27b: Safe For Democracy?

When World War I broke out in 1914, most Americans hoped to stay out completely. US sympathies were clearly with the Allied states - Britain, France, and Russia - but isolationism made sense. Europe was far away and the US Army was extremely small. Indeed, President Wilson won re-election in 1916 claiming he had kept America out of war. In 1917, however, Germany's declaration of "unrestricted submarine warfare" forced America in. German U-boats would now sink any ship suspected of bringing cargo to England or France, any time, anywhere. Moreover, a German diplomat was caught coaxing Mexico into a war against the United States. On April 6, 1917 President Wilson persuaded Congress to declare war. Even so, the vote was not unanimous, nor was public opinion totally behind the war. As the raw American troops arrived in France; the Allies wanted to have them patch up shattered British and French units.  The US commander, General Pershing, insisted that the American troops must fight separately and under their own flag - or not at all. The million American troops who fought in Europe did not exactly win the First World War. More accurately, they tipped the balance in a bloodsoaked four year war. And as the balance tipped, Wilson began revealing his plan to "make the world safe for democracy:" the Fourteen Points.

Democracy was not, however, totally safe back on the home front. Americans of German descent were harassed, The German language and culture became objects of hatred. Sauerkraut was renamed "liberty cabbage," and "Spitz" dogs became "Eskimo Terriers." On another level, the Wilson Administration lashed out against dissenters, both directly and through right-wing front organizations. In 1918 the Sedition Act was passed by Congress and signed by Wilson, making it illegal to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language" about the U.S. government, flag or armed forces. Many patriotic Americans whose only "crime" was disagreement with Wilson's policies found themselves imprisoned or even deported. One sublime irony is that while Woodrow Wilson's America was deporting people to Soviet Russia for Communist sympathies, Vladimir Lenin's Russia was deporting people Westward for Western sympathies.

To President Wilson, a democratic world had no place for empires. On January 8, 1918 he delivered his famous "Fourteen Points" speech to a joint session of Congress. Prompted at least in part by Lenin's "no peace, no war" doctrine, Wilson supported moderate treatment of the Central Powers if and when they surrendered.  His fourteenth point called for the creation of an international organization devoted to maintaining world peace - the future League of Nations. There is some evidence that the hope of such a moderate peace brought the Central Powers to the negotiation table sooner. When the armistice finally came on 11 November 1918, the Fourteen Points were assumed to be the basis of any upcoming peace treaty. Yet when the treaty negotiations began in Versailles, it turned out Britain and France wished to punish Germany after all, regardless. The consequences of the Versailles Treaty would prove to be dire indeed. Since the US Senate balked at signing the Versailles treaty, the United States signed separate treaties with Germany and Germany's allies. The Senate also refused to enter the newly-created League of Nations on Wilson's terms. Wilson rejected the Senate's compromise proposal, blocking for good America's entry into the League. Deprived of America's contributions, the League was doomed to fail.

The First World War did not make the whole world safe for democracy. Some former subject nations did indeed regain independence.  Plucky Poland, last seen being partitioned by Russia, Germany, and Austria during the 18th century, was reassembled as a buffer state separating Germany from the Soviet Union.  But national self-determination was not automatically granted to everyone. Nations of the non-white European colonies were notably out of luck. While Wilson was at Versailles for the treaty negotiations, a young Vietnamese named Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote to request a meeting. Nguyen wanted a chance to persuade Wilson that French Indochina deserved independence under the framework of the Fourteen Points. The meeting never took place. Nguyen Ai Quoc eventually rose to power in the Vietnamese Communist Party under the name Ho Chi Minh. Despite Wilson's calls for more reasonable peace terms, the Versailles Treaty's severe economic impact upon Germany led directly to the rise of Hitler's Third Reich and, thus, to World War II in Europe. The Versailles Treaty also failed to recognize the overpopulated Japan's need for land and raw materials. This oversight led to the rise of Japanese imperialism and, thus, World War II in the Pacific.

Wilson's grand designs failed, but he was on the right track toward world peace. Even if his vision didn't extend to non-Caucasian peoples such as the Vietnamese, it was remarkable nonetheless and an honorable try. It showed not just the American people's political and military maturity, but also American intellectual maturity. The best hope for peace after the First World War had come from a nation not a century and a half old.