wilsonian progressivism at home and abroad pageant ch 30.pdfwilsonian progressivism at home and...

30

WilsonianProgressivism

at Home and Abroad��

1912–1916

American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital isfinding it harder and harder to get into the field, more and more

impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws ofthis country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak.

WOODROW WILSON, THE NEW FREEDOM, 1913

Office-hungry Democrats—the “outs” since1897—were jubilant over the disruptive Repub-

lican brawl at the convention in Chicago. If theycould come up with an outstanding reformistleader, they had an excellent chance to win theWhite House. Such a leader appeared in Dr.Woodrow Wilson, once a mild conservative but nowa militant progressive. Beginning professional life asa brilliant academic lecturer on government, he hadrisen in 1902 to the presidency of Princeton Univer-sity, where he had achieved some sweeping educa-tional reforms.

Wilson entered politics in 1910 when New Jer-sey bosses, needing a respectable “front” candidatefor the governorship, offered him the nomination.They expected to lead the academic novice by the

nose, but to their surprise, Wilson waged a passion-ate reform campaign in which he assailed the“predatory” trusts and promised to return state gov-ernment to the people. Riding the crest of the pro-gressive wave, the “Schoolmaster in Politics” wasswept into office.

Once in the governor’s chair, Wilson drovethrough the legislature a sheaf of forward-lookingmeasures that made reactionary New Jersey one ofthe more liberal states. Filled with righteous indig-nation, Wilson revealed irresistible reforming zeal,burning eloquence, superb powers of leadership,and a refreshing habit of appealing over the heads ofthe scheming bosses to the sovereign people. Now afigure of national eminence, Wilson was beingwidely mentioned for the presidency.

687

The “Bull Moose” Campaign of 1912

When the Democrats met at Baltimore in 1912, Wil-son was nominated on the forty-sixth ballot, aidedby William Jennings Bryan’s switch to his side. TheDemocrats gave Wilson a strong progressive plat-form to run on; dubbed the “New Freedom” pro-gram, it included calls for stronger antitrustlegislation, banking reform, and tariff reductions.

Surging events had meanwhile been thrustingRoosevelt to the fore as a candidate for the presi-dency on a third-party Progressive Republicanticket. The fighting ex-cowboy, angered by his recentrebuff, was eager to lead the charge. A pro-RooseveltProgressive convention, with about two thousanddelegates from forty states, assembled in Chicagoduring August 1912. Dramatically symbolizing therising political status of women, as well as Pro-gressive support for the cause of social justice, settlement-house pioneer Jane Addams placed Roosevelt’s name in nomination for the presidency.Roosevelt was applauded tumultuously as he criedin a vehement speech, “We stand at Armageddon,and we battle for the Lord!” The hosanna spirit of areligious revival meeting suffused the convention,as the hoarse delegates sang “Onward Christian Sol-diers” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” WilliamAllen White, the caustic Kansas journalist, laterwrote, “Roosevelt bit me and I went mad.”

Fired-up Progressives entered the campaignwith righteousness and enthusiasm. Rooseveltboasted that he felt “as strong as a bull moose,” andthe bull moose took its place with the donkey andthe elephant in the American political zoo. As onepoet whimsically put it,

I want to be a Bull Moose,And with the Bull Moose standWith antlers on my foreheadAnd a Big Stick in my hand.

Roosevelt and Taft were bound to slit eachother’s political throats; by dividing the Republicanvote, they virtually guaranteed a Democratic victory.The two antagonists tore into each other as only for-mer friends can. “Death alone can take me outnow,” cried the once-jovial Taft, as he branded Roo-sevelt a “dangerous egotist” and a “demagogue.”Roosevelt, fighting mad, assailed Taft as a “fathead”with the brain of a “guinea pig.”

Beyond the clashing personalities, the overshad-owing question of the 1912 campaign was which oftwo varieties of progressivism would prevail—Roo-sevelt’s New Nationalism or Wilson’s New Freedom.Both men favored a more active government role ineconomic and social affairs, but they disagreedsharply over specific strategies. Roosevelt preachedthe theories spun out by the progressive thinker Her-bert Croly in his book The Promise of American Life(1910). Croly and TR both favored continued consol-idation of trusts and labor unions, paralleled by thegrowth of powerful regulatory agencies in Washing-ton. Roosevelt and his “bull moosers” also cam-paigned for woman suffrage and a broad program ofsocial welfare, including minimum-wage laws and“socialistic” social insurance. Clearly, the bull mooseProgressives looked forward to the kind of activistwelfare state that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Dealwould one day make a reality.

Wilson’s New Freedom, by contrast, favoredsmall enterprise, entrepreneurship, and the freefunctioning of unregulated and unmonopolizedmarkets. The Democrats shunned social-welfare

688 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

proposals and pinned their economic faith on com-petition—on the “man on the make,” as Wilson putit. The keynote of Wilson’s campaign was not regula-tion but fragmentation of the big industrial com-bines, chiefly by means of vigorous enforcement ofthe antitrust laws. The election of 1912 thus offeredthe voters a choice not merely of policies but ofpolitical and economic philosophies—a rarity inU.S. history.

The heat of the campaign cooled a bit when, inMilwaukee, Roosevelt was shot in the chest by afanatic. The Rough Rider suspended active cam-paigning for more than two weeks after delivering,with bull moose gameness and a bloody shirt, hisscheduled speech.

Woodrow Wilson:A Minority President

Former professor Wilson won handily, with 435electoral votes and 6,296,547 popular votes. The“third-party” candidate, Roosevelt, finished second,receiving 88 electoral votes and 4,118,571 popularvotes. Taft won only 8 electoral votes and 3,486,720popular votes (see the map on p. 690).

The election figures are fascinating. Wilson, withonly 41 percent of the popular vote, was clearly aminority president, though his party won a majorityin Congress. His popular total was actually smallerthan Bryan had amassed in any of his three defeats,despite the increase in population. Taft and Roo-sevelt together polled over 1.25 million more votesthan the Democrats. Progressivism rather than Wil-son was the runaway winner. Although the Demo-cratic total obviously included many conservativesin the solid South, the combined progressive vote for

Wilson and Roosevelt exceeded the tally of the moreconservative Taft. To the progressive tally must beadded some support for the Socialist candidate, per-sistent Eugene V. Debs, who rolled up 900,672 votes,or more than twice as many as he had netted fouryears earlier. Starry-eyed Socialists dreamed of beingin the White House within eight years.

Roosevelt’s lone-wolf course was tragic both forhimself and for his former Republican associates.Perhaps, to rephrase William Allen White, he hadbitten himself and gone mad. The Progressive party,which was primarily a one-man show, had no futurebecause it had elected few candidates to state andlocal offices; the Socialists, in contrast, elected morethan a thousand. Without patronage plums to handout to the faithful workers, death by slow starvationwas inevitable for the upstart party. Yet the Progres-sives made a tremendous showing for a hastilyorganized third party and helped spur the enact-ment of many of their pet reforms by the Wilsonian Democrats.

As for the Republicans, they were thrust intounaccustomed minority status in Congress for thenext six years and were frozen out of the WhiteHouse for eight years. Taft himself had a fruitful oldage. He taught law for eight pleasant years at YaleUniversity and in 1921 became chief justice of theSupreme Court—a job for which he was far morehappily suited than the presidency.

Wilson: The Idealist in Politics

(Thomas) Woodrow Wilson, the second Democraticpresident since 1861, looked like the ascetic intel-lectual he was, with his clean-cut features, pinched-on eyeglasses, and trim figure. Born in Virginia

Roosevelt Versus Wilson 689

The Presidential Vote, 1912

Electoral ApproximateCandidate Party Vote Popular Vote Percentage

Woodrow Wilson Democratic 435 6,296,547 41%Theodore Roosevelt Progressive 88 4,118,571 27William H. Taft Republican 8 3,486,720 23Eugene V. Debs Socialist — 900,672 6E. W. Chafin Prohibition — 206,275 1A. E. Reimer Socialist-Labor — 28,750 0.2

shortly before the Civil War and reared in Georgiaand the Carolinas, the professor-politician was thefirst man from one of the seceded southern states toreach the White House since Zachary Taylor, sixty-four years earlier.

The impact of Dixieland on young “Tommy”Wilson was profound. He sympathized with theConfederacy’s gallant attempt to win its independ-ence, a sentiment that partly inspired his ideal ofself-determination for people of other countries.Steeped in the traditions of Jeffersonian democracy,he shared Jefferson’s faith in the masses—if theywere properly informed.

Son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson wasreared in an atmosphere of fervent piety. He laterused the presidential pulpit to preach his inspira-tional political sermons. A moving orator, Wilsoncould rise on the wings of spiritual power to soaringeloquence. Skillfully using a persuasive voice, herelied not on arm-waving but on sincerity andmoral appeal. As a lifelong student of finely chiseledwords, he turned out to be a “phraseocrat” whocoined many noble epigrams. Someone hasremarked that he was born halfway between theBible and the dictionary and never strayed far fromeither.

A profound student of government, Wilsonbelieved that the chief executive should play adynamic role. He was convinced that Congresscould not function properly unless the president,

like a kind of prime minister, got out in front andprovided leadership. He enjoyed dramatic success,both as governor and as president, in appealing overthe heads of legislators to the sovereign people.

Splendid though Wilson’s intellectual equip-ment was, he suffered from serious defects of per-sonality. Though jovial and witty in private, he couldbe cold and standoffish in public. Incapable ofunbending and acting the showman, like “Teddy”Roosevelt, he lacked the common touch. He lovedhumanity in the mass rather than the individual inperson. His academic background caused him tofeel most at home with scholars, although he had towork with politicians. An austere and somewhatarrogant intellectual, he looked down his nosethrough pince-nez glasses upon lesser minds,including journalists. He was especially intolerantof stupid senators, whose “bungalow” minds madehim “sick.”

Wilson’s burning idealism—especially his desireto reform ever-present wickedness—drove him for-ward faster than lesser spirits were willing to go. Hissense of moral righteousness was such that he oftenfound compromise difficult; black was black, wrongwas wrong, and one should never compromise withwrong. President Wilson’s Scottish Presbyterianancestors had passed on to him an inflexible stub-bornness. When convinced that he was right, theprincipled Wilson would break before he wouldbend, unlike the pragmatic Roosevelt.


WASH.7

ORE.5

CALIF.11

NEV.3

IDAHO4

MONTANA4

WYO.3

UTAH4 COLO.

6

ARIZ.3

S.D.5

KANSAS10

OKLA.10

MICH.15

N.Y.45

N.D.5 MINN.

12

IOWA13NEBR.

8

MO.18

ARK.9

LA.10

TEXAS20

N.M.3 MISS.

10

ALA.12 GA.

14

FLA.6

TENN. 12N.C.12

S.C.9

VA.12

W. VA.8

PA.38

OHIO24IND.

15ILL.29

WISC.13

KY.13

ME.6

N.H.4

VT.4

MASS.18

R.I. 5CONN. 7

N.J. 14

DEL. 3MD. 8

(+2 Dem.)

Wilson—Democratic

Roosevelt—Progressive

Taft—Republican

Presidential Election of 1912(with electoral vote by state)The Republican split surely boostedWilson to victory, as he failed to wina clear majority in any state outsidethe old Confederacy. The electiongave the Democrats solid control of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time since the Civil War.

Wilson Tackles the Tariff

Few presidents have arrived at the White Housewith a clearer program than Wilson’s or one des-tined to be so completely achieved. The new presi-dent called for an all-out assault on what he called“the triple wall of privilege”: the tariff, the banks,and the trusts.

He tackled the tariff first, summoning Congressinto special session in early 1913. In a precedent-shattering move, he did not send his presidentialmessage over to the Capitol to be read loudly by abored clerk, as had been the custom since Jefferson’sday. Instead he appeared in person before a jointsession of Congress and presented his appeal withstunning eloquence and effectiveness.

Moved by Wilson’s aggressive leadership, theHouse swiftly passed the Underwood Tariff Bill,which provided for a substantial reduction of rates.When a swarm of lobbyists descended on the Senateseeking to disembowel the bill, Wilson promptlyissued a combative message to the people, urgingthem to hold their elected representatives in line.The tactic worked. The force of public opinion,aroused by the president’s oratory, secured late in1913 final approval of the bill Wilson wanted.

The new Underwood Tariff substantially re-duced import fees. It also was a landmark in tax leg-islation. Under authority granted by the recentlyratified Sixteenth Amendment, Congress enacted agraduated income tax, beginning with a modest levyon incomes over $3,000 (then considerably higherthan the average family’s income). By 1917 revenuefrom the income tax shot ahead of receipts from thetariff. This gap has since been vastly widened.

Wilson Battles the Bankers

A second bastion of the “triple wall of privilege” wasthe antiquated and inadequate banking and cur-rency system, long since outgrown by the Republic’slusty economic expansion. The country’s financialstructure, still creaking along under the Civil WarNational Banking Act, revealed glaring defects. Itsmost serious shortcoming, as exposed by the panicof 1907, was the inelasticity of the currency. Bankingreserves were heavily concentrated in New York anda handful of other large cities and could not bemobilized in times of financial stress into areas thatwere badly pinched.

In 1908 Congress had authorized an investiga-tion headed by a mossback banker, Republican sen-ator Aldrich. Three years later Aldrich’s specialcommission recommended a gigantic bank withnumerous branches—in effect, a third Bank of theUnited States.

The Rise of Wilson 691

For their part, Democratic banking reformersheeded the findings of a House committee chairedby Congressman Arsene Pujo, which traced the ten-tacles of the “money monster” into the hiddenvaults of American banking and business. PresidentWilson’s confidant, progressive-minded Massachu-setts attorney Louis D. Brandeis, further fanned theflames of reform with his incendiary though schol-arly book Other People’s Money and How the BankersUse It (1914).

In June 1913, in a second dramatic personalappearance before both houses of Congress, thepresident delivered a stirring plea for sweepingreform of the banking system. He ringinglyendorsed Democratic proposals for a decentralizedbank in government hands, as opposed to Republi-can demands for a huge private bank with fifteenbranches.

Again appealing to the sovereign people, Wilsonscored another triumph. In 1913 he signed theepochal Federal Reserve Act, the most importantpiece of economic legislation between the Civil Warand the New Deal. The new Federal Reserve Board,appointed by the president, oversaw a nationwidesystem of twelve regional reserve districts, each withits own central bank. Although these regional bankswere actually bankers’ banks, owned by memberfinancial institutions, the final authority of the Federal Reserve Board guaranteed a substantial mea-sure of public control. The board was also empoweredto issue paper money—“Federal Reserve Notes”—backed by commercial paper, such as promissorynotes of businesspeople. Thus the amount of moneyin circulation could be swiftly increased as needed forthe legitimate requirements of business.

The Federal Reserve Act was a red-letterachievement. It carried the nation with flying ban-ners through the financial crises of the First WorldWar of 1914–1918. Without it, the Republic’sprogress toward the modern economic age wouldhave been seriously retarded.

The President Tames the Trusts

Without pausing for breath, Wilson pushed towardthe last remaining rampart in the “triple wall of privilege”—the trusts. Early in 1914 he again wentbefore Congress in a personal appearance that stillcarried drama.

Nine months and thousands of words later,Congress responded with the Federal Trade Com-mission Act of 1914. The new law empowered apresidentially appointed commission to turn asearchlight on industries engaged in interstate com-merce, such as the meatpackers. The commission-ers were expected to crush monopoly at the sourceby rooting out unfair trade practices, includingunlawful competition, false advertising, mislabel-ing, adulteration, and bribery.

The knot of monopoly was further cut by theClayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914. It lengthened theshopworn Sherman Act’s list of business practicesthat were deemed objectionable, including price dis-crimination and interlocking directorates (wherebythe same individuals served as directors of suppos-edly competing firms).

The Clayton Act also conferred long-overduebenefits on labor. Conservative courts had unex-pectedly been ruling that trade unions fell under theantimonopoly restraints of the Sherman Act. A clas-sic case involved striking hatmakers in Danbury,Connecticut, who were assessed triple damages ofmore than $250,000, which resulted in the loss oftheir savings and homes. The Clayton Act thereforesought to exempt labor and agricultural organiza-tions from antitrust prosecution, while explicitlylegalizing strikes and peaceful picketing.

Union leader Samuel Gompers hailed the act asthe Magna Carta of labor because it legally liftedhuman labor out of the category of “a commodity orarticle of commerce.” But the rejoicing was prema-ture, as conservative judges in later years continuedto clip the wings of the union movement.


SUPERHOLDINGCOMPANY

CORP.A

CORP.B

CORP.C

CORP.D

CORP.E

CORP.F

CORP.G

CORP.H

CORP.I

HOLDINGCOMPANY A

HOLDINGCOMPANY B

HOLDINGCOMPANY C

HOLDS MORE THAN 50% OF VOTING STOCK

HOLDS MORE THAN 50% OF VOTING STOCK

Organization of Holding Companies Keep in mind that thevoting stock of a corporation is often only a fraction of thetotal stock.

Wilsonian Progressivism at High Tide

Energetically scaling the “triple wall of privilege,”Woodrow Wilson had treated the nation to a daz-zling demonstration of vigorous presidential leader-ship. He proved nearly irresistible in his firsteighteen months in office. For once, a political creedwas matched by deed, as the progressive reformersracked up victory after victory.

Standing at the peak of his powers at the head ofthe progressive forces, Wilson pressed ahead withfurther reforms. The Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916made credit available to farmers at low rates ofinterest—as long demanded by the Populists. TheWarehouse Act of 1916 authorized loans on thesecurity of staple crops—another Populist idea.Other laws benefited rural America by providing forhighway construction and the establishment ofagricultural extension work in the state colleges.

Sweaty laborers also made gains as the progres-sive wave foamed forward. Sailors, treated brutallyfrom cat-o’-nine-tails days onward, were given reliefby the La Follette Seamen’s Act of 1915. It requireddecent treatment and a living wage on Americanmerchant ships. One unhappy result of this well-intentioned law was the crippling of America’s mer-chant marine, as freight rates spiraled upward withthe crew’s wages.

Wilson further helped the workers with theWorkingmen’s Compensation Act of 1916, grantingassistance to federal civil-service employees duringperiods of disability. In the same year, the presidentapproved an act restricting child labor on productsflowing into interstate commerce, though the stand-pat Supreme Court soon invalidated the law. Rail-road workers, numbering about 1.7 million, werenot sidetracked. The Adamson Act of 1916 estab-lished an eight-hour day for all employees on trainsin interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime.

Wilson earned the enmity of businesspeople andbigots but endeared himself to progressives when in1916 he nominated for the Supreme Court the promi-nent reformer Louis D. Brandeis—the first Jew to becalled to the high bench. Yet even Wilson’s progres-sivism had its limits, and it clearly stopped short ofbetter treatment for blacks. The southern-bred Wil-son actually presided over accelerated segregation inthe federal bureaucracy. When a delegation of blackleaders personally protested to him, the schoolmas-terish president virtually froze them out of his office.

Despite these limitations, Wilson knew that tobe reelected in 1916, he needed to identify himselfclearly as the candidate of progressivism. Heappeased businesspeople by making conservativeappointments to the Federal Reserve Board and theFederal Trade Commission, but he devoted most ofhis energies to cultivating progressive support. Wil-son’s election in 1912 had been something of a fluke,owing largely to the Taft-Roosevelt split in theRepublican ranks. To remain in the White House,the president would have to woo the bull moosevoters into the Democratic fold.

New Directions in Foreign Policy

In one important area, Wilson chose not to answerthe trumpet call of the bull moosers. In contrast toRoosevelt and even Taft, Wilson recoiled from anaggressive foreign policy. Hating imperialism, he

Wilson’s Reforms and Foreign Policy 693

was repelled by TR’s big stickism. Suspicious of WallStreet, he detested the so-called dollar diplomacy ofTaft.

In office only a week, Wilson declared war ondollar diplomacy. He proclaimed that the govern-ment would no longer offer special support toAmerican investors in Latin America and China.Shivering from this Wilsonian bucket of cold water,American bankers pulled out of the Taft-engineeredsix-nation loan to China the next day.

In a similarly self-denying vein, Wilson per-suaded Congress in early 1914 to repeal the PanamaCanal Tolls Act of 1912, which had exempted Ameri-can coastwise shipping from tolls and thereby pro-voked sharp protests from injured Britain. Thepresident further chimed in with the anti-imperialsong of Bryan and other Democrats when he signedthe Jones Act in 1916. It granted to the Philippinesthe boon of territorial status and promised inde-pendence as soon as a “stable government” couldbe established. That glad day came thirty years later,on July 4, 1946.

Wilson also partially defused a menacing crisiswith Japan in 1913. The California legislature, stillseeking to rid the Golden State of Japanese settlers,prohibited them from owning land. Tokyo, under-standably irritated, lodged vigorous protests. AtFortress Corregidor, in the Philippines, Americangunners were put on around-the-clock alert. Butwhen Wilson dispatched Secretary of State William

Jennings Bryan to plead with the California legisla-ture to soften its stand, tensions eased somewhat.

Political turmoil in Haiti soon forced Wilson toeat some of his anti-imperialist words. The climax ofthe disorders came in 1914–1915, when an outragedpopulace literally tore to pieces the brutal Haitianpresident. In 1915 Wilson reluctantly dispatchedmarines to protect American lives and property. In1916 he stole a page from Roosevelt’s corollary tothe Monroe Doctrine and concluded a treaty withHaiti providing for U.S. supervision of finances andthe police. In the same year, he sent the leather-necked marines to quell riots in the DominicanRepublic, and that debt-cursed land came underthe shadow of the American eagle’s wings for thenext eight years. In 1917 Wilson purchased fromDenmark the Virgin Islands, in the West Indies,tightening the grip of Uncle Sam in these shark-infested waters. Increasingly, the Caribbean Sea,with its vital approaches to the now navigablePanama Canal, was taking on the earmarks of a Yan-kee preserve.

Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico

Rifle bullets whining across the southern borderserved as a constant reminder that all was not quietin Mexico. For decades Mexico had been sorely


exploited by foreign investors in oil, railroads, andmines. By 1913 American capitalists had sunk abouta billion dollars into the underdeveloped but gener-ously endowed country.

But if Mexico was rich, the Mexicans were poor.Fed up with their miserable lot, they at last revolted.Their revolution took an ugly turn in 1913, when aconscienceless clique murdered the popular newrevolutionary president and installed General Victo-riano Huerta, an Indian, in the president’s chair. Allthis chaos accelerated a massive migration of Mexi-cans to the United States. More than a million Span-ish-speaking newcomers tramped across thesouthern border in the first three decades of thetwentieth century. Settling mostly in Texas, NewMexico, Arizona, and California, they swung picksbuilding highways and railroads or followed thefruit harvests as pickers. Though often segregated inSpanish-speaking enclaves, they helped to create aunique borderland culture that blended Mexicanand American folkways.

The revolutionary bloodshed also menacedAmerican lives and property in Mexico. Cries forintervention burst from the lips of American jin-goes. Prominent among those chanting for war wasthe influential chain-newspaper publisher WilliamRandolph Hearst, whose views presumably werecolored by his ownership of a Mexican ranch largerthan Rhode Island. Yet President Wilson stood firmagainst demands to step in. It was “perilous,” he

declared, to determine foreign policy “in the termsof material interest.”

But though he refused to intervene, Wilson alsorefused to recognize officially the murderous gov-ernment of “that brute” Huerta, even though mostforeign powers acknowledged Huerta’s bloody-handed regime. “I am going to teach the SouthAmerican republics to elect good men,” the formerprofessor declared. He put his munitions where hismouth was in 1914, when he allowed American armsto flow to Huerta’s principal rivals, white-bearded

The Mexican Imbroglio 695

A Republican congressman voiced complaintsagainst Wilson’s Mexican policy in 1916:

“It is characterized by weakness, uncertainty,vacillation, and uncontrollable desire tointermeddle in Mexican affairs. He has nothad the courage to go into Mexico nor thecourage to stay out. . . . I would either gointo Mexico and pacify the country or I wouldkeep my hands entirely out of Mexico. If weare too proud to fight, we should be tooproud to quarrel. I would not choosebetween murderers.”

The United States in the CaribbeanThis map explains why many LatinAmericans accused the United States of turning the Caribbean Sea into aYankee lake. It also suggests that UncleSam was much less “isolationist” in hisown backyard than he was in farawayEurope or Asia.

MEXICO

GUATEMALA

ELSALVADOR

HONDURAS

BRITISHHONDURAS

NICARAGUA

COSTA RICA PANAMA

COLOMBIA

VENEZUELA

CUBA

HAITIDOMINICANREPUBLIC PUERTO

RICOVera Cruz(U.S. seizure, 1914)

(U.S. naval base)Guantanamo

(U.S., 1898)

VIRGINIS.

(U.S.,1917)

(U.S. troops, 1898–1902,1906–1909, 1917–1922)

(U.S. troops, 1909–1910,1912–1925, 1926–1933)

(Financial supervision,1911–1924)

(U.S acquiresCanal Zone, 1903)

(Canal option,1914)

(U.S. troops, 1914–1934)

(Financialsupervision,1916–1941)

(U.S. troops, 1916–1924)

(Financialsupervision,1905–1941)

(U.S. troops,1924–1925)

United States possessionUnited States protectorateor quasi-protectorate

Venustiano Carranza and the firebrand Francisco(“Pancho”) Villa.

The Mexican volcano erupted at the Atlanticseaport of Tampico in April 1914, when a small partyof American sailors was arrested. The Mexicanspromptly released the captives and apologized, butthey refused the affronted American admiral’sdemand for a salute of twenty-one guns. Wilson,heavy-hearted but stubbornly determined to elimi-nate Huerta, asked Congress for authority to useforce against Mexico. Before Congress could act, Wil-son ordered the navy to seize the Mexican port ofVera Cruz. Huerta as well as Carranza hotly protestedagainst this high-handed Yankee maneuver.

Just as a full-dress shooting conflict seemedinevitable, Wilson was rescued by an offer of media-tion from the ABC Powers—Argentina, Brazil, andChile. Huerta collapsed in July 1914 under pressurefrom within and without. He was succeeded by hisarchrival, Venustiano Carranza, still fiercely resent-ful of Wilson’s military meddling. The whole sorryepisode did not augur well for the future of UnitedStates–Mexican relations.

“Pancho” Villa, a combination of bandit andRobin Hood, had meanwhile stolen the spotlight.He emerged as the chief rival to President Carranza,whom Wilson now reluctantly supported. Challeng-ing Carranza’s authority while also punishing thegringos, Villa’s men ruthlessly hauled sixteen youngAmerican mining engineers off a train travelingthrough northern Mexico in January 1916 and killedthem. A month later Villa and his followers, hopingto provoke a war between Wilson and Carranza,blazed across the border into Columbus, New Mex-ico, and murdered another nineteen Americans.

General John J. (“Black Jack”*) Pershing, a grim-faced and ramrod-erect veteran of the Cuban andPhilippine campaigns, was ordered to break up thebandit band. His hastily organized force of severalthousand mounted troops penetrated deep intorugged Mexico with surprising speed. They clashedwith Carranza’s forces and mauled the Villistas butmissed capturing Villa himself. As the threat of warwith Germany loomed larger, the invading armywas withdrawn in January 1917.

Thunder Across the Sea

Europe’s powder magazine, long smoldering, blewup in the summer of 1914, when the flaming pistolof a Serb patriot killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo. An outraged Viennagovernment, backed by Germany, forthwith pre-sented a stern ultimatum to neighboring Serbia.

An explosive chain reaction followed. Tiny Ser-bia, backed by its powerful Slav neighbor Russia,refused to bend the knee sufficiently. The Russiantsar began to mobilize his ponderous war machine,menacing Germany on the east, even as his ally,


*So called from his earlier service as an officer with the crackblack Tenth Cavalry.

France, confronted Germany on the west. In alarm,the Germans struck suddenly at France throughunoffending Belgium; their objective was to knocktheir ancient enemy out of action so that they wouldhave two free hands to repel Russia. Great Britain, itscoastline jeopardized by the assault on Belgium, wassucked into the conflagration on the side of France.

Almost overnight most of Europe was locked ina fight to the death. On one side were arrayed theCentral Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary, andlater Turkey and Bulgaria. On the other side werethe Allies: principally France, Britain, and Russia,and later Japan and Italy.

Americans thanked God for the ocean moatsand self-righteously congratulated themselves onhaving had ancestors wise enough to have aban-doned the hell pits of Europe. America felt strong,snug, smug, and secure—but not for long.

A Precarious Neutrality

President Wilson’s grief at the outbreak of war wascompounded by the recent death of his wife. He sor-rowfully issued the routine neutrality proclamationand called on Americans to be neutral in thought aswell as deed. But such scrupulous evenhandednessproved difficult.

Both sides wooed the United States, the greatneutral in the West. The British enjoyed the boon ofclose cultural, linguistic, and economic ties withAmerica and had the added advantage of control-ling most of the transatlantic cables. Their censorssheared away war stories harmful to the Allies anddrenched the United States with tales of Germanbestiality.

The Germans and the Austro-Hungarianscounted on the natural sympathies of their trans-planted countrymen in America. Including personswith at least one foreign-born parent, people withblood ties to the Central Powers numbered some 11million in 1914. Some of these recent immigrants ex-pressed noisy sympathy for the fatherland, but mostwere simply grateful to be so distant from the fray.

Most Americans were anti-German from theoutset. With his villainous upturned mustache,Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed the embodiment of arro-gant autocracy, an impression strengthened by Ger-many’s ruthless strike at neutral Belgium. Germanand Austrian agents further tarnished the image ofthe Central Powers in American eyes when theyresorted to violence in American factories andports. When a German operative in 1915 absent-mindedly left his briefcase on a New York elevatedcar, its documents detailing plans for industrial sab-otage were quickly discovered and publicized.American opinion, already ill disposed, was further

War Breaks Out in Europe 697

inflamed against the kaiser and Germany. Yet thegreat majority of Americans earnestly hoped to stayout of the horrible war.

America Earns Blood Money

When Europe burst into flames in 1914, the UnitedStates was bogged down in a worrisome businessrecession. But as fate would have it, British andFrench war orders soon pulled American industryout of the morass of hard times and onto a peak ofwar-born prosperity. Part of this boom was financedby American bankers, notably the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan and Company, which eventuallyadvanced to the Allies the enormous sum of $2.3 bil-lion during the period of American neutrality. TheCentral Powers protested bitterly against theimmense trade between America and the Allies, butthis traffic did not in fact violate the internationalneutrality laws. Germany was technically free to


Principal Foreign Elements in the United States (census of 1910; total U.S. population: 91,972,266)

Natives with Two Natives with OneForeign-Born Foreign-Born

Country of Origin Foreign-Born Parents Parent Total

Central Germany 2,501,181 3,911,847 1,869,590 8,282,618Powers Austria-Hungary 1,670,524 900,129 131,133 2,701,786

Great Britain 1,219,968 852,610 1,158,474 3,231,052Allied (Ireland)* 1,352,155 2,141,577 1,010,628 4,504,360Powers Russia 1,732,421 949,316 70,938 2,752,675

Italy 1,343,070 695,187 60,103 2,098,360

TOTAL (for all foreign countries, including those not listed) 13,345,545 12,916,311 5,981,526 32,243,282

Percentage of total U.S. population 14.5 14.0 6.5 35.0

*Ireland was not yet independent.

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trade with the United States. It was prevented fromdoing so not by American policy but by geographyand the British navy. Trade between Germany andAmerica had to move across the Atlantic; but theBritish controlled the sea-lanes, and they threw anoose-tight blockade of mines and ships across theNorth Sea, gateway to German ports. Over theunavailing protests of American shippers, farmers,and manufacturers, the British began forcing Amer-ican vessels off the high seas and into their ports.This harassment of American shipping provedhighly effective, as trade between Germany and theUnited States virtually ceased.

Hard-pressed Germany did not tamely consentto being starved out. In retaliation for the Britishblockade, in February 1915 Berlin announced a sub-marine war area around the British Isles. The sub-marine was a weapon so new that existinginternational law could not be made to fit it. The oldrule that a warship must stop and board a mer-chantman could hardly apply to submarines, whichcould easily be rammed or sunk if they surfaced.

The cigar-shaped marauders posed a dire threatto the United States—so long as Wilson insisted onmaintaining America’s neutral rights. Berlin officialsdeclared that they would try not to sink neutralshipping, but they warned that mistakes wouldprobably occur. Wilson now determined on a policyof calculated risk. He would continue to claim prof-itable neutral trading rights, while hoping that nohigh-seas incident would force his hand to grasp thesword of war. Setting his peninsular jaw, he emphat-ically warned Germany that it would be held to“strict accountability” for any attacks on Americanvessels or citizens.

The German submarines (known as U-boats,from the German Unterseeboot, or “undersea boat”)

meanwhile began their deadly work. In the firstmonths of 1915, they sank about ninety ships in thewar zone. Then the submarine issue became acutewhen the British passenger liner Lusitania was torpe-doed and sank off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915,with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans.

The Lusitania was carrying forty-two hundredcases of small-arms ammunition, a fact the Ger-mans used to justify the sinking. But Americanswere swept by a wave of shock and anger at this actof “mass murder” and “piracy.” The eastern UnitedStates, closer to the war, seethed with talk of fight-ing, but the rest of the country showed a strong dis-taste for hostilities. The peace-loving Wilson had nostomach for leading a disunited nation into war. Hewell remembered the mistake in 1812 of his fellowPrincetonian, James Madison. Instead, by a series ofincreasingly strong notes, Wilson attempted tobring the German warlords sharply to book. Eventhis measured approach was too much for Secretaryof State Bryan, who resigned rather than sign aprotestation that might spell shooting. But Wilsonresolutely stood his ground. “There is such a thing,”

American Neutrality 699

U.S. Exports to Belligerents, 1914–1916

1916 Figure asa Percentage of

Belligerent 1914 1915 1916 1914 Figure

Britain $594,271,863 $911,794,954 $1,526,685,102 257%France 159,818,924 369,397,170 628,851,988 393Italy* 74,235,012 184,819,688 269,246,105 363Germany 344,794,276 28,863,354 288,899 0.08

*Italy joined the Allies in April 1915.

The Fatherland, the chief German-Americanpropaganda newspaper in the United States,cried,

“We [Americans] prattle about humanity whilewe manufacture poisoned shrapnel and picricacid for profit. Ten thousand German widows,ten thousand orphans, ten thousand gravesbear the legend ‘Made in America.’”

he declared, “as a man being too proud to fight.”This kind of talk incensed the war-thirsty TheodoreRoosevelt. The Rough Rider assailed the spinelesssimperers who heeded the “weasel words” of thepacifistic professor in the White House.

Yet Wilson, sticking to his verbal guns, madesome diplomatic progress. After another Britishliner, the Arabic, was sunk in August 1915, with theloss of two American lives, Berlin reluctantly agreednot to sink unarmed and unresisting passengerships without warning.

This pledge appeared to be violated in March1916, when the Germans torpedoed a French pas-senger steamer, the Sussex. The infuriated Wilsoninformed the Germans that unless they renouncedthe inhuman practice of sinking merchant shipswithout warning, he would break diplomatic rela-tions—an almost certain prelude to war.

Germany reluctantly knuckled under to Presi-dent Wilson’s Sussex ultimatum, agreeing not to sinkpassenger ships and merchant vessels without giv-ing warning. But the Germans attached a long stringto their Sussex pledge: the United States would haveto persuade the Allies to modify what Berlinregarded as their illegal blockade. This, obviously,was something that Washington could not do. Wil-

son promptly accepted the German pledge, withoutaccepting the “string.” He thus won a temporary butprecarious diplomatic victory—precarious becauseGermany could pull the string whenever it chose,and the president might suddenly find himselftugged over the cliff of war.

Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916

Against this ominous backdrop, the presidentialcampaign of 1916 gathered speed. Both the bullmoose Progressives and the Republicans met inChicago. The Progressives uproariously renomi-nated Theodore Roosevelt, but the Rough Rider,


British Military Area (declared November 3, 1914) andGerman Submarine War Zone (declared February 4, 1915)

who loathed Wilson and all his works, had no stom-ach for splitting the Republicans again and ensuringthe reelection of his hated rival. In refusing to run,he sounded the death knell of the Progressive party.

Roosevelt’s Republican admirers also clamoredfor “Teddy,” but the Old Guard detested the rene-gade who had ruptured the party in 1912. Insteadthey drafted Supreme Court justice Charles EvansHughes, a cold intellectual who had achieved a solidliberal record when he was governor of New York.The Republican platform condemned the Demo-cratic tariff, assaults on the trusts, and Wilson’swishy-washiness in dealing with Mexico and Germany.

The thick-whiskered Hughes (“an animatedfeather duster”) left the bench for the campaignstump, where he was not at home. In anti-Germanareas of the country, he assailed Wilson for notstanding up to the kaiser, whereas in isolationistareas he took a softer line. This fence-straddlingoperation led to the jeer, “Charles Evasive Hughes.”

Hughes was further plagued by Roosevelt, whowas delivering a series of skin-’em-alive speechesagainst “that damned Presbyterian hypocrite Wil-son.” Frothing for war, TR privately scoffed atHughes as a “whiskered Wilson”; the only differencebetween the two, he said, was “a shave.”

Wilson, nominated by acclamation at the Dem-ocratic convention in St. Louis, ignored Hughes onthe theory that one should not try to murder a man

The Campaign of 1916 701

During the 1916 campaign, J. A. O’Leary, thehead of a pro-German and pro-Irish organ-ization, sent a scorching telegram to Wilsoncondemning him for having been pro-Britishin approving war loans and ammunitiontraffic. Wilson shot back an answer:

“Your telegram received. I would feel deeplymortified to have you or anybody like youvote for me. Since you have access to manydisloyal Americans and I have not, I will askyou to convey this message to them.”

President Wilson’s devastating and somewhatinsulting response probably won him morevotes than it lost.

who is committing suicide. His campaign was builton the slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War.”

Democratic orators warned that by electingCharles Evans Hughes, the nation would be electinga fight—with a certain frustrated Rough Rider lead-ing the charge. A Democratic advertisement appeal-ing to the American workingpeople read,

You are Working;—Not Fighting!Alive and Happy;—Not Cannon Fodder!Wilson and Peace with Honor?orHughes with Roosevelt and War?

On election day Hughes swept the East andlooked like a surefire winner. Wilson went to bedthat night prepared to accept defeat, while the New

York newspapers displayed huge portraits of “ThePresident-Elect—Charles Evans Hughes.”

But the rest of the country turned the tide. Mid-westerners and westerners, attracted by Wilson’s pro-gressive reforms and antiwar policies, flocked to thepolls for the president. The final result, in doubt forseveral days, hinged on California, which Wilson car-ried by some 3,800 votes out of about a million cast.

Wilson barely squeaked through, with a finalvote of 277 to 254 in the Electoral College, and9,127,695 to 8,533,507 in the popular column. Thepro-labor Wilson received strong support from theworking class and from renegade bull moosers,whom Republicans failed to lure back into theircamp. Wilson had not specifically promised to keepthe country out of war, but probably enough votersrelied on such implicit assurances to ensure his vic-tory. Their hopeful expectations were soon rudelyshattered.


Chronology 703

WASH.7

ORE.5

CALIF.13

NEV.3

IDAHO4

MONTANA4

WYO.3

UTAH4 COLO.

6

ARIZ.3

S.D.5

KANSAS10

OKLA.10

MICH.15

N.Y.45

N.D.5 MINN.

12

IOWA13NEBR.

8

MO.18

ARK.9

LA.10

TEXAS20

N.M.3 MISS.

10

ALA.12 GA.

14

FLA.6

TENN. 12N.C.12

S.C.9

VA. 12W. VA.

7(+1 Dem.)

PA.38

OHIO24IND.

15ILL.29

WISC.13

KY.13

ME.6

N.H.4

VT.4

MASS.18

R.I. 5CONN. 7

N.J. 14DEL. 3MD. 8

Wilson—Democratic

Hughes—Republican

Presidential Election of 1916(with electoral vote by state)Wilson was so worried about beinga lame duck president in a time ofgreat international tensions that hedrew up a plan whereby Hughes, ifvictorious, would be appointedsecretary of state, Wilson and thevice president would resign, andHughes would thus succeedimmediately to the presidency.

Chronology

1912 Wilson defeats Taft and Roosevelt for presidency

1913 Underwood Tariff ActSixteenth Amendment (income tax) passedFederal Reserve ActHuerta takes power in MexicoSeventeenth Amendment (direct

election of senators) passed

1914 Clayton Anti-Trust ActFederal Trade Commission establishedU.S. occupation of Vera Cruz, MexicoWorld War I begins in Europe

1915 La Follette Seamen’s ActLusitania torpedoed and sunk by German

U-boat

1915 U.S. Marines sent to Haiti

1916 Sussex ultimatum and pledgeWorkingmen’s Compensation ActFederal Farm Loan ActWarehouse ActAdamson ActPancho Villa raids New MexicoBrandeis appointed to Supreme CourtJones ActU.S. Marines sent to Dominican RepublicWilson defeats Hughes for presidency

1917 United States buys Virgin Islands from Denmark


For further reading, see page A21 of the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.

VARYING VIEWPOINTS

Who Were the Progressives?

Debate about progressivism has revolved mainlyaround a question that is simple to ask but devil-

ishly difficult to answer: who were the progressives?It was once taken for granted that progressivereformers were simply the heirs of the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian-Populist reform crusades; they were theoppressed and downtrodden common folk whofinally erupted in wrath and demanded their due.

But in his influential Age of Reform (1955),Richard Hofstadter astutely challenged that view.Progressive leaders, he argued, were not drawn fromthe ranks of society’s poor and marginalized. Rather,they were middle-class people threatened fromabove by the emerging power of new corporateelites and from below by a restless working class. Itwas not economic deprivation, but “status anxiety,”Hofstadter insisted, that prompted these people to become reformers. Their psychological motiva-tion, Hofstadter concluded, rendered many of theirreform efforts quirky and ineffectual.

By contrast, “New Left” historians, notablyGabriel Kolko, argue that progressivism was domi-nated by established business leaders who success-fully directed “reform” to their own conservativeends. In this view government regulation (asembodied in new agencies like the Federal ReserveBoard and the Federal Tariff Commission, and inlegislation like the Meat Inspection Act) simplyaccomplished what two generations of privateefforts had failed to accomplish: dampening cut-throat competition, stabilizing markets, and makingAmerica safe for monopoly capitalism.

Still other scholars, notably Robert H. Wiebeand Samuel P. Hays, argue that the progressiveswere neither the psychologically or economicallydisadvantaged nor the old capitalist elite, but were, rather, members of a rapidly emerging, self-confident social class possessed of the new tech-niques of scientific management, technological

expertise, and organizational know-how. This “organ-izational school” of historians does not see progres-sivism as a struggle of the “people” against the“interests,” as a confused and nostalgic campaignby status-threatened reformers, or as a conservativecoup d’état. The progressive movement, in this view,was by and large an effort to rationalize and mod-ernize many social institutions, by introducing thewise and impartial hand of government regulation.

This view has much to recommend it. Yetdespite its widespread acceptance among histori-ans, it is an explanation that cannot adequatelyaccount for the titanic political struggles of the pro-gressive era over the very reforms that the “organi-zational school” regards as simple adjustments tomodernity. The organizational approach alsobrushes over the deep philosophical differencesthat divided progressives themselves—such as theideological chasm that separated Roosevelt’s NewNationalism from Wilson’s New Freedom. Nor canthe organizational approach sufficiently explainwhy, as demonstrated by Otis Graham in An Encorefor Reform, so many progressives—perhaps amajority—who survived into the New Deal era criti-cized that agenda for being too bureaucratic and forlaying too heavy a regulatory hand on Americansociety.

Recently scholars such as Robyn Muncy, LindaGordon, and Theda Skocpol have stressed the roleof women in advocating progressive reforms. Build-ing the American welfare state in the early twentiethcentury, they argue, was fundamentally a genderedactivity inspired by a “female dominion” of socialworkers and “social feminists.” Moreover, in con-trast to many European countries where labormovements sought a welfare state to benefit theworking class, American female reformers pro-moted welfare programs specifically to protectwomen and children.

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