Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0388/03884.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 17KB | 292 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03884}
$Pretitle{444}
$Title{United States of America
Chapter 7A.   Conflict Abroad, Social Change at Home}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{United States Information Service}
$Affiliation{United States Government}
$Subject{american
war
wilson
government
states
peace
german
united
1920s
depression}
$Date{1991}
$Log{Destruction at Pearl Harbor*0388401.scf
}
Country:     United States of America
Book:        An Outline of American History
Author:      United States Information Service
Affiliation: United States Government
Date:        1991

Chapter 7A.   Conflict Abroad, Social Change at Home

[See Destruction at Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941.]

     "We must be the great arsenal of democracy."

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Message to Congress, January 6, 1941

     To the American public of 1914, the outbreak of war in Europe came as
a shock. At first the conflict seemed remote, but its economic and political
effects were soon felt. By 1915 American industry, which had been mildly
depressed, was prospering again with munitions orders from the western
Allies. Both sides were using propaganda to arouse public passions in
America, and both Britain and Germany were committing acts against American
shipping on the high seas that brought sharp protests from the Wilson
Administration. But disputes between America and Germany moved more and more
to the foreground.

     In February 1915, German military leaders announced that they would
destroy all merchantmen in the waters around the British Isles. President
Wilson warned that the United States would not forsake its traditional
right to trade on the high seas and declared that the nation would hold
Germany to "strict accountability" for the loss of American vessels or lives.
Soon afterward, in the spring of 1915, when the British liner Lusitania was
sunk with nearly 1,200 people aboard, 128 of them Americans, indignation
reached fever pitch.

     Wartime stresses made for inconsistencies in President Wilson's
policies. Although no American President has ever been more dedicated to
peace, Wilson, observing German ruthlessness, particularly in submarine
warfare, was convinced that a German victory would bring the dominance of
militarism in Europe and endanger American security.

     On May 4, 1916, the German government pledged that its submarine
warfare would be limited in accordance with American demands, and the
problem appeared to be solved. Wilson was able to win reelection that
year, partly on the strength of his party's slogan, "He kept us out of
war." In January 1917 in a speech before the Senate he called for a "peace
without victory," which, he said, was the only kind of peace that could last.

America Enters World War I

     Nine days later, the German government gave notice that unrestricted
submarine warfare would be resumed. On April 2, 1917, after five American
vessels had been sunk, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war.
Immediately the American government set about mobilizing its military
resources and its industry, labor, and agriculture. By October 1918, an
American army of over 1,750,000 soldiers was in France.

     The American navy was crucial in helping the British break the
submarine blockade, and in the summer of 1918, during a long-awaited
German offensive, fresh American troops played a decisive role on land.
In November, an American army of over a million took an important part in
the vast Meuse-Argonne offensive, which cracked the vaunted Hindenburg line.

     Wilson contributed greatly to an early conclusion of the war by
defining the war aims of the Allied powers, and by insisting that the
struggle was being waged not against the German people but against their
autocratic government. His famous Fourteen Points, submitted to the Senate
in January 1918 as the basis for a just peace, called for abandonment of
secret international understandings, a guarantee of freedom of the seas, the
removal of economic barriers between nations, reduction of national armaments,
and an adjustment of colonial claims with due regard to the interests of the
inhabitants affected. Other points sought to assure self-rule and unhampered
economic development for European nationalities. The Fourteen Points formed
the keystone of Wilson's arch of peace-the formation of an association of
nations to afford "mutual guarantees of political independence and
territorial integrity to great and small states alike."

     By the summer of 1918, when Germany's armies were being beaten back,
the German government appealed to Wilson to negotiate on the basis of the
Fourteen Points. After assuring himself that the request came from
representatives of the people rather than of the military clique, the
President conferred with the Allies, who acceded to the German proposal. On
this basis, an armistice was concluded on November 11.

Isolationism Follows Peace

     It was Wilson's hope that the final treaty would have the character of a
negotiated peace, but he feared that the passions aroused by the war would
cause his Allies to make severe demands. In this he was right. Persuaded that
his greatest hope for the peace of the world, the League of Nations, would
never be realized unless he made concessions to the Allies, he traded away
point after point in the peace negotiations at Paris. Some negative points
Wilson did accomplish: he denied Fiume to Italy, resisted Clemenceau's demand
to detach the entire Rhineland from Germany, prevented France from annexing
the Saar Basin, and frustrated a proposal to charge Germany with the whole
cost of the war.

     In the end, however, there was little left of his positive proposals for
a generous and lasting peace but the League itself, and Wilson had to endure
the final irony of seeing his own country spurn League membership. This
outcome was partly due to his own poor judgment at the time. He made the
political mistake of failing to take a leading member of the opposition
Republican Party to Paris on his Peace Commission, and when he returned to
appeal for American adherence to the League, he refused to make even the
moderate concessions necessary to win ratification from a predominantly
Republican Senate.

     Having lost in Washington, Wilson carried his case to the people on a
tour throughout the country. On September 25, 1919, physically ravaged by the
rigors of peace-making and the pressures of the wartime Presidency, he
suffered a crippling stroke at Pueblo, Colorado, from which he never
recovered. In March 1920, the Senate in its final vote rejected both the
Versailles Treaty and the League Covenant. From this point the United States
withdrew deeper and deeper into a posture of isolationism. The idealistic
mood passed with Wilson, and an era of apathy followed.

     In the presidential election of 1920, Wilson's own party nominated a man
who had not been associated prominently with the Wilson Administration,
Governor James M. Cox of Ohio. The overwhelming victory of the Republican
nominee, Warren G. Harding, was final evidence of the general repudiation of
Wilsonism. Although Harding had refused to commit himself clearly on the
League issue during the campaign, his foreign policy, and that of his
Republican successors, hewed generally to the isolationist line.

     This election was the first in which women throughout the nation voted
for a presidential candidate. During the war, Wilson had championed a federal
amendment to permit women to vote, for their great contributions to the war
effort had dramatized both their civic capacities and their right to the
ballot. In 1919, Congress submitted to the states the Nineteenth Amendment,
which was ratified in time to permit women to vote the following year.

Conservative Policies Prevail

     In keeping with the prevailing prosperity, at least in the urban areas of
the country, American governmental policy during the 1920s was eminently
conservative. It was based upon the belief that if government did what it
could to foster private business, prosperity