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WOODROW WILSON'S
ADMINISTRATION
and ACHIEVEMENTS

c/fmericdnism
¦pjATRIOTISM 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 coun
try. — From President Wilson's Address
at Independence Hall, Philadelphia,
July 14. 1914.

lljiiiiinim-niiTmjiiTiwft^^

PVoodro^p PVtlsons
<tAdministration and zAchie)>ements

Beijtg a Compilation from the Newspaper
Press qf 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
WASHINCTON, D. C.

\ \ \

copynifiBT, 1921
BY
Prank B. Lord and James William Bryan

All Rights Reserved

Ccl tp^S. >o^

CONTENTS

Page
Americanism— From President Wilson's Independence Hall
Address, Philadelphia, July, 1914  1
History's Proving Ground  7-8
Portrait in typophotogravure of President Wilson at Amer
ica'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 .  1 1-69
Early Accomplishments or Administration  15
Foreign Policies, 1913-1914  11
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 Woodro-w Wilson and Joseph
P. Tumulty with Newspaper Men, 1912  32
Senator Glass on Woodrow WiLgON, 1921 — Courtesy of the
New York Times  36
Personal Messages to Congress from President Wilson's
First Address to Congress, April 8, 1913  39
Twophotogravure of President Wilson Reading First Mes
sage 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 Sign
ing Bill, July, 191 6  48
Typophotogravure of the President in 191 8  50
The Fourteen Points  58-59
Peace Conference and Treaty, 1919  61
The Closing Year, 1920-1921  66
5

Cartoon — The Foundars of the League of Nations, by
Baldbridge in the Stars and Stripes  70
Verse — Beware of Visons, 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 Pr^ident's Ad
dress at Swarthmore College, 1913  80
Woodrow Wilson — An Interpretation — Courtesy of the New ¦~^—
York World  , . 81-93
Typophotogravure of the President on Board Ship Return
ing 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

_ JHE MODERN NEWSPAPER through its intensive,
** minute and zealous activities in searching out, present
ing 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
elBcient 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 Corn
wallis, would the father of his country be most intimately remem
bered through the cherry tree episode? Consider the enhghten-
ment 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 Runnymeade or accompanied
Columbus on his voyages of discovery. 7

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 Achieve
ments — 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
James William Bryan

-•:/'.

© 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

JVoodro'^pp IVilsons
'^Administration

Eight Tears of the World' s
(greatest History

r/T'OODROW WILSON took the oath of office as President
rf^ 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
refbrms 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.
11

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 tor 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 com
paratively little interest in the Wilson concepts of reform in
political methods. They regarded him, in the language of those
days, as a champion ofthe "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 repre
sentation of this antithesis between the people and big business
and they had learned to regard Mr. Wilson as a fighter for demo
cratic 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 hun
dred 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 sortinLJjibune ot the people who
conceived it his duty to interpose his mfluence^where^^^otljier
gtficials"showed a tendency to disregard the popu^fwly] "
"^In the legislative hght tor the enactment of reform legislation,
too, the Governor had continually intervened in the character of
12

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 fafgymef; ithd
his victories ovef the protessional politicians'of the olTsclTod-lTaa
remo-yea most ot the latent tear of the meftectuality of a scholar
!£. politics" In pomt ot tact, 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 pohtics to the teaching of its principles and
history. Abroad, where his election was received with general satis-
faction,_he was still regarded as the scholar in politics, for a Europe
always inclined to exaggerate the turpitude of professional politi
cians in Arnerica 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 re
garded with apprehension only in limited circles at home — a.nd
even here the apprehension was more over the return to power of
the Democratic Party than on account of specific tears based on
tlie character of the President-elect, ihe business depression of
1913 tiud 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 191 2 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 con
ditions which in some respects were exceptionally favorable. His
situation was in reality^ however, considerably less satisfactory
than it seemed. Tn begin with, he was, in spite of everything, a
minority President and the representative ot a minority party."
He hag even, during a good part of the Baltimore Convention,
been a minority candidate for the nomination. If the two wmgs
ot the Kepublicans should during the ensuing Administration
succeed in burying their differences and coming together once
13

more, the odds were in favor of their^success in 1916. Moreover,
the Democrats were definitely expected to do something. Dis
satisfaction 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 Roose
velt 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 1 9 10, given the Democrats the control of the House of Repre
sentatives. 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 pro
duction 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
ot'AmCTrLaii uulidcs !;hotild~ha^5' compelled; i:he"Prf.9if!pn't T^rt
not only as Chief of State but as..l;^remier — -as the active hea4 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 v/hen first put torwarcl 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
14

Early Accomplishments of Administration
Underwood-Simmons tariff, establishing the lowest average of
duties in seventy-five years, enacted October j, igij.
Federal Reserve act, organizing the banking system and stabiliz- ,
ing the currency, December 2j, 1913.
Clayton Anti-Trust law.
Creation of Federal Trade Commission.
•WM ""Repeal of Panama Ca?ial tolls exew.pt'ion.- 1 j' ^f 'f
End of dollar diplomacy .
I Negotiation of a treaty (never ratified) with Colombia to satisfy
the Colombian claim in Panama. \ s^

President who would act, would not leave action to those men
around him who "knew exactly what they wanted."
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 Pre.sirlpnt ¦wa.s no.!- <-hp pari-y Ipfjfjer. ihere was an enormous
amount of Wilson sentiment over the country, and there were
rpany pnthusiastjc Wilson men: but a good manv of these were
of the old mugwump type, or rnen who had hitherto held aloof
Ti-prr^ politirg ._ I n TnT?., as later in tqTt and iQi8. 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
IS

opposition. And not only were most of the Wilson men inde
pendents 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 191 2 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 com
promise between what Wilson wanted and what iJryan would
permit. This was itih fifSt of all ih the COllipoiiiriOH uf the CtibiTTet,
'"Which Bryan" himself headed as Secretary of State. Josephus
Daniels, who as Secretary of the Navy was to be one of the prin
cipal 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 poli
ticians 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 tendenc}' to rely on personal agents and unofficial advisers.
And this was to become more prominent as the years passed, as
ne-\v 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 viev/ of dom,estic problems was
16

to find itself chiefly engaged with foreign relations of unexampled
complexity and importance. The passionate issues of 191 2 were
soon to be forgotten. Generally speaking, the dominant questions
bef^ore the American people in 1912 and 1913 were about the same
as in 1908, or 1904, or even earlier. But from 19 14 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, Jeffer
son and Madison had to guide the country through the complica
tions 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 19 13 — 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 Presi
dent 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 success
fully passed did popular attention concentrate on the manner of
accomplishment rather than on the things accomplished.

0

'Problems at Home, igi^-igi4
NE 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 worlds
violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the Government a facile instru
ment 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 administrati-ve, holds capital in leadings
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
17

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 igi2 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 senti
ment in its criticism of "the policy of silence and secrecy" prev
alent 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 wei-_e
some observations by Mr. Wilson on the principles of tariff revi
sion. He saw and said that a complete return to a purely revenue
tariff was not then possible even if desirable, and that the im
mediate objective of tariff reform should be the adjustment of
rates so as to permit competition and thereby necessitate effi
ciency 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 prec
edent 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 nev/ Administra
tion. 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
18

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 Presi
dent 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 con
nection 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 Eurpoe. 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-Sim
mons Act, however, was to attain enormous importance in the
course of the Wilson Administrations. To supply the deficiency
19

in revenue which the lowered duties might be expected to produce
there was added an income tax law, which had recently been per
mitted 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 neces
sity, 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 v/hich 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 atrea'dy 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
20

were being betrayed, and many a Senator or Representative who
regarded the reserve banks with profound alarm felt, neverthe
less, that if the iniquitous things were going to be established there
ought to be one m 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 nadon 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 criricism
almost disappeared; and in the course of a few months the un
precedented 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 19 14 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, clarify
ing the anti-trust laws, establishing an Interstate Trade Commis
sion, and supervising the issue of railroad securities. The chief
results of this discussion were the creation of the Trade Commis
sion, 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 declara
tion 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 Mer
chant Marine. Of the actual workings of this law there has really
been no fair test, as conditions which arose during the war un
settled 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 fiimself to severe criticism. Ex-Senator Win-

21

throp Murray Crane, for example, declared that he had "virtually
obhterated 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, igij-igi4
/N 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,
Vi'hen such a suggestion was regarded as only a playful eccen
tricity, who had begun to work hard for him in 1911, and who had
finally been asked by Wilson himself to give up his activity be
cause 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
ofthe 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 Jeffer
son'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 characteri
zation of Jefferson an introduction to the achievements of his
Administra'vion 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. wittrFhtlandjei-C
Knox as Secretary ot ^tate, there hadbeen for the first time the
beginnings of what might fairly _ be caHeH^a consistent foreign
polic^;_^ True, it was not a very lofty pohcy, nor was it by any
means generally approv^ in America. It was called by its
friends r dollar diplomacyj" meaning the promotion.pf American
cftiyimenri.al,, i'l.terests by gipfomatic agencies"! Ithad been ex
emplified principally in Central America, where its operations
22

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, 191 4.
ABC mediation, April 2^, 191 4.
Flight of Huerta, July, 191 4.
Recognition of Carranza, September, 1915.
Villa s raid on Columbus and Pershing's expedition into
Mexico, March, 1916.
Flight and death of Carranza, Maj, 1920.

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.
Howeyer primitive this organization of foreign policy, none the
less Taft and Knox fiad taken a p;reat step forward in the
improyement of American diplomatic machinery^ The c[iplo-
matic 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
elevatioTi~of standards in the diplomatic service, would continue
and extend this work. Instead of that, he undid it. or rather per-
rnitted 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 un
precedented strain which the war brought on them. The service
in Latin America, however, which Knox had almost entirely
23

professionalized, was given over bodily to personal followers of
Bryan. In what was in igi-^ perhaps the rnost important of our
diplomatic posts, the embassy to Mexico. Mr. Wilson was com
pelled to rely provisionally on Henry T.ane Wilson, a holdo.ver
i^pointee from the previpijs A'^mini.stratinn.
Itwas 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 19 14 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 Adminis-
tration wgs f^nvthing biiT aggre.ssivf^, It wouM not use diplomacy
to advance American commercial interests, nor was it prepared to
accept the assistance of American financiers in promoting the
policies of diplomary.
But It was evident from the outset that the most quiescent
foreign policy could not prevent foreign comiplications. 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 back
ground 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 mucl\ disturbance to .the new
Administralion was thequestjon^LPanama Canal' tolls^ .^n act
passed in 1^12 had exempted American coastwise sfiipping passing
through tKe canal from the tolls assessed on other vessel's, and the
British Government had protested against this on the ground that
it violated the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901, which had stipu
lated 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 back
bone 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 oppo-
24

sition to the fortification of the canal, as well as the attitude of a
section ofthe British press during the Canadian elections of 191 1,
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 "^ilson's Administration
that he believed the exemption wz^^ violation of the treaty,
but not until October did he,jn«ke formal announcement that he
intended to ask Confess 'to repeal it. J£b€~au£stion did not
come into the foreground, however, until^arch 57i9i4r^/hen the
President addressed this request to Congress /h omi'iioiis language,
which to this day remains unexplained. '/oSlo communication I
addressed to Congress," he said, "has careied with it more grave
and far-reaching implications to the in^^ests 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 ot you in support of the foreign policy of theAd-
mmistration. 1 shall not know how tcTHeal with other m-attgr's
qf even greater delicacy and nearer conRpq^ipicp if ynn dn i-ipt
grantTt to me in nnp-mrlging mpagnrp "
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 dis
turbances 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 for
bearance 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 fore
saw the European war and wanted to arrange our own inter
national 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.
Npvprthpjp.^s the tolls exemption was repealed in Tune, and events
of July and August gave a certaixusaasjaction to those who had
stood for the sanctity of treaties.
As a part of what might be called the general deflation of over
seas entanglements, the new Administration brought about a
25

material change in the treatment of the Philippines. From the
beginning great changes were made in the personnel of the Philip
pines 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
^venimgrTTshat'l have been established, ""was passed by the i-?ou se
of Representatrves7"but Republican opposition -was strengthened
by thdse'wlioTeinem bered Bryan's anti-imperialism in 1900 and
by the supporters of a strong policy in the Pacific. I'his 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.
ff A specially conciliatory policy toward Latin America v/as one
of the chief characteristics of the early period of the Administra
tion. At the Southern Commercial Congress in Mobile, on
October 27. iqi-^. the President declared that "the LTnited States
will never seek one additional loot of territory by conquest";"
'a ata-tatuent -which -¦vfiiS ""jCTPtnod in direct relation to the demand
for intervention"~mnViexic^^nd which had a very considerable
efeect on public "serffes^ffflii 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, thegeneral
poli(;v of Wilson created much more confidence in the other two
Americas than did the spasmodic aggressiveness of RoQ.sevelt of
the commercialized diplomacy of Taf^ ' 1' ''¦ S^
One specific attempt was made to heal a sore spot left by Roose
velt 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 th.ey
\Lere resumed, and on April 7, 1914, a treaty was signed by which
the United States was to pay to.-Colombia a compensation of
$2t:,ooo,ooo for Colombian interests in the Isthmus. I'he treaty
further contained £ declaration that tKe Lroyerninent of the
United States expressed its "sincere regret for anything that may
have happened to disturb the relations" between the tv/o coun
tries, 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 nevef'geFtRe'treaty ratified by the"S"enate;
birr'"the'uii3oir5tedIy_sia£fir.e^,e^ had of
themselves a~consid"erable effect in ^mQlIiixiiiK!The suspicions "of
LSttnTSnEcica, ,. 26

But all probleins south of the Isthmus were insignificant com
pared 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
Engknd and Germany in the Spring of 1913. Villa and Carranza/
were in arms against Huerta in the north, calling themselves th^'
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 v/as William Bayard Hale, author of
one of his campaign biographies. Ambassador Wilson was vir
tually 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 noi'jhe'C.a.
candidate, and the agreement of all parties to obey the Govern
ment 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,
md there was no doubt that he would have won no matterj-how
;he voting had happened to go. ^i|'
The President's program for Mexican . reform, it may be said.
was not as evidently impracticable iniQi.? as it seems in jet- *^
rpspect.  h was widely critiri<!pd__at_tlTP. tirpp, arid...t_hp phra^sp
"ffi:atchful waiting" which he invented as a description of his
Mexican Policy was made the"'ob7Fct~oriiriIcirri3ic"ijle. Through
out 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
27

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
¦" Tampico to protect American citizens had been arrested by
the Mexican military authorities. They v.^ere 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 v/as (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 undignifi.ed, 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 Germ.an 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 Govern
ments 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 Presi
dent 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 Constitutionahsts armies in the
north, munitioned from the United States, were steadily con
quering the country. On July 1 5 Huerta resigned, and soon after
ward 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
28

Huerta without getting into war. A .still more important con
sequence, the full effect of which was not immediately apparent,
was fhe enormous increase in the confadence felt by Latin AmeTica
in the good intentions ot the Wilson Administration. The ac
ceptance 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 dme it was to appear
is if this had been about the only tangible profit of the episode;
or Carranza presently proved almost as troublesome as Huerta.
The Fall of 1914 saw the outbreak of a new civil war between
l^'illa and Carranza, in which Zapata, Villa's ally, for a long dme
held Mexico City. Obregon's victories in 191 5 drove Villa back
!to his old hunting grounds.
By this time the European war was occupying m.ost of the
attention of the American people, but Mexico was a constant
irritant. Carranza carried the Presidential art nf hitin{T the, h^,p^\
that fed nim ^p an undreamed-of height. Wilson^ "Villa and
C^regon had enabled him to displace Huerta, and Obregon had
saved him from VillaT Yet he had quarreled with Villa, he -was
ey^entually to quarrel with Obregon; and though the United Sta.tes
and, the chief Latin-American powers had given him formal
recognition in September. IQ15, his policy toward Wilson, (pon-
tmued 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 Arnerican citizens led to futile attempts to get satis-
jraction outii "^1 ^,i'arranza. I'he culmination of these outrages came
otfTTViarch g, igiS^^when Villa raided across the border, surprised
the~garrison of Columbus, N. M., and killed some twenty Ameri
cans. 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. lo_Ma£..the
National Guard was ordered out to protect the border, and re
mained in position for months without taking active steps.
29

President Wilson's Appeals for Mediation
Formal offer of mediation to all belligerents August 5, 1914.
German proposal of peace conference, December 12, 191 6.
President's appeal to the belligerents to state their teyms, Decem
ber 18, 1916.
Gerfnan refusal to state terms, December 26, igi6.
Allied statement of war aims, January 11, 1917.
President's "peace without victory" speech, January 22, 1917.
Notification of unrestricted siibm.arine war, January 31, 191? •
Diplomatic relations with Germany broken, February 3, IQI?-
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.
IQI7, when -war with Germany seemed inevitable, the expedition
ary torce 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 prop
erties 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 Ad
ministration 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 v/as far worse off after years of the war
than it had been in iqi-^!, and disregard of American rights yas
still tJi£_caa;diH.ail-fiQl-iry nt thfi (¦^nvpmrrn'pt-, Carranza's security.
however, was illusory. In the Spring of 1920 Presidential elec
tions -were announced ajlas^and_^arranza a attempt to lorce
Ygnacio Bonillas, his Ambas^^dor "in Washington, into the Fgsi-
¦4e«-a^I&EjyJ.&d4a-a^.ej^lt"wh^^ attracted tliF"leader-
ship (jtf^bregopIX^arranza fled from MexicoTjty"and"was murdered
•^^^iJ^^ ^^-~4_i22^I?"4.'^5£LJ-'^°- interini~Presidency of AHolfo de
la Huerta, OEregon came into office in the Fall.
The European War, igi4-igi6
/^#/^HEN in the last week of July, 1914, a war of unparalleled
ry 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
v/KS gratitude that we were not involved. The President's first
30

Federal '^serve
WE must have a currency, not rigid
as now, but readily, elastically
responsive to sound credit, the ex
panding 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 coun
try or their use for speculative pur
poses 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 Con
gress, AprU 23, 1913.

"iillllllllllllllllllllllMIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIililllllllllinilllllilllllUIHIIMIIIIIIIl^

|H"IININI

Courtesy New York Times
July 3, 1912 : Governor Wilson receiving congratulations from newspaper
correspondents on his nomination for the Presidency

steps, a formal proclamadon 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.
But a sharp division of sentiment showed itself when, on August
1 8, 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,
therewas 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 in- /
terests 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 beUigerents by many Americans.
A further complication came from the growing feeling that Amer
ica's military and naval forces v/ere far from adequate for pro
tection in a world where war was after all possible. 'X^e. Autumn
of IQI4. sa-w the beginningfor better national preparedness, and
counter to that the rise ot organized peace-at-any-pridfe fefehtBTient
which from the first drew much support f'rom pro-Gennaaxircles.
'The President appeared tn inrlinp tniiya)-^ tte pp.cifasts.J>He ¦
called the discussion of preparedness "good m"&ntal 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 co-aid 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 191 2 were Republicans once
again. Of the Progressive Party, there was nothing much left but
the leaders, and many of these w^e 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,
191 5, the Germans proclaimed the waters about the British Isles
33

a y/ar zone open to submarine activities. The President promptly
warned the German Government that it would be held to "strict
accountabihty" 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 restric
tion of neutral commerce. There was good ground for objection
to the practices of both Govern,ments, 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
throu,gh America. , .  --.^
C^^rlct accountabilit-Q seemed to be a popular watchword,
6pt among pacifists and German sympathizers, but Americans
soon began to be killed by the submarines without provoking the
Government to action. When thp T.usitania was sunk on May 7,
191 1. and more than a hundred ofthe 1,200 victims were Americans
Jha great part of the nation which had been growing steadily more
vj^ exasperated felt that now the issue must be faced. The President
^ jDb, was th£_p£rsonal conductor of the foreign policy of the Admmis-
* %' tration; Mr. Bryan's sole interest in foreifeh aft-airs seemed to be
jJ*" -t the conclusion of a large number of polite and valueless treaties
^ of arbitration, and it was certain tliat with Uermany, as ^th
^ Mexico, the President would deal in .pacspm In the few days
' alter 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 con
sumption. 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^ -whn apparently
34

alone in the country was fearful that thp Prpsidpnt might need
lessly involve the nation in war, resigned as Secretary of State on
.IjiU^t^". Aside from a certain relief, the public almost ignored his
passing; theman who had been the strongest leader of the party
in March/fgi^^had in the last two years sunk almost into ob
scurity. ^ Attention was now concentrated on the policy which
the President, whose new Secretary of State, Rg^t Lansing;
was hardly more than a figurehead, wa.s pursuing tnw^ tniprmSTw"
"In August two more American passengers were drov/ned 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 Ger
mans, on September i, 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-Hun-
garian 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 de
ficiencies of the Government by establishing officers' training
camps, ioward Wood and~his enterprise the (jovernment seemed
cold, and he was reprimanded by the Secretary of War for per
mitting 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 appear
ance 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,
1 91 5, and in January, 191 6, Mr. Wilson made a speaking tour (ttj,
through the East and Middle West in support of his new policy.
Hig d''"^''nd for a navy "incomparably the most adequate in the '»«»^
world," which Mr. Uaniels translated into the biggest navv in theVv Uum-^
world, atdiised Bflhie doubts lirtTip minds nt thp public as to wherar^ y, ¦
the Administration thought the chief danger lay, and GermarT i^^
itifluences did their best during the Wihtet to stir up anti-Brltish
35

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, howeyer,
had a different fate. The President had supported the policy
favored by the Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, of supple
menting the regular line by a federalized "Condnental army" of
400,000 men. The House Committee on Military Affairs, led by
jlames Hay, would not hear of this and insisted on Federal aid to

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 applica
tion 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 Ad
ministration has been notable. Its achievements, in enumera
tion 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 inti
mate 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 cer
tain of a man' s downright honesty, I have never known any
body 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.

36

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.
Meanwhile the submarine issue was still an issue. Little satis
faction ha^,ieeH>Qbtained for events in the Mediterranean, and in
March tjfe Sussex^ cross-Channel passenger boat, was torpedoed
in plain violation of the German promJse of September i. 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 ot its present methods, of
submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying yess_els"
diplomatk relations would be broken off. The threat had its
effect; the Uermans 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 with
out warning.
During this crisis the President had had to contend v/ith a
serious revol t in Congress, which took the form of the Gore Resolu
tion in the Senate and the McLemore resolution in the House,
warning American citizens off armed merchantmen. The Presi
dent 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 submarinp war thp (TPrmans had at
larst given way to the President's demand, and through most ot
1 91 6 the submarine issue was in the background. x
During the year there v/as a continuation of diplomatic action
against the British Government's interference vrith neutral com-
"merce 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 indig
nation 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 evpntual
importance for Latin-American relations was the necessity_^for
virtually supersedinp; the Government nt the I )nm.i.mcan Kppuhl i c,
jwhich had become myolved in civil war and financial difficulties,
by an American Naval Administration, as had been done in hfaiti
^he year before.
' "i'he pjincipal domestic event of the year was the threatened
37

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 fines to Washington for a con
ference 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 undl 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 begin
ning September 4. To avert this crisis the President asked Con
gress 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 191 6.
Despite the single-term plank in the Democratic platform of
191 2, it had been evident long before the end of Mr. Wilson's
first term that he was the only possible candidate. In March,
1 9 13, 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
v/hich the Secretary of State had no control the President had be
come the leader of the party, and by 191 6 he was almost the only
leader of prominence.
In the record on which the electorate was to express its judg
ment 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 weak
ness to its neighbors instead of strength. What effect the Under
wood-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 pjice.
(MexT^^ which had provided the most pressing problem in
forelgtt a'ifairs during the Taft Administration, was still an un
solved problem in 1916, and more disturbing than ever. The
38

PTDH

''Personal Messages to Congress
1AM very glad, indeed, to have this
opportunity to address the two
Houses directly and to verify for my
self 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 mes
sages, 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

ilillllilllllllH

April 8, 1913: Mr. Wilson reading his first message to Congress

©^arris'Jb' Ewing

President had indeed avoided war with Mexico, but had become
involved in two invasions of the country and in an expensive
mobilization. Dyring the 1916 election the nation had in Mexico
most of the drawbacks of Wat without anv ot the pn^gihlp hp;;^?r;^
'M torcing out hiuerta the President had indeed won a notable
diplomatic triumph, but he had not succeeded either in winning
greater security tor "Amenran Uje and property or in getting a
Mexican Government more disposed to ^ood relations with the
United Statesr^nd the Republicans maintained that war had
been avoided only at the sacrifice of both American prestige and
American interests.
"But Mexico, despite the emphasis placed upon it by the Republi
cans, was a secondary issue in the campaign of 191 6. The great
issue was the conduct of American relations with Germany, and
the ultimate Repubhcan failure in the election may be laid pri-
marily_ 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 victenv.
Like his victory over Huerta, it was more apparent than reaj^for
the submarines were still active, and even during the campaign
several incidents occurred which looked very much Jike
-violations ot the German promise made in May, 'i'he most
serious incident, that dFlhe Liisitama, 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 suc
ceeded 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 ^aade
up j^t.s miiTi that t^prmany wa.<a plready an enemy and was. dis-

in St. Louis, and the platform expressed a blanket endorsernpnt "XO
of the' achievements of his Administration. But the chief inckfent
of that convention was the keynote speech of Martin IL/Glynn,
which was based on the text, t!He kept us out of w^^ His
recital of the long list of past occasions in iimerican hlstOTy when
foreign violations of American rights and injuries to American
interests had not led to war was received with uproarious enthu
siasm by the convention and completely overturned the plans
which had been made by the Administration managers to empha-
41

size the firmness of the President in defense of American rights,
But the Republicans presently gave that issue back to them.
The party passed over Colbnel Roosevelt; the memory of 191 2
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 con-
cifiated, sb the Repiiblican Convention hominated Charles E.
Hughes, who had viewed the party conflict of 191 2 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 Htighes'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 misgovern
ment and maladministration and outspoken opinions on Mexico,
but whenever he tried to say anything about the war in Eiiropfe
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 Presi.dent's tem
porizing 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
stronggaty-tli&JD^nocrats ?^-"-"^afr^^~'fEe~re-election of WilsoiT as
the defender of American .._rig.hts  agaiaaL— foreign aggressjon,
wHile_iri the West he waspraisedasthe man who had endured
innumerable provocations and "Icept us 5trt uf war.'" — When
HugBeS^Sw^pr'everytliihg irTthe 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 30o,opo
majority, v/hile the Democratic electoral ticket v/oii by a narrow
margin. Wilson had carried . almost everything in the West.
42

Those parts of the country which lay further av/ay from Europe
and European interests had re-elected him because he had "kept
us out of War."
''Mediation Efforts, igid-igij
/T has been stated by Count von Bernstorff that, if Hughes
had been elected. President Wilson wo-ald 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 m.eet the urgent
problems already pressing on the Executive. Whether the Presi
dent actually entertained any such intention or not, it would have •
been a logical development of his theory of the ChiefExecutiv^as
Premier. IJut the l^resident-Premier had received a vote of confi
dence, and was free to deal with the new situation created by the
various peace proposals of the Winter of 1916-1917. The nego
tiations 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 inter
est in vindicating himself would make him a som.ewhat unreliable
witness even if there were nothing else against him. And at the
tirne, 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 miscon
strued, and his occasional infelicities of language aroused suspi
cions 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 consi.deratipiLjor neutrals was growing in strength.
It was opposed by most of the civilian officials of theTrovernment,
including the Chancellor, Bethmann HoUweg; Jagow and Zim-
mermann, 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, 191 6, 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 oppor
tunity for the mediation which he had been ready to offer, if
asked, from the very beginning of the war. But to otter mediation,
scrlong as the war v/as undecided, was a matter of extreme delicacy.
The majority of intelligent Americans were strong partisans ot
the allied cause and firmly believed that that cause was bound to
win in the long run. There was a minority which had equal sym
pathy for Germany and equal confidence in her ultimate success.
43

To offer mediation while the war was still undecided -would have
been to" offend both of these elements, as well as the warring
nations. -thems£Lv£S.w-all of which were still confident of victory.
Specifically, to offerrnediation during the course of the Presi-
dential election would have been to drive over to Hughes all the
pro-Ally elements in America, which in the state of mind of 191 6
would have seen in such a proposal only a helping hand extended
to a Germany whose cause was otherwise hopeless.
So, though during iQi_^thr Prr'iidrnt-iif--"1d have welcomed a
requesliliQiLmediation. he did not dare su.ggest it on his own
account. And neither side dared to propose it, tor sucn a request
would havfe 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 stop
ping of the war when they hoped that a few months more would
see them in a much more favorable position.
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 pres-

A Sympathetic Tribute
Hamilton Holt^Jiead 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 sub
stituted 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 com
pelled her to make restitution for her crimes, has freed oppressed
peoples, has restored ravaged territories, has created new democ
racies in the likeness of the United States, and above all has
set up the League of Nations"

44

tige 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 thie 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 sub
stantially the victor. For it was known that unless some such
decisive result were soon attained the military party would un
loose 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 Dpc. t2 Bethmann Hollweg proposed a peace confere^ice.
He mentioned no terms which Germany would consider; he spojce
in^the arrogant tones of a victor; and the total effect of his speech
was to convince the world that he was trying to jnHuenceUie
pacifist elements in the alhed countries rather than to bring about
3-n end of tPie war. But his step caused profound uneasiness in
Washington, tor he had anticipated the acdon 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 sfeems
to have felt that his interposition could perhaps accomplish some
thing which the German initiative could not. Golonel House in
the last twe 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
conjjitions that would reduce— or. as men would.ha.v.e..t!aid-IiL3gT6,
preyent^the possibihty of future -wars. CDn^May_^7, i.ax^ he
had delivered a speech before the League to~Eriforce 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 v/ar, 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."
Yet the President also had ideas on the nature of the peace
terms by which the war then going on should be concluded,
45

The United States in the War
Declaration of war, April 6, 1917.
American warships in European waters, May 4, I9I7-
First Liberty Loan offered. May 14, 1917-
Selective Service act operative. May 18, 1917-
First American troops in France, July i, 1917-
Fourteen Points speech, January 8, 1018.
"Force to the utmost" speech, April 6, 1918.
Americans in action at Cantigny, May 28, 1918.
Chateau-Thierry , June /-j, 1918.
Marne-Aisne (offensive, July lyAugust, 1918.
St. Mihiel offensive, September 12, 1918.
Meuse-Argonne offensive, September 26-November 11, 1918.
Austrian peace proposal, September 13, 1918.
First German peace note, October 4, 1918.
Armistice ending the war, November 11 , 1918.

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 spe
cific conditions which each of them regarded as essential to a just
peace, in the hope that they would find they were nearer agree
ment than they knew. Unfortunately, the President lade 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 Presi
dent's suggestion, in America or in the allied countries, was out of
the question; and if any hope had remained, the Germans pres
ently destroyed it. 'They wanted a peace conference with no
terms stated beforehand, where they could play on the divergent
iatet:es.ts-jo£.the allied countries; nor did they want the President
to have anythingJado jiKi.t.]£thft-maEiHftZEp£a£e, lest, as Bethm ann
HQllsfig.expressed it to Bernstorff, the Germans should be "robbed
ojL-theix^gains by~neut'rar~pressure7'' So "the German reply on
.¦^'Deci 26 politely ohserved mat a direct conference between the
ivbelhgefents 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
i I wanted peace of their own kind first.
46

The allied reply was delayed until Jan. ii, but at least it met
the President's request for details. It laid down the specificadons
of what the allied powers would regard as a just peace, and the
bulk of tha,t program was eventually to be written into the Treaty .
of Versailles. But at the time, of course, it was evident that the,
belligerents vj^ere fu,rther from agreement than they thought, or
at any rate than the President thought. Of such terms Germany
would hear nothing; nor would her Gnvpriimpnt give to the Pres
ident, even in COnhdence. its nwn idpa nf th^- cipprifiratinns of a just
peace. . , ., , ,
"; So the President, determined to carry out his program in s]3ite of
all obstacles, finally went before the/Senate on Jan. 22, i^iT^nd
laid down some general consideratitW-e-f-Wirat he thought ajust
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 unprcpg^ed
for anythingTike the speech ot J an. 22. tew people in the Unjted
States realized the dangen iVlr. 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 ipost natural inference was that a new crisis with
Germany was at hand no one knew exactly how to take it — par
ticularly 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
iri 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 a nd
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
nRIiJC be based on democratic principles and on the doctrine that
was to become famous before long under the name of self-determi
nation. "There must be no more forcible conquests, no more bar-
tering^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;
47

but the President called such a pe^v-i- \^ ucai-i: wiuiuul vii-i-uiji^
and to the supporters of the Allies in Amm'ca.^i'fiHdered suspicious
by a course who.se motives thev could not see, that meant a peace
without allied victory and consequently an unjust_geace_r_JFew
l^fyTThe Hrp.sidi?-n.t.".s pnhlip~addresses"TT"ave been more unfavorably
receiyed. 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. i. _
The German Government had dehberately broken its promises
of Sept. I, 191 5, and May 5, 1916. Moreover, that Governrnent,
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 nf diplomatic relations with Germany.
But breaking of relations did not mean war. ihe President
told Congress that if the threat against American lives and prop
erty 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
jseems to have felt that only a warning was necessary; that the
iGermans, if convinced that America meant business, would
Ireconsider their decision. And he added, "I take it for granted
Ithat 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
I 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 Con
gress 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
48

I^ral Credits

TPHE farmers, it seems to me, have
occupied hitherto a singular posi
tion 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 com
mercial 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 Presi
dent Wilson's remarks on signing the
Rural Credits BiU, July 17, 1916.

© Paul Thompson
1918 : The President acknowledging greetings at
a military revie^w

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," fifibustered 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 Execudve authority.
^eanvyhile secret agents had discovered an attempt by:^ the u
GeTiiiaii foreign Othce to enlist Mexican and .fapanesesupport in "^'c
the prospective war against Arnerica by promising annexations^in
the Southwest and on the Pacific Coast. ^ Publication of this on
March i 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 Euro-
4)ean neutrals followed the American example, the sentiment in
favor of declaration of war grew every day.
But for the President this involved considerable logical diffi
culty. From the first he had striven to maintain "impartiality of
thoug'ht," 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 founda
tions from which its tremendous flood has burst forth we are not
interested to search for and explore." 1 1 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 bv the public was a serious obstacle
to the man who was going to have to lead the nation into war.~ But
he Bol'Ved 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 ofhis 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 ot peoples — ot all peoples, eve^of
th^Qarman people a.nisn^a-mus.t.hglxt-— to-niaJrp t[i^ world s^fe
for democracy." On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war.
^America at War, igif-igiS
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
51

3^ of delay which had been so sharply criticised. Xbe people who
i/*^ 1 had been on the side of the Allies from the first and who..Jiad seen
.[/^ thrntrghrGerman pretenses long before were now solidly behind
y'^ J the President, for he had at "last come"]oy"er to their views. But
^^ othrer ana"important elements which might have beenliostile two
j^ yeargrb^fore were now convinced oTthe necessityTorlTghting tfe
" Germ an s^ ' '"
""Andthe 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 alhes of hberafism. There was a feehng 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.
IfLRussia had had a revolution, might not Germany have a revolu
tion, too? Wniild nnt thp German people, v/hose iniunes at the
Kands of their own rulers the President had so well pointed out,'*
riseup_ and overtFrow those rulers and bring about a just and
'lasting p^°ace?^Many people in the SpringTjf rgi'/ e.nuecrt!d
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
vT expenditure of money, burTTaTdJT^y serious effort, actJCOfdi'ng to
^ ^ thg^iew widely current" aipongjgp piopulation in The Guiilljj' of
j" -y'*! gTldt^aSSaore. than g£vdfing else an opportunity for tlTe"d!Splay
^jr of rommendable moral sentifTIgrnx~a»d--fei' LiilIiubitibtiL ae^ma-
Jf ¦tifflisrttg^?F^ftaggi"gj^"1eadersjwEo presently began to come to
"jj* the._United- .Sfci4:e«-^nrfippria'l rni.s.cjinns It is hardlyTTipr- rffTTrh
J2' p say that most of the American people went into this war in the
\\,js. triumphant mood usually reserved for the celebration of victory.
¦\^ It may some day be regarded as one of the chief merits of the
y 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 Admin
istration 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 experi
ence. The first step was the dispatch of American naval forces to aid
52

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 tiil^i9i8 did the American Navy_b-ecam£. a
really important factor m tlie anti-submarine campaign; ..but
-evefy-d-esTToyer added to the allied forces' was of immediate value.
The American i reasury was opened tor vast credits to the Alhes,
who by their enormous purchases of war materials in the United
States had created the abounding prosperity of 191 6, 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 Selertiyp SscKJce- a€t— was-in-tEodttced- in-Cangress.-and
passed in May, without very sprinns opposition. At the very start
the American people had accepted a principle which had ^en
adopted in the crisis ofthe Civil War only after two vears of disas
ter 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 con
structed 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 counj3:y..„. 
For the leadership of this arm3f/General PersHing"w^s selected,,
not without considerable criticigni — from those- whn thnnght
General Wood deserved the position. The reasons which led to
the selection of Pershing are not vet officially known to the PubJic.
but Pershing^s record was to be a sufficient justification nf thi^
appointment,,. But mJirtary 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 Goe
thals, 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 191 8 Charles M. Schwab was finally
put in chief control of the shipbuilding program.
For this and the development of the industrial program neces
sary 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
S3

the railroad brotherhoods in August of 191 6, as well as the general
j fpoficy of his Administration, had won him the invaluable support
I of the American Federation of Labor, and this good understanding,
I [together with the unprecedented wage scales which came into
[operation in most industries with the war emergency, gave tothe
[United States Government much more firm support from organized
labor than most of the allied countries had been able to obtain.
\ \ But this war tnuched every department of human affairs.. The
Allierwere short of food, .anyone nf thp first arhipvpmt^nts^xLthe
American Government was_lb£-institution of a limited food.con-
troTin the United States, under the directorship of Herbert Hoover.
Saving of food by voluntary effort was popularized, and incr?ased
production and reduced consumption prevented the appearance
of any serious food crisis in the allied countries. Later a fuel con
trol was instituted under Dr. Harry A. Garfield, and-the principle
ofToltintary .splfi-dpnial estaEl'ished by the Food Administration
was_caj£i£d-J3a-iflto_the field of news, where the newspapers jub-
rnitted to voluntar^^^restriction ^oFTKe^^Bi"cation_jSLlfiewV^Bat
might unfavoraEy affecFmllTtary and naval movements.. The
Committee on Public Information,"Kea3'e3"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
extrem.ely 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 Admin-
*l ' isffation~Tin3^^ing2ar__Jieayier burdens tharr"any previous
\ Admini.stratinn haTa t tem ritpd."aTirPmpp ting- wiTh "a 'mp^rgnr^ of

Admini.strafinn iTaff^ttemjTtpd^aTrfrm of
success which was beyond all predictiQJifrThe"lnost~ 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
54

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 stm greater abroad, lltieprinciples proelaimed_in_his address

_ ^ id repeated an^ elaborated later inthe year,Tecame
the creed of almost every political element in Europe except tfie
German military party. Ihe Russian revolution was stil'T'a
liberahzing influence, in the early part of the year, and self-deter
mination 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 Presi
dent'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 rniintries as well, Wilson's ideals had becoBie a
dogma to yyhich 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. Lie 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 Pres
ident 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 mighjtjje decided by
njioral force. Beginning, to takeTlarm at the acti-my^of America.
and not yet 'certain of the effect of the Russian revolution (which
was having grave consequences in Austria-Hungary^ tlieXjermprs
inclined~Huring The Summer of 1917 to a new peace offensive.
Bethmann Hollweg was dropped on July 14, and~hve 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 j
for a peace conference of their own influenced by the same ideas. I
But the President had changed his opinion that America had no
55

concern with the causes and the objects of the wai ; 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 ot the political and
ecpnomic a.spects of the GermaF drive tor worra~suprem_acy;
and wTien the allied~powerslntnjsiFe^ wit"K~tKe~task of ans"wer-
in£_the_Po^ela__2eace suggestion in the name of all of~fhem,_he
deiclared that we cannot take the word oFthe present rulers^ of
Germany! is a .giiaxantee. for anything thaFis "to~enaure." The
German Government could not be-..trust£.d.with a peace ^itKout
(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 offen
sives 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 ofthe Russian revolution had been the collapse of the eastern
front. Wke.n in November the Bolsheviki overthrew Kereaskv
afld prepared_tojmake peace at any _pricej.JLwa§- evident that the
German armies in~I''rance would soon be enormously reinforced
Sothe^ Winter of 1917-18 saw a "new peace offensive, bu£^h i s
time most _df"tlie~work was~done bv the Allies, and the object ^as
to~detach Austria-Hungary from "Gernx^uv.
~~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 v/as 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, 191 8, had stated war aims
in some respects identical with those which the President embod
ied in the Fourteen Points three days later. /^ ^aar\ deal nf the
program had been included in the allied statement of Jan. 11, 1917,
biit the i^'ourteen Points were somewhat more moderate. — They
seemed to be,~indeed~ rather hasty receiision orold programs ,in
the_ effort_j;o modify allied aspirations so that Austria would
accept them; for whifeThe Fourteen Points professed to contain
the jcheme of a just peace, they were .s.et-forth as a step m the
endea-yor to persuadeAustria to dejert her ally. As it happened,
Austria couKTnoFhave deserted Germany even if she had desired;
and, in any event, the effort to compromise was quite impracti
cable. 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

56

^j^^tever the origin of the Fourteen Points, their immediate
effect was slight, ihe Austrians, and to a lesser extent the Ger-
Tiia.us, professed interest, but it was soon apparent that the Ger-
'pans atjeast were nat-Eea<iyM:fl-apprnaph the allied point of view.
A"d th^reaty of Brest-Litovs]|^.2orced upon Russia on March -^.
was in such stark contrast with tKe~l3enevolent professions^of
German statesmen that the President realized that nothing CQuld
be gained by debate and compromisp. On April 6, in a speech
at Baltimore, he declared that only one argument was now of use i
against the Germans — "force to the utmost, force without stint]
or limit." The process of conversion from the viewpoint ofj
January, 1917, vi^as complete. '
As a matter of fact, however, the application of force had already
JDegun. OnJVIarch 21 Ludendorff had opened his great _offensive
I" France which was tn Jhj;j,ag the war to a German victory, and
for the next few monthgtFoch^and not Wilson, was the doiiiinant
PSrsonaiU:^L_am«Bg-^ie-T5ffies. And for a time it seemeTTKat
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 v/orse
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 rnoney and enormous volumes of boasting had been expended
on airplane construction without getting any airplanes. Flundreds
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. Artil
lery 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 im
pression 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 "ineffi
ciency 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-
57

President Wilson^s program for tbe worliTs peace uxi» outUn&d in the
Fourteeti Points, ivhich constituted part of an address deliverad b^ons Congress
January 8, 1918, as follows:

No Private Understandings
1 Open Covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which tkete thall
be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall
proceed always frankly and in the public view.
Freedom of tha 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
S The Removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and ths
eetablishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations
consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its ra«lntenance.
Reduce National Armaments
4 Adequate Guarantees given and taken that national nrmnments wiD
be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domeatic 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 popula
tions 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
a!t 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 deter.T.inati.on 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 o^H'n choosing,
and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need
and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia o;- her sister
nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good-v.-ill, of
their comprehension of her needs as distinguishr ] fr-ni their -)v, n interests
and of their intelligent and unselfish syr-pathy.

58

Restoration of Belgium
.' Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored
^- K ^f ^"y attempt to limit the so;/ereignty 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 thpy have them
selves 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-
Lorrame, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty ye'ars,
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 Italv 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 nation
ality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independ
ence 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 v ,^ ^^
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 acce^ to fhe 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 inde
pendence and territorial integrity to great and small States a, ike.

59

disloyalty to the Administration. Chamberlain's reply, while
admitting that he might have overstated his case, was a procla
mation of loyalty to his Commander-in-Chief and an appeal for
getting down to the business of winning the war.
But the war did not go on into 1919. If America could contrib
ute no aircraft and guns to the campaign of 191 8, she could at
least contribute men. The emergency of March and April brought
forth a ^efiigious effort, and'soldiers begaft to -be: shipped across
the Atlanticjjyr hundreds of thousands. -By July 4 there were
•a- million, before the end of the year over ^jgoQfiOo; and they
could fight. At the .end of the Summer. 'the Gertnans realized
that the war ,was lost; and realizing it, they turned back to
President Wilson's mediation which they had rejected eidfteen
months before, and to theFourteen Points which had beejarKoked
3n so coldly in the previous Winter.
\ .The first move was made by the Austrians, who on 'Sept,. 15
proposed a. rrirrfprppre for a "preliminary and rioh-bijiding"
discussi"", pf igar-„.a.imc 't'hp h'rpgidpnt rpfngpri rhp nPV^ Hay,
With the observation that America's war aims had been stated
so often that there could be no doubt what they were. But h was
evident that more peace -proposals would follow, and on Sept.
27 the President delivered an addre?s 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 reali-zed that peace
without victory was unsafe in view of the char.a£ter of the Ger
man Government; it must be a peace with guarantees, for nobody
would trust the Germans. B-ut it must be a peacejof imfiaxtial
justice, "involving no discriminatioa between those to- whom "we
vi'ish to be just and those to whom we-^o not wish to be jngt,"
and the guarantee must be provided by a League 01 Nations
v/hich the Peace Conference itself — and not a subsequent general
confer^ice, as the President had held in the days ofhis neutrality —
-must oFgaAize. The development wg^ logical; .nearly g]! the
Am-erican powers had entered the war, and neutrak wer« far less
numerous than 'ih 1916. And he argued that 'ths:'lCe.&§ae of
Nations must be formed at the Peace Conference tq he '''in a
sense the m.ost essential part" of its work, because it was not likely
that it could be formed aftey the conference, and if formeS during
the war it would -only be in alliance oS ibke pospers associated
-against Germany.
The Germans apparently thought these pncjgoun cements
offered some hope. Their Government was has'fl'Iy l^ing covered
with a false front of democratic institutions to suitTiis 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

60

month, in jghi^h the President acted nominally as intermediary
between the Germans and the Allies. thPiLgh"actuall-vTTe~was^in
CQQatant_touch witimiied statesmen What began as a duel of
diplomatic dexterity presently developed into a German diplo
matic 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 German.s agreed tn accept without argument the Fourteen
Points, with discussion at the conference limited oHTy to" details
oTTEeir practical apphcation. and to recognize flie alteramns
which had been made in some ofthem by subse'quent "decisions of
the American- Govern-mettt. I'hey" accepted^the President's
insistence that a peace conference must be conditional on an
armistice which would imply complete evacuation of allied terri
tory 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 Ger
mans 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 pro
claimed the republic; the Kaiser fled across the Dutch border
between two days; and on Nov. ii the fighting ended and the
Germans submitted to the terms imposed by Marshal Foch.
'Peace Conference and Treaty, igig
O the war had been ended by the military defeat of the Ger
mans. In arranging the preliminaries of peace Mr. Wilson's
influence had hppn dominant. But the personal aspect of his
triumph was tar more imposing in 191 8 than it could possibly
have been in 1916. Had his mediation ended the war before
America entered it would have been bitterly resentedTin the allied
countries and by American sympathizers of the Allies. But in
the intervqi thp Prpsidfnt had appeared as the leader of the nation
which furnished the decisive addition to allied strength that
brought the fanal 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 hf har| had thp satisfac
tion of seeing that Government overthrown at last when the Ger-
lirah people reahzed that it had cost them more than it was wori:h.
^o now the war was ended in victory, but still ended by Wilson's
mediation, and moreover on terms which he himself had laid
61

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 hurnan
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^ hmiWm^ It became
evident to Democratic leaders in the earl-\^^ll of 191^ that they
were likely to lose the Congressional elections! J democratic lead
ership in the House of Representatives had bppn .sn notoriously
incompetent that most of the -war measures had had to be carried
through under the leadership of Republicans, and therp was grave
dLssatisfacrion 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 state
ment 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 Repubhcans 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 Pre
mier 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 Presi
dent 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'wg'^ iiidiiiaied, of CleiiiuicLciu and Lluyd George. The criticism
^pf this_plan was by no means rnntmpd to Republicans, but the
President persisted in it. There was a widespread demand for a
"non-piU'Liyaii — Peace Commission, but the apparent concession
which the President finally made to this sentiment — the appoint
ment of Henry White, long out of the diplomatic service and never
very active in politics, as the sole Representative on a commission

62

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 pro
cessions through England, France and Italy, in which the Govern
ments 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 v/ith all the honors in their
power, and crowds of workingmen stood for hours in the rain that
they might see him for a mom.ent 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 Presi
dent Wilson. Those ideals had been expressed in vague and
general term.s, and every Government thought that its own war
aim.s 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 French
men 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.
jThf P"-^^° ^/-^t.f/»fc^^^° thit hpgap on January 18 was bound to
disillusion a great manv people, including President Wilson him-
seffr 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 wa.s.
eventually prndncpd led American liberals to_ complain that the
President had surrendered tn F.nrnppgn Impprialicm and brought
from such Kepubhcans as still admired the Allies the rnmnlaint
that he had betrayed allied interests at the promptings of pacifism.
Equally diverse opinions might have been obtained from ?.'il types
63

of extremists in Europe. The Fourteen Points v/ere 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 prin
ciples 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 dov/n to particulars he v/as 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 Presi
dent 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 overv/helming 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 fhi-,^i-,gh^<-hg
aenate — a hght which, it was already apparent, would be about
"Uij llald as the struggle to get any treaty evolved at all out of the
conflicting national interests in raris. , 'ihere was a demonstration
for him at Brest as he left French soil, but nothing like the en
thusiasm 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
I, 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
64

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 comimon men the
world over.
The fight was now begun. Som.e 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 him
self appeared before the committee on Aug;ust 19. Outside the
.Senate party lines were breaking up; the Irish and German ele
ments 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 opposi
tion; 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 Presi
dent 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 care
fully concealed at the time, and even yet but imperfectly under
stood. 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 reserva
tions," finally adopted on November 16.
Nobody knew how sick the President was, but Senator Hitch
cock, 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
65

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 Tear, ig20-ig2I
rHE 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 re
sumed 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 ge>nera%
known, the demand which was heard for an explanation of the
constitutional reference to the "disability of the President" an^
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 SecretHry
of State Lansing resigned, ahd the published correspondence
showed that the President had regarded his action in calhng Cabi
net meetings as a usurpation oJ: Presidential authority, ft -was
evident from the correspondence that another and perh*tps
stronger reason for the President's disapproval had been the
action of the Secretary in conducting a Mexican Policy en bis-
own initiative, during the President's illness, which showed, eosrt-
siderable divergence from the President's own. Nevartheless? the
manner of the action caused some uneasiness and there vipae mueh
surprise when Mr. Lansing was replaced by Bainbridge Colb^ ^
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 shairp 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, v/ere 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.
66

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
amongthe Democratic leaders, for into a Presidential election so
many issues enter that it would be difiicult 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 hirn 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 ofthe Federal office-holders, but whether
or not he had the support of the White House no man knew. The
Repubhcans 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 Con
vention at San Francisco adopted a platform praising and in
dorsing 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 con
sidered, and the delegates devoted themselves to finding the most
available man who had not had any connection with the Ad
ministration. James M. Cox was finally nominated on Woodrow
Wilson's record and sent out to t^^p p;rpat and .snlpmn rpfptendum.
Aside from a formal proclamation of unity of ideals and in-
tentions 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 Hou«e, 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.
67

Whether or not the President had intended to turn over the
Government to Hughes in November, 1 916, 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 con
nection 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 govern
ment 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 nvprthrew Carranza sjnc\
entered into powpr in Mpvim hnt thp WiUnn Arlministcatinn
maintained neutrality during the brief struggle. Ambassador
.Listcher had resigned, but Henry Morgenthau. appointed, to
suj:ceed him, did not obtain the confirmation of the Senate, and
the new Administration had nnt Keen formally rprngnizpd afc^thp
end of President Wilson's term. A controversy over the status of
American oil rights was one of the chief impediments to recog
nition, 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 par
titioning 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
191 8 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 Bolshe.viki 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 Ad-
68

ministration 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 cam
paign 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 AdmiuBstration were left over for setdement by the new
President. More urgent, however, was another ancient issue now
revived^the California land question. In 1917, vrtien America
was just entering the war and could not afford any dangerous
entanglements on the Pacific, the Lansing-Ishii agreement was
negotiated with |apan. 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 tbe principles of Chinese independence and terri
torial Integrity, and the open door. However necessary this -con
cession 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 Con
ference in agreeing to the cession of Shantung to Japan. There
was a -renewed antagonism between American and Japanese
interest* 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 Cafifornia seemed more or less dis
quieting, 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 lihe short
session aj[id by President-elect Harding's slowness in deciding
amongcandidates 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.
69

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
W^e shall not sleep, tho poppies blow
In Flanders fields.

.-America's -Answer
B? ^. W. XiUarft

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 t:iuH-ht
In Flanders fields!
70

Recessional
2&? Micl)ar6 Xlnlbtcum

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, ail 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.

71

THE FOUNDERS OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Bali'-ridge in Stars and Stripes

Mako nrnj, O God, tke peace our dead have won,
Por folly sKakes tlie tinsel on ter kead
And points us back to darkness and to nell.
Cackling, "Beware of Visions," wliile our dead
Still cry, "It w^as for visions that we fell. — Alfred Noyes

72

Workmen's Compensation

WE must hearten and quicken the
spirit and efficiency of labor
throughout our whole industrial sys
tem by everywhere and in all occupa
tions doing justice to the laborer, not
only by paying a living wage but also
by making all the conditions that sur
round 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 im
periled. 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.

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiii  iimiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiimi]

IlillllilllllllH'

) Harris b' Ewing
President Wilson as he looked during the Peace Conference in Paris

Woodro')^ Wilson s T^lace 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 cf 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
igoyand exercising a leading influence as a delegate in the national con
vention in 1910, which drew up the constitution for the present Union of
South Africa. He was minister of the defense of the South African Govern
ment 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. Hcrtzog
and those who advocated the secession of South Africa from the British
' Empire.
Written for. the' New York Evening Post jCnd The -Washington Herald
Pretoria, South Africa, January 8, 1921.
It has been suggested that I should write a short estimate and
appraisal ofthe work of President Wilson on the termination ofhis
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 ecHpse: "On those
whom the gods love they lavish infinite joys and infinite sorrows. "
It has come bade 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.
75

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 dark
ness and despair, he had raised aloft a light to which all eyes
had turned. He had spoken divine words of healing and con
solation 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; .brate 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 om 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 neryed 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 tiie new order;
his great utterances had become the contractual basis for the
armistice and the peace. The idealism of Wilson v/ould surely
become the reaMty 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 v/as not a Wiison peace,
76

and he made a fatal mistake in somehow giving the impression
that the peace \yas 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 nf peace as the victor had
d^gtated to the vanquished for thousands of years. It was not
Alccsrics; it was a haggard, unlovely woman with features dis
torted 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 "httle
child that shall lead them yet. " No other statesman but Wilson
could have done it. And he did it.
People T>id <5\(o/ 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 recep
tive 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 respon
sible for the bitter disappointment and grievous failure. The
cynics scoffed; his friends were silenced in the universal disap
pointment. 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.
cifhCust Wait for fudgment
Will this judgment, born of momentary disillusion and dis
appointment, 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
77

largely superficial and will not stand the searching test of time.
And I have no doubt whatever that Wilson has been harshly,
unfairly, unjus/tly dealt with, and that he has been made a scape
goat 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 beheve in human nature. It was not Wilson who failed-
The position is far more serious, fa-was the human spirit itself
that failed at PapfJ Tr iq nn nsp pfi<^,sing jnrlgmpnt^ and mq,]|Cing
scapegoats of this or that individual statesman or group of states
men. Idealists make a great mistake in not facing the real tacts
^cerely j^lT^ rpgnlntfjy Tbey believe in the power of the spirit,
in tji£_gnndnpss which is at the heart of things, in the triumph
^hich is in store for^the great moral ideals ot the race. KuTThis
faith ""ly <•"" rTTren leads tO an optimism which 13 sadly and
fatally at variance with actual results.
Says Humanity Failed
It is the realif^t gnH nnt the iHenlifit who ifj gfperally justified by
events. We. forget that the human spirit, the spirit of goodiiess
afld truth in the world, is still only an infant crying in the night,
and that the struggle with darkness is as vet mnstlv an unequal
straggle. Fans proved this terrible truth once more. It was not Wilson
who failed there, but humanity itself. ^ was not the statesmen
that failed so much as the spirit of the peoples behind them, i'he
hope, the aspiration ior a new world order ot peace and right a.nd
mstice — however deeply and universally felt — was still only
feeble and inettective in compan.son with the rinminant national
passions which found their expression in the peace treaty. Even
ll Wilson had been one of the great demi-gods of the human race,
he could not have saved the peace. Knowing the Peace Con
ference 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 tempta
tion 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 L said at the time, the real peace
was still to come, and it could only come from a new spirit in the
peoples themselves. 78

Wilson Had to 'Se Conciliated
What w'4^ I'ljilli .^.n;ii1 .11 P.ii'in Ki-Lg. thp i^\t\\A — thp covenant of
the League of Natinn.s. The pnlitical realists who had their eye
on the loot were prepared — however reluctantly — to throw up that
innocent little sop to rresident Wilson ana his fellow idealists.
After all, there was not much harm in it, it threatened ho pte«Wit
national interest, and it gave great pleasure to a number of good
unpractical people in most countries. Above all. President Wil
son 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.
Qreat C'l^^^ti'^^ '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 succppH, hpranse there is no other
-wriy fnr thp fni-nrp nf f-iviljzfitiori. Tt docs not realize the great
hopes born of the war, but it provides the only method _and
instrument bv wh'''^^ '" *^'" ^"""-"p "f" t\mp «->inQP hnppc c^^x\Jne.
realized. Speaking as one who has some right to speak on the
t.inHomorH-ol fr^nr-o-^i-\,^r,6^ ^^Kjo^^-o nnr) m«^<-lir.r]i:; r^f the COVenallt,
I feel sure that most of the present criticism is based on mis
understandings. 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 for
ward 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.

79

THE NOBLE PEACE PRIZE 1920

¦':^'^ )\ '-h.''-:i-;F^$'iM

'¦'• . ¦/. ¦ ' 'r

'-l/'lj'^ ri

¦¦:¦¦¦¦¦ •::>e •''¦ ". ••¦

ii

•".>,

¦f

1

V/rTHOUT THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE 5ENATE,
Kirby int Tiit. Nev. "i ork World
** We die w^ithout distinction if we are not willing to ilie the
death of sacrxhce. 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 Sw^arthmore College
Oct. 5, 1913.
80
fVoodrolpp JVilson

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 aflFairs of civilization or wielded so com
manding an influence in shaping their ends.
}r The great outstanding figure of the war, Mr. Wilson remains the great outstand-
(ff ing 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
, V 1 every chancellery in Europe. It hovers over every capital. Because Woodrow
^ I Wilson was President c)f *^'' TTnlfpH Stpf^s during the most critical "period ot modern
[history international relations have undergone their first far-reaching moral
I 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 olBce, 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 hira 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.
81

<^ President Who T)ealt in Ideas
' IVIr. Wilson was a President who dealt almost exclusively in ideas. He cared
little or nothing about pohtical orgapizafiori nnr' '•"'¦'¦'y fnngnltprl fhp. 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 antag-
, onized or his policies obstructed.
i Y* jNo man was ever more impersonal in his attitude toward government, and that
•(,t^» very impersonality was the characteristic which mn.'jt haffipd the American people.
'f*^.K^yir. Wilson had a genius for the advocacy of great principles, but he had no talent
• ^'^ whatever for advocating himself, and to a country that iti acfPiiLUilieJ Lu Lhink in
y^ 10^ headlines about political questions his subtlety of mind and his careful, precise
^p^ ^ sjyle of expre.s.'sinn wprp quite as likdv to be an obstacle to the communication of
<^* thought as a medium for the communication of thought. That is how such
^ i" phrases as "too proud to fight" and "peace without victory" were successfully
' L. wrested from their context by his critics and twisted into a fantastic distortion of
y\f*^ their true meaning.
'I) ¦ Mr. Wilson was likewise totally deficient in the art of advertising, and advertis-
\ \ ing is the very breath of American politics. He held himself aloof from all these
points of public contact. TAe 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. ^e was an eloquent pleader fnr the principles in which he
believed, but he had no faculty whatever for pf-p'e'''''"P' him.self into the picture.
The Experience of History
Mr. Wilscin'g pppmjpg Trf fnnH of rnlUng him a :^eonsfc but there is little of the
thenri'^t ahnnt him, nthprw'ge 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 Constitu-
tion," 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
82

'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 con
structive 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 ob-
_scured 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
diaa that ot 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.
c-5^r. 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 inter
vention. 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. 83

f Mexico is not yet a closed incident, but Mr. Wilson's policy has been vindicated
I in principle. For the first time since Mr. Roosevelt shocked the moral sense and
i 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 ofthe 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 stu
pendous 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 futher, however, than any of his predecessors had done and urged the
American people to be not only neutral in deed hiii("jp:ipartial in thoughj^ Mr.
Wilson has been severely criticised for this appeal. The more violent pro-Germans
and the raore 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
Gerraans 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 wsr 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 Araerican 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.
f/ 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
/pet of belligerents. It was the only great nation that was in a position to uphold
tthe 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 inforraal
peace negotiations that were then in progress and decided to stake the fate of the
erapire on a single throw of the U-boat dice.
<^ United Country First
Mr. Wilson perceived quite as quickly and quite as early as anybody the possi
bility 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 tbn r.o-^^v.try
was not war but a divided people. While he v.-ua enc^agln- in f:amu-:g ih.- first
Lusitania note he discussed the situation with one of his callers at the White House
in words that have since proved prophetic:
Jl I do not know whether the Gerraan Government intends to keep faith with
n the United States or not. It is my personal opinion that Germany has no such
\\ intention, but I araless concerned about the ultimate intentions of Germany
/I than about the attitude of the American people, who are alreadv divided
/ / into three groups: those who are strongly pro-German, those who are strongly
1/ pro-Ally, and the vast raajority who expect rae to find a way to keep the
/I United States out of war. I do not want war, yet I do not know that I can
f / keep the country out of the war. That depends on Gerraany, and I have no
/ control over Gerraany. But I intend to handle this situation in such a manner
I that every American citizen will know that the United States Government lias done
/ everything it could to prevent war. Then if war comes we shall have a united coun-
I try, 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 raomentous debate ever
held — but he was only incidentally addressing hiraself to the rulers of Germany.
He was talking to the conscience of the civilized world, but primarily to the con
science of the United Stat-p.s, pvplaining, Harifying, elnrirl.Tting the issue. His
reluctance to countenance any extensive measures of preparedn^s was the product
ot a definite resolution nr'*' ""^ g"^'' t^pi-many iryfy hpr American supportefs^an
opportunity to declare that the United States, while these issues were pending, was
arming for war against the Iraperial Government.
When Mr. Wilson began this debate he knew soraething 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 railitary raeasure in the interest of
Germany. They were under the spell of Tirpitz. They believed that the sub
marine 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 v/ere 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 Gerni:;n Grano Fleet penned in,
the addition of the Araerican Navy, or a dozen navies f'r thai n ; ttti , W( uld make
85

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 oflF 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 sub
marines 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, igi6, in a joint note which was so cold and dispassionate in its terms
that its import was hardly understood.
With Cis^n Hands
The President said that the aims and objects of the war on both sides " as stated
in general terras to their own people and the world" seeraed to be "virtualfy 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
oiBcially 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. Inform^al 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 attera.pt 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
ofhis critics of reading into his public utterances alraost everything except what he
actually said. He hiraself has insisted on giving his own interpretation of "peace
without victory," and this interpretation was instantly rejected by the super-
patriDts who regarded themselves as the sole custodians of all the issues of the war.
When the armistice was signed one ofthe most eminent of living British states
men gave it as his opinion that the war had lasted two years too long, and that
the task of salvaging an enduring peace frora 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

) Underwood b* 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.

w^.

KP.^¥-

February IS, 1921 :

Mr. 'Wilson's latest photograph-
of the Cabinet

Edmonston
made at a meeting

TWO PICTURES
By Joseph P. Tumulty
Two pictures are in my mind. First, the Hall of Representa
tives crowded from floor to gallery with expectant throngs.
Presently it is announced that tlie 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 read
ing 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 revievoed by the President on the east
terrace of the White House. In a chair sits a man, your Presi
dent, 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 sol
diers, 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 ambu
lance, he iti the chair, are, alike, casualties of the Great War.
From address hy Joseph P. Tumulty
Thursday, Oct. 28, 1920

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 eco
nomic collapse of Europe. Nor is it certain that most of the really enduring bene
fits of the Treaty of 'Versailles could not have been as well obtained by negotia
tion 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 dy
nasty 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.
^C^ii to a Crusade
Mr. Wilson's War Address on the night of April 2, 1917, was the raost draraatic
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 Diploraatic 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 figl;it 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 Araerica 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. 89

The test of any war policy is its success, and it is a waste of tirae to enter into a
vindication of the raanner in which the Wilson Administration made war, or to
trouble about the accusations of waste and extravagance, as if war were an eco
nomic 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 deraanded a Selective-Service Act under which the coun
try could raise 10,000,000 troops, if 10,000,000 troops were needed, without de
ranging its essential industries. It had taken Mr. Lincoln three years to find a
General whora he could intrust with the coraraand of the Union armies. Mr-
Wilson picked his Commander in Chief before he went to war and then gave to
Gen. Pershing the sarae 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 Araerican people to finance their
own war, and they unhesitatingly responded. In the war with Spain the corarais-
sary system had broken down completely owing to the antiquated methods that
were employed. No other array in tirae of v/ar was ever so well fed or so well
cared for as that of the United States in the conflict with Gerraany.
Wilson as a War President
Mistakes there were in plenty, both in raethods and in the choice of raen, and
errors of judgment and the shortcomings that always result from a lack of expe
rience, 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
reraains the most vigorous of all the war Presidents. Yet it is also true that history
v/iU 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-raaking 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 v/hich the United States was to fight and the principles on which
an enduring peace could be made. The tirae came when it was necessary to be
still raore specific.
In the winter of igiS the morale of the AUies 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
90

from the moment that this address was delivered the thrones of the HohenzoUerns
and the Hapsburgs ceased to be stable.
Ten months later they were to crumble and collapse. Before the armistice
was signed on Nov. ii, 1918, Mr. Wilson had overthrown the doctrine of Divine
right in Europe. The Hapsburgs ran away. The Kaiser was corapelled to abdicate
and take refuge in exile, justifying his flight by the explanation that Wilson would
not make peace with Germany while a HohenzoUern 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 rai-
nority President into a raajority President. He had so deftly outmanosuvred all
his opponents in Congress and out of Congress that they had nothing with which
to console themselves except their intensive hatred of theman and all that pertained
to hira. Then at the very summit of his career he raade 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 carapaign of
191 8 Mr. Wilson's advisers urged hira to follow the precedent. What they forgot
and he forgot was that it was no time for partisan precedents, and he allowed
his distruct 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 frora business
interests against the Southern Deraocratic control of the legislative department,
and all this sentiment instantly crystallized when the President asked for another
Deraocratic Congress. Republicans who were loyally supporting the Adminis
tration 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 sus
tained a personal defeat.
Misfortunes did not corae 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 Comraission.
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
91

with hira the responsibility for a treaty of peace that was doomed in advance to
he a disappointment. Although the popular sentiment of Europe was alraost pas
sionate 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 Governraents. 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 comproraises that would satisfy nobody, and when Mr.
Wilson assumed aU 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 terras 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 cont^t finally resolved itself into a question of whether
he should take what he could get or whether he should withdraw from the confer
ence 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 states
men 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: Tt was not the statesmen that failed so much as the spirit of the peoples
behind them. The hope, the aspiration, for a new acrid order fif 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 per.
verted 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 judgraent on the peace itself, revising its
terms when revision became necessary and possible, slowly readjusting the pro
visions 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 comraentary on huraan nature that when the treaty was corapleted
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 raakes for the international advanceraent of the race.
Why The Treaty Was 'beaten
Into that record must also go the impressive fact that the Treaty of Versailles
v/as rejected by the United States Senate, under the leadership of Henry Cabot
92

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 ofthe 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 No
vember. 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
wiU 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 governraent extended to all the
affairs of the nations. That war is not yet won, and the Comraander in Chief is
crippled by the wounds that he received on the field of action. But the responsi
bility 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.

^^e Covenant of t^e TLeague of !5tatlons
ADOPTED BY THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE
Paris, April 28, iqiq

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 con
duct 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. 93

Article One
[Membership]
The original rnembers 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 v/ithout reservation to this Covenant. Such
accessions shall be effected by a declaratixjn deposited with the Secretariat within
two months of the coming into force of the Covenant. Notice thereof shall be
sent to all other raembers 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 railitary and naval forces and arraa-
raents. 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 Adm.inistration Machinery]
The action of the League under this Covenant shaU be effected through the
instru.mentality 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 raay 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 raeraber 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,
ofthe British Empire, of Fra.nce, of Italy, and of Japan, together with representa
tives of four other raerabers of the League. These four members of the Leagu"-
shall be selected by the Assembly from time to time in its discretion. Until tlk.
appointment of the representatives of the four members of the League first selected
by the Assembly, representatives of Belgiura, Brazil, Greece and Spain shall be
raembers of the Council.
With the approval of the raajority of the Asserably, the Council may name
additional members of the League whose representatives shall always be raembers
of the Council; the Council with like approval may increase the number of mem
bers of the League to be selected by the Assembly for representation on the Council.
The Council shall meet from time to tirae as occasion raay 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 meetiigs with any raatter 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.
94

Article Five
[Decision by Unanimity cr Majority; Initial Meetings]
nf thf^^^^ y'^^!? otherwise, expressly provided in this Covenant, or by the terms
rennlirv, ''' '^^"='°"s « ^ny raeeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall
require the agreement of all the members ofthe League represented at the meeting.
annn;;/"^ f "r° P''°<:^dure at meetings of the Assembly or of the Council, the
hlthlT'^' u, '^"'""J'ttees 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 shaU
be summoned by the President ofthe 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
aiay be required.
The first Secretary-General shaU be the person named in the annex; thereafter
tHe becretary-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 Secre-
tary^General with the approval of the Council.
The Secretary-General shaU act in that capacity at all meetings of the Assembly
and of tne Council.
_ The expenses of the Secretariat shaU be borne by the members of the League
in accordance v/ith 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.
1 he Council may at any time decide that the seat of the League shall be estab
lished elsewhere.
AU positions under or in connection with the League, including the Secretariat,
shaS be open equally to men and- women.
Representative: .f :h; j .j;.-...eru o*" t; c L: r.gue and officials of the League when
engaged on the business of the League shall enjoy diploraatic privileges and immu
nities. 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 natiQnal armaments to the lo'.vest point consistjnt with 'hj rational
safefy and the enforcement Ly common action o/intci-ni.t' jiii-.i cblit-^t.Oiis.
The Cou.ncil, taking account of the gejgraphical situation anr" : ." i"'",;,: f.?'.'.i
of each state, shall formulate plans for such reduction for the coniidtration and
action of the several governments.
Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at least every ten
years. After these plans s'lail have been adopted by the several governments, limits
of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded without the concurrence of the
Council. The merabers of the League agree that the mcinufa'" Lir-; Ly pri'/atc enterprise
of munition.'? anc' imp!: iT.f.nts of v/ar is open to grave b'' i '. Ti C-uncil
shaU advise how the evil effects attendant upon such maiii;facf.L.r , an bj p.-. . cnted
95

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 merabers of the League undertake to interchange full and frank informa
tion 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 merabers of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat
or_ danger of such aggression, the Council shaU advise upon the raeans by which
this obligation shall be fulfilled. Article Eleven
[Joint Action to Prevent War]
Any war or threat of war, whether iraraediately 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 deeraed 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 raeraber of the League, forthwith
suramon a raeeting of the Council.
It is also declared to be the fundaraental 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 cither 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 tirae, 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 araong
those which are generally suitable for subraission to arbitration. For the con
sideration 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 con
vention 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
96

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
Article Fourteen
[Permanent Court of International Justice]
The Council shall formulate and submit to the raerabers of the League for
adoption plans for the establishment of a perraanent court of international justice.
The court shall be corapetent to hear and determine any dispute of an international
character which the parties thereto submit to it. "The court raay 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 Asserably; Exclusion of Doraestic Questions
If there should arise between merabers 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 raake all neceg«ery arrangeraents for a full
investigation and consideration thereof For this purpose the parties to the dis
pute will communicate to the Secretary-General, as promptly as possible, state
ments of their case, all the relevant facts and papers; the Council raay forthwith
direct the publication thereof.
The Council shall endeavor to effect a settlement of any dispute, and if such
effortsare successful, a stateraent shall be raade public giving such facts and ex
planations regarding the dispute and terras 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
dspute and the recoraraendations which are deeraed 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 sarae.
If a report by the Council is unanimously agreed to by the raembers thereof
other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the
rnembers 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 Councii faBs 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 j ustice.
If the dispute between the parties is claimed by one of thera, and is found by the
Council to arise out of a raatter which by international law is solely within the
doraestic jurisdiction of that party, the Council shall so report, and shall make no
recommendation as to its settlement.
The Council raay in any case under this Article refer the dispute to the Asserably.
The dispute shall be so referred at the request of either party to the dispute, pro
vided that such request be made within fourteen days after the subraission of the
dispute to the Council.
In any case referred to the Asserably 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 raajority 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.
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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 merabers of the League, which hereby
undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of aU trade or financial rela
tions, the prohibition of aU intercourse betv/een their nations and the nationals of
the covenant-breaking state and the prevention of all financial, comraercial, or
personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking state and the
nationals of anv other state, whether a m.ember of the League or not.
It shall be the duty t f the Council in '-'ch case to recoraraend to the several
governments concerned what effective military or naval forces the mera.bers of the
League shall severaUy 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 mutuaUy support one
another in the financial and economic r->easures which are taken under this Article,
in order tn minimize the loss and inccn-.'enience 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 raay
be declared to be no longer a raember of the League by a vote of the Council con
curred 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 mem.bers of the League, the
state or states not members of the League shall be invited to accept the obligations
of raembership 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 merabership in the
Lebgue for the purposes of such dispute, and shall resort to war against a raeraber
of the League, the provisions of Article Sixteen shaU 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
raember 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 engage
ment shall be binding until so registered. Article Nineteen
[Revision of Former Treaties]
The Asserably may frora time to tirae advise the reconsideration by raembers
of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable, and the consideration
98

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 m.embers 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 raember to t.ike 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 cf 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 the.m 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 developraent of such peoples form a sacred trust of civiliza
tion 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 th.-.t 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 risponsi-
bility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutehge should be e.iercised
by them as mandatories on behalf of the League.
The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of the develop-
¦¦ment of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic con
dition 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 pro
visionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assist
ance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. Tlie wishes
of these comraunities 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 con
ditions 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 estab
lishment of fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training ofthe
natives for other than police purposes and the defense of territory and will also
secure equal opportunities for the trade and comraerce 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 ofthe 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 ir.digenous 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.
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The degree of authority, control or adrainistration to be exercised by the
mandatory shaU, if not previously agree upon by the members of the League, be
explicitly defined in each case by the Council.
A permanent coramission shall be constituted to receive and examine the annual
reports of the mandatories and to advise the Council on aU 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 raaintain
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 executiori of agreements with regard
to the traffic in women and children, and the traffic in opiura 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 coraraon interest; (e) will raake provision to secure and raaintain
freedora of coramunication and of transit and equitable treatment for the cora-
raerce of all raembers 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 en
deavor to take steps in matters of international concern for the prevention and
control of disease. Article Twenty- Four
[Control of International Bureaus and Coraraissions]
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 coraraissions,
the Secretariat of the League shall, subject to the consent of the Council and if
desired by the parties, collect and distribute all relevant inforraation 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 comraission which is placed under the direction of the League.
Article Twenty- Five
[The Red Cross and International Sanitation]
The raembers 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- Sis
[Araendraents of the Covenant; Right of Dissent]
Araendraents to this Covenant will take effect when ratified by the members Of
the League whcse representatives compose the Council and by a majority of the'
merabers of the League whose representatives corapose 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.

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