Transcript CH 29 PPT

Chapter 29
Wilsonian
Progressivism at
Home and Abroad,
1912–1916
I. The “Bull Moose” Campaign of
1912
• Election of 1912:
– Democrats met at Baltimore (1912):
• Nominated Wilson, aided by William Jennings Bryan’s
switch to his side
• New Freedom program:
– Called for stronger antitrust legislation
– Banking reform
– Tariff reduction
• Progressive Republican ticket:
– A third-party with Theodore Roosevelt as the
political candidate
I. The “Bull Moose” Campaign
– They met in Chicago August 1912 with 2,000
delegates from 40 states
• Dramatically symbolizing the rising political status of
women
• As well as the Progressive support for the cause of
social justice
• Settlement-house Jane Addams placed Roosevelt’s
name in nomination for the presidency
• Religious atmosphere suffused the convention
• Fired-up Progressives entered the campaign with
righteousness and enthusiasm.
• Roosevelt said he felt “as strong as a bull moose” thus
the bull moose symbol.
What is Social Justice?
In the words of Jonah Goldberg: “Good things” that
no one needs to argue for and no one dare be
against”
I. The “Bull Moose” Campaign
• There were clashes of personalities between
Roosevelt and Taft.
• Roosevelt’s New Nationalism:
– Preached theology of progressive thinker
Herbert Cody in his book The Promise of
American Life
• Both favored continued consolidation of trusts and
labor unions
• Paralleled by the growth of powerful regulatory
agencies in Washington
• Campaigned for woman suffrage
I. The “Bull Moose” Campaign
• For a broad program of social welfare, including
minimum wage laws and “socialistic” social insurance
• Roosevelt and his “bull moose” Progressives looked
forward to the kind of activist welfare state of
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
• Wilson’s New Freedom:
• Favored small enterprise, entrepreneurship
• And the free functioning of unregulated and
unmonopolized markets
• Shunned social welfare proposals
• And pinned their economic faith on competition—
“man on the make,” Wilson.
I. The “Bull Mouse” Campaign
• Keynote of Wilson’s campaign was not regulation but
fragmentation of the big industrial combines
• Chiefly by means of vigorous enforcement of the
antitrust laws.
• The election of 1912:
• Offered voters a choice not merely of policies
– But of political and economic philosophies--a rarity in U.S.
History.
• The heat of the campaign cooled when, in Milwaukee,
Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a fanatic
– TR suspended active campaigning for more than two weeks
after delivering his scheduled speech.
Harper’s Weekly
August 10, 1912
“The Mammoth Chameleon”
Continuing its criticism of
Theodore Roosevelt’s Third Party
campaign as president, Harper’s
Weekly portrays TR as a gigantic
chameleon in the Progressive Park
Zoo. “Has the habit of changing
color at the slightest provocation.”
“I Believe in Giving Every
Man a Square Deal.”
Edward Windsor Kemble
in Harper's Weekly 9
March 1912.
“The Issue.” Edward Windsor
Kemble in Harper's Weekly,
23 March 1912.
“Having a Bully Time.”
Edward Windsor Kemble in
Harper's Weekly, 30 March
1912.
“For Auld Lang Syne,”
published in the May
1912 issue of the
British humor
magazine Punch on
the Taft-Roosevelt
quarrel.
Uncle Sam,
philosophically
watching the scrap,
says “Wal, I guess old
friends are best.”
“The Latest Arrival at the
Political Zoo.” Edward
Windsor Kemble in Harper’s
Weekly, 20 Jul 1912.
“Jack the Giant-Killer,” the
cover of Puck, 11 Sep 1912.
Two giants—one labeled
“Taft” and the other labeled
“T.R.”—standing back to
back, nervously perspiring,
as a young boy holds aloft a
sword labeled “Tariff
Revision” with his right hand
while holding a basket
labeled “Empty Market
Basket” to his chest with his
left hand.
What is the meaning of this
cartoon?
Clifford K. Berryman, 19 Oct
1912, Washington Evening
Star.
“Salvation Is Free, But It Doesn’t Appeal To Him,” Puck, 7 Aug 1912.
“Extinct.”
Will Crawford in Puck, 27
November 1912
GOP Divided by Bull Moose Equals Democratic Victory, 1912
p662
George Will on “the centennial of the 20th century's most
important intra-party struggle. . . .”
“By preventing former President Theodore Roosevelt from
capturing the 1912 Republican presidential nomination from
President William Howard Taft, the GOP deliberately doomed its
chances for holding the presidency but kept its commitment to
the Constitution.”
“After leaving the presidency in 1909, TR went haywire. He had
always chafed under constitutional restraints, but he had
remained a Hamiltonian, construing the Constitution expansively
but respectfully. By 1912, however, he had become what the
Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson, was - an antiMadisonian. Both thought the Constitution - the enumeration
and separation of powers - intolerably crippled government. . . .”
“TR's anti-constitutional excesses moved two political heroes to
subordinate personal affection to the public interest. New York
Sen. Elihu Root had served TR as secretary of war and secretary
of state, and he was Roosevelt's first choice to succeed him in
1908. Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge had long been one
of TR's closest friends. Both sided with Taft.”
“[T]he forgotten heroes of 1912 [stood] with Madison, the most
intellectually formidable Founder. He created . . . a constitutional
architecture that does not thwart democracy but refines it, on
the fact that in a republic, which is defined by the principle of
representation, the people do not directly decide issues, they
decide who will decide. And the things representatives are
permitted to decide are strictly circumscribed by constitutional
limits on federal power.”
“[B]y their ‘lonely, principled’ stand, Root and Lodge, along with
Taft, ‘denied TR the powerful electoral machinery of the
Republican Party, which would almost surely have elected him,
and then been turned to securing sweeping alterations’ of the
Constitution.”
“The GOP's defeat in 1912 . . . was profoundly constructive. By
rejecting TR, it preserved the Constitution from capricious
majorities. . . .”
~ George Will, Washington Post, 3 Aug 2012
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President
• Election’s returns:
– Wilson with 435 electoral votes and 6,296,547
popular votes
• Fewer popular votes than Bryan had received in each
of his losing campaigns of 1896, 1900, and 1908
– Roosevelt finished second
• 88 electoral votes, 4,118,571 popular votes
– Taft finished third
• Won only 8 electoral votes, 3,484,720 popular votes
p664
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President (cont.)
– Wilson won only 41% of the popular votes
• Was clearly a minority president, but his party won a
majority in Congress
– The “Solid South” delivered 102 of the 290 House seats won
(for a 290-134 advantage) and 10 of the 16 Senate seats
won (for a 51-44 advantage) by the Democrats
– Wilson did not win a majority of any state outside the old
Confederacy
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President (cont.)
– Progressivism—not Wilson—was the runaway
winner
• The progressive vote for Wilson and Roosevelt,
totaling 68%, far exceeded the tally of the less
progressive Taft who received only 23%.
– The Socialist candidate, Eugene V. Debs, rolled
up 900,672 popular votes, 6% of the total cast
• Nearly twice as many as he netted four years earlier
• Socialists dreamed of being in within 8 years.
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President (cont.)
– Roosevelt’s lone-wolf course:
• Tragic for both him and his former Republican
associates
– Perhaps he had bitten himself and gone mad—rephrasing
William Allen White
• The Progressive party had no future because it had
elected few candidates to state and local offices
– While the Socialists elected more than a thousand
• Death by slow starvation was inevitable for the
upstart Progressive party
– But the Progressives had made a tremendous showing for a
hastily organized third party, spurring the enactment of
their pet reforms by the Wilsonian Democrats.
II. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority
President (cont.)
• Republicans:
– They were in unaccustomed minority status in
Congress for the next six years
– Frozen out of the White House for eight years
– Taft himself had a fruitful old age:
• Taught law for 8 years at Yale University
• In 1921 became chief justice of the Supreme Court—a
job for which he was far more happily suited than the
presidency.
Map 29-1 p663
The 1912 electoral map with results by county, shaded to indicate voting
strength of the winning party. Shades of blue represent Wilson, shades of red
represent Taft, and shades of green indicate Roosevelt. Note the “Solid South.”
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
• (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson:
– The second Democratic president since 1861
• Professor-politician from one of the seceded
southern states
– 1st Southerner since Zachary Taylor, 64 years earlier.
• His ideal of self-determination was inspired by his
sympathy for southern independence
• His ideal of faith in the masses—if they were properly
informed—came from Jeffersonian democracy
– Perhaps so, but he had no Jeffersonian ideas of limited
government
• His inspirational political sermons from his
Presbyterian minister-father.
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
• Woodrow Wilson
• Leading intellectual of the
Progressive Era, elected
President when the
Republican Party split
between Taft and Roosevelt in
1912.
• First sitting president to
criticize the Framers. Worked
to overturn the system of
limited government created
by fellow Princetonian James
Madison.
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
• (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson:
• Background
• Born 1856 in Virginia—father a Presbyterian minister
who owned slaves and served as a Confederate chaplain
• Grew up mostly in Georgia, S. Carolina, N. Carolina
• Graduated Princeton 1879
• Practiced law 1882-83 in Georgia
• Ph.D. Johns Hopkins 1886
• Relatively poor health—may have suffered stroke at age 39
• Academic Career
• Historian, very critical of U.S. Constitution—thought it should
be replaced with something like British constitution
• Long written record of racist, nativist theories
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
• (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson:
• Background
• Academic Career
– Professor of political science at Princeton
– Wanted less separation between executive and legislature
– Wrote harshly racist and anti-immigrant works
– 1902, elevated to presidency of Princeton
Controversy at Princeton
1906-07: Wilson tried to break the influence of social clubs by moving all
students into "quadrangles." Influential Princeton alumni as well as
University Trustees objected. Wilson refused any compromise that stopped
short of abolishing the clubs because he felt that to compromise "would be
to temporize with evil."
Trustees overrode Wilson and kept the existing housing arrangements.
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
• Woodrow Wilson
Controversy at Princeton
1908-09: Wilson got in a battle with Dean of Graduate School and
influential Trustee Grover Cleveland over where to locate a proposed Grad
School building. Trustees again overrode Wilson’s plan.
Cleveland called Wilson “a dishonorable man.”
Wilson resigned from Princeton in 1910 to enter politics.
“I firmly believe that the most important decision taken anywhere in the
20th century was where to locate the Princeton graduate college. When
Wilson lost, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went into politics
and ruined the 20th century.”
~ George F. Will
Address to the Cato Institute, 13 May 2010
“I firmly believe that the most important decision taken anywhere in
the 20th century was where to locate the Princeton graduate college.
When Wilson lost, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went
into politics and ruined the 20th century.”
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
(cont.)
• Background
• Politics
• Backed by wealthy conservative Democrats, elected Gov. of
New Jersey 1910
• Wilson switched sides—joined progressives midcampaign
– Wilson, a profound student of government (?):
– Believed the chief executive should play a dynamic role
– Convinced that Congress could not function properly unless
the president was out front and provided the leadership
– He enjoyed dramatic success, both as governor and
president, in appealing over the heads of legislators to the
sovereign people:
Concepts from Congressional Government, 1885
• Bill of Rights prevents government from meeting the country's
needs by enumerating rights that government may not
infringe.
• The system of checks and balances is the cause of the
problems in American governance. Divided power made it
impossible for voters to see who was accountable for ill-doing.
• “Power and strict accountability for its use are the essential
constituents of good government. . . . It is, therefore,
manifestly a radical defect in our federal system that it parcels
out power and confuses responsibility as it does. The main
purpose of the Convention of 1787 seems to have been to
accomplish this grievous mistake. The ‘literary theory’ of
checks and balances is simply a consistent account of what
our Constitution makers tried to do; and those checks and
balances have proved mischievous just to the extent which
they have succeeded in establishing themselves . . . .”
Concepts from "The Study of Administration,“
June 1887 Political Science Quarterly:
• “Public administration is an important topic not just because of
growing popularity within college campuses—it is a requirement for
a growing nation.” Public administration is "government in action; it
is the executive, the operative, the most visible side of government,
and is of course as old as government itself”
• The American system, requiring compromise due to public opinion
differing on so many levels, is a problem. With Americans coming
from diverse backgrounds, it is difficult for them to be convinced to
form a majority opinion. Thus practical reform of government is
slow.
• “Administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics,” and
“general laws which direct these things to be done are as obviously
outside of and above administration.” Administration is like a
machine that functions independent of the changing mood of its
leaders.
III. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
(cont.)
– Wilson suffered from serious defects of
personality:
– Though jovial and witty in private, he could be cold and
standoffish in public
– Incapable of bending and with little showmanship, he
lacked the common touch.
II. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics
(cont.)
– “He believed in mankind, but distrusted all men”
– His academic orientation caused him to feel at home with
scholars, while he had to work with politicians
– An austere and somewhat (?) arrogant intellectual, he
looked down upon lesser minds, especially journalists
– He was especially intolerant of stupid senators (?).
– Wilson’s burning idealism:
– He had special desire to reform ever-present wickedness
– His sense of moral righteousness made it difficult for him at
times to compromise: black was black, wrong was wrong,
and one should never compromise with wrong
– He was adept at constructing moral justifications for
breaking his promises
– He had a strong and inflexible stubbornness.
IV. Wilson Tackles the Tariff
• Wilson’s programs:
– He called for an all-out assault on what he called
“the triple wall of privilege”: the tariff, the
banks, and the trusts
• Virtually the opposite of his campaign promises
– He tackled the tariff first:
– Summoned Congress into special session in early 1913
– Precedent-shattering move, he did not send his presidential
message over to Capitol to be read
– He appeared in person before a joint session of Congress
and presented his appeal with stunning eloquence and
effectiveness.
“No, No! Not That
Way,” by Clifford K.
Berryman,
Washington Star, 3
June 1913. A comedic
representation of the
debate about the
income tax in the
United States.
What does this
cartoon mean?
Why does Congress
not want a general
sales tax?
IV. Wilson Tackles the Tariff
(cont.)
– The Underwood Tariff:
• When challenged by lobbyists,
– Wilson promptly issued a combative message to the people
urging them to hold their elected representatives in line
• Public opinion worked:
– He secured late in 1913 final approval of the bill he wanted
• Provided for a substantial reduction of rates:
• Land mark in tax legislation:
– By the ratified Sixteenth Amendment—Congress enacted a
graduated income tax beginning with a moderate levy over
$3,000
– By 1917 revenue from the income tax shot ahead of
revenue from the tariffs.
“Priming the Pump, by
Clifford K. Berryman, The
Washington Evening Star,
26 June 1914
What is Wilson doing?
What does this cartoon
mean?
“The Post-Season
Parade,” by Clifford K.
Berryman, The
Washington Evening Star,
5 March 1915.
What does this cartoon mean?
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
• The Banks:
– The antiquated and inadequate banking and
currency system
• The nation’s financial structure was creaking under
the Civil War National Banking Act
– Most glaring defects and shortcoming
– The inelasticity of the currency
– Since most banks were located in New York, mobilization of
bank reserves in times of panic were badly pinched
– In 1908 Congress ordered an investigation of banking
systems headed by Senator Aldrich.
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
(cont.)
• The Aldrich report:
– Recommended a gigantic bank with numerous branches—a
third Bank of the United States
– Democratic banking reformers heeded the findings of the
committee
– Also supported by Louis D. Brandeis in his scholarly book:
Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It (1914)
• Wilson in June 1913 appeared personally before both
houses of Congress, called for sweeping banking
reform:
– Endorse the Democratic proposal for a decentralized bank in
governments
– Opposed the Republican demands for a huge private bank
with fifteen branches.
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
(cont.)
• The Federal Reserve Act (1913):
• Wilson appealed to the sovereign people
• The most important economic legislation between
the Civil War and the New Deal
• Federal Reserve Board:
– Appointed by the President
– It would oversee a nationwide system of 12 regional reserve
districts
– Each with its own central bank
– The final authority of the Federal Reserve Board guaranteed
a substantial measure of public control
– The board would be employed to issue paper money
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
(cont.)
– The paper money—“Federal Reserve Notes”—backed by
commercial paper
– Thus the amount of money in circulation could be swiftly
increased as needed for the legitimate requirements of
business.
• The Federal Reserve Act was a red-letter achievement
– Carried the nation through the financial crisis of the First
World War 1914-1918
– Without it, the Republic’s progress toward the modern
economic age would have been seriously retarded.
Reading the
Death Warrant
This cartoon
appeared in a New
York newspaper
soon after
Woodrow Wilson
called for dramatic
reform of the
banking system
before both
houses of
Congress.
p665
V. Wilson Battles the Bankers
(cont.)
Since the Creation of the Federal Reserve . . .
•From 1790 to 1913, the U.S. Dollar gained 8% in value
•In 1913, the Federal Reserve System was created, allowing
the government to print paper money at its discretion
•From 1913 to 2012, the U.S. Dollar decreased in value by 96%
VI. The President Tames the Trusts
• The Trusts:
– Wilson appeared personally before Congress
1914 to present the third wall of privileges—
trusts:
• Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)
– Empowered a presidentially appointed commission to
research industries’ engagement in interstate commerce
– The commission was to crush monopoly at the source by
rooting out unfair trade practices:
» Including unlawful competition, false advertising,
mislabeling, adulteration, and bribery.
VI. The President Tames the Trusts
(cont.)
– The Clayton Anti-Trust (1914):
• Increased the list of practices deemed objectionable:
– Price discrimination and interlocking directorates (where
the same individual serves as director of supposedly
competing firms)
– Achieved through holding companies (see Figure 29.1)
• Conferred long-overdue benefits on labor:
– Sought to exempt labor and agricultural organization from
anti-trust prosecution, while explicitly legalizing strikes and
peaceful picketing
– Samuel Gompers, Union leader, hailed the act as the Magna
Carta of labor.
Figure 29-1 p666
Heroin was once used to
treat children’s coughs. Bayer,
the German pharmaceutical
company that produced
aspirin, commercialized
heroin in the 1890s as a
cough, cold, and pain remedy.
Bayer marketed heroin for
use in children as late as
1912, years after reports
began to surface that it could
be a dangerous drug. In 1914,
the Harrison Narcotics Tax
Act restricted heroin to
prescription-only use in the
U.S. In 1924, the FDA banned
heroin altogether.
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at High
Tide
• Other progressive legislation:
– The Federal Farm Loan Act (1916):
• Made credit available to farmers at low rates of
interest—long demanded by the Populists
– The Warehouse Act (1916):
• Authorized loans on the security of staple crops—
another Populist idea
– Laws to benefit rural areas: providing for
highway construction and the establishment of
agricultural extension work in state colleges.
•
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at
High Tide (cont.)
– La Follette Seaman’s Act (1915):
• It required decent treatment and a living wage on
American merchant ships
• It did cripple America’s merchant marine.
– The Workingmen’s Compensation Act (1916):
• Granting assistance to federal civil-service employees
during periods of disability
– In 1916 Wilson approved an act restricting child
labor on products flowing into interstate
commerce
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at
High Tide (cont.)
• The Adamson Act (1916):
– Established an 8-hour day for all employees on
trains in interstate commerce, with extra pay for
overtime.
• The Supreme Court:
– Wilson endeared himself to the progressives
when he nominated prominent reformer Louis D.
Brandeis—first Jew to the high court bench
VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at
High Tide
• Wilson’s limit on progressivism:
– It stopped short of better treatment for blacks
• To say he accelerated segregation misstates the case
• His reelection (1916):
• He needed to identify himself clearly as the candidate of
progressivism
• He appeased businesspeople by making conservative
appointments to the Federal Reserve Board
• He devoted most of his energy to cultivating progressive
support
• To remain in office he would have to woo the bull moose
voters into the Democratic fold.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign Policy
– Wilson’s reaction to earlier foreign policies:
• In contrast to Roosevelt and Taft he recoiled from an
aggressive foreign policy—REALLY?
• Hating imperialism, he was repelled by TR’s bigstickism
• Suspicious of Wall Street, he detested the so-called
dollar diplomacy of Taft
• In office only a week, he declared war on dollar
diplomacy
– He proclaimed that the government would not support
American investors in Latin America and China.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign
Policy (cont.)
• Persuaded Congress to repeal the Panama Canal Tolls
Act of 1912 –
– Exempted American coastwide shipping from tolls
– Thereby provoked sharp protests from injured Britain
• The Jones Act (1916):
– Granted the Philippines the boon of territorial status and
promised independence as soon as a “stable government”
could be established
– Wilson’s racial prejudices meant that he did not expect this
to happen for a long time
– On July 4, 1946—30 years later—the United States accepted
Philippine independence.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign
Policy (cont.)
• His Japanese situation (1913):
– California prohibited Japanese from owning land
– Tokyo, understandably irritated, lodged vigorous protests
– At Fortress Corregido, Philippians were put on around-theclock alert
– Tensions eased when Secretary of State William Jennings
Bryan pleaded the California legislature to soften its stance.
• The Haiti political situation (1914-1915):
– Political turmoil in Haiti 1914-1915 when an outraged
populace literally tore to pieces the brutal Haitian president
– Wilson dispatched marines to protect American lives and
property
– They remained in Haiti for 19 years, making Haiti an
American protectorate.
VIII. New Directions in Foreign
Policy (cont.)
– In 1916 he used the Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine and concluded a treaty with Haiti:
» Providing for U.S. supervision of finances and the
police.
– In 1916 he sent marines to the Dominican Republic
» Their debt-cursed land came under American control
for 18 years
– In 1917 the United States purchased from Denmark the
Virgin Islands
– Uncle Sam was taking grip in the Caribbean Sea, with its
vital approaches to the Panama Canal (see Map 29.2).
p667
The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1941
Map 29-2 p668
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Mexican revolution:
– Abdication, Coup, and Murder
• May 1911: Longtime dictator President Porfirio Díaz
was forced to abdicate
– Francisco Madero—one of many opposition leaders—
became President in November
• By 1913, the ineffective President Madero was
overthrown
– Coup was led by his General Victoriano Heurta, whom he
had appointed as army commander
– Madero was murdered a week later, apparently on Huerta’s
orders
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Mexican revolution:
– Mexican Exodus
• Political violence caused a massive migration of
Mexicans to the United States
– More than a million Spanish-speaking newcomers came and
settled in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California
– They built highways and railroads, followed the fruit
harvests as pickers
– Segregated in Spanish-speaking enclaves
» they helped to create a unique borderland culture that
blended Mexican and American folkways.
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Mexican revolution:
– American responses
• The revolutionary bloodshed also menaced American
lives and property in Mexico:
– Hearst was among those crying for intervention in Mexico
– President Wilson again refused to practice the same old
diplomacy of his predecessors:
» Deeming it “perilous” to determine foreign policy “in
terms of material interest”
• Wilson tried hard to steer a moral course in Mexico:
– In 1914 he allowed American arms to flow to Huerta’s
principal rivals, white-bearded Venustiano Carranza and the
firebrand Francisco (“Pancho”) Villa.
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• The Tampico Incident:
– The Mexico volcano erupted at the Atlantic
seaport of Tampico in April, 1914:
• When a small party of American sailors were arrested
• Mexicans released the captives and apologized
• But refused to salute with twenty-one guns the
affronted American admirals demanded
• Wilson asked Congress for authority to use force
against Mexico
Wilson Confronts Huerta
A Mexican view of the
tense standoff between
Wilson and the Mexican
president, Victoriano
Huerta. The artist’s
rendering seems to
reflect the famous
observation of long-time
Mexican leader
Porfirio Diaz: “Poor
Mexico! So far from God,
so close to the United
States.”
p669
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Seizure of Veracruz
– Congress considered Wilson’s force request
• But before it could act, Wilson ordered U.S. Navy to
seize Mexican port of Veracruz
– Rationale was to stop German steamer carrying guns and
ammunition to Huerta’s government forces
» Some of the material originated from Remington Arms
Co. of the U.S., and had been ordered by an American
with large land-holdings in Mexico
• U.S. Navy and Marines seized and occupied Veracruz
– Killed 172 Mexican soldiers, unknown number of civilians
– American forces occupied Veracruz for 7 months
Sergeant Major John H. Quick of the
U.S. Marines raises the American flag
over Veracruz.
The U.S. occupation of Veracruz lasted
for seven months, as a response to the
Tampico Affair of April 9, 1914.
In immediate reaction, anti-American
revolts broke out across Latin America.
US citizens were expelled from
Mexican territory and they had to be
accommodated in refugee campuses in
the U.S. Even the British were privately
irritated, because they had previously
agreed with Wilson that the U.S. would
not invade Mexico without a previous
warning.
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Seizure of Veracruz
– Greater conflict was narrowly avoided
• Mediation from ABC powers—Argentina, Brazil, Chile
• Anti-American riots in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Costa
Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay
– Incident poisoned Mexican-American relations
for years
• Key factor in Mexico not joining the Allies when the
U.S. did in 1917
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Rise of “Pancho” Villa
– Huerta’s government collapsed in July 1914
• He was succeeded as president by his archival,
Venustiano Carranza
– “Pancho” Villa, now chief rival to Carranza
• Angry that U.S. had recognized Carranza’s authority
– Executed 16 American mining engineers traveling through
northern Mexico in January 1916
– 2 months later Villa and his followers attacked Columbus,
New Mexico, killing 10 civilians and 8 troopers of the 13th
Cavalry Regiment, and suffering 67 dead of their own
– 5 Villistas had been captured and summarily executed; 13
later died of their wounds
p670
“I've Had About Enough of
This,” by Clifford K.
Berryman, March 10, 1916,
from The Washington
Evening Star.
Berryman’s 53 years of
front page drawings were
internationally renowned.
The cartoon below
appeared the day after
Pancho Villa's deadly raid
on Columbus, New Mexico,
in which 18 Americans were
killed and another 8
wounded.
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• The “Punitive Expedition”
– General John J. (“Black Jack”) Pershing:
• Was ordered to break up the bandit band
• He hastily organized force of several thousand
mounted troops; penetrated 350 miles into Mexico
• They clashed with Carranza’s forces
• Mauled the Villistas but failed to capture Villa
• Mission lasted almost 11 months
– Provided valuable experience to the U.S. Army
– Its 1st use of airplanes and motor vehicles in combat area
– Call-up of National Guard was effectively a rehearsal for
Great War mobilization
Left: Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing fording a stream in Mexico in 1916 while
commanding U.S. troops in pursuit of Pancho Villa. Right: Pancho Villa
wearing bandoliers in front of an insurgent camp.
Pershing was named Commanding General of the American Expeditionary
Force in May 1917 after America’s entry into the Great War.
Villa retired in 1920 and was assassinated in 1923, probably on orders from
Mexican President Álvaro Obregón.
The Last Charge, by Don Stivers. On 5 May 1916, troopers of the 11th
Cavalry Regiment, conducted the U.S. Army’s last horse-mounted
cavalry charge against Villistas near Ojos Azules during the Army’s
“Punitive Expedition” into northern Mexico. The U.S. troopers killed 41
Villistas and wounded others, while suffering no casualties themselves.
This was the greatest victory that the Punitive Expedition would
achieve.
On May 14, Pershing’s aide, 2nd Lt.
George S. Patton, raided the San
Miguelito Ranch, near Rubio,
Chihuahua. Patton, a future World
War II general, was seeking to buy
some corn from Mexican civilians
when he came across the ranch of
Julio Cárdenas, an important leader
in the Villista military organization.
With fifteen men and three Dodge
touring cars, Patton led America's
first motorized military action, in
which Cárdenas and two other men
were shot dead. The young
lieutenant then had the bodies of
the three men strapped to the hood
of the cars and driven back to
General Pershing's headquarters.
Pershing nicknamed him the
"Bandito."
IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico
• Back to Veracruz?
– Wilson considered another military invasion of
Veracruz and Tampico in 1917-1918
• To take control of Tehuantepec Isthmus and Tampico
oil fields
– But Mexican President Carranza gave the order
to destroy the oil fields in case the Marines tried
to land there
• As a scholar once wrote: "Carranza may not have
fulfilled the social goals of the revolution, but he kept
the gringos out of Mexico City”
[Wilson’s leadership] “is not as democratic as it
seems, but instead amounts to elite governance
under a veneer of democratic rhetoric.”
~ Ronald Pestritto
Woodrow Wilson and the Roots
of Modern Liberalism, 2005
X. Thunder Across the Sea
• Europe’s powder situation:
– A Serb patriot killed the heir to the throne of
Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo:
• Vienna presented a stern ultimatum to Serbia
• An explosive chain reaction followed:
– Serbia, backed by Russia, refused to back down
– The Russian czar began to mobilize his war machine,
menacing Germany on the east
– France confronted Germany on the west
– Germans struck suddenly at France through unoffending
Belgium
X. Thunder Across the Sea
(cont.)
• Great Britain, its coastline jeopardized by the assault
on Belgium, was sucked into the conflagration on the
side of France
• Now Europe was locked in a fight to the death
• The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, later
Turkey and Bulgaria
• The Allies: France, Britain, and Russia, later Japan and
Italy
– Americans thanked God for the ocean and self-righteously
congratulated themselves on having ancestors wise enough
to have abandoned the hell pits of Europe
– America felt strong, snug, smug, and secure—but not for
long.
XI. A Precarious Neutrality
– President Wilson’s grief at the outbreak of war
was compounded by the death of his wife
– He sorrowfully issued the routine neutrality proclamation
and called on Americans to be neutral in thought and deed
– Both sides wooed the United States, the great
neutral in the West
• The British enjoyed:
– The boon of cultural, linguistic, and economic ties with
America
– The advantage of controlling the transatlantic cables
– Their censors sheared away war stories harmful to the Allies
and drenched the United States with tales of German
bestiality.
XI. A Precarious Neutrality
(cont.)
• The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians:
– Counted on the natural sympathies of their transplanted
countrymen in America
– Powers numbered some 11 million in 1914
– Some of these recent immigrants expressed noisy sympathy
for the fatherland
– But most were simply grateful to be so distant from the fray
(see Table 29.1).
• Most Americans:
– Were anti-German from the outset
– To them Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed the embodiment of
arrogant autocracy
» An impression strengthened by Germany’s ruthless
invasion of neutral Belgium.
XI. A Precarious Neutrality
(cont.)
• German and Austrian agents tarnished the image of
the Central Powers in American eyes :
– When they resorted to violence in American factories and
ports
– When a German operative in 1915 absentmindedly left his
briefcase on a New York elevated car:
» Its documents detailing plans for industrial sabotage
were quickly discovered and publicized.
– American opinion, already ill-disposed, was further inflamed
against the Kaiser and Germany
» Yet the great majority of Americans earnestly hoped to
stay out of the horrible war.
Table 29-1 p671
XII. America Earns Blood Money
– When war broke out in Europe it was in a
worrisome business recession:
• British and French war orders pulled American
industry out onto a peak of war-born prosperity (see
Table 29.2)
• Part of the boon was financed by American bankers:
– Notably the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan and Company,
which advanced to the Allies the enormous sum of $2.3
million during the period of American neutrality
– The Central Powers protested bitterly:
» Against the immense trade between America and Allies
» But this did not violate the international neutrality laws.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– Germany was technically free to trade with the United
States
» It was prevented from doing so not by American policy
but by geography and the British navy
» The British blockaded the mines and ships across the
North Sea gateway to German ports
» Over protests from various Americans, the British
forced American vessels off the high seas
» This harassment of American shippers proved highly
effective, as trade between Germany and the United
States virtually ceased.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– Germany did not want to be starved out:
• Berlin announced a submarine war area around the
British Isles (see Map 29.3)
– They posed a threat to the United States—so long as Wilson
insisted on maintaining America’s neutral rights
– Berlin officials declared they would try not to sink neutral
shipping
– But they warned that mistakes would probably occur
– Wilson emphatically warned Germany that it would be held
to “strict accountability” for any attacks on American vessels
or citizens.
Map 29-3 p672
p672
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– The German submarines (known as U-boats):
• These “undersea boats” meanwhile began their
deadly work
– In the first months of 1915, they sank 90 ships in the war
zone
– The British passenger liner Lusitania was torpedoed and
sank off the coast of Ireland, May 7, 1915:
» With the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans.
• The Lusitania was carrying forty-two hundred cases of
small-arms ammunition
– A fact the Germans used to justify the sinking
– Americans were shocked and angered at this act of “mass
murder” and “piracy.”
Advertisement from the New York Herald,
May 1, 1915 Six days later the Lusitania
was sunk. Note the German warning.
p673
Front page of the Boston
Journal the day after the
sinking of Lusitania.
The final toll was not just
“hundreds,” but 1,198 lives
lost.
Lusitania had 48 lifeboats,
more than enough for all
passengers and crew, but
only 6 of them were
successfully launched.
This 1915 painting of the Lusitania sinking depicts the British version, with a
second torpedo striking an already-listing ship. The U-20 reported using only
one torpedo, and that a secondary explosion—possibly from its boiler or coal
bunker—erupted a few seconds later.
Churchill had spoken of attracting shipping to Britain’s shores “in the hopes
especially of embroiling the United States with Germany.” And: “We want the
traffic — the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.”
The Germans’ moral self-righteousness infected their
propaganda, as shown by the Lusitania Medal they produced.
p673
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– Talk of war:
• From the eastern United States
• Not the rest of the nation
– Wilson did not want to lead a disunited nation into war
– By a series of strong notes, Wilson attempted to bring the
German warlords sharply to book
– Secretary of State Bryan resigned rather than sign a
protestation that might spell shooting
– Wilson resolutely stood his ground
• The British liner, the Arabic was sunk in August, 1915:
– With the loss of two American lives
– Germany reluctantly agreed not to sink unarmed and
unresisting passenger ships without warning.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
– The pledge appeared to be violated in March, 1916:
» When the Germans torpedoed a French passenger
steamer, the Sussex
– Infuriated Wilson informed the Germans:
» That unless they renounced the inhuman practice of
sinking merchant ships without warning he would break
diplomatic relations—
» An almost certain prelude to war.
• Germany reluctantly knuckled under President’s
Wilson’s Sussex ultimatum:
– Germany agreed to not sink passenger and merchant ships
without warning
» But attached a long string to their Sussex pledge.
XII. America Earns Blood Money
(cont.)
• The German Sussex pledge:
– The United States would have to persuade the Allies to
modify what Berlin regarded as their illegal blockade
– This obviously, was something that Wilson could not do, nor
did he try
– Wilson promptly accepted the pledge, without accepting
the “string,” and without telling the Germans this
– Wilson won a temporary but precarious diplomatic victory–
precarious because:
» Germany could pull the string whenever it chose
» And the president might suddenly find himself tugged
over the cliff of war.
Table 29-2 p671
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916
• The presidential campaign of 1916
– Both the bull moose Progressives and the
Republicans met in Chicago:
• The Progressives nominated Theodore Roosevelt:
– But the Rough Rider had no intention of splitting the
Republicans again
– In refusing to run, he sounded the death knell of the Progressive party
– Roosevelt’s Republican admirers clamored for “Teddy”
– But the Old Guard detested the renegade who split the
party in 1912
– They drafted Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
• The Republican Party platform:
– Condemned the Democratic tariff
– Assaults on trusts
– Wilson’s wishy-washiness in dealing with Mexico and
Germany.
• Hughes on the campaign trail:
– In anti-German areas Hughes assailed Wilson for not
standing up to the Kaiser
– In isolationist areas he took a softer line
– This attempt to walk a fine line led to the Democrats’ jeer
“Charles Evasive Hughes.”
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
– Hughes was further plagued by Roosevelt,
» Who was delivering a series of skin-’em-alive speeches
against “that damned Presbyterian hypocrite Wilson.”
» Frothing for war, TR privately scoffed at Hughes as a
“whiskered Wilson,” the only difference between the
two, he said, was “a shave.”
– Wilson, nominated by acclamation at the Democratic convention in St. Louis:
• His campaign slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War.”
– Democratic orators warned that by electing Hughes, the
nation would be electing a fight—with a certain frustrated
Rough Rider leading the charge.
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
– On election day:
• Hughes swept the East
• Wilson went to bed that night prepared to accept
defeat
• But the rest of the nation turned the tide:
– Midwestern and westerners, attracted by Wilson’s
progressive reforms and antiwar policies, flocked to him
• The final result was in doubt for several days
– Hinged on California which Wilson carried with 3,800 votes
out of about a million—Hughes had lost the endorsement of
California governor Hiram Johnson (TR’s 1912 Progressive
running mate) when he failed to show up for an
appointment with him
XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in
1916 (cont.)
– The final count:
• Wilson with a final vote of 277 to 254 in the Electoral
College,
• 9,127,695 to 8,533,507 in the popular column (see
Map 29.4)
• The pro-labor Wilson received strong support from
– The working class and from renegade Bull Moosers
• Wilson did not specifically promise to keep the
country out of the war.
– Nevertheless, he used as his campaign slogan, “He kept us
out of war”
Map 29-4 p675
p674
p676