The Wilson administration and the great war

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Coming Storm and Preparation 9

II The Food Administration 28

Chapter I

The low, long roll of thunder was heard along the eastern horizon on a morning of that fateful last week in July, 19 14. The sound of it stretched across the sea and reached America and circled the globe. No cloud was in sight; no cause apparent. Yet the first peal grew into a terrific roar, the whole heaven was darkened, and the world was caught in an awful storm. Thick darkness was round about.

The diplomatic battle, with Sir Edward Grey as the center of all the parleys having for their end the peace of the world, was ended within ten days. England held aloof, warning France that for her to advance toward Germany beyond the line of diplomatic prudence would endanger her support. The first week in August saw military force arrayed against military force. The usual poise of the world was upset by the fierceness and ruthlessness of the onslaught, and little Belgium was first made to feel the heavy blow of the cruel ravager; and her endurance for the first ten days of self-effacement, together with England's ready navy saved to the world that civilization which was the product of twenty centuries of human effort. For it enabled France to gather her forces and England to lO The JVilson Admimstration and the Great War

assemble her resources and to get her bearings in the new relationships.

America was in a maze. To her the situation was stupefying. The Thing seemed unreal. It was like a tale from cloudland — impossible. The American was confused, baffled, tie knew that there was disordered movement in the world; that the world was out of joint. He witnessed a combat of giants on an unheard-of scale. The world was beginning to sway and reel like a drunken man. Events were not taking place in their usual course. History seemed to have come to an end; and history seemed to be beginning anew. Had mankind gone mad? Was civilization's very foundation to be destroyed? Was all that had been built upon the teachings of the Christ to be discarded? Was civilization itself sagging?

These were the questions that ran through the mind of America from day to day and from week to week.

Then came the quick and mighty forging forward toward Paris, once Belgium was prostrate. It seemed that nothing would stop the onward sweep, and that the French capital must be reached within a few weeks and surrender to the sword. But the marvel of it was that within a few miles of the city the tide was stemmed. And at this time, but a few weeks after the titanic struggle began, the distinctively American citizen was glad that the tide had been turned back and that Paris was saved. For already, with incomplete knowledge, there was a growing feeling that Germany was in the wrong, that the outrage on Belgium would not bear the scrutiny of modern civilization, and that the German government proposed to use every means within its power, fair or foul, civilized or savage, to accomplish its purpose.

And treachery and propaganda were at work in America, but by the Central Powers only. Cunningly devised, it was so insidiously operated as to mislead thoroughgoing Americans. Its purpose was to win America to the Ger-

Coming Storm and Prcpai alion 1 1

man cause; or, failing in that, so to confuse judgment and blur vision by falsehood and innuendo as to weaken any attempt to align American sentiment with the Allies. In fact, this had begun years before, when, by some means, even American textbooks used in the schools were prepared in such form as to laud Germany and things German. Thousands of American students attending German universities imbibed of the materialistic and hideous doctrines which Germany, through her universities, had been foisting upon the world; and at the ripe moment many of them stood by Germany, eminent Americans, teaching public law in great seats of American learning, aiding in the literary propaganda prepared in Germany for American consumption.

The extent of this treacherous propaganda was not fully known to the American public until the United States entered the war, and in its fullest extent will probably never be revealed. It was open and notorious in large population centers, but was by no means confined to the cities. North Dakota, an almost solidly agricultural section, was sedulously cultivated through the pro-German leaders of the Nonpartisan League; others soon became well known.

Openly where it seemed best, elsewhere clandestinely, Germany zealously backed up these efforts. If it was not an attempt to frighten America with a vision of Japan reaching out for the Philippines, Hawaii, and even California, then it was a setting forth of how England was seeking to catch unwary America in an effort to break down her commerce, or to push the Irish question to the front.

This persistent propaganda had a distinct anti-Ally influence, both immediately and for the future. By dividing American sentiment, it served well its purpose at the beginning of hostilities in Europe, as well as when America should have entered the armed conflict, when the first steps toward peace were contemplated, and while the Peace Congress was in session, as well as in the execution of the Treaty.

On the other hand, it was a potent force helpful to the cause of the Allies, in that it caused the organizing of the American forces everywhere as they had not been previously organized. And these, fortifying the American public with the facts in the case, cleared the way for a fairer understanding of the conflict in Europe and strengthened Allied sentiment in America.

For each time the Allies undertook to state the justice of their cause, there immediately came into existence a stream of literature and of pronouncements from certain pulpits that told how false was every statement thus made. On September 7, 19 14, the German kaiser himself protested to President Wilson against the conduct of the enemy in using dumdum bullets. The sole purpose was to blur the vision, at a time when the American public was not aware of the dastardly attempts of the German Government, aided by the pro-Germans in the United States, to put forth any false statements that might tend to show the Germans right, the Allies wrong.

And this influence reached Administration circles where it seemingly had more influence than upon the general public. Not only did it influence individual congressmen so that they were at all times pro-German, but it influenced Congress as a whole.

The chief prop of this official propaganda in America was the German-American Alliance, whose wishes found expression in resolutions in the House offered by their chief spokesmen, Vollmer and Bartholdt. The Alliance at Minneapolis telegraphed a member of the House : "In the name of Christian humanity and the spirit of neutrality we beg your support of Bartholdt's bill to stop munitions of war from America reaching Europe." It was not that they cared one iota about Christian humanity or the spirit of neutrality or the stopping of munitions from reaching Europe; what did concern these pro-German organizations was that Germany, barred by the effective naval operations of Great Britain, was unable to receive these munitions. Germany made no objections to any neutral country, herself included, shipping munitions of war in the Boer War.

About this time a great neutrality meeting was announced for Philadelphia by the newly formed American Neutrality League, and its secretary invited Dr. Rhinelander, Bishop of Pennsylvania, to be one of its vice-presidents. But the good bishop saw through this neutrality scheme, and declared that from information which had then lately reached him it appeared that this agitation was chiefly "not really in the interest of neutrality, but in hostility to the Allied nations, and with the hope of helping Germany and Austria in their campaign." And further stated : "As an American citizen pledged to uphold American ideals, I am altogether against Germany and Austria in this war, on the ground that they are threatening, and would destroy, as far as they have opportunity, those political and personal liberties and rights which we Americans have made the foundation of our government."

Here was the reply of a real American who saw through all the jugglery of pro-Germanism. And, of course, in the opinion of the secretary of the League, this letter showing real Americanism placed the Bishop of Pennsylvania as a partisan and made him ineligible as a vice-president of a neutrality meeting. But eminent men were present, and to get them into such meetings was always a large part of the plan. Governor Brumbaugh presided, while congressmen made bitter anti-British speeches, and resolutions were adopted which were zealously anti-Ally and vigorously pro- German; and the enormous throng unable to gain entrance to the meeting turned itself into a overflow meeting which manifested its neutrality by singing "Die Wacht am Rheim" and "Deutschland Ueber AUes." The influence of such meetings entered very emphatically into Administration circles in Washington,

Yet, the Administration presumably had at hand intimate knowledge of all the transactions of a foreign nation, a belligerent, in the country. But it was never explained to the American people why the Administration did not know what the German Imperial Government was doing by way of violation of the requirements of international law; or, knowing, why it did not put a stop to this underhanded, insidious campaign to drag America into the side that was wrong, and which men of the perspicacity of Bishop Rhinelander and others, who at this time were proclaiming the inhumanity and heartlessness of the German Government and the justice and righteousness of the Allied cause, could see so clearly.

The war in Europe had scarcely more than begun when the German-American Alliance, through its president. Dr. J. C. Hexamer, requested President Wilson to ask Japan to keep her hands off in the East at the time she demanded of Germany withdrawal of armed ships from that quarter. Immediately thereafter, on August i8, 19 14, President Wilson delivered one of his notable war addresses to the American people. Coming at that time, it was regarded as the Administration's reply. Among other things, he said:

The effect of the war upon the United States will depend upon what American citizens say and do. Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned,

I venture, therefore, my fellow-countrymen, to speak a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides. The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another.

My thought is of America. I am speaking, I feel sure, the earnest wish and purpose of every thoughtful American that this great country of ours, which is, of course, the first in our thoughts and in our hearts, should show herself in this time of peculiar trial a nation fit beyond others to exhibit the fine poise of undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the efficiency of dispassionate action; a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.

As this address, in some respects of the finest, came after the ravishment of Belgium, the President was most severely criticised for asking red-blooded Americans to be "neutral in thought," as his address was understood to mean, after the brutality shown toward little Belgium; and to maintain the "fine poise of undisturbed judgment" and to remain "dispassionate" after the blood-thirsty methods of brute force exhibited toward innocent women and children of a prostrate people. One of the picture-posters afterward used very effectively by the Administration in seeking enlistments, showing a stalwart young American, when he heard the tale of brutality, throwing off his coat to settle with the offender, accompanied by the injunction: "Tell it to the marines," was a very clear expression of the feelings of the real American. He was not dispassionate or neutral in the face of outraged conscience.

And as the people now began to complain of the do-nothing spirit of the Administration, in the face not only of the great wrong in Europe but of the attempted violation of American neutrality by the outrageous German propaganda carried on officially In the nation's capital. Dr. Bernhard Dernberg, the chief propagandist on the rostrum, was gently invited to discontinue his operations. But the propaganda continued In greater volume and with greater effect than ever. A great effort was made to control the leading newspapers of the country.

On the other hand, the method was being delved into. The facts were being set before the Administration, not by its own agents, but by some of the shrewdest private detectives in the land. The revelations made by the Providence Journal astonished the country. Even the Administration, with the proof in its own hands, was slow to believe. It did not like to admit that while it was asking the people to be neutral in thought and undisturbed in spirit, there was being carried on, under the very shadow of the White House, by the accredited ambassador of Germany, a scheme to divide the Republic by enemies within and by force without.

And when the notable book of James M. Beck, "The Evidence in the Case," set before the people the causes leading up to the open rupture in Europe, there was such a revulsion as is seldom seen, in so short a time.

It is doubtful whether history can credit the Administration with dealing fairly with the American people in this matter. With all the evidence it had or should have had with the opportunities of knowledge, it is difficult to credit the Administration with the purpose of square-dealing with the people, in its effort to lead them in a direction not warranted by the facts. The President's own accredited and trusted minister to the Netherlands at the time the conflagration burst forth, in referring to the events of vast magnitude that were rapidly crowding upon each other beginning with the last week in July, 19 14, said:

We who stood outside the secret councils of the Central Powers were both bewildered and dismaj^ed. Could it be that Europe of the twentieth century was to be thrust back into the ancient barbarism of a general war? It was like a dreadful nightmare. There was the head of the huge dragon, crested, fanged, clad in glittering scales, poised above the world and ready to strike. We were benumbed and terrified. There was nothing that we could do. The monstrous thing advanced, but even while we shuddered we could not make ourselves feel that it was real. It had the vagueness and the horrid pressure of a bad dream.^

^ Henry van Dyke's "Fighting for Peace," p. 45, Scribners, New York, 1917.

Doctor van Dyke was keenly aware of the unblushing brutality of the Hohenzollerns, and all that belong with them, whom he best knew as the Potsdam Gang.

And yet, two years later the President went so far as to declare :

This Great War that broke so suddenly upon the world two years ago, . . . has affected us very profoundly, and we are not only at liberty, it is perhaps our duty, to speak very frankly of it and of the great interests of civilization which it affects. With its causes and objects we are not concerned. The obscure fountains from which its stupendous flood has burst forth we are not interested to search for or explore.

Is that true? Was not Bishop Rhinelander's perception of the great moral issues involved the keener? And had It become true that America had no conscience? Where there is a lively conscience in a great people there is certain to be a lively interest against a wrong-doer, whether he be a private or a public character, anci there will be an ever- Increasing volume gathering until the wickedness is swept away. At first the people resented Theodore Roosevelt's broadsides against President Wilson; but as the conflict proceeded and the right and wrong of it became clearer, they swerved from Washington to Oyster Bay; they were learning that It was not the President of the United States, but the sage of Sagamore who was to pilot America through safe channels in the storm that was rocking the world.

Indeed, the President knew better, as witness his next inaugural expressions:

The war inevitably set its mark from the first alike upon our minds, our industries, our commerce, our politics, and our social action. To be indifferent to it or independent of it was out of the question.

And on the same occasion he described the German methods as "organized wrong."

It was during this period that there came Into being many societies with beguiling names to win American favor. Among these were American Neutrality League, American Independence Union, American Truth Society, American Peaceful Embargo Society, Friends of Peace, Friends of Truth.- That these influenced Mr. Wilson may be accepted as fact. His sense of right was not so far gone that he did not know. It may have been blunted by an overweening ambition. The course of the presidential campaign and the methods used by his managers and accepted by him, suggest that it was held in abeyance. He was unsteady, wavered when firmness in the right was the only safe course to pursue. It led to doubt, created uncertainty. This led a prominent member of Congress to declare, when urged to stand by the President, that he would gladly do so if the President would but take a stand for something. It was this wobbling that gave Germany her opportunity which she used to the full. The President, while in the attitude of what he described as "watchful waiting" in another international matter, displayed what became a marked characteristic of his as he remained the longer in the presidency — antagonizing the course which he admittedly knew to be the right, and showing favor to the admittedly wrong.

At this time of serious business in the world's history, the President manifested a partiality for pacifists. He had them in all the cabinet positions that were of chief importrance at such a time as then marked the world. Mr. Garrison, a fighting secretary of war, was displaced by a man so notedly a pacifist as to be known as antagonistic to the best Americanism. Henry Ford, who later received Mr. Wilson's support for United States senator, spent freely of his money, said to run into the millions, first in full-page advertisements in American newspapers, and then on his peace-ship trip to Europe, a plan that received adverse attention in the English Parliament. Prominent men in the

*John B. McMaster's "United States in the World War," p. 140, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1918.

President's cabinet were prominently connected with distinctively pro-German meetings in New York, his former Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, openly identifying himself with one of them.

These pacifists, who exerted a powerful influence In the Administration, sought to create in the United States a sentiment that was at all times of the greatest value to Germany, whether before, during, or after the war. They divided sentiment when it should have been united and firm against the brute forces then seeking to overturn civilization; they weakened the already weak Administration in a clear perception of duty to country and to humane principles.

But in time the forces of righteousness swept all barriers away. The dignity of the American nation had been flung to the winds. Her vessels on lawful missions were sunk. Her peaceful citizens lawfully travelling the highways of the sea were murdered. Even her government's representatives going to or from their posts of official duty were drowned in the depths. All these things were as nothing to a pacifist and pro-German. But the shame of it was that a national Administration permitted it. Good ringing notes were written by the American Government, and then the same outrages were permitted repetition. The Administration faltered when it should have been strong in action; it wavered when it should have been clear and unhesitating; it talked when it should have performed. It led to the expression that became common throughout the land : "Oh, for a Roosevelt in the White House!"

When, on May 7, 19 15, the "Lusitania" was sunk by a German torpedo, after advertisements in American newspapers by the German Embassy at Washington warning that American travellers on it would be endangered, and of the I' 1 53 persons who thereby lost their lives, 114 were American men, women and children, a cry of horror mingled with rage went up from every quarter of the land. May 16 the Secretary of State sent his first "Lusitania" note to Germany

20 The JV'ilson Admiinstration and the Great War

on the outrage. Midway between these two events, President Wilson in an address to a vast throng in Philadelphia used the words, "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight." This became known as his "too-proud-tofight" speech. All other incidents connected with it were soon forgotten. But it was a sad commentary upon the President's shrewdness and mental acumen that he could not have seen that that was a poor answer to the German militaristic power which had already determined that no sense of right or honor or neighborly obligation or treaty obligation should interfere with its desperate purpose.

Sinkings now come in rapid succession. On April 19, 19 16, the President went before Congress with the whole question, declaring that "tragedy had followed tragedy on the seas in such fashion" and that "the roll of Americans who have lost their lives on ships thus attacked and destroyed has grown month by month until the ominous total loss mounted into the hundreds." And he declared that the severance of diplomatic relations was the only course open unless Germany immediately and radically mended her ways. And in this he met the best thought of the nation.

But the presidential election was to be held that year, and again he dallied. And the campaign slogans of his party are suggestive of motives : "He kept us out of war," and "You are at work, not at war." He had repeatedly told the German Government that no further outrages would be tolerated, and there was the same reason for a war with Germany April 6, 1916, as April 6, 1917.

After the election he sought to ascertain upon what terms peace between the warring nations could be made. To this end, he went before the Senate January 22, 19 17. It is not clear why he went or what he expected to accomplish; but it is a part of the Administration's record. And in this address he used a notable phrase that has been following him as a nemesis ever since, when he declared for "peace without victory" — willing to condone all the worst horrors and brutalities imposed upon civilized society. It took a permanent place with h's "too proud to fight" and "with its causes and objects we are not concerned."

When James J. F. Archibald, pro-German lecturer in the United States, was detained by the British in August, 1915, he was found to possess high recommendations from the Austrian Ambassador Dumba and the German Ambassador BernstorfF. By papers found on him it was also disclosed that Bernstorff, while making explanations to the State Department of his connections with compromising transactions, was seeking to purchase or destroy manufacturing plants in the United States, and to cause strikes among the employes and disloyal union labor. It was early in 19 1 6 that the noted "sink-without-a-trace" messages were being sent, and that Bernstorff was a party to acts of war against the United States. He was a party to the infamous Zimmerman notes seeking to engage Mexico and Japan in disrupting the integrity of the American Republic. The President knew, the world knew, these things.

But no step had been taken by the Administration looking toward preparation for eventualities. General Leonard Wood opened at Plattsburg, N. Y., the training-camp that became the model for the Government once war was declared. It brought down upon his head the wrath of the Administration. Colonel Roosevelt stirred the people to the importance of getting ready for the war into which the country was drifting, pleading for one hundred per cent robust Americanism, for a united front against German encroachments upon American rights, for substituting in the fighting departments of the Government fighting men for pacifists, and above all for preparation for the inevitable conflict.

The Administration at first sought to neutralize the effects of Roosevelt's speeches and his articles written for magazines and newspapers. He became the leader of robust Americanism, while President Wilson became the leader and exponent of diluted Americanism and robust pacifism. "The two stood for irreconcilable doctrines: the one for justice at any cost; the other for peace at any price; the one for decision and preparedness to enforce it, the other for evasion and compromise." The pacifist War Secretary Baker declared there was ample time to prepare, since the war was 3,000 miles away; George Creel, socialist and internationalist, was chairman of the committee on public information. Men of this stamp at such a time cast a shadow over the entire Administration, which side-tracked the resolution of Representative Gardner for a National Security Commission, introduced October 15, 19 15, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of the nation's preparedness.

And the President, after seeking to lull the people to sleep, declared they did not want war. Meanwhile, Colonel Roosevelt's editorials appearing in the Kansas City Star, with its wide circulation, were having a marked influence through the central West. The President toured the central northwest and the section in which the Star circulated. He returned to Washington and stated that the people wanted war. The company Mr. Bryan was keeping in those large days of history-making was not up to Roosevelt's standard. After the sinking of the "Lusitania," Mr. Bryan issued an address to German-Americans stating that the President was their warm friend. At the moment they were seeking to destroy America, he received numerous telegrams from German-American societies, and under the auspices of one he gave an address in New York City, presided over by the president of the United German-American Societies of that State. Others addressing this meeting were Frank Buchanan, later of rather undesirable notoriety for alleged unamericanism ; Henry Vollmer, noted pro-German; the notorious Jeremiah O'Leary of pro-German fame; and among the worthies at the meeting were the Turkish ambassador; Austrian Ambassador Dumba, who did all in his power to destroy American integrity; Captain Boy-Ed and Captain von Papen, both notoriously active against Americanism.

And these were the influences that were operating upon the President until he went out among the people where Roosevelt had been preaching by pen and by tongue that form of Americanism that always prevails when right is matched against wrong, and the people are permitted to see the truth. At a late day he admitted the dernier forces at work had "poured the poison of disloyalty Into the various arteries of our national life," and that the time had come to make greater preparation. And on Flag Day, June 14, 19 16, he marched at the head of a parade in the interest of preparedness, in Washington. In an address on that occasion he said :

There is a disloyalty active in the United States and it must be crushed. It proceeds from a minority, a very small minority but a very active and subtle minority. It works underground but it also shows its ugly head where we can see it, and there are those at this moment who are trying to levy a species of political blackmail, saying, "Do what we wish in the interest of foreign sentiment or we will wreak our vengeance at the polls." That is the sort of thing against which the American Nation will turn with a might and triumph of sentiment wlu'ch will teach these gentlemen once for all that disloyalty to this flag is the first test of tolerance in the United States.

Herein President Wilson was speaking America's best thought. But soon thereafter came another sagging, as witness the campaign slogan of the party of which he was the head, "He kept us out of war."

Diplomatic relations with Germany were severed on February 3. The McLemore resolution, seeking to block the President's policy of arming merchantmen, had been ardently debated in and out of Congress, and every force standing for Germany and pro-Germanism backed the resolution. The President was bitterly attacked by his own party, and every power Germany could exert was now used. Bernstorff sought to influence Congress and the newspapers. This was a year before diplomatic relations were severed. President Wilson replied to the vicious attacks: "You are right in assuming that I shall do everything in my power to keep the United States out of war." But when the time for action came, he was ready to assume his part of the responsibility after the breaking off of diplomatic relations. April 2 he went before Congress and asked for the declaration that a state of war existed. This was granted by resolution on April 6.