Chapter Twenty-Two

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Chapter Twenty-Two

• World War I, 19141920

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"The twentieth century has been characterized by
three developments of great political importance
the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate
power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as
a means of protecting corporate power against
democracy." Alex Carey
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Part One

• Introduction

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

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

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Sources

• David Kennedy, Over Here 1980
• Walter LaFeber, The American Age 1989
• Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson War, Revolution,
  and Peace 1979 and Woodrow Wilson and the
  Progressive Era 1954
• William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of
  American Foreign Policy 1988

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The essence of American foreign relations is so
obvious as to often have been ignored or evaded.
It is the story of the evolution of one fragile
settlement planted precariously on the extreme
perimeter of a vast and unexplored continent into
a global empire.'10 In the first instance this
expansion was territorial, as the occupants of
the original thirteen states moved westwards
to claim most of the rest of the North American
continent. Once continental expansion was
complete, however, the United States looked
overseas. But US overseas expansion did not (with
notable exceptions such as the Philippines) take
the form of formal colonization. Instead
America's leaders pursued a strategy of informal
empire' that sought to ensure that the rest of
the world remained open to American economic
penetration. This policy was officially
formalized in the Open Door' notes of 1899-1900
and the philosophy and practice of secular
empire that was embedded in the Open Door notes
became the centralfeature of American foreign
policy in the twentieth century.'11 America's
intervention in two world wars, its confrontation
with the Soviet Union after 1945 and its repeated
interventions in the Third World are all
explained by the determination to maintain the
Open Door.'12 Steven Hurst
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Chronology

• 1903 U.S. obtains canal rights in Panama
• 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
  justifies U.S. intervention in Central and South
  America
• 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt mediates peace
  treaty between Japan and Russia at Portsmouth
  Conference
• Root-Takahira Agreement with Japan affirms
  status quo in Asia Open Door policy in China
  Mexican Revolution
• 1914 U.S. forces invade Mexico
• Panama Canal opens
• First World War begins in Europe
• President Woodrow Wilson proclamation of
  neutrality
• 1915 Germany declares war zone around Great
  Britain German U-boat sinks Lusitania
• 1916 Pancho Villa raids New Mexico and is pursued
  by General John J. Pershing
• Wilson is reelected National Defense Act
  establishes preparedness program

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1917 February Germany declares new policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare March
Zimmermann note, suggesting German Mexican,
shocks Americans April U.S. declares war on
the Central Powers Committee on Public
Information established May Selective Service
Act passed June Espionage Act passed July
Race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois War
Industries Board established August Food
Administration and Fuel Administration and Fuel
Administration established November Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia 1918 January Wilson
unveils Fourteen Points April National War
Labor Board established May Sedition Act
passed June Eugene Debs arrested for defending
antiwar protesters U.S. troops serve in Russia
November Armistice ends war
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1919 January 18th Amendment (Prohibition)
ratified Wilson serves as Chief U.S. negotiator
at Paris Peace Conference June Versailles
Treaty signed in Paris July Race riot breaks
out in Chicago Steel strike begins in several
Midwestern cities September Wilson suffers
stroke while touring country in support of
Versailles Treaty November Henry Cabot Lodge's
version of the Versailles Treaty is rejected by
the Senate Palmer raids begin 1920 March
Senate finally votes down Versailles Treaty and
League of Nations August 19th Amendment (woman
suffrage) ratified November Warren G. Harding
is elected president
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Woodrow Wilsons 14 Points

• I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at,
  after which there shall be no private
  international understandings of any kind but
  diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the
  public view.
• II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the
  seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace
  and in war, except as the seas may be closed in
  whole or in part by international action for the
  enforcement of international covenants.
• III. The removal, so far as possible, of all
  economic barriers and the establishment of an
  equality of trade conditions among all the
  nations consenting to the peace and associating
  themselves for its maintenance.
• IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that
  national armaments will be reduced to the lowest
  point consistent with domestic safety.

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V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial
adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a
strict observance of the principle that in
determining all such questions of sovereignty the
interests of the populations concerned must have
equal weight with the equitable claims of the
government whose title is to be determined. VI.
The evacuation of all Russian territory and such
a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as
will secure the best and freest cooperation of
the other nations of the world in obtaining for
her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity
for the independent determination of her own
political development and national policy and
assure her of a sincere welcome into the society
of free nations under institutions of her own
choosing and, more than a welcome, assistance
also of every kind that she may need and may
herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by
her sister nations in the months to come will be
the acid test of their good will, of their
comprehension of her needs as distinguished from
their own interests, and of their intelligent and
unselfish sympathy.
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VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be
evacuated and restored, without any attempt to
limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common
with all other free nations. No other single act
will serve as this will serve to restore
confidence among the nations in the laws which
they have themselves set and determined for the
government of their relations with one another.
Without this healing act the whole structure and
validity of international law is forever
impaired. VIII. All French territory should be
freed and the invaded portions restored, and the
wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the
matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled
the peace of the world for nearly fifty years,
should be righted, in order that peace may once
more be made secure in the interest of all. IX.
A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should
be effected along clearly recognizable lines of
nationality. X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary,
whose place among the nations we wish to see
safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the
freest opportunity to autonomous development.
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XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be
evacuated occupied territories restored Serbia
accorded free and secure access to the sea and
the relations of the several Balkan states to one
another determined by friendly counsel along
historically established lines of allegiance and
nationality and international guarantees of the
political and economic independence and
territorial integrity of the several Balkan
states should be entered into. XII. The Turkish
portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be
assured a secure sovereignty, but the other
nationalities which are now under Turkish rule
should be assured an undoubted security of life
and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of
autonomous development, and the Dardanelles
should be permanently opened as a free passage to
the ships and commerce of all nations under
international guarantees.
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XIII. An independent Polish state should be
erected which should include the territories
inhabited by indisputably Polish populations,
which should be assured a free and secure access
to the sea, and whose political and economic
independence and territorial integrity should be
guaranteed by international covenant. XIV. A
general association of nations must be formed
under specific covenants for the purpose of
affording mutual guarantees of political
independence and territorial integrity to great
and small states alike. In regard to these
essential rectifications of wrong and assertions
of right we feel ourselves to be intimate
partners of all the governments and peoples
associated together against the Imperialists. We
cannot be separated in interest or divided in
purpose. We stand together until the end.
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Chapter Focus Questions

• How did Americas international role expand?
• How did the United States move from neutrality to
  participation in the Great War?
• How did the United States mobilize the society
  and the economy for war?
• How did Americans express dissent and how was it
  repressed?
• Why did Woodrow Wilson fail to win the peace?
• Explain the connection between American pursuit
  of empire, the progressive movement and the
  United States experience in World War I. 6 to
  8 sentences for max of 12 points
• Evaluate the role of George Creel's Committee on
  Public Information during World War I 11
  points
• Compare balance of power to collective security
  with regard to US foreign policy.

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Part Two

• American Communities

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Vigilante Justice in Bisbee, Arizona

• In 1917 armed men began rounding up strikers at a
  copper mine in Bisbee, Arizona.
• Of the 2,000 men kept under armed guard, 1,400
  refused to return to work and were taken on a
  freight train to a small town in the desert.
• The radical Industrial Workers of the World
  (Wobblies) had organized a peaceful strike that
  won support from over half the towns miners.
• The sheriff and towns businessmen justified
  vigilantism by invoking patriotism and racial
  purity.
• Neither the federal nor the state government
  would act.
• The Arizona mines operated without unions into
  the 1930s and with very few immigrant workers.

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Part Three

• Becoming a New World Power

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Roosevelt The Big Stick

• Americans believed that they had a God-given role
  to promote a moral world order. Theodore
  Roosevelts big stick approach called for
  intervention.
• He secured a zone in Panama for a canal,
  completed in 1914.
• He expanded the Monroe Doctrine to justify armed
  intervention in the Caribbean where the United
  States assumed management of several nations
  finances.
• In Asia, the United States pursued the Open
  Door policy.
• TR mediated a settlement of the Russo-Japanese
  War.

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Taft Dollar Diplomacy

• His successor, William Howard Taft, favored
  dollar diplomacy that substituted investment
  for military intervention.
• American investment in Central America doubled.
• Military interventions occurred in Honduras and
  Nicaragua.
• In Asia, the quest for greater trade led to
  worsening relations with Japan over the issue
  ownership of Chinese railroads.

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Wilson Moralism and Realism in Mexico

• Woodrow Wilson had no diplomatic experience
  before becoming president.
• He favored expanding the Open Door principle of
  equal access to markets.
• He saw expansion of American capitalism in moral
  terms.
• The complex realities of power politics
  interfered with his moral vision.
• Unable to control the revolution in Mexico,
  Wilson sent troops to Vera Cruz and northern
  Mexico.
• When relations with Germany worsened, Wilson
  accepted an international commissions
  recommendation and withdrew U.S. troops from
  Mexico.

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Part Four

• The Great War

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The Guns of August

• An incident in 1914 in the Balkans plunged Europe
  into the most destructive war in its history.
• Competition between Britain and Germany had led
  to competing camps of alliances. The
  assassination of the Archduke of Austria
  escalated into a general war.
• Wilson and most Americans wanted to stay neutral.
  
• Both sides bombarded the Americans with
  propaganda, but more crucial were economic ties
  with the Allies and the British blockade.

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Preparedness and Peace

• Germany declared the waters around Britain to be
  a war zone and began submarine attacks.
• In May 1915 Germans sank the Lusitania, a British
  passenger ship secretly loaded with armaments,
  killing 1,198 people including 128 Americans.
• In March 1916, Germany changed its submarine
  policy, but Wilson pushed for greater war
  preparation.
• Opponents mobilized on the streets and in
  Congress.
• In 1916, Wilson won re-election with the slogan
  He Kept Us Out of War.

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Safe for Democracy

• Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in
  February 1917 gambling that they could destroy
  the Allies before America intervened.
• Wilson broke diplomatic relations but anti-war
  senators blocked his effort to arm merchant
  ships.
• The Zimmerman note provoked an outpouring of
  anti-German feeling.
• On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war.

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Part Five

• American Mobilization

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Selling the War

• Uncertain about public backing for the war,
  Wilson appointed George Creel to head the
  Committee on Public Information that tried to
  promote public support.
• Creel enlisted over 150,000 people to promote the
  cause.
• The CPI
• published literature
• sponsored huge rallies featuring movie stars
• portrayed America as a unified moral community
  engaged in a crusade for peace and freedom
• depicted Germans as bestial monsters

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Fading Opposition to War

• Many progressives and intellectuals identified
  with Wilsons definition of the war as a defense
  of democracy. John Dewey, Walter Lipmann
• Womens suffrage leaders who had initially
  opposed war preparedness threw themselves behind
  the war effort.
• Only a minority maintained their opposition to
  the war.

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Youre in the Army Now

• Recruiting a large army required a draft that met
  with only scattered organized resistance.
• Nearly 10 million men registered for the draft
  and 3.8 million served in the military. Recruits
  took a range of psychological and intelligence
  tests.
• Some praised the army for promoting democratic
  equality among the troops.

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Racism in the Military

• Black troops were organized into separate units
  and subjected to white harassment.
• Most had non-combat jobs, but those African
  Americans who did fight served with distinction,
  and were well treated by the French.

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Americans in Battle

• Initially, American support for the war effort
  concentrated on protecting shipping. In 1918,
  fresh American troops shored up defensive lines
  to stop a German advance that came within 50
  miles of Paris.
• Americans joined the counter-offensive that
  followed and helped force the Germans into
  signing an armistice.
• Approximately 112,000 Americans died, half from
  disease, and twice that number were wounded, far
  less than the millions of losses suffered by
  European nations.

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Part Six

• Over Here

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Organizing the Economy

• In a sense, WWI was the ultimate progressive
  crusade.
• Wilson established the War Industries Board to
  coordinate industrial mobilization. Headed by
  Bernard Baruch, the WIB forced industries to
  comply with government plans.
• Herbert Hoover ran the Food Administration.
• The Fuel Administration introduced
  daylight-saving time.
• Financing the war required new taxes.
• Most of the needed financing came from Liberty
  Bond drives.

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The Business of War

• Industrialists saw the war as an opportunity for
  expansion and high profits.
• Henry Ford pioneered efficient mass production
  techniques.
• Businessmen and farmers saw the war years as a
  golden age of high demand and high profits.
• The need to coordinate war mobilization
• required more efficient management
• resulted in an unprecedented business-government
  partnership
• Government cooperation helped to create new
  corporations like RCA that set the stage for the
  new radio broadcasting industry of the 1920s.

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Labor and the War

• The wartime labor shortage led to higher wages
  and a growth in union membership. The National
  War Labor Board (NWLB) included AFL President
  Samuel Gompers and former President Taft.
• It mediated wage disputes and arbitrated
  solutions that generally led to higher wages. The
  NWLB supported workers rights to organize unions
  and the eight-hour day. Immigration laws were
  eased in the Southwest to recruit Mexican
  workers.
• The radical IWW was destroyed as businesses and
  government cracked down on it. Over 300
  Wobblies were arrested in a single government
  roundup, effectively destroying it.

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Women at Work

• The war allowed women to shift from low paid
  domestic service to higher-paying industrial
  jobs.
• The Women in Industry Service advised industry on
  the use of women workers and won improved
  conditions.
• Women earned much less than their male
  counterparts.
• At the end of the conflict, nearly all women lost
  their war-related jobs.

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Woman Suffrage

• The war also brought a successful conclusion to
  the womens suffrage campaign. Prior to WWI,
  women in several western states had won the vote.
  
• Most suffragists had opposed entry into the war.
• Carrie Chapman Catt, a key leader, convinced her
  organization to back the war effort. Militants
  like Alice Paul pursued a strategy of agitation.
• Catt won Wilsons support and by 1920 the 19th
  amendment became law.

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Prohibition

• During the war, the temperance movement benefited
  from
• anti-German feeling that worked against breweries
  with German names
• the need to conserve grain
• Prohibition gained during the war leading to
  passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.

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Public Health

• The war effort also addressed public health
  issues.
• The government attempted to safeguard the
  soldiers moral health by discouraging drinking
  and educating troops on the dangers of venereal
  disease.
• Both the war and a worldwide flu epidemic that
  killed 20 million people in 1918-1919 influenced
  Congress to appropriate money for public health
  after the return of peace.

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Part Seven

• Repression and Reaction

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Muzzling Dissent

• WWI intensified social tensions in American life,
  leading to oppression of dissent. The Espionage
  Act of June 1917
• set severe penalties for anyone found guilty of
  aiding the enemy
• excluded from the mails, periodicals the
  postmaster considered treasonous.
• The Military Intelligence police force grew and a
  civilian Bureau of Intelligence (precursor to the
  FBI) was established.
• The Sedition Act widened the governments power
  to crush anti-war opposition.
• The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of
  these prosecutions. Schenk v. United States
  "clear and present danger" test

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The Great Migration

• Economic opportunity triggered a mass African
  American migration out of the South and into
  northern cities.
• Kinship and community networks were pivotal to
  the Great Migration.
• Most migrants settled for lower-paid jobs as
  laborers, janitors, porters, etc.

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Racial Tensions

• In the North, white outrage at the African
  American influx exploded in a series of riots.
• African Americans who had hoped their service in
  the war would be rewarded were quickly
  disillusioned.
• Many returned with an increased sense of
  militancy.
• 1920s, Tulsa, Oklahoma

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Labor Strife

• Peace in Europe shattered the labor peace at
  home.
• Postwar labor unrest was caused by
• inflation
• non-recognition of unions
• poor working conditions
• concerns about job security
• In 1919, there were 3,600 strikes involving four
  million workers.
• The steel strike involved 350,000 workers but
  failed.

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Part Eight

• An Uneasy Peace

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The Fourteen Points

• Delegates from 27 countries met in Versailles to
  work out a peace settlement.
• The leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and the
  United States dominated the conference. Wilson
  offered his vision for peace in a series of 14
  points.
• Ho Chi Minh of Indochina not allowed to
  participate
• Wilson envisioned collective security through a
  League of Nations as a way to maintain a stable
  world.

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Wilson in Paris

• Wilsons fellow negotiators shared little of his
  idealism.
• His ideal of self-determination found limited
  expression when independent states were carved
  out of the homelands of the beaten Central
  Powers.
• The victorious Allies seized control of the
  former German colonies.
• Germany was forced to take full responsibility
  for starting the war and to accept a reparations
  bill of 33 billion.
• Wilson was unhappy with many of the compromises
  in the final treaty but was pleased by the
  commitment to the League of Nations.

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The Treaty Fight

• The League did not enjoy wide support at home,
  however.
• Republicans had won control of Congress and many
  senators opposed American participation in any
  treaty.
• Some senators were adamant isolationists others
  were racist xenophobes.
• Senate majority leader Henry Cabot Lodge of
  Massachusetts and many others feared the League
  would impinge on American autonomy.
• Wilson went on a grueling speaking tour to drum
  up support for the League. He collapsed and had a
  stroke.
• Wilson opposed any compromise and the treaty did
  not pass Congress. The United States never joined
  the League.

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The Russian Revolution

• The Bolshevik victory in 1917 changed the climate
  of foreign and domestic affairs. Wilson
  sympathized with the overthrow of the czar.
• In August 1918, Wilson sent American troops into
  northern and eastern Russia purportedly to
  protect railroad connections.
• The troops actually participated in the Russian
  civil war against the Bolsheviks.

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The Red Scare

• In the United States, the charge of Bolshevism
  became a weapon against dissent.
• A growing fear of foreigners fueled a new round
  of government repression.
• Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer rounded up
  6,000 alleged radicals, despite the absence of
  any evidence against them. Role of trials
  Saddam, Osama post 9/11
• Business groups found redbaiting to be an
  effective tool for keeping unions out of
  factories.
• The election of Warren G. Harding in 1920 showed
  that Americans wanted to retreat from the turmoil
  of international affairs and return to
  normalcy.
• Loyalty oaths of 1950s and 1960s -- USA flags on
  lapels

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