupied by the League or its +officials or by representatives attending its meetings shall be +inviolable. + + +Article Eight + +[Disarmament] + +The members of the League recognize that the maintenance of a peace +requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point +consistent with the national safety and the enforcement by common +action of international obligations. + +The Council, taking account of the geographical situation and +circumstances of each state, shall formulate plans for such reduction +for the consideration and action of the several governments. + +Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at least +every ten years. + +After these plans shall have been adopted by the several governments, +limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded without the +concurrence of the Council. + +The members of the League agree that the manufacture by private +enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave +objections. The Council shall advise how the evil effects attendant +upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard being had to the +necessities of those members of the League which are not able to +manufacture the munitions and implements of war necessary for their +safety. + +The members of the League undertake to interchange full and frank +information as to the scale of their armaments, their military and +naval programmes and the condition of such of their industries as are +adaptable to warlike purposes. + + +Article Nine + +[Disarmament Commission] + +A permanent commission shall be constituted to advise the Council on +the execution of the provisions of Articles One and Eight and on +military and naval questions generally. + + +Article Ten + +[Territorial and Political Guarantees] + +The members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against +external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political +independence of all members of the League. In case of any such +aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression, the +Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be +fulfilled. + + +Article Eleven + +[Joint Action to Prevent War] + +Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the +members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to +the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be +deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. In case +any such emergency should arise, the Secretary-General shall, on the +request of any member of the League, forthwith summon a meeting of the +Council. + +It is also declared to be the fundamental right of each member of the +League to bring to the attention of the Assembly or of the Council any +circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens +to disturb either the peace or the good understanding between nations +upon which peace depends. + + +Article Twelve + +[Postponement of War] + +The members of the League agree that if there should arise between them +any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, they will submit the matter +either to arbitration or to inquiry by the Council, and they agree in +no case to resort to war until three months after the award by the +arbitrators or the report by the Council. + +In any case, under this Article the award of the arbitrators shall be +made within a reasonable time, and the report of the Council shall be +made within six months after the submission of the dispute. + + +Article Thirteen + +[Arbitration of Justiciable Matters] + +The members of the League agree that when ever any dispute shall arise +between them which they recognize to be suitable for submission to +arbitration and which cannot be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy, +they will submit the whole subject matter to arbitration. Disputes as +to the interpretation of a treaty, as to any question of international +law, as to the existence of any fact which if established would +constitute a breach of any international obligation, or as to the +extent and nature of the reparation to be made for any such breach, are +declared to be among those which are generally suitable for submission +to arbitration. For the consideration of any such dispute the court of +arbitration to which the case is referred shall be the court agreed on +by the parties to the dispute or stipulated in any convention existing +between them. + +The members of the League agree that they will carry out in full good +faith any award that may be rendered and that they will not resort to +war against a member of the League which complies therewith. In the +event of any failure to carry out such an award, the Council shall +propose what steps should be taken to give effect thereto. + + +Article Fourteen + +[Permanent Court of International Justice] + +The Council shall formulate and submit to the members of the League for +adoption plans for the establishment of a permanent court of +international justice. The court shall be competent to hear and +determine any dispute of an international character which the parties +thereto submit to it. The court may also give an advisory opinion upon +any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or by the +Assembly. + + +Article Fifteen + +[Settlement of Disputes by Council or Assembly; Exclusion of Domestic +Questions] + +If there should arise between members of the League any dispute likely +to lead to a rupture, which is not submitted to arbitration as above, +the members of the League agree that they will submit the matter to the +Council. Any party to the dispute may effect such submission by giving +notice of the existence of the dispute to the Secretary-General, who +will make all necessary arrangements for a full investigation and +consideration thereof. For this purpose the parties to the dispute will +communicate to the Secretary-General, as promptly as possible, +statements of their case, all the relevant facts and papers; the +Council may forthwith direct the publication thereof. + +The Council shall endeavor to effect a settlement of any dispute, and +if such efforts are successful, a statement shall be made public giving +such facts and explanations regarding the dispute and terms of +settlement thereof as the Council may deem appropriate. + +If the dispute is not thus settled, the Council either unanimously or +by a majority vote shall make and publish a report containing a +statement of the facts of the dispute and the recommendations which are +deemed just and proper in regard thereto. + +Any member of the League represented on the Council may make public a +statement of the facts of the dispute and of the conclusions regarding +the same. + +If a report by the Council is unanimously agreed to by the members +thereof other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to +the dispute, the members of the League agree that they will not go to +war with any party to the dispute which complies with the +recommendations of the report. + +If the Council fails to reach a report which is unanimously agreed to +by the members thereof, other than the representatives of one or more +of the parties to the dispute, the members of the League reserve to +themselves the right to take such action as they shall consider +necessary for the maintenance of right and justice. + +If the dispute between the parties is claimed by one of them, and is +found by the Council to arise out of a matter which by international +law is solely within the domestic jurisdiction of that party, the +Council shall so report, and shall make no recommendation as to its +settlement. + +The Council may in any case under this Article refer the dispute to the +Assembly. The dispute shall be so referred at the request of either +party to the dispute, provided that such request be made within +fourteen days after the submission of the dispute to the Council. + +In any case referred to the Assembly all the provisions of this Article +and of Article Twelve relating to the action and powers of the Council +shall apply to the action and powers of the Assembly, provided that a +report made by the Assembly, if concurred in by the representatives of +those members of the League represented on the Council and of a +majority of the other members of the League, exclusive in each case of +the representatives of the parties to the dispute, shall have the same +force as a report by the Council concurred in by all the members +thereof other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to +the dispute. + + +Article Sixteen + +[Sanctions] + +Should any member of the League resort to war in disregard of its +covenants under Articles Twelve, Thirteen or Fifteen, it shall ipso +facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other +members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it +to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition +of all intercourse between their nations and the nationals of the +covenant-breaking state and the prevention of all financial, +commercial, or personal intercourse between the nationals of the +covenant-breaking state and the nationals of any other state, whether a +member of the League or not. + +It shall be the duty of the Council in such case to recommend to the +several governments concerned what effective military or naval forces +the members of the League shall severally contribute to the armaments +of forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League. + +The members of the League agree, further, that they will mutually +support one another in the financial and economic measures which are +taken under this Article, in order to minimize the loss and +inconvenience resulting from the above measures, and that they will +mutually support one another in resisting any special measures aimed at +one of their number by the covenant-breaking state, and that they will +take the necessary steps to afford passage through their territory to +the forces of any of the members of the League which are cooperating to +protect the covenants of the League. + +Any member of the League which has violated any covenant of the League +may be declared to be no longer a member of the League by a vote of the +Council concurred in by the representatives of all the other members of +the League represented thereon. + + +Article Seventeen + +[Disputes of Non-Members] + +In the event of a dispute between a member of the League and a state +which is not a member of the League, or between states not members of +the League, the state or states not members of the League shall be +invited to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the +purposes of such dispute, upon such conditions as the Council may deem +just. If such invitation is accepted, the provisions of Articles Twelve +to Sixteen inclusive shall be applied with such modifications as may be +deemed necessary by the Council. + +Upon such invitation being given, the Council shall immediately +institute an inquiry into the circumstances of the dispute and +recommend such action as may seem best and most effectual in the +circumstances. + +If a state so invited shall refuse to accept the obligations of +membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, and shall +resort to war against a member of the League, the provisions of Article +Sixteen shall be applicable as against the state taking such action. + +If both parties to the dispute, when so invited, refuse to accept the +obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such +dispute, the Council may take such measures and make such +recommendations as will prevent hostilities and will result in the +settlement of the dispute. + + +Article Eighteen + +[Registration of International Engagements] + +Every convention or international engagement entered into henceforward +by any member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the +Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such +treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so +registered. + + +Article Nineteen + +[Revision of Former Treaties] + +The Assembly may from time to time advise the reconsideration by +members of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable, and +the consideration of international conditions of which the continuance +might endanger the peace of the world. + + +Article Twenty + +[Abrogation of Understandings not Consistent with the Covenant] + +The members of the League severally agree that this Covenant is +accepted as abrogating all obligations or understandings inter se which +are inconsistent with the terms thereof, and solemnly undertake that +they will not hereafter enter into any engagements inconsistent with +the terms thereof. + +In case members of the League shall, before becoming a member of the +League, have undertaken any obligation inconsistent with the terms of +this covenant, it shall be the duty of such member to take immediate +steps to procure its release from such obligations. + + +Article Twenty-One + +[The Monroe Doctrine] + +Nothing in this covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of +international engagements such as treaties of arbitration or regional +understandings like the Monroe Doctrine for securing the maintenance of +peace. + + +Article Twenty-Two + +[Mandatory Tutelage of Colonies and Backward Races] + +To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late +war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the states which +formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able +to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern +world, there should be applied the principle that the well being and +development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization and +that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in +this covenant. + +The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that +the tutelage of such peoples be entrusted to advanced nations who, by +reasons of their resources, their experience or their geographical +position, can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing +to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as +mandatories on behalf of the League. + +The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of the +development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, +its economic condition and other similar circumstances. + +Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have +reached a stage of development where their existence as independent +nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of +administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as +they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a +principal consideration in the selection of the mandatory. + +Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are at such a stage +that the mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the +territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience +or religion subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, +the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic and +the liquor traffic and the prevention of the establishment of +fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training of +the natives for other than police purposes and the defense of territory +and will also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of +other members of the League. + +There are territories, such as Southwest Africa and certain of the +South Pacific islands, which, owing to the sparseness of their +population or their small size or their remoteness from the centers of +civilization or their geographical contiguity to the territory of the +mandatory and other circumstances, can be best administered under the +laws of the mandatory as integral portions of its territory subject to +the safeguards above mentioned in the interests of the indigenous +population. In every case of mandate, the mandatory shall render to the +Council an annual report in reference to the territory committed to its +charge. + +The degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by +the mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the members of +the League, be explicitly defined in each case by the Council. + +A permanent commission shall be constituted to receive and examine the +annual reports of the mandatories and to advise the Council on all +matters relating to the observance of the mandates. + + +Article Twenty-Three + +[Humanitarian Provisions; Freedom of Transit] + +Subject to and in accordance with the provisions of international +conventions existing or hereafter to be agreed upon, the members of the +League (a) will endeavor to secure and maintain fair and humane +conditions of labor for men, women and children both in their own +countries and in all countries to which their commercial and industrial +relations extend, and for that purpose will establish and maintain the +necessary international organizations; (b) undertake to secure just +treatment of the native inhabitants of territories under their control; +(c) will entrust the League with the general supervision over the +execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in women and +children, and the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs; (d) will +entrust the League with the general supervision of the trade in arms +and ammunition with the countries in which the control to this traffic +is necessary in the common interest; (e) will make provision to secure +and maintain freedom of communication and of transit and equitable +treatment for the commerce of all members of the League. In this +connection the special necessities of the regions devastated during the +war of 1914-1918 shall be in mind; (f) will endeavor to take steps in +matters of international concern for the prevention and control of +disease. + + +Article Twenty-Four + +[Control of International Bureaus and Commissions] + +There shall be placed under the direction of the League all +international bureaus already established by general treaties if the +parties to such treaties consent. All such international bureaus and +all commissions for the regulation of matters of international interest +hereafter constituted shall be placed under the direction of the +League. + +In all matters of international interest which are regulated by general +conventions but which are not placed under the control of international +bureaus or commissions, the Secretariat of the League shall, subject to +the consent of the Council and if desired by the parties, collect and +distribute all relevant information and shall render any other +assistance which may be necessary or desirable. + +The Council may include as part of the expenses of the Secretariat the +expenses of any bureau or commission which is placed under the +direction of the League. + + +Article Twenty-Five + +[The Red Cross and International Sanitation] + +The members of the League agree to encourage and promote the +establishment and cooperation of duly authorized voluntary national Red +Cross organizations having as purposes improvement of health, the +prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering throughout the +world. + + +Article Twenty-Six + +[Amendments of the Covenant; Right of Dissent] + +Amendments to this Covenant will take effect when ratified by the +members of the League whose representatives compose the Council and by +a majority of the members of the League whose representatives compose +the Assembly. + +No such amendment shall bind any member of the League which signifies +its dissent therefrom, but in that case it shall cease to be a member +of the League. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOODROW WILSON'S ADMINISTRATION AND +ACHIEVEMENTS*** + + +******* This file should be named 29850.txt or 29850.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/9/8/5/29850 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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