In 1916, Wilson campaigned on the fact that he’d kept America out of war and on a progressive platform that :
highlighted federal legislation to promote workers’ health and safety, prohibit child labour, provide unemployment compensation and establish minimum wages and maximum hours. Wilson, in turn, included in his draft platform a plank that called for all work performed by and for the federal government to provide a minimum wage, an eight-hour day and six-day workweek, health and safety measures, the prohibition of child labour, and (his own additions) safeguards for female workers and a retirement program.
The Republican nominee was Charles Evans Hughes of New York who was also a progressive. The campaign was close, but Hughes was hampered by having to keep the Republican party with its fractured progressive and conservative wings intact. Wilson apparently spent more time attacking Roosevelt during the campaign than he did Hughes, the actual opponent.
The war in Europe was probably a turning point in the American economy. European wealth was being destroyed at a furious pace and were engaged in a total war that demanded resources that the Americans were able to supply. Ultimately, the U-Boat affronts became more than the U.S. could ignore. Germany was probably aware of this, but it had to gamble on the U-boats because it didn’t have a lot of options given its position in the war. The Zimmerman Telegram certainly didn’t help matters either. Germany was going to resume unrestricted submarine warfare which, it knew, would provoke the Americans. If the U.S. joined the war against Mexico, the telegram suggested that Mexico should ally with Germany and “reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” A declaration of war was passed by Congress and signed by President Wilson on April 6, 1917. The Russian Revolution in March of 1917 removed a barrier to U.S. entry inasmuch as the U.S. would not be obliged to fight alongside an autocratic regime. Russia’s exit from the war, however, made the U.S. contribution all the more important since the Germans were able to focus more intently on the Western Front.
Near the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the war, on July 4, 1917, Col. Charles Stanton went to the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette in Paris and said:
America has joined forces with the Allied Powers, and what we have of blood and treasure are yours. Therefore it is that with loving pride we drape the colors in tribute of respect to this citizen of your great republic. And here and now, in the presence of the illustrious dead, we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to a successful issue. Lafayette, we are here!
Consistent with the Progressive ethos of the day, the U.S. attempted to enlist a technocratic approach to mobilizing the home-front for the war. A notable example of this was future President Herbert Hoover who headed up the U.S. Food Administration during the war. Hoover sought and obtained a great deal of centralized power for the Food Administration, declaring “food will win the war.” “Hoover established set days for people to avoid eating specified foods and save them for soldiers’ rations: meatless Mondays, wheatless Wednesdays, and “when in doubt, eat potatoes”.” The agency also used price controls and licensing schemes to maximize production.
The U.S. raised an army through conscription and Wilson gave General Pershing broad authority with respect to strategy and tactics. By August 1918, the U.S. had a million soldiers in Europe.
The Democrats did not fare well in the 1918 mid-term elections, and the Republicans took control of the Congress. As the war was winding down, Wilson was in Europe for the better part of six months for the peace conference. He played a major role — advancing his Fourteen Points and pushing for the creation of a League of Nations. However, there is an argument to be made that he was more persuasive in Europe than at home. The Senate would not ratify the treaty of Versailles which incorporated the League of Nations charter. During the treaty negotiations, Wilson had suffered illness which weakened him in the face of the Senate negotiations which, being controlled by the opposing Republicans, was going to be an uphill battle regardless. Wilson then suffered a series of strokes. The Senate opposition was led by Senator Lodge. The key point of disagreement was whether the treaty would diminish the ability of Congress to declare war. Ratification was ultimately defeated.
Demobilization caused a good bit of disruption. Four million soldiers abruptly returned home without much in the way of money or benefits. Returning soldiers mixed with new workers who had been recruited during the wartime labor shortage — often these workers were blacks who were induced to move from the South to the north where the factories were. A wartime land price bubble burst, leaving many farmers deeply in debt. Strikes disrupted the economy in 1919. Race riots erupted throughout the country (with the greatest violence taking place in Chicago) as postwar economic issues, racial tensions, labor activity, a civil rights movement, and fear of Bolshevism created a toxic mix.
The Red Scare reached its apex during 1919 and 1920. The anarchists were a problem, and the Bolshevik take over of the Soviet Union made the danger seem very real. Authorities saw the threat of Communist revolution in any number of labor events. In April and June of 1919, anarchists attempted over mail bombings. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer was targeted twice. They were not particularly effective as weapons of assassination, but they were unnerving. Palmer recruited a recent law school graduate by the name of J. Edgar Hoover to help him fight back.
Palmer launched his campaign against radicalism with two sets of police actions known as the Palmer Raids in November 1919 and January 1920. Federal agents supported by local police rounded up large groups of suspected radicals, often based on membership in a political group rather than any action taken. Undercover informants and warrantless wiretaps (authorized under the Sedition Act) helped to identify several thousand suspected leftists and radicals to be arrested.
Despite serious constitutional questions about the actions, the public largely supported the raids.
On June 4, 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote. The language had first been proposed in 1878. That language didn’t get a vote in the Senate until 1887 when it was rejected by a vote of 16 – 34. Then it languished for 30 years. The women’s suffrage movement saw some success, particularly in the west, during the 1910s due in part to the successes of the Progressive and socialist movements. In 1918, President Wilson advocated passage of the 19th Amendment. It received the necessary votes in the House but fell two votes short in the Senate. A second vote got it within one vote. There was a desire to obtain passage before the 1920 election. President Wilson called Congress into special session and, finally, the June 4, 1919, vote got the measure passed in the Senate. The measure was opposed by conservative Southerners (because of course it was), but it finally got the necessary state ratifications on August 18, 1920, when Tennessee narrowly passed the measure. (Indiana passed it on January 16, 1920).
During the last part of Wilson’s term, he was physically unable to perform the job. The strokes had debilitated him severely. His wife insulated him for the most part, choosing matters for his attention and delegating others to cabinet members. His situation was one of the cases that eventually led to ratification of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment which provides a process for removing the President when “the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Next time: Warren Harding promises a return to normalcy.
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