CHAPTER United States secures the Panama Canal Zone W. E. B. Du Bois s The Souls of Black Folk

Transcription

1 CHAPTER United States secures the Panama Cana Zone W. E. B. Du Bois s The Sous of Back Fok 1904 Roosevet Coroary to the Monroe Doctrine 1905 The Niagara movement estabished Russo-Japanese War ends 1907 Genteman s Agreement with Japan 1908 Israe Zangwi s The Meting Pot 1909 Nationa Association for the Advancement of Coored Peope organized 1911 Mexican Revoution begins Baiey v. Aabama 1912 Titanic sinks 1914 Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand 1914 Word War I Lusitania sinks D. W. Griffith s Birth of a Nation premieres 1916 Batte at Verdun Madison Grant s The Passing of the Great Race Randoph Bourne s Trans-Nationa America 1917 Zimmerman Note intercepted United States enters the war Espionage Act Russian Revoution 1918 Woodrow Wison s Fourteen Points speech Eugene V. Debs convicted under the Espionage Act 1919 Eighteenth Amendment ratified Treaty of Versaies signed 1919 Red Scare Nineteenth Amendment ratified Senate rejects the Treaty of Versaies 1927 Buck v. Be

2 Safe for Democracy: The United States and Word War I, AN ERA OF INTERVENTION I Took the Cana Zone The Roosevet Coroary Mora Imperiaism Wison and Mexico AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR Neutraity and Preparedness The Road to War The Fourteen Points THE WAR AT HOME The Progressives War The Wartime State The Propaganda War The Great Cause of Freedom The Coming of Woman Suffrage Prohibition Liberty in Wartime The Espionage Act Coercive Patriotism WHO IS AN AMERICAN? The Race Probem Americanization and Puraism The Anti-German Crusade Toward Immigration Restriction Groups Apart: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Asian-Americans The Coor Line Roosevet, Wison, and Race W. E. B. Du Bois and the Reviva of Back Protest Cosing Ranks The Great Migration and the Promised Land Racia Vioence, North and South The Rise of Garveyism 1919 AWordwideUpsurge Upheava in America The Great Stee Strike The Red Scare Wison at Versaies The Wisonian Moment The Seeds of Wars to Come The Treaty Debate A rather aggressive-ooking Statue of Liberty directs Americans to purchase Liberty Bonds (that is, oan money to the federa government) during Word War I. Symbos of iberty were widey used by the government in its efforts to mobiize popuar support for the war. The bottom of the fu image incuded the words, Lest I perish.

3 FOCUS QUESTIONS In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas? How did the United States get invoved in Word War I? How did the United States mobiize resources and pubic opinion for the war effort? How did the war affect race reations in the United States? Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the word? n1902,w.t.steadpubishedashortvoumewiththearrestingtite I The Americanization of the Word; or, the Trend of the Twentieth Century. Stead was an Engish editor whose sensationa writings incuded an exposé of London prostitution, Maiden Tribute of Modern Babyon. He woud meet his death in 1912 as a passenger on the Titanic, the ocean iner that foundered after striking an iceberg in the North Atantic. Impressed by Americans exuberant energies, Stead predicted that the United States woud soon emerge as the greatest of wordpowers. But what was most striking about his work was that Stead ocated the source of American power ess in the ream of miitary might or territoria acquisition than in the country s singe-minded commitment to the pursuit of weath and the reentess internationa spread of American cuture art, music, journaism, even ideas about reigion and gender reations. He foresaw a future in which the United States promoted its interests and vaues through an unending invovement in the affairs of other nations. Stead proved to be an accurate prophet. The Spanish-American War had estabished the United States as an internationa empire. Despite the conquest of the Phiippines and Puerto Rico, however, the country s overseas hodings remained tiny compared to those of Britain, France, and Germany. And no more were added, except for a strip of and surrounding the Panama Cana, acquired in 1903, and the Virgin Isands, purchased from Denmark in In 1900, Great Britain rued over more than 300 miion peope in possessions scattered across the gobe, and France had neary 50 miion subjects in Asia and Africa. Compared with these, the American presence in the word seemed very sma. As Stead suggested, America s empire differed significanty from those of European countries it was economic, cutura, and inteectua, rather than territoria. The word economy at the dawn of the twentieth century was aready highy gobaized. An ever-increasing stream of goods, investments, and peope fowed from country to country. Athough Britain sti dominated word banking and the British pound remained the major currency of internationa trade, the United States had become the eading industria power. By 1914, it produced more than one-third of the word s manufactured goods. Aready, Europeans compained of an American invasion of stee, oi, agricutura equipment, and consumer goods. Spearheads of American cuture ike movies and popuar music were not far behind. Europeans were fascinated by American ingenuity and mass production techniques. Many feared American products and cuture woud overwhem their own. What are the chief new features of London ife? one British writer asked in They are the teephone, the portabe camera, the phonograph, the eectric street car, the automobie,

4 In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas? 769 the typewriter.... In every one of these the American maker is supreme. Meanwhie, hundreds of thousands of Americans traveed abroad each year in the eary twentieth century. And American racia and ethnic groups became heaviy engaged in overseas poitics. Through fraterna, reigious, and poitica organizations based in their ethnic and racia communities, Irish-Americans supported Irish independence, American Jews protested the treatment of their co-reigionists in Russia, and back Americans hoped to upift Africa. American infuence was growing throughout the word. America s growing connections with the outside word ed to increasing miitary and poitica invovement. In the two decades after 1900, many of the basic principes that woud guide American foreign poicy for the rest of the century were formuated. The open door the free fow of trade, investment, information, and cuture emerged as a key principe of American foreign reations. Since the manufacturer insists on having the word as a market, wrote Woodrow Wison, the fag of his nation must foow him and the doors of nations which are cosed against him must be battered down. Americans in the twentieth century often discussed foreign poicy in the anguage of freedom. At east in rhetoric, the United States ventured abroad incuding intervening miitariy in the affairs of other nations not to pursue strategic goas or to make the word safe for American economic interests, but to promote iberty and democracy. A supreme faith in America s historic destiny and in the righteousness of its ideas enabed the country s eaders to think of the United States simutaneousy as an emerging great power and as the wordwide embodiment of freedom. More than any other individua, Woodrow Wison articuated this vision of America s reationship to the rest of the word. His foreign poicy, caed by historians ibera internationaism, rested on the conviction that economic and poitica progress went hand in hand. Thus, greater wordwide freedom woud foow inevitaby from increased American investment and trade abroad. Frequenty during the twentieth century, this conviction woud serve as a mask for American power and sef-interest. It woud aso inspire sincere efforts to bring freedom to other peopes. In either case, ibera internationaism represented a shift from the nineteenth-century tradition of promoting freedom primariy by exampe, to active intervention to remake the word in the American image. American invovement in Word War I provided the first great test of Wison s beief that American power coud make the word safe for democracy. Most Progressives embraced the country s participation in the war, beieving that the United States coud hep to spread Progressive vaues throughout the word. But rather than bringing Progressivism to ARussianadvertisementfortheSinger Sewing Machine Company, one of the many American companies that marketed their goods wordwide in the eary twentieth century. Singer estabished factories in Russia and aso imported machines from the United States. The figure that appears to be the number 3 is actuay the etter Z in the Cyriic aphabet, representing the company s name in Russian, Zinger. European and American ads for sewing machines depicted women in modern dress; here, however, the operator wears the traditiona attire of a peasant, part of the company s strategy of trying to se sewing machines to Russia s vast rura popuation.

5 770 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy AN ERA OF INTERVENTION The Greatest Department Store on Earth, acartoonfrompuck, November 29, 1899, depicts Unce Sam seing goods, mosty manufactured products, to the nations of the word. The search for markets overseas woud be a recurring theme of twentieth-century American foreign poicy. other peopes, the war destroyed it at home. The government quicky came to view critics of American invovement not simpy as citizens with a different set of opinions, but as enemies of the very ideas of democracy and freedom. As a resut, the war produced one of the most sweeping repressions of the right to dissent in a of American history. AN ERA OF INTERVENTION Just as they expanded the powers of the federa government in domestic affairs, the Progressive presidents were not reuctant to project American power outside the country s borders. At first, their interventions were confined to the Western Hemisphere, whose affairs the United States had caimed a specia right to oversee ever since the Monroe Doctrine of Between 1901 and 1920, U.S. marines anded in Caribbean countries more than twenty times. Usuay, they were dispatched to create a wecoming

6 In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas? 771 economic environment for American companies that wanted stabe access to raw materias ike bananas and sugar, and for bankers nervous that their oans to oca governments might not be repaid. I T O O K T H E C A N A L Z O N E Like his distinction between good and bad trusts, Theodore Roosevet divided the word into civiized and unciviized nations. The former, he beieved, had an obigation to estabish order in an unruy word. Roosevet became far more active in internationa dipomacy than most of his predecessors, heping, for exampe, to negotiate a settement of the Russo- Japanese War of 1905, a feat for which he was awarded the Nobe Peace Prize. Coser to home, his poicies were more aggressive. I have aways been fond of the West African proverb, he wrote, Speak softy and carry abigstick. AndathoughhedecaredthattheUnitedStates hasnotthe sightest desire for territoria aggrandizement at the expense of its southern neighbors, Roosevet pursued a poicy of intervention in Centra America. Between 1898 and 1934, the United States intervened miitariy numerous times in Caribbean countries, generay to protect the economic interests of American banks and investors. THE UNITED STATES IN THE CARIBBEAN, Parra Coumbus U.S. Expeditionary Force, Santa Ysabe Houston New Oreans MEXICO Tampico Mexico City Veracruz UNITED STATES BRITISH HONDURAS GUATEMALA U.S. troops, , , 1912, Patt Amendment, U.S. seizure, 1914 Havana HONDURAS EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA COSTA RICA Pacific Ocean Miami U.S. Nava base, 1903 U.S. troops, 1907, U.S. acquired Cana Zone, 1904 Cana competed, 1914 CUBA Guantanamo Bogotá U.S. troops, Financia supervision, (Br.) U.S. troops, , , , Financia supervision, U.S. eases Corn Isand, 1914 PANAMA Bahamas (Br.) HAITI Jamaica COLOMBIA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Puerto Rico Caracas VENEZUELA Venezuea debt crisis, Atantic Ocean U.S. takes contro of customs house, 1905 U.S. troops, Financia supervision, U.S. possession after 1898 Virgin Isands (purchased from Denmark, 1917) Guadeoupe (Fr.) Martinique (Fr.) Barbados (Br.) Trinidad (Br.) BRITISH FRENCH GUIANA GUIANA DUTCH GUIANA ECUADOR mies kiometers PERU BRAZIL

7 772 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy AN ERA OF INTERVENTION THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE Caribbean Limon Sea Bay Coon Locks Dam Gatun Navigation Channe Lake Madden Dam Darien Gamboa Las Cascadas Paraiso Locks Pedro Migue Lake Mirafores Lock Mirafores Locks Panama City Dam Baboa Cana Rairoad Panama Cana Zone Guf of Panama Gatun Constructed in the first years of the twentieth century, after Theodore Roosevet heped engineer Panama s independence from Coombia, the Panama Cana drasticay reduced the time it took for commercia and nava vesses to sai from the Atantic to the Pacific Oceans. Madden Lake PANAMA In his first major action in the region, Roosevet engineered the separation of Panama from Coombia in order to faciitate the construction of a cana inking the Atantic and Pacific Oceans. The idea of a cana across the fifty-one-miewide Isthmus of Panama had a ong history. In , the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps attempted to construct such a waterway but faied because of inadequate funding and the to exacted on his workers by yeow fever and maaria. Roosevet had ong been a proponent of American nava deveopment. He was convinced that a cana woud faciitate the movement of nava and commercia vesses between the two oceans. In 1903, when Coombia, of which Panama was a part, refused to cede and for the project, Roosevet heped to set in motion an uprising by conspirators ed by Phiippe Bunau-Varia, a representative of the Panama Cana Company. An American gunboat prevented the Coombian army from suppressing the rebeion. Upon estabishing Panama s independence, Bunau-Varia signed a treaty giving the United States both the right to construct and operate a cana and sovereignty over the Cana Zone, a ten-miewide strip of and through which the route woud run. A remarkabe feat of engineering, the cana was the argest construction project in history to that date. Like the buiding of the transcontinenta rairoad in the 1860s and much construction work today, it invoved the widespread use of immigrant abor. Most of the 60,000 workers came from the Caribbean isands of Barbados and Jamaica, but others haied from Europe, Asia, and the United States. In keeping with American segregation poicies, the best jobs were reserved for white Americans, who ived in their own communities compete with schoos, churches, and ibraries. It aso required a massive effort to eradicate the mosquitoes that carried the tropica diseases responsibe, in part, for the faiure of earier French efforts. When competed in 1914, the cana reduced the sea voyage between the East and West Coasts of the United States by 8,000 mies. I took the Cana Zone, Roosevet exuted. But the manner in which the cana had been initiated, and the continued American rue over the Cana Zone, woud ong remain asourceoftension.in1977,presidentjimmycarternegotiatedtreatiesthat ed to turning over the cana s operation and contro of the Cana Zone to Panama in the year 2000 (see Chapter 26). THE ROOSEVELT COROLLARY Roosevet s actions in Panama refected a principe that came to be caed the Roosevet Coroary to the Monroe Doctrine. This hed that the United States had the right to exercise an internationa poice power in the Western Hemisphere a significant expansion of Monroe s pedge to defend the hemisphere against European intervention. Eary in Roosevet s administration, British, Itaian, and German nava forces bockaded Venezuea to ensure the payment of debts to European bankers. Roosevet persuaded them to withdraw, but the incident convinced him that financia instabiity in the New Word woud invite intervention from the Od. In 1904, Roosevet ordered American forces to seize the customs houses of

8 In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas? 773 The Word s Constabe, acartoon commenting on Theodore Roosevet s new dipomacy, in Judge, January 14, 1905, portrays Roosevet as an impartia poiceman, hoding in one hand the threat of force and in the other the promise of the peacefu settement of disputes. Roosevet stands between the undiscipined nonwhite peopes of the word and the imperiaist powers of Europe and Japan. the Dominican Repubic to ensure payment of its debts to European and American investors. He soon arranged an executive agreement giving a group of American banks contro over Dominican finances. In 1906, he dispatched troops to Cuba to oversee a disputed eection; they remained in the country unti Roosevet aso encouraged investment by American corporations ike the United Fruit Company, whose huge banana pantations soon dominated the economies of Honduras and Costa Rica. Roosevet s successor, Wiiam Howard Taft, anded marines in Nicaragua to protect a government friendy to American economic interests. In genera, however, Taft emphasized economic investment and oans from American banks, rather than direct miitary intervention, as the best way to spread American infuence. As a resut, his foreign poicy became known as Doar Dipomacy. In Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Repubic, and even Liberia the West African nation estabished in 1816 as a home for freed American saves Taft pressed for more efficient revenue coection, stabe government, and access to and and abor by American companies. MORAL IMPERIALISM The son of a Presbyterian minister, Woodrow Wison brought to the presidency a missionary zea and a sense of his own and the nation s mora righteousness. He appointed as secretary of state Wiiam Jennings Bryan, a strong anti-imperiaist. Wison repudiated Doar Dipomacy and promised a new foreign poicy that woud respect Latin America s independence and free it from foreign economic domination. But Wison coud not abandon the conviction that the United States had a responsibiity to teach other peopes the essons of democracy. Moreover, he beieved, the export of American manufactured goods and investments went hand in hand with the spread of democratic ideas. To Wison, expanding American economic infuence served a higher purpose than mere profit. Americans, he tod a A1915postcardportraystwosodiers one American, one Mexican at the border between the two countries shorty before Woodrow Wison ordered American troops into Mexico. The photograph is intended to show a difference in discipine between the two.

9 774 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy AN ERA OF INTERVENTION group of businessmen in 1916, were meant to carry iberty and justice throughout the word. Go out and se goods, he urged them, that wi make the word more comfortabe and happy, and convert them to the principes of America. Wison s mora imperiaism produced more miitary interventions in Latin America than any president before or since. In 1915, he sent marines to occupy Haiti after the government refused to aow American banks to oversee its financia deaings. In 1916, he estabished a miitary government in the Dominican Repubic, with the United States controing the country s customs coections and paying its debts. American sodiers remained in the Dominican Repubic unti 1924 and in Haiti unti They buit roads and schoos, but did itte or nothing to promote democracy. Wison s foreign poicy underscored a paradox of modern American history: the presidents who spoke the most about freedom were ikey to intervene most frequenty in the affairs of other countries. WILSON AND MEXICO COLONIAL POSSESSIONS, 1900 GREENLAND Aaska (U.S.) Hawaii (U.S.) CANADA ICELAND SWEDEN NORWAY GREAT DENMARK BRITAIN GERMANY Wison s major preoccupation in Latin America was Mexico, where in 1911 arevoutionedbyfranciscomaderooverthrewthegovernmentofdicta- FRANCE Atantic SPAIN ITALY UNITED STATES PORTUGAL OTTOMAN Ocean EMPIRE MOROCCO PERSIA HAITI RIO DE ORO LIBYA FRENCH EGYPT ARABIA MEXICO CUBA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC INDIA WEST BRITISH HONDURAS Puerto Rico (U.S.) AFRICA GUATEMALA GAMBIA ANGLO- VENEZUELA EGYPTIAN ERITREA OMAN EL SALVADOR BRITISH GUIANA NIGERIA SUDAN HONDURAS DUTCH GUIANA SIERRA ABYSSINIA NICARAGUA COLOMBIA FRENCH LEONE CAMEROON ITALIAN COSTA RICA GUIANA LIBERIA TOGO UGANDA SOMALILAND PANAMA ECUADOR GOLD BELGIAN COAST CONGO GERMAN EAST AFRICA PERU BRAZIL FRENCH ANGOLA EQUATORIAL BOLIVIA RHODESIA AFRICA GERMAN MADAGASCAR Pacific PARAGUAY SOUTHWEST AFRICA MOZAMBIQUE Ocean CHILE UNION OF URUGUAY SOUTH AFRICA ARGENTINA Indian Ocean RUSSIAN EMPIRE CHINA KOREA TAIWAN BURMA (Japanese) SIAM FRENCH INDOCHINA PHILIPPINES MALAYA DUTCH EAST INDIES AUSTRALIA JAPAN KAISER WILHELMSLAND PAPUA Pacific Ocean NEW ZEALAND American Begian British Danish Dutch French German Itaian Ottoman Portuguese Russian Spanish

10 In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas? 775 tor Porfirio Díaz. Two years ater, without Wison s knowedge but with the backing of the U.S. ambassador and of American companies that controed Mexico s oi and mining industries, miitary commander Victoriano Huerta assassinated Madero and seized power. Wison was appaed. The United States, he announced, woud not extend recognition to a government of butchers. He woud teach Latin Americans, he added, to eect good men. When civi war broke out in Mexico, Wison ordered American troops to and at Vera Cruz to prevent the arriva of weapons meant for Huerta s forces. But to Wison s surprise, Mexicans greeted the marines as invaders rather than iberators. Vera Cruz, after a, was where the forces of the conquistador Hernán Cortés had anded in the sixteenth century and those of Winfied Scott during the Mexican War. More than 100 Mexicans and 19 Americans died in the fighting that foowed. Huerta eft the presidency in 1914, but civi war continued, and neither side seemed gratefu for Wison s interference. In 1916, the war spied over into the United States when Pancho Via, the eader of one faction, attacked Coumbus, New Mexico, where he kied seventeen Americans. Wison ordered 10,000 troops into northern Mexico on an expedition that unsuccessfuy sought to arrest Via. Mexico was a warning that it might be more difficut than Wison assumed to use American might to reorder the interna affairs of other nations, or to appy mora certainty to foreign poicy. AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR In June 1914, a Serbian nationaist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, in Sarajevo, Bosnia. (Today, Sarajevo is the capita of Bosnia and Herzegovina.) This deed set in motion a chain of events that punged Europe into the most devastating war the word had ever seen. In the years before 1914, European nations had engaged in a scrambe to obtain coonia possessions overseas and had constructed a shifting series of aiances seeking miitary domination within Europe. In the aftermath of the assassination, Austria-Hungary, the major power in eastern Europe, decared war on Serbia. Within a itte more than a month, because of the European powers interocking miitary aiances, Britain, France, Russia, and Japan (the Aies) found themseves at war with the Centra Powers Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman empire, whose hodings incuded modern-day Turkey and much of the Midde East. German forces quicky overran Begium and part of northern France. The war then setted into a proonged staemate, with boody, indecisive battes succeeding one another. New miitary technoogies submarines, airpanes, machine guns, tanks, and poison gas produced unprecedented saughter. In one five-month batte at Verdun, in 1916, 600,000 French and German sodiers perished neary as many combatants as in the entire Wibur Wright, who with his brother Orvie made the first powered fight in 1903, circing the Statue of Liberty six years ater. Word War I woud revea the miitary uses for this new technoogy.

11 776 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR The iner Lusitania, pictured on a peace postcard. Its sinking by a German submarine in 1915 strengthened the resove of those who wished to see the United States enter the European war. American Civi War. By the time the war ended, an estimated 10 miion sodiers, and uncounted miions of civiians, had perished. And the war was foowed by widespread famine and a wordwide epidemic of infuenza that kied an estimated 21 miion peope more. The Great War, or Word War I as it came to be caed, deat a severe bow to the optimism and sef-confidence of Western civiization. For decades, phiosophers, reformers, and poiticians had haied the triumph of reason and human progress. Despite increasingy bitter rivaries between European powers, especiay Germany and Britain, as they competed for poitica and miitary dominance at home and carved up Asia and Africa into riva empires, mankind seemed to have moved beyond the time when disputes were setted by war. The confict was aso a shock to European sociaist and abor movements. Of the two great ideoogies that had arisen in the nineteenth century, nationaism and sociaism, the former proved more powerfu. Kar Marx had caed on the workers of the word to unite against their oppressors. Instead, they marched off to ki each other. NEUTRALITY AND PREPAREDNESS As war engufed Europe, Americans found themseves sharpy divided. British-Americans sided with their nation of origin, as did many other Americans who associated Great Britain with iberty and democracy and Germany with repressive government. On the other hand, German- Americans identified with Germany. Irish-Americans bittery opposed any aid to the British, a sentiment reinforced in 1916 when authorities in London suppressed the Easter Rebeion, an uprising demanding Irish independence, and executed severa of its eaders. Immigrants from the Russian empire, especiay Jews, had no desire to see the United States aid the czar s regime. Indeed, the presence of Russia, the word s argest despotic state, as an ay of Britain and France made it difficut to see the war as a cear-cut batte between democracy and autocracy. Many feminists, pacifists, and socia reformers, moreover, had become convinced that peace was essentia

12 How did the United States get invoved in Word War I? 777 to further efforts to enhance socia justice at home. They obbied vigorousy against American invovement. When war broke out in 1914, President Wison procaimed American neutraity. But as in the years preceding the War of 1812, nava warfare in Europe reverberated in the United States. Britain decared a nava bockade of Germany and began to stop American merchant vesses. Germany aunched submarine warfare against ships entering and eaving British ports. In May 1915, a German submarine sank the British iner Lusitania (which was carrying a arge cache of arms) off the coast of Ireand, causing the death of 1,198 passengers, incuding 124 Americans. Wison composed a note of protest so strong that Bryan resigned as secretary of state, fearing that the president was aying the foundation for miitary intervention. Bryan had advocated warning Americans not to trave on the ships of beigerents, but Wison fet this woud represent a retreat from the principe of freedom of the seas. The sinking of the Lusitania outraged American pubic opinion and strengthened the hand of those who beieved that the United States must prepare for possibe entry into the war. These incuded ongtime advocates of a stronger miitary estabishment, ike Theodore Roosevet, and businessmen with cose economic ties to Britain, the country s eading trading partner and the recipient of more than $2 biion in wartime oans from American banks. Wison himsef had strong pro-british sympathies and viewed Germany as the natura foe of iberty. By the end of 1915, he had embarked on a poicy of preparedness a crash program to expand the American army and navy. THE ROAD TO WAR In May 1916, Germany announced the suspension of submarine warfare against noncombatants. Wison s preparedness program seemed to have succeeded in securing the right of Americans to trave freey on the high seas without committing American forces to the confict. He kept us out of war became the sogan of his campaign for reeection. With the Repubican Party reunited after its spit in 1912, the eection proved to be one of the cosest in American history. Wison defeated Repubican candidate Chares Evans Hughes by ony twenty-three eectora votes and about 600,000 popuar votes out of more than 18 miion cast. Party because he seemed to promise not to send American sodiers to Europe, Wison carried ten of the tweve states that had adopted woman suffrage. Without the votes of women, Wison woud not have been reeected. On January 22, 1917, Wison caed for a peacewithoutvictory ineuropeand outined his vision for a word order incuding freedom of the seas, restrictions A1916Wisoncampaigntruck(anew deveopment in poitica campaigning), promising peace, prosperity, and preparedness.

13 778 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR on armaments, and sef-determination for nations great and sma. Amost immediatey, however, Germany announced its intention to resume submarine warfare against ships saiing to or from the British Ises, and severa American merchant vesses were sunk. The German government reaized that its actions woud probaby ead Wison to intervene, but German strategists gambed that the bockade woud strange Britain economicay before the arriva of American troops. In March 1917, British spies intercepted and made pubic the Zimmerman Teegram, a message by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman caing on Mexico to join in a coming war against the United States and promising to hep it recover territory ost in the Mexican War of ArevoutioninRussiathatsamemonthoverthrewtheczarandestabished aconstitutionagovernment,makingitmorepausibetobeievethatthe United States woud be fighting on the side of democracy. On Apri 2, Wison went before Congress to ask for a decaration of war against Germany. The word, he procaimed, must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be panted upon the tested foundation of poitica iberty. The war resoution passed the Senate 82 6 and the House THE FOURTEEN POINTS Not unti the spring of 1918 did American forces arrive in Europe in arge numbers. By then, the word situation had taken a dramatic turn. In November 1917, a communist revoution headed by Vadimir Lenin overthrew the Russian government that had come to power the previous spring. Shorty thereafter, Lenin withdrew Russia from the war and pubished the secret treaties by which the Aies had agreed to divide up conquered territory after the war an embarrassment for Wison, who had promised a just peace. Party to assure the country that the war was being fought for a mora cause, Wison in January 1918 issued the Fourteen Points, the cearest statement of American war aims and of his vision of a new internationa order. Among the key principes were sef-determination for a nations, freedom of the seas, free trade, open dipomacy (an end to secret treaties), the readjustment of coonia caims with coonized peope given equa weight in deciding their futures, and the creation of a genera association of nations to preserve the peace. Wison envisioned this ast provision, which ed to the estabishment after the war of the League of Nations, as a kind of goba counterpart to the reguatory commissions Progressives had created at home to maintain socia harmony and prevent the powerfu from expoiting the weak. Athough purey an American program, not endorsed by the other Aies, the Fourteen Points estabished the agenda for the peace conference that foowed the war. The United States threw its economic resources and manpower into the war. When American troops finay arrived in Europe, they turned the tide of batte. In the spring of 1918, they heped to repuse a German advance near Paris and by Juy were participating in a major Aied counteroffensive. In September, in the Meuse-Argonne campaign, more than 1 miion American sodiers under Genera John J. Pershing heped to push back the outnumbered and exhausted German army. With his forces in fu retreat,

14 How did the United States get invoved in Word War I? 779 WORLD WAR I: THE WESTERN FRONT ENGLAND Dover Strait of Dover Rouen Seine Caais Abbevie Somme R. Nieuport Lys R. Ypres Arras Amiens Zeebrugge Ghent Lys Offensive August 19 November 11, 1918 Lens Soissons Cambrai Reims Armistice Somme Offensive August 19 November 11, 1918 Line Antwerp Brusses Aisne-Marne Offensive Juy 18 August 6, 1918 Aisne R. BELGIUM Sambre R. Argonne Forest NETHERLANDS Dinant Sedan Meuse R. November 11, Liège LUXEMBOURG Erft R. Trier Luxembourg Saar R. Düssedorf Coogne Rhine R. Cobenz Saarbrücken Sieg R. Lahn R. GERMANY Frankfurt R. Paris FRANCE Meuse-Argonne September November, LORRAINE Rhine R. 0 0 Chartres mies 50 kiometers Meun Seine R. Sens Troyes Aube R. Tou Épina Strasbourg Mts. Vosges ALSACE Aied victory U.S. offensives German offensives Aies Centra Powers Neutra nations Armistice ine Stabiized front, Maximum advance of Centra Powers, 1918 Befort Muhouse SWITZERLAND the German kaiser abdicated on November 9. Two days ater, Germany sued for peace. Over 100,000 Americans had died, a substantia number, but they were ony 1 percent of the 10 miion sodiers kied in the Great War. THE WAR AT HOME After years of staemate on the western front in Word War I, the arriva of American troops in 1917 and 1918 shifted the baance of power and made possibe the Aied victory. THE PROGRESSIVES WAR Looking back on American participation in the European confict, Randoph Bourne summed up one of its essons: War is the heath of the state. Bourne saw the expansion of government power as a danger, but it struck most Progressives as a goden opportunity. To them, the war offered the possibiity of reforming American society aong scientific ines, instiing a sense of nationa unity and sef-sacrifice, and expanding socia justice. That American power coud now disseminate Progressive vaues around the gobe heightened the war s appea.

15 780 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy THE WAR AT HOME Amost without exception, Progressive inteectuas and reformers, joined by prominent abor eaders and native-born sociaists, raied to Wison s support. The roster incuded inteectuas ike John Dewey, journaists such as Water Lippmann and Herbert Croy, AFL head Samue Gompers, sociaist writers ike Upton Sincair, and prominent reformers incuding Forence Keey and Charotte Perkins Giman. In The New Repubic,DeweyurgedProgressivestorecognizethe sociapossibiitiesof war. The crisis, he wrote, offered the prospect of attacking the immense inequaity of power within the United States, thus aying the foundation for Americans to enjoy effective freedom. THE WARTIME STATE Like the Civi War, Word War I created, abeit temporariy, a nationa state with unprecedented powers and a sharpy increased presence in Americans everyday ives. Under the Seective Service Act of May 1917, 24 miion men were required to register with the draft, and the army soon sweed from 120,000 to 5 miion men. The war seemed to bring into being the New Nationaist state Theodore Roosevet and so many Progressives had desired. New federa agencies moved to reguate industry, transportation, abor reations, and agricuture. Headed by Wa Street financier Bernard Baruch, the War Industries Board presided over a eements of war production from the distribution of raw materias to the prices of manufactured goods. To spur efficiency, it estabished standardized specifications for everything from automobie tires to shoe coors (three were permitted back, brown, and white). The Rairoad Administration took contro of the nation s transportation system, and the Fue Agency rationed coa and oi. The Food Administration instructed farmers on modern methods of cutivation and promoted the more efficient preparation of meas. Its director, Herbert Hoover, mobiized the shipment of American food to the war-devastated Aies, popuarizing the sogan Food wi win the war. Word War I was the first war in which sodiers moved to the battefront in motorized trucks. This photograph is from 1918.

16 How did the United States mobiize resources and pubic opinion for the war effort? 781 These agencies generay saw themseves as partners of business as much as reguators. They guaranteed government suppiers a high rate of profit and encouraged cooperation among former business rivas by suspending antitrust aws. At the same time, however, the War Labor Board, which incuded representatives of government, industry, and the American Federation of Labor, pressed for the estabishment of a minimum wage, eight-hour workday, and the right to form unions. During the war, wages rose substantiay, working conditions in many industries improved, and union membership doubed. To finance the war, corporate and individua income taxes rose enormousy. By 1918, the weathiest Americans were paying 60 percent of their income in taxes. Tens of miions of Americans answered the ca to demonstrate their patriotism by purchasing Liberty bonds. Once peace arrived, the wartime state quicky withered away. But for a time, the federa government seemed we on its way to fufiing the Progressive task of promoting economic rationaization, industria justice, and a sense of common nationa purpose. THE PROPAGANDA WAR During the Civi War, it had been eft to private agencies Union Leagues, the Loya Pubication Society, and others to mobiize prowar pubic opinion. But the Wison administration decided that patriotism was too important to eave to the private sector. Many Americans were skeptica about whether democratic America shoud enter a strugge between riva empires. Some vehementy opposed American participation, notaby the Industria Workers of the Word (IWW) and the buk of the Sociaist Party, which in 1917 condemned the decaration of war as a crime against the peope of the United States and caed on the workers of a countries to refuse to fight. As the major nationa organization to oppose Wison s poicy, the Sociaist Party became a raying point for antiwar sentiment. In mayora eections across the country in the fa of 1917, the Sociaist vote averaged 20 percent, far above the party s previous tota. In Apri 1917, the Wison administration created the Committee on Pubic Information (CPI) to expain to Americans and the word, as its director, George Cree, put it, the cause that compeed America to take arms in defense of its iberties and free institutions. Enisting academics, journaists, artists, and advertising men, the CPI fooded the country with prowar propaganda, using every avaiabe medium from pamphets (of which it issued 75 miion) to posters, newspaper advertisements, and motion pictures. It trained and dispatched across the country 75,000 Four- Minute Men, who deivered brief standardized taks (sometimes in Itaian, Yiddish, and other immigrant anguages) to audiences in movie theaters, schoos, and other pubic venues. Never before had an agency of the federa government attempted the conscious and inteigent manipuation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses, in the words of young Edward Bernays, a member of Cree s staff who woud ater create the modern profession of pubic reations. The CPI s activities proved, one adman wrote, that it was possibe to sway the ideas of whoe popuations, change their habits of ife, create beief, practicay universa in any poicy or idea. In the 1920s, advertisers AposteraddressedtoJewishimmigrants by the U.S. Food Administration procaims, Food Wi Win the War. It adds, You came here seeking freedom, now you must hep preserve it. Copies were aso printed in other European anguages. Afemaefigurewearingacapofiberty rings the iberty be in this patriotic iustration from 1918.

17 782 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy THE WAR AT HOME woud use what they had earned to se goods. But the CPI aso set a precedent for active governmenta efforts to shape pubic opinion in ater internationa conficts, from Word War II to the Cod War and Iraq. THE GREAT CAUSE OF FREEDOM Avividexampeoftheanti-German propaganda produced by the federa government to encourage prowar sentiment during Word War I. Women during Word War I: two women hauing ice a job confined to men before the war and woman suffrage demonstrators in front of the White House. The CPI couched its appea in the Progressive anguage of socia cooperation and expanded democracy. Abroad, this meant a peace based on the principe of nationa sef-determination. At home, it meant improving industria democracy. A Progressive journaist, Cree beieved the war woud acceerate the movement toward soving the age-od probems of poverty, inequaity, oppression, and unhappiness. He took to heart a warning from historian Car Becker that a simpe contrast between German tyranny and American democracy woud not seem pausibe to the average worker: You tak to him of our ideas of iberty and he thinks of the shameess expoitation of abor and of the ridicuous guf between weath and poverty. The CPI distributed pamphets foreseeing a postwar society compete with a universa eight-hour day and a iving wage for a. Whie democracy served as the key term of wartime mobiization, freedom aso took on new significance. The war, a CPI advertisement procaimed, was being fought in the great cause of freedom. Thousands of persons, often draftees, were enisted to pose in giant human tabeaus representing symbos of iberty. One iving representation of the Liberty Be at Fort Dix, New Jersey, incuded 25,000 peope. The most common visua image in wartime propaganda was the Statue of Liberty, empoyed especiay to ray support among immigrants. You came here seeking Freedom, stated a caption on one Statue of Liberty poster. You must now hep preserve it. Buying Liberty bonds became a demonstration of patriotism. Wison s speeches cast the United States as a and of iberty fighting aongside a concert of free peope to secure sef-determination for the oppressed peopes of the word. The idea of freedom, it seems, requires an antithesis, and the CPI found one in the German kaiser and, more generay, the German nation and peope. Government propaganda whipped up hatred of the wartime foe by portraying it as a nation of barbaric Huns.

18 How did the United States mobiize resources and pubic opinion for the war effort? 783 THE COMING OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE The enistment of democracy and freedom as ideoogica war weapons inevitaby inspired demands for their expansion at home. In 1916, Wison had cautiousy endorsed votes for women. America s entry into the war threatened to tear the suffrage movement apart, since many advocates had been associated with opposition to American invovement. Indeed, among those who voted against the decaration of war was the first woman member of Congress, the staunch pacifist Jeannette Rankin of Montana. I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war, she said. Athough defeated in her reeection bid in 1918, Rankin woud return to Congress in She became the ony member to oppose the decaration of war against Japan in 1941, which ended her poitica career. In 1968, at the age of eighty-five, Rankin took part in a giant march on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam. As during the Civi War, however, most eaders of woman suffrage organizations enthusiasticay enisted in the effort. Women sod war bonds, organized patriotic raies, and went to work in war production jobs. Some 22,000 served as cerica workers and nurses with American forces in Europe. Many beieved wartime service woud earn them equa rights at home. At the same time, a new generation of coege-educated activists, organized in the Nationa Women s Party, pressed for the right to vote with miitant tactics many oder suffrage advocates found scandaous. The party s eader, Aice Pau, had studied in Engand between 1907 and 1910 when the British suffrage movement adopted a strategy that incuded arrests, imprisonments, and vigorous denunciations of a mae-dominated poitica system. How coud the country fight for democracy abroad, Pau asked, whie denying it to women at home? She compared Wison to the Kaiser, and a group of her foowers chained themseves to the White House fence, A1915cartoonshowingthewestern states where women had won the right to vote. Women in the East reach out to a western woman carrying a torch of iberty.

19 784 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy THE WAR AT HOME resuting in a seven-month prison sentence. When they began a hunger strike, the prisoners were force-fed. The combination of women s patriotic service and widespread outrage over the mistreatment of Pau and her feow prisoners pushed the administration toward fu-fedged support for woman suffrage. We have made partners of the women in this war, Wison procaimed. Sha we admit them ony to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toi and not to a partnership of priviege and right? In 1920, the ong strugge ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment barring states from using sex as a quaification for the suffrage. The United States became the twentyseventh country to aow women to vote. In the eary years of the twentieth century, many states and ocaities in the South and West banned the manufacture and sae of acohoic beverages. ( Wet counties aowed acohoic beverages, dry counties banned them.) Prohibition became nationa with the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment in PROHIBITION The war gave a powerfu impuse to other campaigns that had engaged the energies of many women in the Progressive era. Ironicay, efforts to stamp out prostitution and protect sodiers from venerea disease ed the government to distribute birth-contro information and devices the very action for which Margaret Sanger had recenty been jaied, as noted in the previous chapter. PROHIBITION, 1915: COUNTIES AND STATES THAT BANNED LIQUOR BEFORE THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT (RATIFIED 1919, REPEALED 1933) WA CANADA mies 400 kiometers OR CA NV ID AZ UT MT WY CO NM ND SD NE KS OK TX MN IA MO AR LA WI IL MS MI IN KY TN AL OH GA WV SC PA VA NC NY MD DE VT NH NJ MA CT ME RI Atantic Ocean Pacific Ocean Wet counties Dry counties MEXICO Guf of Mexico FL

20 How did the United States mobiize resources and pubic opinion for the war effort? 785 Prohibition, a movement inherited from the nineteenth century that had gained new strength and miitancy in Progressive America, finay achieved nationa success during the war. Numerous impuses fowed into the renewed campaign to ban intoxicating iquor. Empoyers hoped it woud create a more discipined abor force. Urban reformers beieved that it woud promote a more ordery city environment and undermine urban poitica machines that used saoons as paces to organize. Women reformers hoped Prohibition woud protect wives and chidren from husbands who engaged in domestic vioence when drunk or who squandered their wages at saoons. Many native-born Protestants saw Prohibition as a way of imposing American vaues on immigrants. Like the suffrage movement, Prohibitionists first concentrated on state campaigns. By 1915, they had won victories in eighteen southern and midwestern states where the immigrant popuation was sma and Protestant denominations ike Baptists and Methodists strongy opposed drinking. But ike the suffrage movement, Prohibitionists came to see nationa egisation as their best strategy. The war gave them added ammunition. Many prominent breweries were owned by German-Americans, making beer seem unpatriotic. The Food Administration insisted that grain must be used to produce food, not distied into beer and iquor. In December 1917, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sae of intoxicating iquor. It was ratified by the states in 1919 and went into effect at the beginning of LIBERTY IN WARTIME Word War I raised questions aready gimpsed during the Civi War that woud troube the nation again during the McCarthy era and in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001: What is the baance between security and freedom? Does the Constitution protect citizens rights during wartime? Shoud dissent be equated with ack of patriotism? The confict demonstrated that during a war, traditiona civi iberties are ikey to come under severe pressure. In 1917, Randoph Bourne ridicued Progressives who beieved they coud mod the war according to their own ibera purposes. The confict, he predicted, woud empower not reformers but the east democratic forces in American ife. The accuracy of Bourne s prediction soon become apparent. Despite the administration s ideaistic anguage of democracy and freedom, the war inaugurated the most intense repression of civi iberties the nation has ever known. Perhaps the very nobiity of wartime rhetoric contributed to the massive suppression of dissent. For in the eyes of Wison and many of his supporters, America s goas were so virtuous that disagreement coud ony refect treason to the country s vaues. It is a fearfu thing to ead this great peacefu peope into war, Wison remarked in his speech asking Congress to bring America into the confict. Even he coud not have predicted how significant an impact the war woud have on American freedom. The Liberty Be, formed by 25,000 sodiers at Camp Dix, New Jersey, in 1918, another exampe of the use of an image of iberty to inspire patriotic sentiment during Word War I.

21 786 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy THE WAR AT HOME THE ESPIONAGE ACT A1917antiwarcartoonfromtheradica magazine The Masses depicts an editor, capitaist, poitician, and minister ceebrating American invovement in Word War I and hoping to benefit from it. President Woodrow Wison barred The Masses and other antiwar pubications from the mais. For the first time since the Aien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the federa government enacted aws to restrict freedom of speech. The Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited not ony spying and interfering with the draft but aso fase statements that might impede miitary success. The postmaster genera barred from the mais numerous newspapers and magazines critica of the administration. The victims ranged from virtuay the entire sociaist press and many foreign-anguage pubications to The Jeffersonian,a newspaper owned by ex-popuist eader Tom Watson, which criticized the draft as a vioation of states rights. In 1918, the Sedition Act made it a crime to make spoken or printed statements that intended to cast contempt, scorn, or disrepute on the form of government, or that advocated interference with the war effort. The government charged more than 2,000 persons with vioating these aws. Over haf were convicted. A court sentenced Ohio farmer John White to twenty-one months in prison for saying that the murder of innocent women and chidren by German sodiers was no worse than what the United States had done in the Phiippines in the war of The most prominent victim was Eugene V. Debs, convicted in 1918 under the Espionage Act for deivering an antiwar speech. Before his sentencing, Debs gave the court a esson in the history of American freedom, tracing the tradition of dissent from Thomas Paine to the aboitionists, and pointing out that the nation had never engaged in a war without interna opposition. Germany sent sociaist eader Kar Liebknecht to prison for four years for opposing the war; in the United States, Debs s sentence was ten years. After the war s end, Wison rejected the advice of his attorney genera that he commute Debs s sentence. Debs ran for president whie sti in prison in 1920 and received 900,000 votes. It was eft to Wison s successor, Warren G. Harding, to reease Debs from prison in COERCIVE PATRIOTISM Even more extreme repression took pace at the hands of state governments and private groups. Americans had ong dispayed the fag (and used it in advertisements for everything from tobacco products to variety shows). But during Word War I, attitudes toward the American fag became a test of patriotism. Persons suspected of disoyaty were forced to kiss the fag in pubic; those who made statements critica of the fag coud be imprisoned. During the war, thirty-three states outawed the possession or dispay of red or back fags (symbos, respectivey, of communism and anarchism), and twenty-three outawed a newy created offense, crimina syndicaism, the advocacy of unawfu acts to accompish poitica change or a change in industria ownership.

22 How did the United States mobiize resources and pubic opinion for the war effort? 787 A ong ine of striking miners being ed out of Bisbee, Arizona, in Juy Some 1,200 members of the Industria Workers of the Word were transported into the desert by armed vigiantes and abandoned there. Who is the rea patriot? Emma Godman asked when the United States entered the war. She answered, those who ove America with open eyes, who were not bind to the wrongs committed in the name of patriotism. But from the federa government to oca authorities and private groups, patriotism came to be equated with support for the government, the war, and the American economic system, whie antiwar sentiment, abor radicaism, and sympathy for the Russian Revoution became un-american. Minnesota estabished a Commission of Pubic Safety to root out disoyaty from the state. Loca authorities formay investigated residents who faied to subscribe to Liberty Loans. Throughout the country, schoos revised their course offerings to ensure their patriotism and required teachers to sign oyaty oaths. The 250,000 members of the newy formed American Protective League (APL) heped the Justice Department identify radicas and critics of the war by spying on their neighbors and carrying out sacker raids in which thousands of men were stopped on the streets of major cities and required to produce draft registration cards. Many private groups seized upon the atmosphere of repression as a weapon against domestic opponents. Empoyers cooperated with the government in crushing the Industria Workers of the Word (IWW), a move ong demanded by business interests. In Juy 1917, vigiantes in Bisbee, Arizona, rounded up some 1,200 striking copper miners and their sympathizers, herded them into rairoad boxcars, and transported them into the desert, where they were abandoned. New Mexico s governor ordered them housed in tents and provided with food and water. Few ever returned to Bisbee. In August, a crowd in Butte, Montana, ynched IWW eader Frank Litte. The foowing month, operating under one of the broadest warrants in American history, federa agents swooped down on IWW offices throughout the country, arresting hundreds of eaders and seizing fies and pubications. The war experience, commented Water Lippmann, demonstrated that the traditiona iberties of speech and opinion rest on no soid foundation. Yet whie some Progressives protested individua excesses, most

23 VOICES OF FREEDOM F ROM E UGENE V. D EBS, Speech to the Jury before Sentencing under the Espionage Act (1918) The most prominent spokesman for American sociaism and a fervent opponent of American participation in Word War I, Eugene V. Debs was arrested for deivering an antiwar speech and convicted of vioating the Espionage Act. In his speech to the jury, he defended the right of dissent in wartime. Iwishtoadmitthetruthofathathasbeentestified to in this proceeding.... Gentemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June 16, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant the charges set out in the indictment.... In what I had to say there my purpose was to have the peope understand something about the socia system in which we ive and to prepare them to change this system by perfecty peaceabe and ordery means into what I, as a Sociaist, conceive to be a rea democracy.... I have never advocated vioence in any form. I have aways beieved in education, in inteigence, in enightenment; and I have aways made my appea to the reason and to the conscience of the peope. In every age there have been a few heroic sous who have been in advance of their time, who have been misunderstood, maigned, persecuted, sometimes put to death.... Washington, Jefferson, Frankin, Paine, and their compeers were the rebes of their day.... But they had the mora courage to be true to their convictions.... Wiiam Loyd Garrison, Wende Phiips, Eizabeth Cady Stanton... and other eaders of the aboition movement who were regarded as pubic enemies and treated accordingy, were true to their faith and stood their ground.... You are now teaching your chidren to revere their memories, whie a of their detractors are in obivion. This country has been engaged in a number of wars and every one of them has been condemned by some of the peope. The war of 1812 was opposed and condemned by some of the most infuentia citizens; the Mexican War was vehementy opposed and bittery denounced, even after the war had been decared and was in progress, by Abraham Lincon, Chares Sumner, Danie Webster.... They were not indicted; they were not charged with treason.... IbeieveintheConstitution.Isn titstrangethat we Sociaists stand amost aone today in uphoding and defending the Constitution of the United States? The revoutionary fathers... understood that free speech, a free press and the right of free assembage by the peope were fundamenta principes in democratic government.... I beieve in the right of free speech, in war as we as in peace. 788

24 F ROM W. E. B. DU B OIS, Returning Sodiers, The Crisis (1919) Schoar, poet, activist, founder of the Nationa Association for the Advancement of Coored Peope and editor of its magazine, The Crisis,W.E.B. Du Bois was the most prominent back eader of the first haf of the twentieth century. He supported back participation in Word War I, but he insisted that back sodiers must now join in the strugge for freedom at home. We are returning from war! The Crisis and tens of thousands of back men were drafted into a great strugge. For beeding France and what she means and has meant and wi mean to us and humanity and against the threat of German race arrogance, we fought gady and to the ast drop of bood; for America and her highest ideas, we fought in far-off hope; for the dominant southern oigarchy entrenched in Washington, we fought in bitter resignation. For the America that represents and goats in ynching, disfranchisement, caste, brutaity and deviish insut for this, in the hatefu upturning and mixing of things, we were forced by vindictive fate to fight, aso. But today we return!... We sing: This country of ours, despite a its better sous have done and dreamed, is yet a shamefu and. It ynches. And ynching is barbarism of a degree of contemptibe nastiness unparaeed in human history. Yet for fifty years we have ynched two Negroes a week, and we have kept this up right through the war. It disfranchises its own citizens. Disfranchisement is the deiberate theft and robbery of the ony protection of poor against rich and back against white. The and that disfranchises its citizens and cas itsef a democracy ies and knows it ies. It encourages ignorance. It has never reay tried to educate the Negro. A dominate minority does not want Negroes educated. It wants servants.... It insuts us. It has organized a nationwide and attery a wordwide propaganda of deiberate and continuous insut and defamation of back bood wherever found.... This is the country to which we Sodiers of Democracy return. This is the fatherand for which we fought! But it is our fatherand. It was right for us to fight.... We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! QUESTIONS 1. Why does Debs reate the history of wartime dissent in America? 2. What connections does Du Bois draw between backs fighting abroad in the war and returning to fight at home? 3. In what ways does each author point up the contradiction between America s professed vaues and its actua conduct? 789

25 790 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy WHO IS AN AMERICAN? faied to speak out against the broad suppression of freedom of expression. Civi iberties, by and arge, had never been a major concern of Progressives, who had aways viewed the nationa state as the embodiment of democratic purpose and insisted that freedom fowed from participating in the ife of society, not standing in opposition. Strong beievers in the use of nationa power to improve socia conditions, Progressives found themseves i prepared to deveop a defense of minority rights against majority or governmenta tyranny. From the AFL to New Repubic inteectuas, moreover, supporters of the war saw the eimination of sociaists and aien radicas as a necessary preude to the integration of abor and immigrants into an ordered society, an outcome they hoped woud emerge from the war. WHO IS AN AMERICAN? In many respects, Progressivism was a precursor to major deveopments of the twentieth century the New Dea, the Great Society, the sociay active state. But in accepting the idea of race as a permanent, defining characteristic of individuas and socia groups, Progressives bore more resembance to nineteenth-century thinkers than to ater twentieth-century iberas, with whom they are sometimes compared. THE RACE PROBLEM Even before American participation in Word War I, what contemporaries caed the race probem the tensions that arose from the country s increasing ethnic diversity had become a major subject of pubic concern. Race referred to far more than back-white reations. The Dictionary of Races of Peopes,pubishedin1911bytheU.S.ImmigrationCommission, isted no fewer than forty-five immigrant races, each supposedy with its own inborn characteristics. They ranged from Ango-Saxons at the top down to Hebrews, Northern Itaians, and, owest of a, Southern Itaians supposedy vioent, undiscipined, and incapabe of assimiation. In 1907, Congress had decreed that an American woman who married an aien automaticay forfeited her American citizenship. Popuar best-seers ike The Passing of the Great Race, pubished in 1916 by Madison Grant, president of the New York Zooogica Society, warned that the infux of new immigrants and the ow birthrate of native white women threatened the foundations of American civiization. The new science of eugenics, which studied the aeged menta characteristics of different races, gave antiimmigrant sentiment an air of professiona expertise. If democracy coud not fourish in the face of vast inequaities of economic power, neither, most Progressives beieved, coud it survive in a nation permanenty divided aong racia and ethnic ines. AMERICANIZATION AND PLURALISM Somehow, the very nationaization of poitics and economic ife served to heighten awareness of ethnic and racia difference and spurred demands for Americanization the creation of a more homogeneous nationa cuture.

26 VISIONS OF FREEDOM An Americanization Ceebration. A photograph of a Cathoic assemby on Nationa Savic Day, September 3, 1914, iustrates how immigrants strove to demonstrate their patriotism. Chidren wear Od Word dress, but most of the aduts are in American cothing or nurses uniforms. QUESTIONS 1. What does this image suggest about whether these immigrants are seeking to assimiate into American society? 2. How does the image connect the ideas of iberty, war, and patriotism? 791

27 792 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy WHO IS AN AMERICAN? Graduates of the Ford Engish Schoo at the concusion of their 1916 graduation ceremony. Dressed in their traditiona nationa costumes, they disembarked from an immigrant ship into a giant meting pot. After teachers stirred the pot with ades, the Ford workers emerged in American cothing, carrying American fags. A1908paybytheJewishimmigrantwriterIsraeZangwi,The Meting Pot, gave a popuar name to the process by which newcomers were supposed to merge their identity into existing American nationaity. Pubic and private groups of a kinds incuding educators, empoyers, abor eaders, socia reformers, and pubic officias took up the task of Americanizing new immigrants. The Ford Motor Company s famed socioogica department entered the homes of immigrant workers to evauate their cothing, furniture, and food preferences and enroed them in Engish-anguage courses. Ford fired those who faied to adapt to American standards after a reasonabe period of time. Americanization programs often targeted women as the bearers and transmitters of cuture. In Los Angees, teachers and reigious missionaries worked to teach Engish to Mexican-American women so that they coud then assimiate American vaues. Fearfu that adut newcomers remained too stuck in their Od Word ways, pubic schoos paid great attention to Americanizing immigrants chidren. The chaenge facing schoos, wrote one educator, was to impant in their chidren, so far as can be done, the Ango-Saxon conception of righteousness, aw and order, and popuar government. A minority of Progressives questioned Americanization efforts and insisted on respect for immigrant subcutures. At Hu House, teachers offered Engish-anguage instruction but aso encouraged immigrants to vaue their European heritage. Probaby the most penetrating critique issued from the pen of Randoph Bourne, whose 1916 essay, Trans- Nationa America, exposed the fundamenta faw in the Americanization mode. There is no distinctive American cuture, Bourne pointed out. Interaction between individuas and groups had produced the nation s music, poetry, and other cutura expressions. Bourne envisioned a democratic, cosmopoitan society in which immigrants and natives aike submerged their group identities in a new trans-nationa cuture. With President Wison decaring that some Americans born under foreign fags were guity of disoyaty... and must be absoutey crushed, the federa and state governments demanded that immigrants demonstrate

28 How did the war affect race reations in the United States? 793 their unwavering devotion to the United States. The Committee on Pubic Information renamed the Fourth of Juy, 1918, Loyaty Day and asked ethnic groups to participate in patriotic pageants. New York City s ceebration incuded a procession of 75,000 persons with dozens of foats and presentations inking immigrants with the war effort and highighting their contributions to American society. Leaders of ethnic groups that had suffered discrimination saw the war as an opportunity to gain greater rights. Prominent Jewish eaders promoted enistment and expressions of oyaty. The Chinese-American press insisted that even those born abroad and barred from citizenship shoud register for the draft, to bring honor to the peope of our race. THE ANTI- GERMAN CRUSADE German-Americans bore the brunt of forced Americanization. The first wave of German immigrants had arrived before the Civi War. By 1914, German-Americans numbered neary 9 miion, incuding immigrants and persons of German parentage. They had created thriving ethnic institutions incuding cubs, sports associations, schoos, and theaters. On the eve of the war, many Americans admired German traditions in iterature, music, and phiosophy, and one-quarter of a the high schoo students in the country studied the German anguage. But after American entry into the war, the use of German and expressions of German cuture became a target of prowar organizations. In Iowa, Governor Wiiam L. Harding issued a procamation requiring that a ora communication in schoos, pubic paces, and over the teephone be conducted in Engish. Freedom of speech, he decared, did not incude the right to use a anguage other than the anguage of the country. By 1919, the vast majority of the states had enacted aws restricting the teaching of foreign anguages. Popuar words of German origin were changed: hamburger became iberty sandwich, and sauerkraut was renamed iberty cabbage. Many communities banned the paying of German music. The government jaied Kar Müch, the director of the Boston Symphony and a Swiss citizen, as an enemy aien after he insisted on incuding the works of German composers ike Beethoven in his concerts. The war deat a crushing bow to German-American cuture. By 1920, the number of German-anguage newspapers had been reduced to 276 (one-third the number twenty years earier), and ony 1 percent of high schoo pupis sti studied German. The Census of 1920 reported a 25 percent drop in the number of Americans admitting to having been born in Germany. A1919Americanizationpageantin Miwaukee, in which immigrants encounter Abraham Lincon and the Statue of Liberty.

29 794 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy WHO IS AN AMERICAN? TOWARD IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION A1919cartoon,Cose the Gate,warns that unrestricted immigration aows dangerous radicas to enter the United States. Even as Americanization programs sought to assimiate immigrants into American society, the war strengthened the conviction that certain kinds of undesirabe persons ought to be excuded atogether. The new immigrants, one advocate of restriction decared, appreciated the vaues of democracy and freedom far ess than the Ango-Saxon, as evidenced by their attraction to extreme poitica doctrines ike anarchism and sociaism. Stanford University psychoogist Lewis Terman introduced the term IQ (inteigence quotient) in 1916, caiming that this singe number coud measure an individua s menta capacity. Inteigence tests administered to recruits by the army seemed to confirm scientificay that backs and the new immigrants stood far beow native white Protestants on the IQ scae, further spurring demands for immigration restriction. In 1917, over Wison s veto, Congress required that immigrants be iterate in Engish or another anguage. The war acceerated other efforts to upgrade the American popuation. Some were inspired by the idea of improving the human race by discouraging reproduction among ess desirabe persons. Indiana in 1907 had passed a aw authorizing doctors to steriize insane and feebe-minded inmates in menta institutions so that they woud not pass their defective genes on to chidren. Numerous other states now foowed suit. In Buck v. Be (1927), the Supreme Court uphed the constitutionaity of these aws. Justice Oiver Wende Homes s opinion incuded the famous statement, three generations of imbecies are enough. By the time the practice ended in the 1960s, some 63,000 persons had been invountariy steriized. GROUPS APART: MEXICANS, PUERTO RICANS, AND ASIAN-AMERICANS No matter how coercive, Americanization programs assumed that European immigrants and especiay their chidren coud eventuay adjust to the conditions of American ife, embrace American ideas, and become productive citizens enjoying the fu bessings of American freedom. This assumption did not appy to non-white immigrants or to backs. Athough the meting-pot idea envisioned that newcomers from Europe woud eave their ethnic encaves and join the American mainstream, non-whites confronted ever-present boundaries of excusion. The war ed to further growth of the Southwest s Mexican popuation. Wartime demand for abor from the area s mine owners and arge farmers ed the government to exempt Mexicans temporariy from the iteracy test enacted in Mexicans were egay cassified as white, and many Progressive reformers viewed the growing Mexican popuation as candidates for Americanization. Teachers and reigious missionaries sought to instruct them in Engish, convert them to Protestantism, and in other ways promote their assimiation into the mainstream cuture. Yet pubic officias in the Southwest treated them as a group apart. Segregation, by aw and custom, was common in schoos, hospitas, theaters, and other institutions in states with significant Mexican popuations. By 1920, neary a Mexican

30 How did the war affect race reations in the United States? 795 chidren in Caifornia and the Southwest were educated in their own schoos or cassrooms. Phoenix, Arizona, estabished separate pubic schoos for Indians, Mexicans, backs, and whites. Puerto Ricans aso occupied an ambiguous position within American society. On the eve of American entry into Word War I, Congress terminated the status citizen of Puerto Rico and conferred American citizenship on residents of the isand. The aim was to dampen support for Puerto Rican independence and to strengthen the American hod on a strategic outpost in the Caribbean. The change did not grant isanders the right to vote for president, or representation in Congress. Puerto Rican men, nonetheess, were subject to the draft and fought overseas. José de Diego, the Speaker of the House of the isand s egisature, wrote the president in 1917 asking that Puerto Rico be granted the democracy the United States was fighting for in Europe. Even more restrictive were poicies toward Asian-Americans. In 1906, the San Francisco schoo board ordered a Asian students confined to a singe pubic schoo. When the Japanese government protested, president Theodore Roosevet persuaded the city to rescind the order. He then negotiated the Gentemen s Agreement of 1907 whereby Japan agreed to end migration to the United States except for the wives and chidren of men aready in the country. In 1913, Caifornia barred a aiens incapabe of becoming naturaized citizens (that is, Asians) from owning or easing and. THE COLOR LINE By far the argest non-white group, African-Americans, were excuded from neary every Progressive definition of freedom described in Chapter 18. After their disenfranchisement in the South, few coud participate in American democracy. Barred from joining most unions and from skied empoyment, back workers had itte access to industria freedom. A majority of adut back women worked outside the home, but for wages that offered no hope of independence. Predominanty domestic and agricutura workers, they remained unaffected by the era s aws reguating the hours and conditions of femae abor. Nor coud backs, the majority desperatey poor, participate fuy in the emerging consumer economy, either as empoyees in the new department stores (except as janitors and ceaning women) or as purchasers of the consumer goods now fooding the marketpace. Progressive inteectuas, socia scientists, abor reformers, and suffrage advocates dispayed a remarkabe indifference to the back condition. Israe Zangwi did not incude backs in the meting-pot idea popuarized by his Broadway pay. Water Wey waited unti the ast fifteen pages of The New Democracy to introduce the race probem. His comment, quoted in the previous chapter, that the chief obstaces to freedom were economic, not poitica, reveaed itte appreciation of how the denia of voting rights underpinned the comprehensive system of inequaity to which southern backs were subjected. Most settement house reformers accepted segregation as natura and equitabe, assuming there shoud be white settements for white neighborhoods and back settements for back. White eaders of the woman suffrage movement said itte about back disenfranchisement. In the South, members of upper-cass white women s cubs sometimes raised funds for back schoos and community centers. But suffrage eaders insisted that the

31 796 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy WHO IS AN AMERICAN? vote was a racia entitement, a badge and synonym of freedom, in the words of Rebecca Feton of Georgia, that shoud not be denied to free-born white women. During Reconstruction, women had been denied constitutiona recognition because it was the Negro s hour. Now, Word War I s woman s hour excuded backs. The amendment that achieved woman suffrage eft the states free to imit voting by po taxes and iteracy tests. Living in the South, the vast majority of the country s back women did not enjoy its benefits. ROOSEVELT, WILSON, AND RACE The Progressive presidents shared prevaiing attitudes concerning backs. Theodore Roosevet shocked white opinion by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine with him in the White House and by appointing a number of backs to federa offices. But in 1906, when a sma group of back sodiers shot off their guns in Brownsvie, Texas, kiing one resident, and none of their feows woud name them, Roosevet ordered the dishonorabe discharge of three back companies 156 men in a, incuding six winners of the Congressiona Meda of Honor. Roosevet s ingrained beief in Ango-Saxon racia destiny (he caed Indians savages and backs whoy unfit for the suffrage ) did nothing to essen Progressive inteectuas enthusiasm for his New Nationaism. Even Jane Addams, one of the few Progressives to take a strong interest in back rights and a founder of the Nationa Association for the Advancement of Coored Peope (NAACP), went aong when the Progressive Party convention of 1912 rejected a civi rights pank in its patform and barred back deegates from the South. Woodrow Wison, a native of Virginia, coud speak without irony of the South s genuine representative government and its exated standards of iberty. His administration imposed racia segregation in federa departments in Washington, D.C., and dismissed numerous back federa empoyees. Wison aowed D. W. Griffith s fim Birth of a Nation, whichgorified the Ku Kux Kan as the defender of white civiization during Reconstruction, to have its premiere at the White House in Have you a new freedom for white Americans and a new savery for your African-American feow citizens? Wiiam Monroe Trotter, the miitant back editor of the Boston Guardian and founder of the a-back Nationa Equa Rights League, asked the president. Backs subject to disenfranchisement and segregation were understandaby skeptica of the nation s caim to embody freedom and fuy appreciated the ways the symbos of iberty coud coexist with bruta racia vioence. In one of hundreds of ynchings during the Progressive era, a white mob in Springfied, Missouri, in 1906 fasey accused three back men of rape, hanged them from an eectric ight poe, and burned their bodies in a pubic orgy of vioence. Atop the poe stood a repica of the Statue of Liberty. AcartoonfromtheSt. Louis Post- Dispatch,Apri17,1906,commentingon the ynching of three back men in Springfied, Missouri. The shadow cast by the Statue of Liberty forms a gaows on the ground. W. E. B. DU BOIS AND THE REVIVAL OF BLACK PROTEST Back eaders strugged to find a strategy to rekinde the nationa commitment to equaity that had fickered brighty, if briefy, during Reconstruction. No one thought more deepy, or over so ong a period, about the back

32 How did the war affect race reations in the United States? 797 condition and the chaenge it posed to American democracy than the schoar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, and educated at Fisk and Harvard universities, Du Bois ived to his ninety-fifth year. The unifying theme of his career was Du Bois s effort to reconcie the contradiction between what he caed American freedom for whites and the continuing subjection of Negroes. His book The Sous of Back Fok (1903) issued a carion ca for backs dissatisfied with the accommodationist poicies of Booker T. Washington to press for equa rights. Du Bois beieved that educated African-Americans ike himsef the taented tenth of the back community must use their education and training to chaenge inequaity. In some ways, Du Bois was a typica Progressive who beieved that investigation, exposure, and education woud ead to soutions for socia probems. As a professor at Atanta University, he projected a grandiose pan for decades of schoary study of back ife in order to make the country aware of racism and point the way toward its eimination. But he aso understood the necessity of poitica action. In 1905, Du Bois gathered a group of back eaders at Niagara Fas (meeting on the Canadian side since no American hote woud provide accommodations) and organized the Niagara movement, which sought to reinvigorate the aboitionist tradition. We caim for ourseves, Du Bois wrote in the group s manifesto, every singe right that beongs to a freeborn American, poitica, civi, and socia; and unti we get these rights we wi never cease to protest and assai the ears of America. The Decaration of Principes adopted at Niagara Fas caed for restoring to backs the right to vote, an end to racia segregation, and compete equaity in economic and educationa opportunity. These woud remain the cornerstones of the back strugge for racia justice for decades to come. Four years ater, Du Bois joined with a group of mosty white reformers shocked by a ynching in Springfied, Iinois (Lincon s adut home), to create the Nationa Association for the Advancement of Coored Peope. The NAACP, as it was known, aunched a ong strugge for the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The NAACP s ega strategy won a few victories. In Baiey v. Aabama (1911), the Supreme Court overturned southern peonage aws that made it a crime for sharecroppers to break their abor contracts. Six years ater, it rued unconstitutiona a Louisvie zoning reguation excuding backs from iving in certain parts of the city (primariy because it interfered with whites right to se their property as they saw fit). Overa, however, the Progressive era witnessed virtuay no progress toward racia justice. At a time when Americans rights were being reformuated, backs, said Moorfied Story, the NAACP s president, enjoyed a curious citizenship. They shared obigations ike miitary service, but not the fundamenta rights to which a men are entited uness we repudiate... the Decaration of Independence. W. E. B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP and editor of its magazine, The Crisis, in his New York office.

33 798 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy WHO IS AN AMERICAN? A1918posterceebratesbacksodiersin Word War I as True Sons of Freedom. At the upper right, Abraham Lincon ooks on, with a somewhat modified quotation from the Gettysburg Address. CLOSING RANKS Among back Americans, the wartime anguage of freedom inspired hopes for a radica change in the country s racia system. With the notabe exception of Wiiam Monroe Trotter, most back eaders saw American participation in the war as an opportunity to make rea the promise of freedom. To Trotter, much-pubicized German atrocities were no worse than American ynchings; rather than making the word safe for democracy, the government shoud worry about making the South safe for the Negroes. Yet the back press raied to the war. Du Bois himsef, in a widey reprinted editoria in the NAACP s monthy magazine, The Crisis, caed on African- Americans to cose ranks and enist in the army, to hep make our own America a rea and of the free. Back participation in the Civi War had heped to secure the destruction of savery and the achievement of citizenship. But during Word War I, cosing ranks did not bring significant gains. The navy barred backs entirey, and the segregated army confined most of the 400,000 backs who served in the war to suppy units rather than combat. Wison feared, as he noted in his diary, that the overseas experience woud go to their heads. And the U.S. Army campaigned strenuousy to persuade the French not to treat back sodiers as equas not to eat or sociaize with them, or even shake their hands. Contact with African coonia sodiers fighting aongside the British and French did widen the horizons of back American sodiers. But whie coonia troops marched in the victory parade in Paris, the Wison administration did not aow back Americans to participate. THE GREAT MIGRATION AND THE PROMISED LAND Nonetheess, the war uneashed socia changes that atered the contours of American race reations. The combination of increased wartime production and a drastic faoff in immigration from Europe once war broke out opened thousands of industria jobs to back aborers for the first time, inspiring a arge-scae migration from South to North. On the eve of Word War I, 90 percent of the African-American popuation sti ived in the South. Most northern cities had tiny back popuations, and domestic and service work sti predominated among both back men and women in the North. But between 1910 and 1920, haf a miion backs eft the South. The back popuation of Chicago more than doubed, New York City s rose 66 percent, and smaer industria cities ike Akron, Buffao, and Trenton showed simiar gains. Many motives sustained the Great Migration higher wages in northern factories than were avaiabe in the South (even if backs remained confined to menia and unskied positions), opportunities for educating their chidren, escape from the threat of ynching, and the prospect of exercising the right to vote. Migrants spoke of asecondemancipation,of crossingoverjordan, andof

34 How did the war affect race reations in the United States? 799 eaving the ream of pharaoh for the Promised Land. One group from Tabe 19.1 THE GREAT MIGRATION Mississippi stopped to sing, I am bound for the and of Canaan, after their train crossed the Ohio River into the North. The back migrants, mosty young men and women, carried with them a new vision of opportunity, of socia and economic City New York Phiadephia Back Popuation, ,709 84,459 Back Popuation, , ,229 Percent Increase 66.3% 58.9 freedom, as Aain Locke Chicago 44, , expained in the preface to his infuentia book, The New Negro (1925). Yet the migrants encountered vast disappointments severey restricted empoyment opportunities, excusion from unions, rigid housing segregation, and outbreaks of vioence that made it cear that no St. Louis Detroit Pittsburgh Ceveand 43,960 5,741 25,623 8,448 69,854 40,838 37,725 34, region of the country was free from racia hostiity. More white southerners than backs moved north during the war, often with simiar economic aspirations. But the new back presence, couped with demands for change inspired by the war, created a racia tinderbox that needed ony an incident to trigger an exposion. RACIAL VIOLENCE, NORTH AND SOUTH Dozens of backs were kied during a 1917 riot in East St. Louis, Iinois, where empoyers had recruited back workers in an attempt to weaken unions (most of which excuded backs from membership). In 1919, more than 250 persons died in riots in the urban North. Most notabe was the vioence in Chicago, touched off by the drowning by white bathers of a back teenager who accidentay crossed the unofficia dividing ine between back and white beaches on Lake Michigan. The riot that foowed raged for five days and invoved pitched battes between the races throughout the city. By the time the Nationa Guard restored order, 38 persons had been kied and more than 500 injured. Vioence was not confined to the North. In the year after the war ended, seventy-six persons were ynched in the South, incuding severa returning back veterans wearing their uniforms. In Phiips County, Arkansas, attacks on striking back sharecroppers by armed white vigiantes eft as many as 200 persons dead and required the intervention of the army to restore order. The worst race riot in American history occurred in Tusa, Okahoma, in 1921, when more than 300 backs were kied and over 10,000 eft homeess after a white mob, incuding poice and Nationa Guardsmen, burned an a-back section of the city to the ground. The vioence erupted after a group of back veterans tried to prevent the ynching of a youth who had accidenty tripped and faen on a white femae eevator operator, causing rumors of rape to sweep the city. THE RISE OF GARVEYISM Word War I kinded a new spirit of miitancy. The East St. Louis riot of 1917 inspired a widey pubicized Sient Protest Parade on New York s

35 800 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy 1919 The sient parade down Fifth Avenue, Juy 28, 1917, in which 10,000 back marchers protested the East St. Louis race riot. Fifth Avenue in which 10,000 backs sienty carried pacards reading, Mr. President, Why Not Make America Safe for Democracy? In the new densey popuated back ghettos of the North, widespread support emerged for the Universa Negro Improvement Association, a movement for African independence and back sef-reiance aunched by Marcus Garvey, a recent immigrant from Jamaica. Freedom for Garveyites meant nationa sef-determination. Backs, they insisted, shoud enjoy the same internationay recognized identity enjoyed by other peopes in the aftermath of the war. Everywhere we hear the cry of freedom, Garvey procaimed in We desire a freedom that wi ift us to the common standard of a men,... freedom that wi give us a chance and opportunity to rise to the fuest of our ambition and that we cannot get in countries where other men rue and dominate. Du Bois and other estabished back eaders viewed Garvey as itte more than a demagogue. They appauded when the government deported him after a conviction for mai fraud. But the massive foowing his movement achieved testified to the sense of betraya that had been kinded in back communities during and after the war A W O R L D W I D E U P S U R G E The combination of miitant hopes for socia change and disappointment with the war s outcome was evident far beyond the back community. In the Union of Soviet Sociaist Repubics (or Soviet Union), as Russia had been renamed after the revoution, Lenin s government had nationaized andhodings, banks, and factories and procaimed the sociaist dream of a workers government. The Russian Revoution and the democratic aspirations uneashed by Word War I sent tremors of hope and fear throughout the word. Like 1848 and, in the future, 1968, 1919 was a year of wordwide socia and poitica upheava. Inspired by Lenin s ca for revoution, communist-ed governments came to power in Bavaria (a part of Germany) and Hungary. Genera strikes demanding the fufiment of wartime promises of industria democracy took pace in Befast, Gasgow, and Winnipeg. In Spain, anarchist peasants began seizing and. Crowds in India chaenged British rue, and nationaist movements in other coonies demanded independence. We are iving and sha ive a our ives in a revoutionary word, wrote Water Lippmann. The wordwide revoutionary upsurge produced a countervaiing mobiization by opponents of radica change. Even as they fought the Germans,

36 Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the word? 801 the Aies viewed the Soviet government as a dire threat and attempted to overturn it. In the summer of 1918, Aied expeditionary forces British, French, Japanese, and Americans anded in Russia to aid Lenin s opponents in the civi war that had engufed the country. The ast of them did not eave unti Wison s poicies toward the Soviet Union reveaed the contradictions within the ibera internationaist vision. On the one hand, in keeping with the principes of the Fourteen Points and its goa of a wordwide economic open door, Wison hoped to foster trade with the new government. On the other, fear of communism as a source of internationa instabiity and a threat to private property inspired miitary intervention in Russia. The Aies did not invite the Soviet Union to the Versaies peace conference, and Wison refused to extend dipomatic recognition to Lenin s government. The Soviet regime survived, but in the rest of the word the tide of change receded. By the fa, the mass strikes had been suppressed and conservative governments had been instaed in centra Europe. Anticommunism woud remain a piar of twentieth-century American foreign poicy. UPHEAVAL IN AMERICA In the United States, 1919 aso brought unprecedented turmoi. It seemed a the more disorienting for occurring in the midst of a wordwide fu epidemic that kied between 20 and 40 miion persons, incuding neary 700,000 Americans. Racia vioence, as noted above, was widespread. In June, bombs expoded at the homes of prominent Americans, incuding the attorney genera, A. Mitche Pamer, who escaped uninjured. Among aggrieved American workers, wartime anguage inking patriotism with democracy and freedom inspired hopes that an era of socia justice and economic empowerment was at hand. In 1917, Wison had tod the AFL, Whie we are fighting for freedom, we must see to it among other things that abor is free. Labor took him seriousy more seriousy, it seems, than Wison intended. The government, as one machinist put it, had procaimed to the Word that the freedom and democracy we are fighting for sha be practiced in the industries of America. By the war s end, many Americans beieved that the country stood on the verge of what Herbert Hoover caed a new industria order. Sidney Himan, eader of the garment workers union, was one of those caught up in the utopian dreams inspired by the war and reinforced by the Russian Revoution. One can hear the footsteps of the Deiverer, he wrote. Labor wi rue and the Word wi be free. In 1919, more than 4 miion workers engaged in strikes the greatest wave of abor unrest in American history. There were wakouts, among many others, by textie workers, teephone operators, and Broadway actors. Throughout the country, workers appropriated the imagery and rhetoric of the war, parading in army uniforms with Liberty buttons, denouncing their empoyers as kaisers, and demanding freedom in the workpace. They were met by an unprecedented mobiization of empoyers, government, and private patriotic organizations. The strike wave began in January 1919 in Seatte, where a wakout of shipyard workers mushroomed into a genera strike that for once united

37 802 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy 1919 AFL unions and the IWW. For five days, a committee of abor eaders oversaw city services, unti federa troops arrived to end the strike. In September, Boston poicemen struck for higher wages and shorter working hours. Decaring there is no right to strike against the pubic safety, Massachusetts governor Cavin Cooidge caed out the Nationa Guard to patro the city and fired the entire poice force. In the nation s coafieds, acompanymanagerobserved,wartimepropagandahadraisedunreaistic expectations among workers, who took the promise of an actua emancipation too iteray. When the war ended, miners demanded an end to company absoutism. Their strike was ended by a court injunction obtained by Attorney Genera Pamer. THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE An advertisement paced by a stee company in a Pittsburgh newspaper announces, in severa anguages, that the stee strike of 1919 has faied. The use of the figure of Unce Sam iustrates how the companies cothed their anti-union stance in the anguage of patriotism. The wartime rhetoric of economic democracy and freedom heped to inspire the era s greatest abor uprising, the 1919 stee strike. Centered in Chicago, it united some 365,000 mosty immigrant workers in demands for union recognition, higher wages, and an eight-hour workday. Before 1917, the stee mis were itte autocracies where managers arbitrariy estabished wages and working conditions and suppressed a efforts at union organizing. During the war, workers fooded into the Amagamated Association, the union that had been neary destroyed by its defeat at Homestead a generation earier. By the end of 1918, they had won an eighthour day. Empoyers anti-union activities resumed foowing the armistice that ended the fighting. For why this war? asked one Poish immigrant steeworker at a union meeting. For why we buy Liberty bonds? For the mis? No, for freedom and America for everybody. No more [work ike a] horse and wagon. For eight-hour day. In response to the strike, stee magnates aunched a concerted counterattack. Empoyers appeaed to anti-immigrant sentiment among native-born workers, many of whom returned to work, and conducted a propaganda campaign that associated the strikers with the IWW, communism, and disoyaty. Americanism vs. Aienism was the issue of the strike, decared the New York Tribune.Withmidde-cassopinionhavingturnedagainsttheabor movement and the poice in Pittsburgh assauting workers on the streets, the strike coapsed in eary THE RED SCARE Loca poice with iterature seized from a Communist Party office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, November Many Progressives hoped to see the wartime apparatus of economic panning continue after The Wison administration, however, quicky dismanted the agencies that had estabished contros over industria production and the abor market, athough during the 1930s they woud serve as modes for some poicies of Frankin D. Roosevet s New Dea. Wartime repression of dissent, however, continued. It reached its peak with the Red Scare of , a short-ived but intense period of poitica intoerance inspired by the postwar strike wave and the socia tensions and fears generated by the Russian Revoution. Convinced that episodes ike the stee strike were part of a wordwide communist conspiracy, Attorney Genera A. Mitche Pamer in November

38 Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the word? and January 1920 dispatched federa agents to raid the offices of radica and abor organizations throughout the country. They carried search warrants so broad that they reminded those with a sense of history of the writs of assistance against which James Otis had eoquenty protested as being destructive of iberty in The Pamer Raids were overseen by the twenty-four-year-od director of the Radica Division of the Justice Department, J. Edgar Hoover. More than 5,000 persons were arrested, most of them without warrants, and hed for months without charge. The government deported hundreds of immigrant radicas, incuding Emma Godman, the prominent radica speaker mentioned in the previous chapter. Hoover aso began compiing fies on thousands of Americans suspected of hoding radica poitica ideas, a practice he woud ater continue as head of the Federa Bureau of Investigation. The abuse of civi iberties in eary 1920 was so severe that Pamer came under heavy criticism from Congress and much of the press. Secretary of Labor Louis Post began reeasing imprisoned immigrants, and the Red Scare coapsed. Even the exposion of a bomb outside the New York Stock Exchange in September 1920, which kied forty persons, faied to rekinde it. (The perpetrators of this terrorist exposion, the worst on American soi unti the Okahoma City bombing of 1995, were never identified.) The reaction to the Pamer Raids panted the seeds for a new appreciation of the importance of civi iberties that woud begin to fourish during the 1920s. But in their immediate impact, the events of 1919 and 1920 deat a devastating setback to radica and abor organizations of a kinds and kinded an intense identification of patriotic Americanism with support for the poitica and economic status quo. The IWW had been effectivey destroyed, and many moderate unions ay in disarray. The Sociaist Party crumbed under the weight of governmenta repression (the New York egisature expeed five Sociaist members, and Congress denied Victor Berger the seat to which he had been eected from Wisconsin) and interna differences over the Russian Revoution. Part of the crowd that greeted President Woodrow Wison in November 1918 when he traveed to Paris to take part in the peace conference. An eectric sign procaims Long Live Wison. WILSON AT VERSAILLES The beating back of demands for fundamenta socia change was a severe rebuke to the hopes with which so many Progressives had enisted in the war effort. Wison s inabiity to achieve a just peace based on the Fourteen Points compounded the sense of faiure. Late in 1918, the president traveed to France to attend the Versaies peace conference. Greeted by ecstatic Paris crowds, he decared that American sodiers had come to Europe as crusaders, not merey to win a war, but to win a cause... to ead the word on the way of iberty. But he proved a ess adept negotiator than

39 804 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy 1919 Word War I and the Versaies Treaty redrew the map of Europe and the Midde East. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires ceased to exist, and Germany and Russia were reduced in size. Agroupofnewstatesemergedineastern Europe, embodying the principe of sefdetermination, one of Woodrow Wison s Fourteen Points. his British and French counterparts, David Loyd George and Georges Cemenceau. Whie the Fourteen Points had caed for open covenants openy arrived at, the negotiations were conducted in secret. The Versaies Treaty did accompish some of Wison s goas. It estabished the League of Nations, the body centra to his vision of a new internationa order. It appied the principe of sef-determination to eastern Europe and redrew the map of that region. From the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian empire and parts of Germany and czarist Russia, new European nations emerged from the war Finand, Poand, Czechosovakia, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Yugosavia. Some enjoyed ethno-inguistic unity, whie others comprised unstabe combinations of diverse nationaities. Despite Wison s pedge of a peace without territoria acquisitions or vengeance, the Versaies Treaty was a harsh document that a but guaranteed future confict in Europe. Cemenceau won for France the right to occupy the Saar Basin and Rhineand iron- and coa-rich parts of Germany. The treaty paced strict imits on the size of Germany s future EUROPE IN 1914 NORWAY SWEDEN Petrograd kiometers 500 mies GREAT BRITAIN North Sea NETHERLANDS DENMARK Batic Sea RUSSIA Moscow Atantic Ocean PORTUGAL LUXEMBOURG SPAIN London FRANCE BELGIUM Paris SWITZERLAND Berin GERMANY Prague Vienna AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE Sarajevo ITALY MONTENEGRO SERBIA Rome ALBANIA GREECE ROMANIA BULGARIA Back Sea Constantinope TURKEY (OTTOMAN EMPIRE) Aies Centra Powers Neutra nations Siciy Mediterranean Sea Crete Cyprus

40 Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the word? 805 army and navy. Loyd George persuaded Wison to agree to a cause decaring Germany moray responsibe for the war and setting astronomica reparations payments (they were variousy estimated at between $33 biion and $56 biion), which cripped the German economy. THE WILSONIAN MOMENT To many peope around the word, the Great War seemed ike a civi war among the nations of Europe. The carnage destroyed European caims that theirs was a higher civiization, which gave them the right to rue over more barbaric peopes. In this sense, it heped to heighten the internationa prestige of the United States, a atecomer to the war. Like the ideas of the American Revoution, the Wisonian rhetoric of sef-determination reverberated across the gobe, especiay among oppressed minorities (incuding backs in the United States) and coonia peopes seeking independence. In fact, these groups took Wison s rhetoric more seriousy than he did. Despite his beief in sef-determination, he had supported the American EUROPE IN 1919 NORWAY SWEDEN FINLAND ESTONIA kiometers 500 mies GREAT BRITAIN North Sea NETHERLANDS DENMARK Batic Sea Danzig (Free City) LATVIA LITHUANIA EAST PRUSSIA (GERMANY) RUSSIA Atantic Ocean PORTUGAL LUXEMBOURG SPAIN FRANCE BELGIUM Lorraine Asace SWITZERLAND Corsica (Fr.) Sardinia (It.) GERMANY POLAND Rhineand Saar CZECHOSLOVAKIA ITALY AUSTRIA Siciy HUNGARY YUGOSLAVIA ALBANIA GREECE ROMANIA BULGARIA Back Sea TURKEY New nations Demiitarized or Aied occupied zone Mediterranean Sea Crete Dodecanese Is. (Itay) Cyprus

41 806 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy 1919 Mahatma Ghandi, pictured here in 1919, became the eader of the nonvioent movement for independence for India. He was among those disappointed by the faiure of the Versaies peace conference to appy the principe of sef-determination to the coonia word. annexation of the Phiippines, beieving that coonia peopes required a ong period of tuteage before they were ready for independence. Nonetheess, Wisonian ideas quicky spread around the gobe not simpy the idea that government must rest on the consent of the governed, but aso Wison s stress on the equaity of nations, arge and sma, and that internationa disputes shoud be setted by peacefu means rather than armed confict. These stood in sharp contrast to the imperia ideas and practices of Europe. In Eastern Europe, whose peope sought to carve new, independent nations from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, many considered Wison a popuar saint. The eading Arabic newspaper A-Ahram,pubishedinEgypt,thenunderBritishrue,gaveextensive coverage to Wison s speech asking Congress to decare war in the name of democracy, and to the Fourteen Points, and transated the Decaration of Independence into Arabic for its readers. In Beijing, students demanding that China free itsef of foreign domination gathered at the American embassy shouting, Long ive Wison. Japan proposed to incude in the charter of the new League of Nations a cause recognizing the equaity of a peope, regardess of race. Hundreds of etters, petitions, and decarations addressed to President Wison made their way to the Paris headquarters of the American deegation to the peace conference. Few reached the president, as his private secretary, Gibert Cose, carefuy screened his mai. Outside of Europe, however, the idea of sef-determination was stiborn. When the peace conference opened, Secretary of State Robert Lansing warned that the phrase was oaded with dynamite and woud raise hopes which can never be reaized. Wison s anguage, he feared, had put dangerous ideas into the minds of certain races and woud inspire impossibe demands, and cause troube in many ands. As Lansing anticipated, advocates of coonia independence descended on Paris to obby the peace negotiators. Arabs demanded that a unified independent state be carved from the od Ottoman empire in the Midde East. Nguyen That Thanh, a young Vietnamese patriot working in Paris, pressed his peope s caim for greater rights within the French empire. Citing the Decaration of Independence, he appeaed unsuccessfuy to Wison to hep bring an end to French rue in Vietnam. W. E. B. Du Bois organized a Pan-African Congress in Paris that put forward the idea of a sef-governing nation to be carved out of Germany s African coonies. Koreans, Indians, Irish, and others aso pressed caims for sef-determination. The British and French, however, had no intention of appying this principe to their own empires. They rebuffed the peas of coonia peopes for sef-rue. During the war, the British had encouraged Arab nationaism as a weapon against the Ottoman empire and had aso pedged to create a homeand in Paestine for the persecuted Jews of Europe. In fact, the victors of Word War I divided Ottoman territory into a series of new territories, incuding Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Paestine, controed by the victorious Aies under League of Nations mandates. South Africa, Austraia, and Japan acquired former German coonies in Africa and Asia. Nor did Ireand achieve its independence at Versaies. Ony at the end of 1921 did Britain finay agree to the creation of the Irish Free State, whie continuing to rue the northeastern corner of the isand. As for the Japanese proposa to estabish the principe of racia equaity, Wison, with the support of Great Britain and Austraia, engineered its defeat.

42 Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the word? 807 THE SEEDS OF WARS TO COME Du Bois, as noted above, had hoped that back participation in the war effort woud promote racia justice at home and sef-government for coonies abroad. We return, he wrote in The Crisis in May 1919, we return from fighting, we return fighting. Make way for Democracy! But the war s aftermath both in the United States and overseas eft him bittery disappointed. Du Bois concuded that Wison had never at any singe moment meant to incude in his democracy back Americans or the coonia peopes of the word. Most men today, he compained, cannot conceive of a freedom that does not invove somebody s savery. In 1903, in The Sous of Back Fok,DuBoishadmadethememorabepredictionthat theprobem of the twentieth century is the probem of the coor-ine. He now forecast a fightforfreedom thatwoudpit backandbrownandyeowmen throughout the word against racism and imperiaism. Disappointment at the faiure to appy the Fourteen Points to the non- European word created a pervasive cynicism about Western use of the anguage of freedom and democracy. Wison s apparent wiingness to accede to the demands of the imperia powers heped to spark a series of popuar protest movements across the Midde East and Asia, and the rise of a new anti-western nationaism. It inspired the May 4 movement in China, a mass protest against the decision at the Versaies peace conference to award certain German concessions (parts of China governed by foreign powers) to Japan. Some eaders, ike Nguyen That Thanh, who took the name Ho Chi Minh, turned to communism, in whose name he woud ead Vietnam s ong and boody strugge for independence. The Soviet eader Lenin, in fact, had spoken of the right of nations to sef-determination before Wison, and with the coapse of the Wisonian moment. Lenin s reputation in the coonia word began to ecipse that of the American president. But whether communist or not, these movements announced the emergence of anticoonia nationaism as a major force in word affairs, which it woud remain for the rest of the twentieth century. Your iberaness, one Egyptian eader remarked, speaking of Britain and America, is ony for yourseves. Yet ironicay, when coonia peopes demanded to be recognized as independent members of the internationa community, they woud invoke both the heritage of the American Revoution the first coonia strugge that produced an independent nation and the Wisonian anguage whereby the sef-governing nationstate is the most egitimate poitica institution, and a nations deserve equa respect. As Du Bois recognized, Word War I sowed the seeds not of a asting peace but of wars to come. German resentment over the peace terms woud hep to fue the rise of Adof Hiter and the coming of Word War II. In the breakup of Czechosovakia and Yugosavia, vioence over the status of Northern Ireand, and the seemingy unending confict in the Midde East between Arabs and Israeis, the word was sti haunted by the ghost of Versaies. THE TREATY DEBATE One fina disappointment awaited Wison on his return from Europe. He viewed the new League of Nations as the war s finest egacy. But many

43 808 Ch. 19 Safe for Democracy SUGGESTED READING Interrupting the Ceremony, a 1918 cartoon from the Chicago Tribune, depicts Senate opponents of the Versaies Treaty arriving just in time to prevent the United States from becoming permanenty ensnared in foreign entangements through the League of Nations. Americans feared that membership in the League woud commit the United States to an open-ended invovement in the affairs of other countries. Wison asserted that the United States coud not save the word without being continuay invoved with it. His opponents, ed by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, argued that the League threatened to deprive the country of its freedom of action. Aconsiderabemajorityofsenatorswoudhaveaccepted the treaty with reservations ensuring that the obigation to assist League members against attack did not supercede the power of Congress to decare war. As governor of New Jersey and as president, Wison had proved himsef to be a skied poitician capabe of compromising with opponents. In this case, however, convinced that the treaty refected the hand of God, Wison refused to negotiate with congressiona eaders. In October 1919, in the midst of the League debate, Wison suffered a serious stroke. Athough the extent of his iness was kept secret, he remained incapacitated for the rest of his term. In effect, his wife, Edith, headed the government for the next seventeen months. In November 1919 and again in March 1920, the Senate rejected the Versaies Treaty. American invovement in Word War I asted barey nineteen months, but it cast a ong shadow over the foowing decade and, indeed, the rest of the century. In its immediate aftermath, the country retreated from internationa invovements. But in the ong run, Wison s combination of ideaism and power poitics had an enduring impact. His appeas to democracy, open markets, and a specia American mission to instruct the word in freedom, couped with a wiingness to intervene abroad miitariy to promote American interests and vaues, woud create the mode for twentieth-century American internationa reations. On its own terms, the war to make the word safe for democracy faied. Even great powers cannot aways bend the word to their purposes. The war brought neither stabiity nor democracy to most of the word, and it undermined freedom in the United States. It aso ed to the ecipse of Progressivism. Repubican candidate Warren G. Harding, who had no connection with the party s Progressive wing, swept to victory in the presidentia eection of Harding s campaign centered on a return to normacy and a repudiation of what he caed Wisonism. He received 60 percent of the popuar vote. Begun with ideaistic goas and grand hopes for socia change, American invovement in the Great War aid the foundation for one of the most conservative decades in the nation s history. SUGGESTED READING BOOKS Bederman, Gai. Maniness and Civiization: A Cutura History of Race and Gender in the United States, (1995). Expores how ideas concerning civiization and gender affected American foreign poicy.