WORLD WAR I
Interpreting
Primary Sources
The United
States must be neutral in fact as well as in name....We must be impartial in
thought as well as in action.
--President
Wilson, 1914
There is
such a thing as a man being too proud to fight.
--President
Wilson, 1915
It must be a
peace without victory....Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a
victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished.
It would be accepted in
humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting,
a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not
permanently, but only as upon quicksand.
Only a peace between equals can last.
--President
Wilson, January, 1917
The present
German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against all
mankind....Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the
physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human
right, of which we are only a single champion....Armed neutrality, it now
appears, is impracticable. Because
submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been
used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their
attacks as the law of nations has assumed....
Our
object...is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the
world as against selfish and autocratic power....We are glad...to fight...for
the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the
German peoples included: for the right of nations great and small and the
privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for
democracy....We have no selfish ends to serve.
We desire no conquest, no dominion.
We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the
sacrifices we shall freely make....
It is a
fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war....We shall fight for
the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts,--for democracy, for
the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own
Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal
dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and
safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and
our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the
pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to
spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and
happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can
do no other.
--President
Wilson's war message, April, 1917
Never forget
that this league is primarily...a political organization, and I object strongly
to having the politics of the United States turn upon disputes where deep
feeling is aroused but in which we have no direct interest. It will tend to delay the Americanization of
our great population....We have interests of our own in Asia and in the Pacific
which we must guard upon our own account, but the less we undertake to play the
part of umpire and thrust ourselves into European conflicts the better for the
United States and the world.
--Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge, 1919, on the League of Nations
To what
extent was America's war a war for business?
Did Woodrow Wilson lead America into war in order to serve the selfish
interests of the few? The answer is
determined by looking into the essential facts. In the first place, Wall Street wanted war.
--John
Kenneth Turner, 1922
The Hun
within our gates is the worst of the foes of our own household, whether he is
the paid or the unpaid agent of Germany. Whether he is pro-German or poses as a
pacifist, or a peace-at-any-price-man, matters little....The German-language
papers carry on a consistent campaign in favor of Germany against England. They
should be put out of existence for the period of this war....Every disloyal
native-born American should be disfranchised and interned. It is time to strike our enemies at home
heavily and quickly.
--Theodore
Roosevelt, 1917
People...ask
questions which involve the reasons for my acts against the
"Reds." I have been
asked...to what extent deportation will check radicalism in this country. Why no ask what will become of the United
States Government if these alien radicals...carry out the principles of the
Communist
Party?
In place of
the United States Government we should have the horror and terrorism of
Bolshevik tyranny such as is destroying Russia now....The whole purpose of
communism appears to be a mass formation of the criminals of the world to
overthrow the decencies of private life, to usurp
property....
--A.
Mitchell Palmer, 1920, on the Red Scare
This
indictment is founded wholly upon the publication of two leaflets....The
first....says that the President's cowardly silence about the intervention in
Russia reveals the hypocrisy of the plutocratic gang in Washington....It says
that there is only one enemy of the workers of the world and that is
capitalism....The other leaflet...says..."Workers in the ammunition
factories, you are producing bullets, bayonets, cannon, to murder not only the
Germans, but also your dearest, best, who are in Russia and are fighting for
freedom"....
The United
States constitutionally may punish speech that produces or is intended to
produce a clear and imminent danger that it will bring about forthwith certain
substantive evils that the United States constitutionally may seek to prevent. The power undoubtedly is greater in time of
war than in time of peace because war opens dangers that do not exist at other
times....
It is only
the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that
warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private
rights are not concerned. Congress
certainly cannot forbid all effort to change the mind of the county....
When men
have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to
believe...that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in
ideas....I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check
the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death,
unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and
pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the
country.
--Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting opinion in Abrams et al. v. U.S.
Questions
to think about:
1. Why does the United States enter World War
I? Do you find the reasons persuasive?
2. What are America's war aims? Were Wilson's goals unrealistic and
misleading? were they overly idealistic and moralistic? did he expect too much of international law
and international organization? Why
were Wilson's goals not achieved?
3. Which principles should guide American
diplomacy--moral and legal ideals or national interest?
4. What questions of loyalty and civil
liberties were raised by the war?
STUDY AID:
WILSON'S 14 POINTS
1. An end to all secret diplomacy
2. Freedom of the seas in peace and war
3. The reduction of trade barriers among
nations
4. The general reduction of armaments
5. The adjustment of colonial claims in the
interest of the inhabitants as well as of the colonial powers
6. The evacuation of Russian territory and a
welcome for its government to the society of nations
7. The restoration of Belgium
8. The evacuation of all French territory,
including Alsace-Lorraine
9. The readjustment of Italian boundaries along
clearly recognizable lines of nationality
10.
Independence for various national groups in Austria-Hungary
11. The
restoration of the Balkan nations and free access to the sea for Serbia
12.
Protection for minorities in Turkey and the free passage of the ships of all
nations through the Dardanelles
13.
Independence for Poland, including access to the sea
14. A league
of nations to protect "mutual guarantees of political independence and
territorial integrity to great and small nations alike."
INTERPRETING
STATISTICS: THE GREAT WAR
Combatants
in World War I
The
Allies The Central Powers
Australia
Japan Austria-Hungary
Belgium
Liberia Bulgaria
Brazil Montenegro Germany
Britain
New Zealand Ottoman Empire
Canada
Nicaragua
China
Panama
Costa Rica
Portugal
Cuba
Romania
France
Russia
Greece
San Marino
Guatemala
Serbia
Haiti
Siam
Honduras
South Africa
India
United States
Italy
Maximum
strength:
42 million
troops 23 million troops
Military and
Naval Personnel
1880 1900 1914
U.S. 34,000 96,000
164,000
Britain 367,000 624,000
532,000
Germany 426,000 524,000
891,000
Russia 791,000 1,162,000 1,352,000
National
Income, Population, Per Capita Income of the Great Powers, 1914
National Per Capita
Income Population Income
U.S. $37
billion 98 million $377
Britain 11 45 244
Germany 12 65 184
Russia 7 171 41
War
Expenditures
Expenditures Troops
British
Empire $23.0 billion
9.5 million
France 9.3 8.2
Russia 5.4 13.0
U.S. 17.1 3.8
Germany 19.9 13.25
Austria-Hungary 4.7 9.0
Questions
to think about:
1. How did the major powers compare in terms of
troop strength, national and per capita income, population, and wartime
expenditures?
2. Do you think the Central Powers might have
been in a better position to fight the war if the war had been waged earlier?