[Illustration: (C) _James Wm. Bryan_
March 5, 1916: Portrait of Mr. Wilson drawn in charcoal
by Miss Hattie E. Burdett, and considered by many as the
President's best likeness at the entrance of America
into the World War]
_Woodrow Wilson's Administration_
_Eight Years of the World's Greatest History_
Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office as President on March 4, 1913,
after one of the most sweeping triumphs ever known in Presidential
elections. Factional war in the Republican Party had given him 435
electoral votes in the preceding November, to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's
8; and though he was a "minority President," he had had a popular
plurality of more than 2,000,000 over Roosevelt and nearly 3,000,000
over Taft.
Moreover, the party which was coming back into control of the
Government after sixteen years of wandering in the wilderness had a
majority of five in the Senate and held more than two-thirds of the
seats in the lower house. With the opposition divided into two wings,
which hated each other at the moment more than they hated the
Democrats, the party seemed to have a fairly clear field for the
enactment of those sweeping reforms which large elements of the public
had been demanding for more than a decade.
With this liberalism, which was not disturbed at being called
radicalism, Mr. Wilson in his public career had been consistently
identified. During his long service as a university professor and
President he had been brought to the attention of a steadily growing
public by his books and speeches on American political problems, in
which he had spoken the thoughts which in those years were in the minds
of millions of Americans on the need for reforms to lessen those
contacts between great business interests and the Government which had
existed, now weaker and now stronger, ever since the days of Mark
Hanna.
The ideas of Mr. Wilson as to governmental reform, to be sure, went
further than those of many of his followers, and took a different
direction from the equally radical notions of others. An avowed admirer
of the system of government which gives to the Cabinet the direction of
legislation and makes it responsible to the Legislature and the people
for its policies, he had been writing for years on the desirability of
introducing some of the elements of that system into the somewhat rigid
framework of the American Government, and in his brief experience in
politics had put into practice his theory that the Executive, even
under American constitutional forms, not only could but should be the
active director of the policy of the dominant party in legislation as
well. But a public addicted to hero worship, little concerned with
questions of governmental machinery, and inclined to believe that
certain parts of the work of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had
been accomplished under divine inspiration, had comparatively little
interest in the Wilson concepts of reform in political methods. They
regarded him, in the language of those days, as a champion of the
"plain people" against "the interests." They had seen in his long
struggle with antagonistic influences in Princeton University--a
struggle from which he retired defeated, but made famous and prepared
for wider fields by the publicity which he had won by the conflict--a
sort of miniature representation of this antithesis between the people
and big business and they had learned to regard Mr. Wilson as a fighter
for democratic principles against aristocratic tendencies and the money
power.
This reputation he had vastly expanded during his two years as Governor
of New Jersey. His term had been distinguished not only by the passage
of a number of reform measures consonant with the liberal ideas of the
period, but by a spectacular struggle between the Governor and an
old-time machine of his own party--the very machine which had nominated
him. In this fight, as in his conflict at Princeton, he had been for a
time defeated, but here again the fight itself had made him famous and
won him a hundred supporters outside of his own State for every one he
lost at home.
At the very outset of his term, he had entered, against all precedent,
into the fight in the Legislature over a Senatorial election. Demanding
that the Legislature keep faith with the people, who in a preferential
primary had designated a candidate for United States Senator who did
not command the support of the organization, he had won his fight on
this particular issue and set himself before the public as a sort of
tribune of the people who conceived it his duty to interpose his
influence wherever other officials showed a tendency to disregard the
popular will.
In the legislative fight for the enactment of reform legislation, too,
the Governor had continually intervened in the character of "lobbyist
for the people," and while the opposition of the old political
organization, which he had aroused in the fight for the Senatorship,
had partially halted the progress of this program, the great triumph in
November, 1912, had returned a Legislature so strong in support of the
Governor that before he left Trenton for Washington practically all of
the measures included in his scheme had become laws. Mr. Wilson, then,
was known to the country not only as a reformer but as a successful
reformer; and his victories over the professional politicians of the
old school had removed most of the latent fear of the ineffectuality of
a scholar in politics. In point of fact, the chief interest of this
particular scholar had always lain in politics, and it was partly
chance and partly economic determinism that had diverted him in early
life from the practice of politics to the teaching of its principles
and history.
Abroad, where his election was received with general satisfaction, he
was still regarded as the scholar in politics, for a Europe always
inclined to exaggerate the turpitude of professional politicians in
America liked to see in him the first fruits of them that slept, the
pioneer of the better classes of American society coming at last into
politics to clean up the wreckage made by ward bosses and financial
interests. Scarcely any American President ever took office amid so
much approbation from the leading organs of European opinion.
His radicalism caused no great concern abroad and was regarded with
apprehension only in limited circles at home--and even here the
apprehension was more over the return to power of the Democratic Party
than on account of specific fears based on the character of the
President-elect. The business depression of 1913 and 1914 would
probably have been inevitable upon the inauguration of any Democratic
President, particularly one pledged to the carrying out of extensive
alterations in the commercial system of the country. For in 1912 Wilson
had been in effect the middle-of-the-road candidate, the conservative
liberal. Most of the wild men had followed Roosevelt, and the most
conservative business circles felt at least some relief that there had
been no re-entry into the White House of the Rough Rider, with a gift
for stinging phrases and a cohort of followers in which the lunatic
fringe was disproportionately large and unusually ragged.
So Woodrow Wilson entered the Presidential office under conditions
which in some respects were exceptionally favorable. His situation was
in reality, however, considerably less satisfactory than it seemed. To
begin with, he was, in spite of everything, a minority President and
the representative of a minority party. He had even, during a good part
of the Baltimore Convention, been a minority candidate for the
nomination. If the two wings of the Republicans should during the
ensuing Administration succeed in burying their differences and coming
together once more, the odds were in favor of their success in 1916.
Moreover, the Democrats were definitely expected to do something.
Dissatisfaction with the general influence of financial interests in
public life, a dissatisfaction which had gradually concentrated on the
protective tariff as the chief weapon of those interests, had been
growing for years past. In 1908 a public aroused by Roosevelt but
afraid of Bryan had decided to trust the Republican Party to undo its
own work, and the answer of the party had been the Payne-Aldrich
tariff. That tariff broke the Republican Party in two and paved the way
for the return of Roosevelt; it had also, in 1910, given the Democrats
the control of the House of Representatives.
Now, at last the Democrats had full control of both Legislature and
Executive, and the country expected them to do something: unreasonably,
it was at the same time rather afraid that they would do something. To
do something but not too much, to meet the popular demands without
destroying the economic well-being which the Republican ascendency had
undoubtedly promoted, to insure a better distribution of wealth without
crippling the production of wealth--this was the problem of a President
who had had only two years in public life, and most of whose assistants
would have to be chosen from men almost without executive experience.
The chief peculiarity of President Wilson's political position lay in a
theory of American Government which had first come to him in his
undergraduate days at Princeton and which had been steadily developing
ever since. That theory, briefly, was that the American Constitution
permitted, and the practical development of American politics should
have compelled, the President to act not only as Chief of State but as
Premier--as the active head of the majority party, personally
responsible to the people for the execution of the program of
legislation laid down in that party's platform. Fanciful as it had
seemed when first put forward by him many years before, that concept of
the Presidency was now, perhaps for the first time, within the reach of
practical realization.
Dissatisfaction with the general secrecy and irresponsibility of
Congressional committees which had charge of the direction of
legislation, in so far as there was any direction, had been growing for
years; and an incident of the revolt against the Payne-Aldrich tariff
and the break in the Republican Party had been the internal revolution
in the House of Representatives, taking away from the Speaker the power
of controlling legislation which he had for some time enjoyed, and
which would have been a serious obstacle to Presidential leadership
such as Wilson had in mind. Moreover, the activity of Cleveland and
Roosevelt had shown the public that even in time of peace an energetic
President had a much wider field of action than most Presidents had
attempted to cover, and the more recent example of Taft had increased
the demand for a President who would act, would not leave action to
those men around him who "knew exactly what they wanted."
_Early Accomplishments of Administration_
_Underwood-Simmons tariff, establishing the lowest average of
duties in seventy-five years, enacted October 3, 1913._
_Federal Reserve act, organizing the banking system and stabilizing
the currency, December 23, 1913._
_Clayton Anti-Trust law._
_Creation of Federal Trade Commission._
_Repeal of Panama Canal tolls exemption._
_End of dollar diplomacy._
_Negotiation of a treaty (never ratified) with Colombia to satisfy
the Colombian claim in Panama._
There were, however, two great obstacles to the operation of Mr.
Wilson's theory. The first was constitutional. In Europe the Premier
who directs the legislative policy of the Government is answerable not
only in Parliament but to the people whenever his policy has ceased, or
seems to have ceased, to command public confidence. The President of
the United States finishes out his term, no matter how bad his
relations with Congress or how general his unpopularity among the
people. The check upon his leadership, as Mr. Wilson presently
realized, could come only at the end of his term, when the President as
a candidate for re-election came before the public for approval or
rejection. So, even before his first inauguration, Mr. Wilson had
written to A. Mitchell Palmer, then a Congressman, expressing
disapproval, quite aside from any personal connection with the issue,
of the proposal to restrict the President to a single term. That had
been a plank in the Democratic platform of the year before; already it
was apparent that this phase of the party's program would have to be
sacrificed in order to make the party leader responsible in the true
sense for the program as a whole. But that plank had not been seriously
intended, and by 1916 the march of events had made it a dead letter.
A more serious difficulty, in March, 1913, lay in the fact that the
President was not the party leader. There was an enormous amount of
Wilson sentiment over the country, and there were many enthusiastic
Wilson men; but a good many of these were of the old mugwump type, or
men who had hitherto held aloof from politics. In 1912, as later in
1917 and 1918, there was seen the anomaly of a leader who was himself
an orthodox and often narrow partisan, yet drew most of his support
from independent elements or even from the less firmly organized
portions of the opposition. And not only were most of the Wilson men
independents or political amateurs; a still greater stumbling block lay
in the fact that very few of them had been elected to office. In the
great Democratic landslide of 1912 the Democrats who had got on the
payroll were mostly the old party wheel-horses who had been lingering
in the outer darkness of opposition for sixteen years past, or more or
less permanent representatives of the Solid South.
In so far as the party had a leader at that time, it was Bryan. Bryan
had played the leading part in the Baltimore Convention. If he had not
exactly nominated Wilson, he had at least done more than anybody else
to destroy Wilson's chief competitors. There were not enough Bryan men
in the country to elect Bryan, not even enough Bryan men in the party
to nominate Bryan a fourth time; but there were enough Bryan Democrats
to ruin the policy of the incoming President if he did not conciliate
Bryan with extreme care.
So the first efforts of the new Administration had to be a compromise
between what Wilson wanted and what Bryan would permit. This was seen
first of all in the composition of the Cabinet, which Bryan himself
headed as Secretary of State. Josephus Daniels, who as Secretary of the
Navy was to be one of the principal targets of criticism for the next
eight years, was also a Bryan man. Of the "Wilson men" of the campaign,
William G. McAdoo was chosen as Secretary of the Treasury, not without
some grave misgivings as to his ability, which were not subsequently
justified by his conduct of the office. The rest of the Cabinet was
notable chiefly for the presence of three men from Texas, a State whose
prominence reflected not only its growing importance and its fidelity
to the party but also the influence of Colonel Edward Mandell House, a
private citizen who had risen from making Governors at Austin to take a
prominent part in the making of a President in 1912. At the beginning
of the Administration and throughout almost all of President Wilson's
tenure of office he was the President's most influential adviser, a
sort of super-Minister and Ambassador in general; and his position from
the first caused a certain amount of heartburning among the politicians
who resented this prominence of an outsider who had never held office.
Perhaps because many of his official aids and assistants were more or
less imposed upon him, the President showed from the first a tendency
to rely on personal agents and unofficial advisers. And this was to
become more prominent as the years passed, as new issues arose of which
no one would have dreamed in the Spring of 1913, issues for which the
ordinary machinery and practice of American Government were but little
prepared.
For the eight years which began on March 4, 1913, were to be wholly
unlike any previous period in American history. An Administration
chosen wholly in view of domestic problems was to find itself chiefly
engaged with foreign relations of unexampled complexity and importance.
The passionate issues of 1912 were soon to be forgotten. Generally
speaking, the dominant questions before the American people in 1912 and
1913 were about the same as in 1908, or 1904, or even earlier. But from
1914 on every year brought a changed situation in which the issues of
the previous year had already been crowded out of attention by new and
more pressing problems.
No American President except Lincoln had ever been concerned with
matters of such vital importance to the nation; and not even Lincoln
had had to deal with a world so complex and so closely interrelated
with the United States. Washington, Jefferson and Madison had to guide
the country through the complications caused by a great world war; but
the nation which they led was small and obscure, concerned only in
keeping out of trouble as long as it could. The nation which Wilson
ruled was a powerful State whose attitude from the very first was of
supreme importance to both sides. And the issues raised by the war
pushed into the background questions which had seemed important in
1913--and which, when the war was over, became important once more.
None of this, of course, could have been predicted on March 4, 1913. A
new man with a new method had been elected President and intrusted with
the meeting of certain pressing domestic problems. At the moment the
public was more interested in the man than in his method; and not till
the crisis had been successfully passed did popular attention
concentrate on the manner of accomplishment rather than on the things
accomplished.
_Problems at Home, 1913-1914_
One of the passages of President Wilson's inaugural address contained a
list of "the things that ought to be altered," which included:
A tariff which cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of
the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the
Government a facile instrument in the hands of private interests; a
banking and currency system based upon the necessity of the
Government to sell its bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted
to concentrating cash and restricting credits; an industrial system
which, take it on all sides, financial as well as administrative,
holds capital in leading strings, restricts the liberties and
limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits without renewing or
conserving the natural resources of the country; a body of
agricultural activities never yet given the efficiency of great
business undertakings or served as it should be through the
instrumentality of science taken directly to the farm, or afforded
the facilities of credit best suited to its practical needs.
The items had been set down in the order of their immediate importance.
First came the tariff, for the tariff had come to be in the minds of
many Americans a symbol of the struggle between the "plain people" and
"the interests." The Payne-Aldrich tariff, enacted by a party pledged
to tariff revision, had been not only an injury but an insult, and if
any American Presidential election could ever be interpreted as a
popular referendum on any specific policy the election of 1912 meant
that the Payne-Aldrich tariff must be revised. At the time of the
enactment of that bill Mr. Wilson had written a critical article in
_The North American Review_ which expressed a widespread popular
sentiment in its criticism of "the policy of silence and secrecy"
prevalent in the committee rooms when this and other tariffs had been
drawn up and a demand for procedure in the open where the public could
find out exactly who wanted what and why. Joined with this objection to
the methods of tariff making were some observations by Mr. Wilson on
the principles of tariff revision. He saw and said that a complete
return to a purely revenue tariff was not then possible even if
desirable, and that the immediate objective of tariff reform should be
the adjustment of rates so as to permit competition and thereby
necessitate efficiency of operation.
The ideas which in March, 1909, were merely the criticism of a college
professor had become in March, 1913, the program of the President of
the United States, the leader of the majority party, determined to get
his program enacted into law. Congress was convened in special session
on April 7, and the President delivered a message on the one topic of
the tariff. Going back to the precedent of Washington and Adams, broken
by Jefferson and never resumed again, he read his message in person to
the Congress as if to emphasize the intimate connection between the
Executive and legislation which was to be a feature of the new
Administration. The principle of tariff reform laid down in that bill
was a practical and not a theoretical consideration, the need of ending
an industrial situation fostered by high tariffs wherein "nothing is
obliged to stand the tests of efficiency and economy in our world of
big business, but everything thrives by concerted agreement.... The
object of the tariff duties henceforth laid must be effective
competition, the whetting of American wits by contest with the wits of
the world."
The measure which Democratic leaders had already prepared for that
purpose and which eventually became known as the Underwood-Simmons Act
was intended to accomplish its end only gradually. Notoriously
outrageous schedules of the Payne-Aldrich Act, such as that dealing
with wool, were heavily reduced, and the general purport of the bill is
perhaps expressed in the phrase of Professor Taussig, that it was "the
beginning of a policy of much moderated protection." It went through
the House without much difficulty, passing on May 8, and then it struck
the Senate committee rooms, from which no tariff bill had ever emerged
quite as innocent as it entered. The usual expeditionary forces of
lobbyists concentrated in Washington and the Senate talked it over,
while Summer came on and Washington grew hotter and hotter. In course
of time Senators began to come to the President and tell him that it
was hopeless to get the bill through at that session and that
Washington was getting pretty hot. The President replied that he knew
it was hot, but that Congress would have to stay there till that bill
was passed. Already he had given the lower house something to keep it
busy while the Senate wrestled with the tariff.
As for the lobby, the President had his own method of dealing with
that. On May 26 he issued a public statement calling attention to the
"extraordinary exertions" of lobbyists in connection with the tariff.
"The newspapers are being filled," he said, "with paid advertisements
calculated to mislead not only the judgment of the public men, but also
the public opinion of the country itself. There is every evidence that
money without limit is being spent to maintain this lobby.... It is of
serious interest to the country that the people at large should have no
lobby and be voiceless in these matters, while the great bodies of
astute men seek to create an artificial opinion and to overcome the
interests of the public for their private profit." The outraged dignity
of Senators and Representatives, not to mention lobbyists, rose to
protest against this declaration. A Republican Senator even declared
that the President, who had been actively urging his views on
legislators just as he had done in New Jersey, was himself the chief
lobbyist in connection with the Tariff Bill. A Senate Committee was
appointed to find out if there had been any lobbying, and discovered
that there had. Meanwhile the bill was being argued out in the Senate,
and the President stood firm against any substantial modification. It
was finally passed on Oct. 3.
It was a vindication of the platform promise and a fulfillment of the
duty with which the party had been charged in the last election, and it
was a notable triumph for the personal policy of the President-Premier,
who more than anybody else had literally forced the bill through
Congress. The tariff had taken such a prominent place in the fight
against business influence in the Government that the passage of a bill
which made a material reduction in rates was a moral victory for
progressivism at large, and for President Wilson in particular.
The actual effect of the tariff, or rather the actual effect that it
might have had, is something impossible to estimate at this time.
Before it had been in operation a year, before the country had had a
chance to study the new conditions brought in by the legislation of the
first year of the Wilson Administration, the war broke out in Europe.
The conditions which had prevailed through half a century of tariff
making had ceased to exist. They have not yet returned. A subsidiary
feature of the Underwood-Simmons Act, however, was to attain enormous
importance in the course of the Wilson Administrations. To supply the
deficiency in revenue which the lowered duties might be expected to
produce there was added an income tax law, which had recently been
permitted by constitutional amendment. Even the light duties of the
first year, with their $3,000 exemption, were denounced by
conservatives as a rich man's tax; but within four years more the
exemption was to be lowered to $1,000, and the peak of the tax raised
to tenfold its original height.
So long as the Wilson Administration was reducing the tariff, it was
carrying out the traditional policy of the Democratic Party; but the
next task which the President laid before Congress was much more
delicate and much more important. As the event showed, the result was
to be of infinitely greater benefit to the nation. Reform of the
currency had long been an evident necessity, and the panic of 1907 had
recently called attention to the dangers of the system based on
emergency measures of the Civil War period. Mr. Wilson himself had said
much of the necessity of freeing business from unnatural restrictions,
among which the makeshift currency system was included. During the
previous Administration Senator Aldrich's plan for a centralized
reserve bank had been widely discussed, and innumerable modifications
had been suggested. Democratic leaders were already working on plans
for currency reform when the new Administration came in, and on June 26
a bill was introduced in the House by Carter Glass and in the Senate by
Robert L. Owen.
It took six months of hard work to get this adopted, but it was a
marvelous achievement to get it adopted at all. For a large faction of
the Democratic Party, including its most influential leader, still
represented the old hostility to the "money power," which regarded the
overthrow of the United States Bank as the great triumph of the
American Democracy. The Glass-Owen bill differed from Senator Aldrich's
scheme largely in the direction of decentralization and giving more
control to the Government and less to the banks, but, even so, it was a
suspicious document to those numerous Democrats whose economic ideas
were obtained from the Greenback and Populist Parties of former years.
And it was not satisfactory to the majority of the articulate bankers
of the country, who wanted a central bank instead of the regional
division of the reserve functions, and who thought that the banks
should have a good deal to say about appointments to the Federal
Reserve Board.
As late as the beginning of December there were still three separate
bills before Congress, but the party organization under the
President-Premier held together, and on December 23 the Glass-Owen
Bill, with some modifications acquired en route, was signed by the
President. The pressure on the White House during that struggle was
perhaps the hardest which President Wilson encountered during his
entire eight years. Many an honest Democrat thought the fundamental
principles of the party were being betrayed, and many a Senator or
Representative who regarded the reserve banks with profound alarm felt,
nevertheless, that if the iniquitous things were going to be
established there ought to be one in his home town. When Paul M.
Warburg, a Wall Street banker, was appointed as one of the members of
the Federal Reserve Board, there were more protests from politicians
who professed to believe that the nation was being delivered over to
the money power, while the complaints of bankers who thought that the
banks were being given over to politicians had not yet died down. But
when the act once went into operation criticism almost disappeared; and
in the course of a few months the unprecedented financial strain
attendant on the outbreak of the European war made it plain to almost
anybody that without this timely reform of the banking system 1914
would have seen a disaster far worse than that of 1907.
The work of "striking the shackles off business" was continued in 1914
by the introduction of bills to carry out the President's
recommendations for prohibiting interlocking directorates, clarifying
the anti-trust laws, establishing an Interstate Trade Commission, and
supervising the issue of railroad securities. The chief results of this
discussion were the creation of the Trade Commission, a body of which
much more was expected at the time than it has accomplished, and the
passage of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which exempted farmers'
combinations and labor unions from the anti-trust laws, and wrote into
the statutes the declaration that labor is not a commodity. The La
Follette Seamen's Bill, drawn by Andrew Furuseth of the Seamen's Union,
was introduced in 1913 and not enacted until much later. Its friends
declared that it would at least establish decent living conditions for
sailors, and its opponents, including nearly all the shipping
interests, asserted that, so long as foreign ship owners were not under
similar restrictions, the bill would ruin the American Merchant Marine.
Of the actual workings of this law there has really been no fair test,
as conditions which arose during the war unsettled the entire shipping
situation.
The domestic program of the first year and a half of the Wilson
Administration comprised, then a long-needed and immeasurably valuable
reform of the banking and currency system, a revised tariff, which was
at least a technical victory for Democratic principles, and a number of
minor measures which seem less important in retrospect than they did at
the time. The program neither completely unshackled business nor opened
the door to a new era of cooperation and human brotherhood, but it was
a large and on the whole decidedly creditable accomplishment, and it
was above all the work of President Wilson, who had led the fight that
carried the Administration measures through Congress, quite as any
Prime Minister might have done. He had not done it without exposing
himself to severe criticism. Ex-Senator Winthrop Murray Crane, for
example, declared that he had "virtually obliterated Congress." But he
had got most of what he wanted, and by the end of his first year in
office Mr. Bryan was no longer the most powerful individual in the
Democratic Party.
_Foreign Policies, 1913-1914_
In _The North American Review_ for March, 1913, edited by Colonel
George Harvey, the original Wilson man, who had mentioned Wilson as a
Presidential possibility back in 1904, when such a suggestion was
regarded as only a playful eccentricity, who had begun to work hard for
him in 1911, and who had finally been asked by Wilson himself to give
up his activity because the connection of one of Harvey's magazines
with J. P. Morgan & Co. was hurting Wilson in the West--there appeared
an article entitled "Jefferson--Wilson: A Record and a Forecast." It
consisted of eight pages of quotations from Wilson's "History of the
American People," dealing with the beginning of Jefferson's
Administration. The reader's attention was arrested by the startling
parallel between the division in the Federalist Party and the quarrel
between Hamilton and Adams that facilitated Jefferson's election, and
the situation which led to Wilson's victory in November, 1912. Wilson,
writing a dozen years before the fight between Taft and Roosevelt, had
unconsciously drawn a parallel closer perhaps than the facts warranted;
and the reader who had been attracted by this similarity read on into
Wilson's characterization of Jefferson an introduction to the
achievements of his Administration with a growing hope--if he happened
to be a Wilson man--that after as before election Wilson's record would
duplicate Jefferson's.
Colonel Harvey was as good a prophet in 1913 as in 1904. Wilson's
achievement in domestic affairs in the first year of his Administration
was not likely to suffer much by comparison with Jefferson's. But it
could not have crossed anybody's mind in March, 1913, that
complications of international politics such as had almost ruined the
country under Jefferson would in the latter part of Wilson's first term
expose him to as much criticism as Jefferson, and for the same reasons.
America was still new as a world power, but was beginning to feel more
at home. In Taft's Administration, with Philander C. Knox as Secretary
of State, there had been for the first time the beginnings of what
might fairly be called a consistent foreign policy. True, it was not a
very lofty policy, nor was it by any means generally approved in
America. It was called by its friends "dollar diplomacy," meaning the
promotion of American commercial interests by diplomatic agencies. It
had been exemplified principally in Central America, where its
operations had not always commanded admiration, and in China, where
Knox had made a well-intentioned but not very skillful effort to
prevent the absorption of Manchuria by Russia and Japan.
_Landmarks in Wilson's Mexican Policy_
_Program for armistice and elections to end civil war, August,
1913._
_"Watchful waiting," 1913-14._
_Capture of Vera Cruz, April 21, 1914._
_A B C mediation, April 25, 1914._
_Flight of Huerta, July, 1914._
_Recognition of Carranza, September, 1915._
_Villa's raid on Columbus and Pershing's expedition into Mexico,
March, 1916._
_Flight and death of Carranza, May, 1920._
However primitive this organization of foreign policy, none the less
Taft and Knox had taken a great step forward in the improvement of
American diplomatic machinery. The diplomatic service and the State
Department were beginning to be regarded as two parts of the same
agency, and for the first time diplomacy had begun to be a career with
possibilities. The practice of promoting able young secretaries to
chiefs of legation, begun by Roosevelt, had been widely extended by
Taft; and though the highest posts were still filled by wealthy
amateurs it seemed that at last the American diplomatic service offered
some attraction to an ambitious man. It was the general expectation in
Europe and still more in America that President Wilson, who by training
and inclination might be expected to approve of the elevation of
standards in the diplomatic service, would continue and extend this
work. Instead of that, he undid it, or rather permitted it to be
undone.
Mr. Bryan had of necessity been made Secretary of State, and it may be
supposed that there was equal necessity for opening up the diplomatic
service as a happy hunting ground for the Bryan men--"deserving
Democrats," as Mr. Bryan called them in a famous letter. The chief
European posts, to which the Taft Administration had not begun to apply
the merit system, were filled chiefly by Mr. Wilson's own nominees.
These included several well-known men of letters, and with one or
two exceptions the amateur diplomats serving as the heads of the
missions in Europe did satisfactory and even brilliant service
under the unprecedented strain which the war brought on them. The
service in Latin America, however, which Knox had almost entirely
professionalized, was given over bodily to personal followers of Bryan.
In what was in 1913 perhaps the most important of our diplomatic posts,
the embassy to Mexico, Mr. Wilson was compelled to rely provisionally
on Henry Lane Wilson, a holdover appointee from the previous
Administration.
It was soon made clear that there was to be no more dollar diplomacy.
The Knox policies in Central America were dropped--although American
troops continued to dominate Nicaragua--and in 1914 the Administration
successfully discouraged American participation in a six-power loan to
China. The Russo-Japanese absorption of Manchuria was to be treated as
the accomplished fact that it was; and in general the policy of the new
Administration was anything but aggressive. It would not use diplomacy
to advance American commercial interests, nor was it prepared to accept
the assistance of American financiers in promoting the policies of
diplomacy.
But it was evident from the outset that the most quiescent foreign
policy could not prevent foreign complications. Growing anti-Japanese
sentiment in California led to the passage of a State law against
Japanese land holdings. There was much resentment in Japan, and protest
was made to the Federal Government. Mr. Bryan, as Secretary of State,
had to make a personal trip to Sacramento to intercede with the
Californians; and at one time (May, 1913) military men appeared to feel
that the situation was extremely delicate. But the crisis passed over,
the Californians modified the law, and though in its amended form it
suited neither the Californians nor the Japanese, the issue remained in
the background during the more urgent years of the war. Toward the very
end of the Wilson Administration it was to come back into prominence.
Another question which caused much disturbance to the new
Administration was the question of Panama Canal tolls. An act passed in
1912 had exempted American coastwise shipping passing through the canal
from the tolls assessed on other vessels, and the British Government
had protested against this on the ground that it violated the
Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901, which had stipulated that the canal
should be open to the vessels of all nations "on terms of entire
equality." Other nations than England had an interest in this question,
and there was a suspicion that some of them were even more keenly if
not more heavily interested; but England took the initiative and the
struggle to save the exemption was turned, in the United States, into a
demonstration by the Irish, Germans and other anti-British elements.
Innate hostility to England, the coastwise shipping interests, formed
the backbone of the opposition to any repeal of this exemption, but the
Taft Administration had held that the exemption did not conflict with
the treaty (on the ground that the words "all nations" meant all
nations except the United States), and British opposition to the
fortification of the canal, as well as the attitude of a section of the
British press during the Canadian elections of 1911, had created a
distrust of British motives which was heightened by the conviction of
many that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty had been a bad bargain.
It was understood early in President Wilson's Administration that he
believed the exemption was in violation of the treaty, but not until
October did he make formal announcement that he intended to ask
Congress to repeal it. The question did not come into the foreground,
however, until March 5, 1914, when the President addressed this request
to Congress in ominous language, which to this day remains unexplained.
"No communication I addressed to Congress," he said, "has carried with
it more grave and far-reaching implications to the interests of the
country." After expressing his belief that the law as it stood violated
the treaty and should be repealed as a point of honor, he continued: "I
ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the Administration.
I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater
delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it to me in
ungrudging measure."
It has been most plausibly suggested that this obscure language had
reference to the Mexican situation, which a few weeks later was to lead
to the occupation of Vera Cruz. The European powers were known to be
much displeased at the continuing disturbances in Mexico and the
American policy of "watchful waiting," and the belief has been
expressed that repeal of the exemption was a step to get British
support for continued forbearance with Mexico. Other critics have seen
a reference to the unsettled issues with Japan and a fear that England
might give more aggressive support to her ally if the tolls question
were left unsettled. The attempt of a writer of biography to maintain
that even in March, 1914, the President and Colonel House foresaw the
European war and wanted to arrange our own international relations by
way of precaution has been generally received with polite skepticism.
At any rate, the President's intervention in the question, against the
advice of his most trusted political counselors, brought down on him a
shower of personal abuse from Irish organs and from the group of
newspapers which presently were to appear as the chief supporters of
Germany. The arguments against the repeal were unusually bitter, and
even though Elihu Root took his stand beside the President and against
the recent Republican Administration, partisan criticism seized upon
the opening. Nevertheless the tolls exemption was repealed in June, and
events of July and August gave a certain satisfaction to those who had
stood for the sanctity of treaties.
As a part of what might be called the general deflation of overseas
entanglements, the new Administration brought about a material change
in the treatment of the Philippines. From the beginning great changes
were made in the personnel of the Philippines Commission and of the
Administration of the country. Many American officials were replaced by
Filipinos, but the separatist agitation in the islands was not much
allayed by the extension of self-government. In October, 1914, the
Jones Bill, which practically promised independence "as soon as a
stable government shall have been established," was passed by the House
of Representatives, but Republican opposition was strengthened by those
who remembered Bryan's anti-imperialism in 1900 and by the supporters
of a strong policy in the Pacific. This issue, like others of the early
period, came back into greater prominence in the last years of the
second Wilson Administration, when war issues were temporarily disposed
of.
A specially conciliatory policy toward Latin America was one of the
chief characteristics of the early period of the Administration. At the
Southern Commercial Congress in Mobile, on October 27, 1913, the
President declared that "the United States will never seek one
additional foot of territory by conquest;" a statement which was
understood in direct relation to the demand for intervention in Mexico,
and which had a very considerable effect on public sentiment in Central
and South America. The passing of "dollar diplomacy," too, was
generally satisfactory to Latin America, and, though Mr. Bryan's
inexperienced diplomats made a good many blunders and could not help,
as a rule, being compared unfavorably with the professionals who had
held the Latin-American posts in the previous Administration, the
general policy of Wilson created much more confidence in the other two
Americas than did the spasmodic aggressiveness of Roosevelt or the
commercialized diplomacy of Taft.
One specific attempt was made to heal a sore spot left by Roosevelt in
relations with Latin America by the new Administration. Negotiations
with Colombia to clear up the strained situation left by the revolution
in Panama had been under way in the Taft Administration, but had come
to nothing. Under Wilson they were resumed, and on April 7, 1914, a
treaty was signed by which the United States was to pay to Colombia a
compensation of $25,000,000 for Colombian interests in the Isthmus. The
treaty further contained a declaration that the Government of the
United States expressed its "sincere regret for anything that may have
happened to disturb the relations" between the two countries, and this
suggestion of an apology for Roosevelt's action in 1903 roused the
violent hostility of Republicans and Progressives. The opposition was
so strong that in spite of repeated efforts the Administration could
never get the treaty ratified by the Senate; but the undoubtedly
sincere efforts of the Executive had of themselves a considerable
effect in mollifying the suspicions of Latin America.
But all problems south of the Isthmus were insignificant compared with
the difficulties in Mexico which had begun with the Madero Revolution
against Diaz in 1910. Just at the close of the Taft Administration
Madero had been overthrown and killed by Huerta, who then ruled in
Mexico City and was recognized by England and Germany in the Spring of
1913. Villa and Carranza were in arms against Huerta in the north,
calling themselves the champions of the Constitution; Orozoco and
Zapata were in arms against everybody in the south; foreign life and
property were unsafe everywhere except in the largest cities. The
demand for intervention, which had been strong ever since the troubles
began, was increasing in 1913. Huerta professed to be holding office
only until a peaceful election could determine the will of the nation,
but the date of that peaceful election had to be constantly put off.
The embargo on shipments of arms from the United States still existed,
preventing Huerta from supplying his troops; but there was a good deal
of smuggling to the revolutionary armies in the north. Of the
interventionists some wanted intervention against Huerta and some
wanted intervention for Huerta; and the pressure of economic interests
in Mexico was complicating all phases of the situation.
From the first President Wilson had expressed his disapproval of the
methods by which Huerta had attained office. Ambassador Wilson, on the
other hand, thought that Huerta ought to be supported, and when his
policy did not commend itself to the President he resigned in August,
1913. But already the President had been getting information about
Mexico from extra-official sources. His first envoy was William Bayard
Hale, author of one of his campaign biographies. Ambassador Wilson was
virtually replaced in August by another special representative, John
Lind, who carried to Huerta the proposals of President Wilson for
solution of the Mexican problem. They included a definite armistice, a
general election in which Huerta should not be a candidate, and the
agreement of all parties to obey the Government chosen by this
election, which would be recognized by the United States. Huerta
refused and presently dissolved Congress. When the elections were
finally held on October 2 Huerta won, and there was no doubt that he
would have won no matter how the voting had happened to go.
The President's program for Mexican reform, it may be said, was not as
evidently impracticable in 1913 as it seems in retrospect. It was
widely criticised at the time, and the phrase "watchful waiting" which
he invented as a description of his Mexican Policy was made the object
of much ridicule. Throughout the first winter of the new Administration
the American Government was apparently waiting for something to happen
to Huerta or for Huerta to reform, and President Wilson several times
sharply criticised the actions of the Mexican dictator. But Huerta did
not reform and nothing sufficient happened to him; it began to look as
if watchful waiting might continue indefinitely when a trivial incident
furnished the last straw.
A boatload of American sailors from the warships anchored off Tampico
to protect American citizens had been arrested by the Mexican military
authorities. They were released, with apologies, but Admiral Mayo
demanded a salute to the American flag by way of additional amends, and
when Huerta showed a disposition to argue the matter the Atlantic Fleet
was (April 14, 1914) ordered to Mexican waters. A week later, as
negotiations had failed to produce the salute, the President asked
Congress to give him authority to use the armed forces of the United
States "against Victoriano Huerta." There was much criticism of the
policy which had endured serious material injuries for more than a year
to threaten force at last because of a technical point of honor, and
besides those who did not want war at all the President found himself
opposed by many Congressmen who thought that the personal attack on
Huerta was rather undignified, and that the President should have asked
for a downright declaration of war.
While Congress was debating the resolution the American naval forces
(on April 21) seized the Vera Cruz Custom House to prevent the landing
of a munition cargo from a German ship. This led to sharp fighting and
the occupation of the entire city. General Funston with a division of
regulars was sent to relieve the naval landing parties; and war seemed
inevitable. Even the Mexican revolutionaries showed a tendency to
prefer Huerta to the intervention of the United States. But on April 25
the Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Chile proposed mediation,
which Wilson and Huerta promptly accepted. A conference met at Niagara
Falls, Ontario, and through May and June endeavored to reach a
settlement not only between the United States and Mexico, but between
the various Mexican factions. The President was still attempting to
carry out his policy of August, 1913, and the chief obstacle was not
Huerta, but Carranza, who had refused to consent to an armistice and
for a long time would not send delegates to Niagara Falls. Meanwhile
Huerta made one concession after another. Watchful waiting had indeed
ruined him; for President Wilson's opposition had made it impossible
for him to get any money in Europe--and in the early part of 1914 some
European nations would still have considered Mexico a good risk.
Moreover, from February to April the embargo on arms had been lifted,
and the Constitutionalists armies in the north, munitioned from the
United States, were steadily conquering the country. On July 15 Huerta
resigned, and soon afterward sailed for Spain; and on August 20
Carranza entered Mexico City.
Despite the criticism that had been heaped on the President's handling
of the Tampico-Vera Cruz affair, he had got rid of Huerta without
getting into war. A still more important consequence, the full effect
of which was not immediately apparent, was the enormous increase in the
confidence felt by Latin America in the good intentions of the Wilson
Administration. The acceptance of A-B-C mediation in 1914 made possible
the entry of most of the Latin-American powers into the European War in
1917 as allies of the United States. And for a time it was to appear as
if this had been about the only tangible profit of the episode; for
Carranza presently proved almost as troublesome as Huerta. The Fall of
1914 saw the outbreak of a new civil war between Villa and Carranza, in
which Zapata, Villa's ally, for a long time held Mexico City. Obregon's
victories in 1915 drove Villa back to his old hunting grounds.
By this time the European war was occupying most of the attention of
the American people, but Mexico was a constant irritant. Carranza
carried the Presidential art of biting the hand that fed him to an
undreamed-of height. Wilson, Villa and Obregon had enabled him to
displace Huerta, and Obregon had saved him from Villa. Yet he had
quarreled with Villa, he was eventually to quarrel with Obregon; and
though the United States and the chief Latin-American powers had given
him formal recognition in September, 1915, his policy toward Wilson
continued to be blended of insult and obstruction. Henry Prather
Fletcher, the ablest of the diplomats accredited to Latin-American
capitals, had been called back from Santiago de Chile to represent the
United States in Mexico; but despite his skill, despite the infinite
forbearance of the Administration, Mexico sank deeper and deeper into
misery, foreign lives and property were unsafe throughout most of the
country, and there was a continuing succession of incidents on the
border.
These were the fault of bandits, chiefly of Villa, whose repeated
murders of American citizens led to futile attempts to get satisfaction
out of Carranza. The culmination of these outrages came on March 9,
1916, when Villa raided across the border, surprised the garrison of
Columbus, N.M., and killed some twenty Americans. A punitive expedition
of regulars under General Pershing was promptly organized. It pushed
about 200 miles into Mexico, destroyed several small parties of
Villistas, and wounded Villa himself. But it did not catch him nor any
of his principal leaders, and in April outlying parties of Americans
came into skirmishing with Carranza forces at Parral and Carrizal. It
was evident that further advance meant war with Carranza; and indeed
much American sentiment aroused by the capture of American soldiers by
Carranzistas, demanded war already. But relations with Germany were
very acute at the moment, so Pershing dug in and held his position
throughout the Summer and Fall. In May the National Guard was ordered
out to protect the border, and remained in position for months without
taking active steps.
_President Wilson's Appeals for Mediation_
_Formal offer of mediation to all belligerents, August 5, 1914._
_German proposal of peace conference, December 12, 1916._
_President's appeal to the belligerents to state their terms,
December 18, 1916._
_German refusal to state terms, December 26, 1916._
_Allied statement of war aims, January 11, 1917._
_President's "peace without victory" speech, January 22, 1917._
_Notification of unrestricted submarine war, January 31, 1917._
_Diplomatic relations with Germany broken, February 3, 1917._
_Declaration of war, April 6, 1917._
The Mexican policy of the Administration was one of the chief points of
attack during the campaign of 1916, but the re-election of President
Wilson and the progress of events in Europe presently threw the issue
into the background. In February and March, 1917, when war with Germany
seemed inevitable, the expeditionary force under Pershing was recalled.
Carranza's pro-Germanism, or rather anti-Americanism, was hardly
disguised during the war, and the confiscatory policy of his
Administration in dealing with foreign oil and mineral properties
threatened to do much damage to American interests. When the war in
Europe had ended, the question of Mexico once more came back to the
foreground of attention. Carranza's Administration had not been stained
by so much guilt as Huerta's, and the opposition to it was on the scale
of banditry rather than revolution; but Mexico was far worse off after
years of the war than it had been in 1913, and disregard of American
rights was still the cardinal policy of the Government. Carranza's
security, however, was illusory. In the Spring of 1920 Presidential
elections were announced at last, and Carranza's attempt to force
Ygnacio Bonillas, his Ambassador in Washington, into the Presidential
chair led to a revolt which eventually attracted the leadership of
Obregon. Carranza fled from Mexico City and was murdered on May 22,
1920, and, after the interim Presidency of Adolfo de la Huerta, Obregon
came into office in the Fall.
_The European War, 1914-1916_
When in the last week of July, 1914, a war of unparalleled intensity
and magnitude suddenly fell upon a world which for forty years had been
enjoying unprecedented well-being and security, the practically
unanimous sentiment of Americans was gratitude that we were not
involved. The President's first steps, a formal proclamation of
neutrality and equally formal tender of mediation to the belligerents,
"either now or at any other time that might be thought more suitable,"
had general approval.
[Illustration: _Federal Reserve_
We must have a currency, not rigid as now, but readily,
elastically responsive to sound credit, the expanding
and contracting credits of everyday transactions, the
normal ebb and flow of personal and corporate dealings.
Our banking laws must mobilize reserves; must not permit
the concentration anywhere in a few hands of the
monetary resources of the country or their use for
speculative purposes in such volume as to hinder or
impede or stand in the way of other more legitimate,
more fruitful uses.--_From the President's Address to
Congress, April 23, 1913._]
[Illustration: _Courtesy New York Times_
July 3, 1912: Governor Wilson receiving congratulations
from newspaper correspondents on his nomination for the
Presidency]
But a sharp division of sentiment showed itself when, on August 18, he
issued an address to the American people warning against partisan
sympathies and asking that Americans be "impartial in thought as well
as in action," in order that the country might be "neutral in fact as
well as in name." The great majority of the American people, or of such
part of it as held opinions on public questions, had already made up
their minds about the war, and most of the others were in process of
being convinced. Some of them had made up their minds from racial
sympathies, but others had thought things out. And among these last,
particularly, there was a revolt against the assumption that in the
presence of such issues any impartiality of thought was possible.
Moreover, the world-wide extent of the war, and the closer
inter-relations of nations which had grown up in recent years, made
almost from the first a series of conflicts between the interests of
the United States and those of one or the other set of belligerents.
Preservation of neutrality against continual petty infractions was
hard, and was rendered harder by the active sympathy felt for the
different belligerents by many Americans. A further complication came
from the growing feeling that America's military and naval forces were
far from adequate for protection in a world where war was after all
possible. The Autumn of 1914 saw the beginning for better national
preparedness, and counter to that the rise of organized
peace-at-any-price sentiment which from the first drew much support
from pro-German circles.
The President appeared to incline toward the pacifists. He called the
discussion of preparedness "good mental exercise," and referred to some
of its advocates as "nervous and excitable," and in the message to
Congress in December, 1914, he took the position that American
armaments were quite sufficient for American needs. In this it was
apparent that he was opposed by a large part of the American people;
how large no one could yet say. But the Congressional elections of 1914
had conveyed a warning to the Democrats. They were left with a majority
in both houses, but the huge preponderance obtained in 1912 had
disappeared. And the reason was even more alarming than the fact; the
Progressive Party almost faded off the map in the election of 1914.
Most of the voters who had been Republicans before the Chicago
Convention of 1912 were Republicans once again. Of the Progressive
Party, there was nothing much left but the leaders, and many of these
were obviously thinking of going back to the old home.
The Government had already had occasion to protest against British
interference with allied commerce when, on February 4, 1915, the
Germans proclaimed the waters about the British Isles a war zone open
to submarine activities. The President promptly warned the German
Government that it would be held to "strict accountability" if American
ships were sunk or American lives lost in the submarine campaign. Along
with this a message was sent to the British Government protesting
against British restriction of neutral commerce. There was good ground
for objection to the practices of both Governments, and the
simultaneous protests emphasized the neutral attitude of the United
States. Not until later was it evident that to the Germans this policy
seemed to indicate the possibility of putting pressure on England
through America.
"Strict accountability" seemed to be a popular watchword, except among
pacifists and German sympathizers, but Americans soon began to be
killed by the submarines without provoking the Government to action.
When the Lusitania was sunk on May 7, 1915, and more than a hundred of
the 1,200 victims were Americans a great part of the nation which had
been growing steadily more exasperated felt that now the issue must be
faced. The President was the personal conductor of the foreign policy
of the Administration; Mr. Bryan's sole interest in foreign affairs
seemed to be the conclusion of a large number of polite and valueless
treaties of arbitration, and it was certain that with Germany, as with
Mexico, the President would deal in person. In the few days after the
sinking of the Lusitania the nation waited confidently for the
President's leadership, and public sentiment was perhaps more nearly
unanimous than it had been for eight months past, or was to be again
for two years more.
The President's note on May 13 met with general approval. It denied any
justification for such acts as the sinking of the Lusitania, and warned
the Germans that the Government of the United States would not "omit
any word or act" to defend the rights of its citizens. But some of the
effect of that declaration had already been destroyed by a speech the
President had made two days before, in which he had said that "there is
such a thing as a man being too proud to fight," and the Germans, it
was learned presently, had been still further reassured by a
declaration of Mr. Bryan (entirely on his own authority) to the
Austrian Ambassador that the note was intended only for home
consumption.
At any rate, the note was not followed by action. Throughout the whole
Summer the President maintained a correspondence with the Germans,
distinguished by patient reasoning on his part and continual shiftings
and equivocations on theirs. Meanwhile nothing was done; the public
sentiment of the first days after the Lusitania had been sunk had
slackened; division and dissension had returned and redoubled. Pacifism
was more active than ever and German agents were spreading propaganda
and setting fire and explosives to munition plants. Mr. Bryan, who
apparently alone in the country was fearful that the President might
needlessly involve the nation in war, resigned as Secretary of State on
June 8. Aside from a certain relief, the public almost ignored his
passing; the man who had been the strongest leader of the party in
March, 1913, had in the last two years sunk almost into obscurity.
Attention was now concentrated on the policy which the President, whose
new Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, was hardly more than a
figurehead, was pursuing toward Germany.
In August two more American passengers were drowned in the sinking of
the liner Arabic, and in other submarine exploits of the Summer a
number of American seamen lost their lives. The President's persistence
at last had the effect of getting from the Germans, on September 1, a
promise to sink no more passenger boats, and on October 5 they made a
formal expression of regret for the Arabic incident. Meanwhile some of
the acts of sabotage against American industries had been traced back
to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, and the Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, was
sent home in September. A few months later Papen and Boy-Ed, the
Military and Naval Attaches of the German Embassy, followed him for a
similar reason.
But the German outrages continued, and so did the submarine sinkings,
though these were now transferred to the Mediterranean and Austria was
put forward as the guilty power. Also, nothing had been done about the
Lusitania. The country had apparently been divided by internal
discords. The condition which the President had hoped to prevent by his
appeal for "impartiality in thought as well as in action" had come
about. Also, the danger of war had revealed the inadequacy of America's
military establishment, and a private organization, whose moving spirit
was General Leonard Wood, had undertaken to supply the deficiencies of
the Government by establishing officers' training camps. Toward Wood
and his enterprise the Government seemed cold, and he was reprimanded
by the Secretary of War for permitting Colonel Roosevelt to make an
indiscreet speech at the training camp at Plattsburg. But when Congress
assembled in December the President deplored and denounced that new
appearance in American public life, the hyphenate, and urged upon
Congress that military preparation which he had derided a year before.
Congress, it was soon evident, was far less convinced than the
President that anything had happened during 1915. In December, 1915,
and in January, 1916, Mr. Wilson made a speaking tour through the East
and Middle West in support of his new policy. His demand for a navy
"incomparably the most adequate in the world," which Mr. Daniels
translated into the biggest navy in the world, aroused some doubts in
the minds of the public as to where the Administration thought the
chief danger lay, and German influences did their best during the
Winter to stir up anti-British sentiment in Congress--the more easily
since the controversy over British interference with American commerce
was still unsettled.
Eventually, and largely as a result of the President's speaking tour,
Congress adopted a huge naval program, which was destined to remain on
paper for some years. Military reform, however, had a different fate.
The President had supported the policy favored by the Secretary of War,
Lindley M. Garrison, of supplementing the regular line by a federalized
"Continental army" of 400,000 men. The House Committee on Military
Affairs, led by James Hay, would not hear of this and insisted on
Federal aid to the National Guard. The President, declaring that he
could not tell a Congressional committee that it must take his plan or
none, appeared to be ready to give in to Hay, and Garrison resigned in
protest. Hay had his way, and Garrison was succeeded by Newton D.
Baker, previously regarded as inclined to the pacifist side of the
controversy.
_Senator Glass on Woodrow Wilson_
_It is my considered judgment that Woodrow Wilson will take a place
in history among the very foremost of the great men who have given
direction to the fortunes of the nation. No President of the United
States, from the beginning of the Republic, ever excelled him in
essential preparation for the tasks of the office. By a thorough
acquisition of abstract knowledge, by clear and convincing precept
and by a firm and diligent practical application of the outstanding
principles of statecraft, no occupant of the Executive chair up to
his advent was better furnished for a notable administration of
public affairs. And Wilson's Administration has been notable. Its
achievements, in enumeration and importance, have never been
surpassed; and it may accurately be said that most of the things
accomplished were of the President's own initiative._
_Of the President's personal traits and characteristics I cannot as
confidently speak as those persons whose constant and intimate
association with him has given them observation of his moods and
habits. To me he always has been the soul of courtesy and
frankness. Dignified, but reasonably familiar; tenacious when sure
of his position, but not hard to persuade or to convince in a cause
having merit, I have good reason to be incredulous when I hear
persons gabble about the unwillingness of President Wilson to seek
counsel or accept advice. For a really great man who must be
measurably conscious of his own intellectual power, he has
repeatedly done both things in an astonishing degree during his
Administration; and when certain of a man's downright honesty, I
have never known anybody who could be readier to confide serious
matters implicitly to a coadjutor in the public service._
_CARTER GLASS_
_Written for The New York Times,_
_February 18, 1921._
Meanwhile the submarine issue was still an issue. Little satisfaction
had been obtained for events in the Mediterranean, and in March the
Sussex, a cross-Channel passenger boat, was torpedoed in plain
violation of the German promise of September 1. There followed another
interchange of notes, but the usual German efforts to deny and evade
were somewhat more clumsy than usual. On April 19 the President came
before Congress and announced that "unless the Imperial Government
should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present
methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying
vessels" diplomatic relations would be broken off. The threat had its
effect; the Germans yielded, grudgingly and in language that aroused
much irritation, but on the main question they yielded none the less,
and promised to sink no more merchantmen without warning.
During this crisis the President had had to contend with a serious
revolt in Congress, which took the form of the Gore Resolution in the
Senate and the McLemore resolution in the House, warning American
citizens off armed merchantmen. The President took the position that
this was a surrender of American rights, and upon his insistence both
resolutions were brought to a vote and defeated. The Lusitania question
was still unsettled, but on the general issue of submarine war the
Germans had at last given way to the President's demand, and through
most of 1916 the submarine issue was in the background.
During the year there was a continuation of diplomatic action against
the British Government's interference with neutral commerce and with
neutral mails. But, aside from the comparative unimportance of these
issues beside the submarine assassinations, the Lusitania and similar
episodes had stirred up so much indignation that not many Americans
were seriously interested in action against England which could only
work to the advantage of Germany. The year saw the institution of the
Shipping Board, which was to look after the interests of the American
merchant marine brought into being by the war, and also some efforts to
extend American commerce in South America. Of more eventual importance
for Latin-American relations was the necessity for virtually
superseding the Government of the Dominican Republic, which had become
involved in civil war and financial difficulties, by an American Naval
Administration, as had been done in Haiti the year before.
The principal domestic event of the year was the threatened railroad
strike, which came at the end of the Summer. The President summoned the
heads of the four railroad brotherhoods and the executives of the
railroad lines to Washington for a conference in August, and attempted
without success to bring them to an agreement. A program to which he
eventually gave his approval provided for the concession by the
employers of the basic eight-hour day, with other issues left over
until the working of this proposal could be studied. The railroad
executives refused this, and while the negotiations were thus at a
deadlock it became known that the brotherhoods had secretly ordered a
strike beginning September 4. To avert this crisis the President asked
Congress to pass a series of laws accepting the basic eight-hour day,
providing for a commission of investigation, and forbidding further
strikes pending Government inquiry.
None of these proposals except the eight-hour day, the center of the
whole dispute, met the approval of the brotherhoods, and none of them
except the eight-hour day and the commission of investigation was
adopted. But, with A. B. Garreston, of the Brotherhood of Conductors,
holding a stopwatch in the gallery, Congress hastily passed these laws
and the strike was called off.
The eight-hour issue was the last item on the record on which President
Wilson came up for re-election in the Fall of 1916. Despite the
single-term plank in the Democratic platform of 1912, it had been
evident long before the end of Mr. Wilson's first term that he was the
only possible candidate. In March, 1913, he had seemed almost like an
outside expert called in for temporary service in readjusting some of
the problems of public life; he was by no means the leader of the
party. But long before Bryan resigned in alarm at the tendencies of a
foreign policy over which the Secretary of State had no control the
President had become the leader of the party, and by 1916 he was almost
the only leader of prominence.
In the record on which the electorate was to express its judgment only
a minor place was taken by the issues which had seemed of such
importance in 1913. The Federal Reserve Act had already proved its
value so well that it was being taken as a matter of course, and people
were forgetting that they had ever had to depend on a currency which
ran for cover in every crisis and on a banking system where each bank
was a source of weakness to its neighbors instead of strength. What
effect the Underwood-Simmons Tariff and other measures of the first
year might have had on American business no man could say, for
conditions created by the war had left America the only great producer
in a world of impatient consumers whose wants had to be met at any
price.
Mexico, which had provided the most pressing problem in foreign affairs
during the Taft Administration, was still an unsolved problem in 1916,
and more disturbing than ever. The President had indeed avoided war
with Mexico, but had become involved in two invasions of the country
and in an expensive mobilization. During the 1916 election the nation
had in Mexico most of the drawbacks of war without any of the possible
benefits. In forcing out Huerta the President had indeed won a notable
diplomatic triumph, but he had not succeeded either in winning greater
security for American life and property or in getting a Mexican
Government more disposed to good relations with the United States; and
the Republicans maintained that war had been avoided only at the
sacrifice of both American prestige and American interests.
_Personal Messages to Congress_
I am very glad, indeed, to have this opportunity to address the two
Houses directly and to verify for myself the impression that the
President of the United States is a person, not a mere department
of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island of
jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and with
his own voice--that he is a human being trying to cooperate with
other human beings in a common service. After this pleasant
experience I shall feel quite normal in all our dealings with one
another.--_From the President's First Address to Congress, April
8, 1913_
[Illustration: (C) _Harris & Ewing_
April 8, 1913: Mr. Wilson reading his first message to
Congress]
But Mexico, despite the emphasis placed upon it by the Republicans, was
a secondary issue in the campaign of 1916. The great issue was the
conduct of American relations with Germany, and the ultimate Republican
failure in the election may be laid primarily to the inability of the
Republican Party to decide just where it stood on the main issue.
The President had in this field also won a diplomatic victory. Like his
victory over Huerta, it was more apparent than real, for the submarines
were still active, and even during the campaign several incidents
occurred which looked very much like violations of the German promise
made in May. The most serious incident, that of the Lusitania, was
still unsettled and the opponents of the President charged him with
having bought peace with Germany, like peace with Mexico, at the cost
of national interest and honor. Still the technical victory in the
submarine negotiations had remained with the President, and he had
succeeded in winning at least a nominal recognition of American rights
without going into a war which, as every one realized, would be a much
more serious enterprise than an invasion of Mexico. German propaganda
and terrorist outrages, which had been so serious in 1915, fell off
materially in 1916 largely on account of the energetic work of the
Department of Justice, which had sent some of the most prominent
conspirators to jail and driven others out of the country. But a
considerable section of the population had made up its mind that
Germany was already an enemy and was dissatisfied with the President's
continual efforts to preserve impartiality of thought as well as of
action.