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CHAPTER IX

THE ELECTION OF 1916

AFTER all the remarkable laws that President Wilson was able to induce Congress and the industrial section of the country to pass and accept, it was by no means certain that he would be reëlected and thus enabled to finish his task and leave the nation convalescent from its half century of economic debauch. Wilson knew, as any political scientist knows, that four years in office, either in the United States or England, is not enough to set a great reform movement firmly upon the ways of history. The platform on which Wilson was elected contained a "plank" which denounced second terms in the White House. There is no doubt that Mr. Bryan who wrote the platform believed then in the singleterm idea. Wilson did not believe in it and before he was inaugurated he boldly, if not then publicly, declared, in a letter to be submitted to Democratic members of Congress, that he would oppose the constitutional amendment then being prepared limiting every president to a single term.1

The ideal thing would have been for the President and his party to submit their work to the country and ask a return to power on the promise that they would try to complete the task. They certainly had kept the promises of the campaign of 1912. The tariff had been reduced. There was an

Henry Jones Ford, "Woodrow Wilson," 319. It may be worth while to remember that Jackson made his campaign of 1828 very largely upon the single-term idea. His violation of the public pledge was a great cause of the crisis with South Carolina, 1832-1833.

expert tariff board to study the tariff and help common men to understand the subject. The finances of the country had really been reformed and there was a national banking board to make the reforms effective. The old trust muddle had been improved and there was a board of moderate men to study business and make recommendations as to what should be done with corporations that seem to seek unsocial ends. There were many other and even very important things being done in the same spirit as the various national conventions were assembling in the summer of 1916. Wilson had certainly a good case. No other president ever had a better one.1

But Wilson, the life-long student of domestic problems, the reformer of industrial abuses, was not to be tried upon his merits. The great war in Europe broke upon him in the midst of his exacting tasks. He must of necessity become an expert in the complicated and age-long political and social struggles of Germany, France, and England. There was no escape from it, and he knew that no chancellery in Europe had anything more than polite respect for him or his aspirations. He was to them a novice; perhaps he would become a menace, if he continued to lead so great a part of the modern world as the United States.2

It was this dread of being diverted from his main business, this dread of becoming entangled in the meshes of European affairs that lent so much earnestness to his repeated announcements of American neutrality. But he could not be neutral; the country had passed the stage in its history where it could remain aloof when world wars were being waged. I have shown how great was the industrial response to the war,

Read Henry Adams's, "History of the United States," New York, 1889, III, Chapter XV, for a parallel.

"The knowledge of this European opinion of himself was one of the reasons for Wilson's proposed absolute neutrality so bitterly condemned by some Americans.

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how many billions of dollars were being diverted toward American coffers by the war. The British blockade, becoming more effective every day, barred the way of American goods to Germany and even to neutral countries. Hoke Smith and a score of Southern senators and representatives urged him to protest against the blockade. Representatives of the packers of Chicago and the farmers of the Northwest urged him to open the way to hungry markets for their goods. No matter how clearly he as a historian might recall the policy of Abraham Lincoln on the problems of blockades-and the British policy in 1914 was almost identical with that of the United States in 1861-he must respond to the loud demands of business men and farmers who cared little for history or precedents. He made his fight during the autumn of 1914 and the winter of 1915 against all the more drastic phases of the British blockade, against British interference with cargoes bound for neutral ports, but known to be on the way to Germany; against searching American mail pouches, although he knew the Germans in the United States were sending money or credits to their kinsmen in Europe; against blacklisting American commercial houses, even when these were known to be German firms to all intents and purposes. It was his duty; he did it as best he could, although, as a man of insight, he must have felt that he was weakening the arm of the one great power that barred the way of imperial Germany to world mastery.1

But Germany could not leave matters to take their course either in Europe or in America. Once having drawn the sword she must win or have all mankind later call her to account for the cruel philosophy of might which she had taught since Bismarck. The Kaiser in a special letter to the President

"The protests will be found in Robinson and West, "The Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson," 230, et seq.

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appealed to Americans to witness the German innocence of the British and Belgian charges of cruelty and want of good faith. Wilhelm talked and wrote in those days as though he were fighting a crusade for some noble cause, and the German people prayed and preached as though they were the chosen people of all the world. They could not even allow a question of their high and humane motives in the neutral world. were r They set to work to counteract the effects of the British blockade. They set up purchasing agencies in the United States; they made connections with American and even Canadian banking houses for the transfer of credits; they formed great associations in all the leading cities of the United States whose business it was to aid the German ambassador in Washington in everything he undertook. They set up newspapers, bought old newspapers, made connections with William Randolph Hearst, organized university professors to speak for the German cause, and held labour meetings to protest against all wars. The leading brewers united with the University organization to protest against the shipment of arms to the Allies, to persuade members of Congress to lay an embargo upon the shipment of munitions to Europe, and they made desperate efforts to get the ear of the President himself. The millions of money raised by loans among German-Americans or sent directly from Berlin was used in this work or in fomenting strikes, laying bombs in manufacturing plants, upon ships about to depart for England, or even in the capitol in Washington. Representative men,

like Frank Buchanan of Illinois, a member of the House; Charles Nagel of St Louis, a former member of the Cabinet, and many others lent enthusiastic aid to this work to the very day that the United States entered the great war.

Names of men involved or deeds actually performed will be found in "Hearings" of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, 65th Congress, 2nd and 3rd Sessions. Three volumes of valuable testimony.

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But these measures were not sufficient. On February 6, 1915, the German Government proclaimed a submarine blockade of the British Isles. After the 18th of February commanders of submarines were to sink on sight the ships of the allied peoples and neutral ships must take care lest they, too, fall victims to the new ruthlessness. It was a question whether British and neutral seamen could be frightened from the ocean, not so much an expectation that German commanders would be compelled to continue this bloody work of sinking friend and foe upon ships going about their lawful business. It was expected that men would simply cease taking the risks and save themselves, leaving England to starve or yield.

Wilson made earnest protest on February 10th. Germany must take care not to destroy American lives or sink American ships. Ten days later he sent a memorandum to both Germany and England asking them to give up submarines and mines, except in and about harbours, and to cease the cruel practice of employing neutral flags as decoys. He even asked Britain to allow foodstuffs to be sent into Germany for the

we civil population under German guarantee that it should not be sent to the armies. If these propositions had been accepted, Germany must have won the war and the President's own policy must have given him poignant regret.

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But while the President held this rather gentle if dangerous course, the opposition prodded him daily to compel England to lift her blockade. Business communities whose leaders most keenly feared the German menace were the loudest in their demands. The Boston Transcript urged the Government to protest more vigorously; the Pittsburg Leader wished shipments of all kinds stopped, then the war would come to an end, its editor insisted; even the New York Robinson and West, "Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson," 245-46.

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