Chapter 22 – World War I & the Progressive Crusade (1914-1920)

Learning Objectives

Understand Wilson’s foreign policy aims, U.S. involvement in WWI, home-front impacts, post-war peace negotiations, and the turbulent shift from war to peace.

An American Story – George “Brownie” Brown

23-year-old engineer from Waterbury, CT; volunteered July 1917 → served in $117^{th}$ Engineers, $42^{nd}$ “Rainbow” Division.
Duties: trench construction, barbed-wire entanglements, artillery & MG emplacements; daily German fire.
Champagne defensive (Mar 1918): division lost $\approx6{,}500$ men ( $20\%$ casualties).
St. Mihiel offensive (12 Sept 1918): $3{,}000$ U.S. guns fired >1{,}000{,}000 shells; $42^{nd}$ lost another $1{,}200$ men.
Meuse–Argonne: Brownie gassed; recuperated when armistice signed $11/11/1918$ . Discharged Feb 1919 → married Martha Johnson.

Wilson’s Foreign-Policy Agenda (1st Term)

Originally domestic-minded; nevertheless drawn abroad by:
• Progressive ideals: peaceful free trade, self-determination, democracy.
• Economic interests & global trade.
Claimed: “no selfish ends … one of the champions of the rights of mankind,” yet willing to use force.

U.S. Interventions in Latin America & the Caribbean

Continuity with Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” & Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy.”
Military occupations to protect U.S. banks/companies: Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic.
Map 22.1 shows network of interventions $1895\text{–}1941$ .

Mexico Crisis

1913: Gen. Victoriano Huerta’s coup → Wilson refuses recognition (“government of butchers”).
Apr 1914: $800$ Marines seize Veracruz to block arms shipment.
Rebellion by poor farmers; Francisco “Pancho” Villa retaliates:
• Jan 1916: steals gold train, kills $17$ U.S. engineers.
• Mar 1916: raids Columbus, NM, kills $18$ Americans.
Wilson sends $12{,}000$ troops under Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing → $300$ -mile pursuit, recalled Jan 1917 to prepare for potential European war.

Descent of Europe into WWI

Long-term forces: nationalism, imperialism, militarism; Germany’s challenge to British supremacy.
Alliance web magnified danger:
• Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy.
• Triple Entente: Great Britain, France, Russia.
Spark: assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (28 Jun 1914) → chain reaction; by 4 Aug 1914 all Great Powers at war.
Eventually involved Japan (vs. Germany) → global conflict.
Human cost: $\approx8{,}500,000$ soldiers killed.

Wilson’s Initial Neutrality (1914–1916)

Declares “absolute neutrality” – vital to trade & diverse immigrant nation.
British naval blockade of Germany tolerated; U.S. exports to Allies ↑ $\approx400\%$ , trade with Germany ≈ zero.
German U-boat counter-blockade:
• Feb 1915: announces unrestricted submarine warfare.
• 7 May 1915: sinks RMS Lusitania → $1,198$ dead ( $128$ Americans).
William J. Bryan (Sec-State) resigns; Robert Lansing takes over, adopts harder line.
1916: Germany pledges warning/safety; Wilson campaigns on slogan “He kept us out of war” – razor-thin re-election (popular margin $\approx600{,}000$ ; electoral $277–254$ ).

Path to U.S. Entry (Jan–Apr 1917)

U.S. supplying $\approx40\%$ of Allied war matériel; U.S. bankers extend billions in loans despite neutrality.
Jan 1917: Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare, betting Britain will collapse before U.S. mobilizes.
Zimmerman Telegram (25 Feb 1917): German proposal for Mexican alliance → public outrage.
Feb–Mar: German subs sink 5 U.S. ships → 66 deaths.
2 Apr 1917: Wilson asks Congress for war “to make the world safe for democracy.”
6 Apr 1917: War declared (House $373–50$ ; Senate $82–6$ ).

Mobilizing the Nation

Selective Service Act (18 May 1917)

Draft for men $21–30$ (later $18–45$ ).
Inducted $2{,}800,000$ ; additional $2{,}000,000$ volunteers → total forces $4,800,000$ (incl. $370,000$ Black soldiers).
$\approx64,000$ conscientious objectors; $\approx3,000,000$ evaders.
Training emphasized physical/moral uplift (YMCA, settlement-house ideals); sex-control lectures.
Gen. Pershing appointed AEF commander; reputation “lean, clean, keen.”

Progressive Wartime Agencies

War Industries Board (Bernard Baruch): coordinated production, cooperation labor–management; profits tripled.
Food Administration (Herbert Hoover): “Meatless Mondays,” “Wheatless Wednesdays”; ensured Allied food.
Fuel, Railroad Administrations; National War Labor Policies Board → $8$ -hour day, living wage, collective bargaining in some sectors.
Economic boom: industrial wages ↑ (Fig 22.2); AFL membership ↑ $2.7 \text{→} 5 million$ .
Eighteenth Amendment (Dec 1917) → national prohibition (effective $01/01/1920$ ).
Nineteenth Amendment: women’s suffrage passed 1919; ratified Aug 1920.

Women in the War

>25,000 served in France: nurses, ambulance drivers, canteen workers, “hello-girls,” reporters.
Domestic labor shortages → women in railroads, munitions, welding, clerical work; >1 \text{million} new industrial jobs.
Suffrage tactics:
• Radical: Alice Paul’s pickets, hunger strikes (“America is not a democracy …”).
• Mainstream: NAWSA (Carrie Chapman Catt) builds $2 \text{million}$ members.
Wilson endorses suffrage in 1918 as “vital to winning the war.”

American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France

Trench stalemate: Somme 1916 – $600,000$ Allied & $500,000$ German casualties for scant gains.
U.S. combat 1918:
• Spring: Germans launch final offensive; AEF enters at Cantigny, Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood (Marines earn fame).
• Summer: Allied counter-offensive on Marne; $\approx250,000$ U.S. troops.
• Sept: St. Mihiel – >1 \text{million} Americans, $45,000$ AEF casualties.
• Meuse–Argonne: largest U.S. operation; total AEF deaths $\approx112,000$ (wounds + disease) & $230,000$ wounded.
Black troops: $92^{nd}$ & $93^{rd}$ Divisions; $369^{th}$ “Harlem Hellfighters” served $191$ days in battle, most decorated U.S. unit; respected by French, discriminated by U.S. officers.
Armistice signed $11/11/1918$ ; Kaiser abdicates.

Wilson’s Fourteen Points (8 Jan 1918)

1–5: open diplomacy, $\text{freedom of seas}$ , free trade, arms reduction, colonial peoples’ rights.
6–13: self-determination for European nationalities.
14: “general association of nations” → League of Nations.

Paris Peace Conference & Treaty of Versailles (Jan–Jun 1919)

Big Four: Wilson (U.S.), Clemenceau (FR), Lloyd George (GB), Orlando (IT).
Wilson fails to include leading Republicans → domestic political risk.
Allied priorities: punish Germany, secure reparations, expand empires.
Key outcomes:
• Article 231 “war guilt” → Germany solely blamed; reparations >\$33 \text{billion}.
• Germany lost colonies; Rhineland demilitarized.
• New nations: Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Baltic states; Ottoman lands = mandates (Palestine, Iraq, Syria).
• Japan gains Shandong; racial-equality clause rejected.
• League of Nations charter accepted (collective security principle).

Senate Rejection of Versailles

Opposition factions:
• “Irreconcilables” – no entanglements.
• “Reservationists” led by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge – accept with modifications, esp. Article 10 (collective security).
Wilson’s stroke (Oct 1919) → refuses compromise; nationwide speaking tour cut short in Pueblo collapse.
March 1920: treaty fails by $6$ votes; U.S. never joins League (though Wilson wins 1920 Nobel Peace Prize).

Civil Liberties & Propaganda on the Home Front

Committee on Public Information (George Creel): $75,000$ “Four-Minute Men,” films, posters demonizing “Huns.”
Anti-German hysteria: language banned, products renamed (“liberty cabbage”).
Repressive legislation:
• Espionage Act (1917).
• Trading with the Enemy Act (1917).
• Sedition Act (1918).
Postmaster Burleson censors mail; $\approx1,500$ prosecutions – mostly speech.
Eugene V. Debs jailed (10 yr) for anti-war speech.
Supreme Court (Schenck v. U.S., 1919): “clear & present danger” test (fire-in-theater analogy).

Immediate Post-War Turbulence

Economic Demobilization

Govt ends controls; cancels contracts; $3 \text{million}$ veterans flood labor market.
Inflation: prices $+75\%$ in 1919 vs. 1914; employer offensives vs. $8$ -hr day & unions.
Strikes 1919: $\approx3,600$ ; Seattle general strike (110,000 workers), Boston Police, nationwide steel strike (350,000) – all crushed.

The Red Scare (1919–1920)

Causes: recession, strikes, bombings (Wall St. 16 Sept 1920 – 38 dead), Bolshevik Revolution, Comintern.
Attorney Gen. A. Mitchell Palmer & J. Edgar Hoover → Palmer Raids Jan 1920: $6,000$ arrests, $500$ deportations (incl. Emma Goldman).
May Day 1920 predicted uprising fails → scare subsides; ACLU founded 1920 to defend civil liberties.

Influenza Pandemic (1918–19)

“Spanish Flu” – $675,000$ U.S. deaths; >40 \text{million} worldwide; high mortality ages $20–40$ .

Racial & Ethnic Conflict

Great Migration $1915–1920$ : $\approx500,000$ Southern Blacks move North (factory jobs; escape Jim Crow).
• Race riots in >2 dozen cities; East St. Louis 1917 (39 killed); 96 lynchings in 1918.
Mexican immigration $1910–1920$ : pop. $222,000 \to 478,000$ ; pulled by U.S. labor demand after Chinese Exclusion & WWI; exploited in agriculture & railroads; growth of barrios, cultural solidarity → League of United Latin American Citizens (1929).

Election of 1920 – “Return to Normalcy”

Wilson frames vote as referendum on League; Democrats: James M. Cox & FDR support Wilsonian idealism.
Republicans: Warren G. Harding & Calvin Coolidge promise “normalcy,” healing, anti-idealism.
Result: Harding landslide $60.5\%$ popular; $404$ electoral votes (Map 22.6) – signals retreat from Progressive crusades.

Conclusion – Victory at What Cost?

U.S. wins militarily; Wilson’s moral vision partly realized overseas (League), but U.S. refuses membership.
Domestic cost: >112,000 U.S. deaths; civil liberties curtailed; hyper-patriotism, repression, labor setbacks; only durable reforms = Prohibition & Women’s suffrage (latter enduring).
Progressive spirit wounded; nation turns toward prosperity, conservatism, and “good times” of the 1920s.

Key Terms / Concepts

Triple Alliance & Triple Entente
Lusitania
Selective Service Act
American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
Eighteenth & Nineteenth Amendments
Fourteen Points; League of Nations
Treaty of Versailles; Article 231; reparations >\$33 \text{billion}
Espionage/Sedition Acts; Schenck v. U.S.
Red Scare; Palmer Raids; ACLU
Great Migration; Mexican immigration; LULAC

Chronology (Selected)

$1914$ – U.S. Marines occupy Veracruz; WWI begins.
$1915$ – Lusitania sunk; Anti-German sentiment grows.
$1916$ – Villa raids; Wilson re-elected.
$Apr 1917$ – U.S. enters war.
$May 1917$ – Selective Service Act.
$Jan 1918$ – Fourteen Points.
$Nov 1918$ – Armistice.
$Jan–Jun 1919$ – Paris Peace Conference.
$Jun 1919$ – Versailles Treaty signed.
$Oct 1919$ – Wilson stroke; Senate fight.
$Jan 1920$ – Palmer Raids.
$Aug 1920$ – Nineteenth Amendment ratified.
$Nov 1920$ – Harding elected president.