Chapter 4

The President's note on May 13 met with general approval. It denied any justification for such acts as the sinking of the Lusitania, and warned the Germans that the Government of the United States would not "omit any word or act" to defend the rights of its citizens. But some of the effect of that declaration had already been destroyed by a speech the President had made two days before, in which he had said that "there is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight," and the Germans, it was learned presently, had been still further reassured by a declaration of Mr. Bryan (entirely on his own authority) to the Austrian Ambassador that the note was intended only for home consumption.

At any rate, the note was not followed by action. Throughout the whole Summer the President maintained a correspondence with the Germans, distinguished by patient reasoning on his part and continual shiftings and equivocations on theirs. Meanwhile nothing was done; the public sentiment of the first days after the Lusitania had been sunk had slackened; division and dissension had returned and redoubled. Pacifism was more active than ever and German agents were spreading propaganda and setting fire and explosives to munition plants. Mr. Bryan, who apparently alone in the country was fearful that the President might needlessly involve the nation in war, resigned as Secretary of State on June 8. Aside from a certain relief, the public almost ignored his passing; the man who had been the strongest leader of the party in March, 1913, had in the last two years sunk almost into obscurity. Attention was now concentrated on the policy which the President, whose new Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, was hardly more than a figurehead, was pursuing toward Germany.

In August two more American passengers were drowned in the sinking of the liner Arabic, and in other submarine exploits of the Summer a number of American seamen lost their lives. The President's persistence at last had the effect of getting from the Germans, on September 1, a promise to sink no more passenger boats, and on October 5 they made a formal expression of regret for the Arabic incident. Meanwhile some of the acts of sabotage against American industries had been traced back to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, and the Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, was sent home in September. A few months later Papen and Boy-Ed, the Military and Naval Attachés of the German Embassy, followed him for a similar reason.

But the German outrages continued, and so did the submarine sinkings, though these were now transferred to the Mediterranean and Austria was put forward as the guilty power. Also, nothing had been done about the Lusitania. The country had apparently been divided by internal discords. The condition which the President had hoped to prevent by his appeal for "impartiality in thought as well as in action" had come about. Also, the danger of war had revealed the inadequacy of America's military establishment, and a private organization, whose moving spirit was General Leonard Wood, had undertaken to supply the deficiencies of the Government by establishing officers' training camps. Toward Wood and his enterprise the Government seemed cold, and he was reprimanded by the Secretary of War for permitting Colonel Roosevelt to make an indiscreet speech at the training camp at Plattsburg. But when Congress assembled in December the President deplored and denounced that new appearance in American public life, the hyphenate, and urged upon Congress that military preparation which he had derided a year before.

Congress, it was soon evident, was far less convinced than the President that anything had happened during 1915. In December, 1915, and in January, 1916, Mr. Wilson made a speaking tour through the East and Middle West in support of his new policy. His demand for a navy "incomparably the most adequate in the world," which Mr. Daniels translated into the biggest navy in the world, aroused some doubts in the minds of the public as to where the Administration thought the chief danger lay, and German influences did their best during the Winter to stir up anti-British sentiment in Congress--the more easily since the controversy over British interference with American commerce was still unsettled.

Eventually, and largely as a result of the President's speaking tour, Congress adopted a huge naval program, which was destined to remain on paper for some years. Military reform, however, had a different fate. The President had supported the policy favored by the Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, of supplementing the regular line by a federalized "Continental army" of 400,000 men. The House Committee on Military Affairs, led by James Hay, would not hear of this and insisted on Federal aid to the National Guard. The President, declaring that he could not tell a Congressional committee that it must take his plan or none, appeared to be ready to give in to Hay, and Garrison resigned in protest. Hay had his way, and Garrison was succeeded by Newton D. Baker, previously regarded as inclined to the pacifist side of the controversy.

_Senator Glass on Woodrow Wilson_

_It is my considered judgment that Woodrow Wilson will take a place in history among the very foremost of the great men who have given direction to the fortunes of the nation. No President of the United States, from the beginning of the Republic, ever excelled him in essential preparation for the tasks of the office. By a thorough acquisition of abstract knowledge, by clear and convincing precept and by a firm and diligent practical application of the outstanding principles of statecraft, no occupant of the Executive chair up to his advent was better furnished for a notable administration of public affairs. And Wilson's Administration has been notable. Its achievements, in enumeration and importance, have never been surpassed; and it may accurately be said that most of the things accomplished were of the President's own initiative._

_Of the President's personal traits and characteristics I cannot as confidently speak as those persons whose constant and intimate association with him has given them observation of his moods and habits. To me he always has been the soul of courtesy and frankness. Dignified, but reasonably familiar; tenacious when sure of his position, but not hard to persuade or to convince in a cause having merit, I have good reason to be incredulous when I hear persons gabble about the unwillingness of President Wilson to seek counsel or accept advice. For a really great man who must be measurably conscious of his own intellectual power, he has repeatedly done both things in an astonishing degree during his Administration; and when certain of a man's downright honesty, I have never known anybody who could be readier to confide serious matters implicitly to a coadjutor in the public service._

_CARTER GLASS_ _Written for The New York Times,_ _February 18, 1921._

Meanwhile the submarine issue was still an issue. Little satisfaction had been obtained for events in the Mediterranean, and in March the Sussex, a cross-Channel passenger boat, was torpedoed in plain violation of the German promise of September 1. There followed another interchange of notes, but the usual German efforts to deny and evade were somewhat more clumsy than usual. On April 19 the President came before Congress and announced that "unless the Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels" diplomatic relations would be broken off. The threat had its effect; the Germans yielded, grudgingly and in language that aroused much irritation, but on the main question they yielded none the less, and promised to sink no more merchantmen without warning.

During this crisis the President had had to contend with a serious revolt in Congress, which took the form of the Gore Resolution in the Senate and the McLemore resolution in the House, warning American citizens off armed merchantmen. The President took the position that this was a surrender of American rights, and upon his insistence both resolutions were brought to a vote and defeated. The Lusitania question was still unsettled, but on the general issue of submarine war the Germans had at last given way to the President's demand, and through most of 1916 the submarine issue was in the background.

During the year there was a continuation of diplomatic action against the British Government's interference with neutral commerce and with neutral mails. But, aside from the comparative unimportance of these issues beside the submarine assassinations, the Lusitania and similar episodes had stirred up so much indignation that not many Americans were seriously interested in action against England which could only work to the advantage of Germany. The year saw the institution of the Shipping Board, which was to look after the interests of the American merchant marine brought into being by the war, and also some efforts to extend American commerce in South America. Of more eventual importance for Latin-American relations was the necessity for virtually superseding the Government of the Dominican Republic, which had become involved in civil war and financial difficulties, by an American Naval Administration, as had been done in Haiti the year before.

The principal domestic event of the year was the threatened railroad strike, which came at the end of the Summer. The President summoned the heads of the four railroad brotherhoods and the executives of the railroad lines to Washington for a conference in August, and attempted without success to bring them to an agreement. A program to which he eventually gave his approval provided for the concession by the employers of the basic eight-hour day, with other issues left over until the working of this proposal could be studied. The railroad executives refused this, and while the negotiations were thus at a deadlock it became known that the brotherhoods had secretly ordered a strike beginning September 4. To avert this crisis the President asked Congress to pass a series of laws accepting the basic eight-hour day, providing for a commission of investigation, and forbidding further strikes pending Government inquiry.

None of these proposals except the eight-hour day, the center of the whole dispute, met the approval of the brotherhoods, and none of them except the eight-hour day and the commission of investigation was adopted. But, with A. B. Garreston, of the Brotherhood of Conductors, holding a stopwatch in the gallery, Congress hastily passed these laws and the strike was called off.

The eight-hour issue was the last item on the record on which President Wilson came up for re-election in the Fall of 1916. Despite the single-term plank in the Democratic platform of 1912, it had been evident long before the end of Mr. Wilson's first term that he was the only possible candidate. In March, 1913, he had seemed almost like an outside expert called in for temporary service in readjusting some of the problems of public life; he was by no means the leader of the party. But long before Bryan resigned in alarm at the tendencies of a foreign policy over which the Secretary of State had no control the President had become the leader of the party, and by 1916 he was almost the only leader of prominence.

In the record on which the electorate was to express its judgment only a minor place was taken by the issues which had seemed of such importance in 1913. The Federal Reserve Act had already proved its value so well that it was being taken as a matter of course, and people were forgetting that they had ever had to depend on a currency which ran for cover in every crisis and on a banking system where each bank was a source of weakness to its neighbors instead of strength. What effect the Underwood-Simmons Tariff and other measures of the first year might have had on American business no man could say, for conditions created by the war had left America the only great producer in a world of impatient consumers whose wants had to be met at any price.

Mexico, which had provided the most pressing problem in foreign affairs during the Taft Administration, was still an unsolved problem in 1916, and more disturbing than ever. The President had indeed avoided war with Mexico, but had become involved in two invasions of the country and in an expensive mobilization. During the 1916 election the nation had in Mexico most of the drawbacks of war without any of the possible benefits. In forcing out Huerta the President had indeed won a notable diplomatic triumph, but he had not succeeded either in winning greater security for American life and property or in getting a Mexican Government more disposed to good relations with the United States; and the Republicans maintained that war had been avoided only at the sacrifice of both American prestige and American interests.

_Personal Messages to Congress_

I am very glad, indeed, to have this opportunity to address the two Houses directly and to verify for myself the impression that the President of the United States is a person, not a mere department of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and with his own voice--that he is a human being trying to cooperate with other human beings in a common service. After this pleasant experience I shall feel quite normal in all our dealings with one another.--_From the President's First Address to Congress, April 8, 1913_

But Mexico, despite the emphasis placed upon it by the Republicans, was a secondary issue in the campaign of 1916. The great issue was the conduct of American relations with Germany, and the ultimate Republican failure in the election may be laid primarily to the inability of the Republican Party to decide just where it stood on the main issue.

The President had in this field also won a diplomatic victory. Like his victory over Huerta, it was more apparent than real, for the submarines were still active, and even during the campaign several incidents occurred which looked very much like violations of the German promise made in May. The most serious incident, that of the Lusitania, was still unsettled and the opponents of the President charged him with having bought peace with Germany, like peace with Mexico, at the cost of national interest and honor. Still the technical victory in the submarine negotiations had remained with the President, and he had succeeded in winning at least a nominal recognition of American rights without going into a war which, as every one realized, would be a much more serious enterprise than an invasion of Mexico. German propaganda and terrorist outrages, which had been so serious in 1915, fell off materially in 1916 largely on account of the energetic work of the Department of Justice, which had sent some of the most prominent conspirators to jail and driven others out of the country. But a considerable section of the population had made up its mind that Germany was already an enemy and was dissatisfied with the President's continual efforts to preserve impartiality of thought as well as of action.

The President was renominated at the Democratic Convention in St. Louis, and the platform expressed a blanket endorsement of the achievements of his Administration. But the chief incident of that convention was the keynote speech of Martin H. Glynn, which was based on the text, "He kept us out of war." His recital of the long list of past occasions in American history when foreign violations of American rights and injuries to American interests had not led to war was received with uproarious enthusiasm by the convention and completely overturned the plans which had been made by the Administration managers to emphasize the firmness of the President in defense of American rights.

But the Republicans presently gave that issue back to them. The party passed over Colonel Roosevelt; the memory of 1912 was still too bitter to permit the old-line leaders to accept him. On the other hand, the Colonel and his following had to be conciliated, so the Republican Convention nominated Charles E. Hughes, who had viewed the party conflict of 1912 from the neutrality of the Supreme Court bench. The Progressive Party duly had its convention and nominated Roosevelt; and when Roosevelt announced that Hughes's views on the preservation of American interests were satisfactory and that the main duty was to beat Wilson, a good many Progressives followed the Colonel back into camp. A rump convention, however, nominated a Vice Presidential candidate, and virtually went over to Wilson.

Justice Hughes's views on public issues were not known before he was nominated, and on the great issue of the campaign they were never very clearly known until after the election, when it was too late. He had strong opinions on Democratic misgovernment and maladministration and outspoken opinions on Mexico, but whenever he tried to say anything about the war in Europe he used up most of his energy clearing his throat. A large element in the American people, which was influential out of proportion to its numbers because it included most of the intelligent classes and most of the organs of public opinion, felt that the President had been too weak in the face of German provocation. To this element, chiefly in the East, Colonel Roosevelt appealed with his denunciation of German aggression and of the President's temporizing with Germany; but Colonel Roosevelt was not running for President. There was another minority, considerably smaller and far less reputable, which consisted of bitter partisans of the German cause. This minority was fiercely against the President because he had dared to challenge Germany at all; and though Mr. Hughes gave it no particular encouragement, it supported him because there was nobody else to support.

So, in the Eastern States, where anti-German sentiment was strongest, the Democrats advocated the re-election of Wilson as the defender of American rights against foreign aggression, while in the West he was praised as the man who had endured innumerable provocations and "kept us out of war." When Hughes swept everything in the East, it was confidently assumed on election night that Wilson had been repudiated by the country; but later reports showed that the East was no longer symptomatic of the country's sentiment. For three days the election was in doubt. It was finally decided by California, where the Republican Senator whom Hughes had snubbed was re-elected by 300,000 majority, while the Democratic electoral ticket won by a narrow margin. Wilson had carried almost everything in the West. Those parts of the country which lay further away from Europe and European interests had re-elected him because he had "kept us out of War."

_Mediation Efforts, 1916-1917_

It has been stated by Count von Bernstorff that, if Hughes had been elected, President Wilson would immediately have resigned, along with the Vice President, after appointing Hughes as Secretary of State, in order to give the President-elect an opportunity to come into office at once and meet the urgent problems already pressing on the Executive. Whether the President actually entertained any such intention or not, it would have been a logical development of his theory of the Chief Executive as Premier. But the President-Premier had received a vote of confidence, and was free to deal with the new situation created by the various peace proposals of the Winter of 1916-1917. The negotiations which followed during December and January were obscure at the time and are by no means clear even yet. The fullest account of them is that of Bernstorff, whose personal interest in vindicating himself would make him a somewhat unreliable witness even if there were nothing else against him. And at the time, when the President's motives were unknown to a public which had not his advantage of information as to what was going to happen in Europe, almost every step which he took was misconstrued, and his occasional infelicities of language aroused suspicions which later events have shown to be entirely unjustified.

Reports of American diplomats in the Fall of 1916 indicated that the party in Germany which favored unrestricted submarine war without consideration for neutrals was growing in strength. It was opposed by most of the civilian officials of the Government, including the Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg; Jagow and Zimmermann, the successive Foreign Secretaries, and Bernstorff, the Ambassador in Washington. But the Admirals who supported it were gradually winning over the all-powerful Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, and it appeared only a question of time until the promise to America of May, 1916, should be broken. And, as Bernstorff has expressed it, the President realized after the Sussex note there could be no more notes; any future German aggression would have to be met by action or endured with meekness.

In these circumstances the President was driven to seek opportunity for the mediation which he had been ready to offer, if asked, from the very beginning of the war. But to offer mediation, so long as the war was undecided, was a matter of extreme delicacy. The majority of intelligent Americans were strong partisans of the allied cause and firmly believed that that cause was bound to win in the long run. There was a minority which had equal sympathy for Germany and equal confidence in her ultimate success. To offer mediation while the war was still undecided would have been to offend both of these elements, as well as the warring nations themselves, all of which were still confident of victory. Specifically, to offer mediation during the course of the Presidential election would have been to drive over to Hughes all the pro-Ally elements in America, which in the state of mind of 1916 would have seen in such a proposal only a helping hand extended to a Germany whose cause was otherwise hopeless.

So, though during 1916 the President would have welcomed a request for mediation, he did not dare suggest it on his own account. And neither side dared to propose it, for such a request would have been taken as an admission of defeat. Nineteen hundred and sixteen was an indecisive year, but the fortune of war gave now one side and now the other the conviction that a few months more would bring it to complete victory. In such circumstances the losers dared not make a proposal which would hearten their enemies and the victors would not suggest the stopping of the war when they hoped that a few months more would see them in a much more favorable position.

_A Sympathetic Tribute_

_Hamilton Holt, head of a delegation that visited the White House on October 27, 1920, in connection with the campaign advocating our entry into the League of Nations, said in the course of his address to President Wilson:_

_"It was you who first focused the heterogeneous and often diverse aims of the war on the one ideal of pure Americanism, which is democracy. It was you who suggested the basis on which peace was negotiated. It was you, more than any man, who translated into practical statesmanship the age-old dream of the poets, the prophets and the philosophers by setting up a league of nations to the end that coöperation could be substituted for competition in international affairs._