Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912

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Chapter 29

• Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad,
  19121916

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I. The Bull Moose Campaign of 1912

• Election of 1912
• Democrats met at Baltimore (1912)
• Nominated Wilson, aided by William Jennings
  Bryans switch to his side
• New Freedom program
• Called for stronger antitrust legislation
• Banking reform
• Tariff reduction
• Progressive Republican ticket
• A third-party with Theodore Roosevelt as the
  political candidate

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I. The Bull Moose Campaign 1912 (cont.)

• They met in Chicago August 1912 with 2,000
  delegates from 40 states
• Dramatically symbolizing the rising political
  status of women
• As well as the Progressive support for the cause
  of social justice
• Settlement-house Jane Addams placed Roosevelts
  name in nomination for the presidency
• Religious atmosphere suffused the convention
• Fired-up Progressives entered the campaign with
  righteousness and enthusiasm.
• Roosevelt said he felt as strong as a bull
  moose thus the bull moose symbol.

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I. The Bull Moose Campaign 1912 (cont.)

• There were clashes of personalities between
  Roosevelt and Taft.
• Roosevelts New Nationalism
• Preached theology of progressive thinker Herbert
  Cody in his book The Promise of American Life
• Both favored continued consolidation of trusts
  and labor unions
• Paralleled by the growth of powerful regulatory
  agencies in Washington
• Campaigned for woman suffrage

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I. The Bull Moose Campaign 1912 (cont.)

• For a broad program of social welfare, including
  minimum wage laws and socialistic social
  insurance
• Roosevelt and his bull moose Progressives
  looked forward to the kind of activist welfare
  state of Franklin Roosevelts New Deal.
• Wilsons New Freedom
• Favored small enterprise, entrepreneurship
• And the free functioning of unregulated and
  unmonopolized markets
• Shunned social welfare proposals
• And pinned their economic faith on
  competitionman on the make, Wilson.

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I. The Bull Mouse Campaign 1919 (cont.)

• Keynote of Wilsons campaign was not regulation
  but fragmentation of the big industrial combines
• Chiefly by means of vigorous enforcement of the
  antitrust laws.
• The election of 1919
• Offered voters a choice not merely of policies
• But of political and economic philosophies--a
  rarity in U.S. History.
• The heat of the campaign cooled when, in
  Milwaukee, Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a
  fanatic
• The Rough Rider suspended active campaigning for
  more than two weeks after delivering his
  scheduled speech.

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II. Woodrow Wilson A Minority President

• Elections returns
• Wilson with 435 electoral votes and 6,296,547
  popular votes
• Roosevelt, finished second, 88 electoral votes
  and 4,118,571 popular votes
• Taft with only 8 electoral votes and 3,484,720
  popular votes (see Map 29.1)
• Wilson with only 41 of the popular votes was
  clearly a minority president, his party won a
  majority in Congress

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II. Woodrow Wilson A Minority President (cont.)

• Taft and Roosevelt together pulled over 1.25
  million more votes than the Democrats
• Progressivism rather than Wilson was the runaway
  winner
• The progressive vote for Wilson and Roosevelt,
  totaling 68, far exceeded the tally of the more
  conservative Taft who received only 23.
• The Socialist candidate, Eugene V. Debs, rolled
  up 900,672 popular votes, 6 of the total cast
  nearly twice as many as he netted four years
  earlier
• Socialists dreamed of being in within 8 years.

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II. Woodrow Wilson A Minority President (cont.)

• Roosevelts lone-wolf course
• Was tragic for both him and his former Republican
  associates
• He had bitten himself and gone madrephrasing
  William Allen White
• The Progressive party had no future because it
  had elected few candidates to state and local
  offices
• The Socialists elected more than a thousand
• Death by slow starvation was inevitable for the
  upstart Progressive party
• The Progressives made a tremendous showing of a
  hastily organized third party to spur the
  enactment of their pet reforms by the Wilsonian
  Democrats.

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II. Woodrow Wilson A Mighty President (cont.)

• Republicans
• They were in unaccustomed minority status in
  Congress for the next six years
• Frozen out of the White House for eight years
• Taft himself had a fruitful old age
• Taught law for 8 years at Yale University
• In 1921 became chief justice of the Supreme
  Courta job for which he was far more happily
  suited than the presidency.

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III. Wilson The Idealist in Politics

• (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson
• The second Democratic president since 1861
• Professor-politician from one of the seceded
  southern states
• Zachary Taylor, 64 years earlier.
• His ideal of self-determination was inspired by
  his sympathy for southern independence
• His ideal of faith in the massesif they were
  properly informedcame from Jeffersonian
  democracy
• His inspirational political sermons from his
  Presbyterian minster-father.

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III. Wilson The Idealist in Politics(cont.)

• Wilson, a profound student of government
• Believed the chief executive should play a
  dynamic role
• Convinced that Congress could not function
  properly unless the president was out front and
  provided the leadership
• He enjoyed dramatic success, both as governor and
  president, in appealing over the heads of
  legislators to the sovereign people
• Wilson suffered from serious defects of
  personality
• Though jovial and witty in private, he could be
  cold and standoffish in public
• Incapable of bending and with little showmanship,
  he lacked the common touch.

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II. Wilson The Idealist in Politics(cont.)

• He loved humanity in the mass rather than the
  individual in person
• His academics caused him to feel at home with
  scholars, while he had to work with politicians
• An austere and somewhat arrogant intellectual, he
  looked down upon lesser minds, especially
  journalists
• He was especially intolerant of stupid senators.
• Wilsons burning idealism
• He had special desire to reform ever-present
  wickedness
• His sense of moral righteousness made it
  difficult for him at times to compromise black
  was black, wrong was wrong, and one should
  never compromise with wrong
• He had a strong and inflexible stubbornness.

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IV. Wilson Tackles the Tariff

• Wilsons programs
• He called for an all-out assault on what he
  called the triple wall of privilege the
  tariff, the banks, and the trusts
• He tackled the trust first
• Summoned Congress into special session in early
  1913
• Precedent-shattering move, he did not send his
  presidential message over to Capitol to be read
• He appeared in person before a joint session of
  Congress and presented his appeal with stunning
  eloquence and effectiveness.

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IV. Wilson Tackles the Tariff(cont.)

• The Underwood Tariff
• When challenged by lobbyists,
• Wilson promptly issued a combative message to the
  people urging them to hold their elected
  representatives in line
• Public opinion worked
• He secured late in 1913 final approval of the
  bill he wanted
• Provided for a substantial reduction of rates
• Land mark in tax legislation
• By the ratified Sixteenth AmendmentCongress
  enacted a graduated income tax beginning with a
  moderate levy over 3,000
• By 1917 revenue from the income tax shot ahead of
  revenue from the tariffs.

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V. Wilson Battles the Bankers

• The Banks
• The antiquated and inadequate banking and
  currency system
• The nations financial structure was creeping
  under the Civil War National Banking Act
• Most glaring defects and shortcoming
• The inelasticity of the currency
• Since most banks were located in New York,
  mobilization of bank reserves in times of panic
  were badly pinched
• In 1908 Congress ordered an investigation of
  banking systems headed by Senator Aldrich.

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V. Wilson Battles the Bankers(cont.)

• The Aldrich report
• Recommended a gigantic bank with numerous
  branchesa third Bank of the United States
• Democratic banking reformers heeded the findings
  of the committee
• Also supported by Louis D. Brandeis in his
  scholarly book Other Peoples Money and How the
  Bankers Use It (1914)
• Wilson in June 1913 appeared personally before
  both houses of Congress, called for sweeping
  banking reform
• Endorse the Democratic proposal for a
  decentralized bank in governments
• Opposed the Republican demands for a huge private
  bank with fifteen branches.

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V. Wilson Battles the Bankers(cont.)

• The Federal Reserve Act (1913)
• Wilson appealed to the sovereign people
• The most important economic legislation between
  the Civil War and the New Deal
• Federal Reserve Board
• Appointed by the President
• It would oversee a nationwide system of 12
  regional reserve districts
• Each with its own central bank
• The final authority of the Federal Reserve Board
  guaranteed a substantial measure of public
  control
• The board would be employed to issue paper money

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V. Wilson Battles the Bankers(cont.)

• The paper moneyFederal Reserve Notesbacked by
  commercial paper
• Thus the amount of money in circulation could be
  swiftly increased as needed for the legitimate
  requirements of business.
• The Federal Reserve Act was a red-letter
  achievement
• Carried the nation through the financial crisis
  of the First World War 1914-1918
• Without it, the Republics progress toward the
  modern economic age would have been seriously
  retarded.

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VI. The President Tames the Trusts

• The Trusts
• Wilson appeared personally before Congress 1914
  to present the third wall of privilegestrusts
• Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)
• Empowered a presidentially appointed commission
  to research industries engagement in interstate
  commerce
• The commission was to crush monopoly at the
  source by rooting out unfair trade practices
• Including unlawful competition, false
  advertising, mislabeling, adulteration, and
  bribery.

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VI. The President Tames the Trusts(cont.)

• The Clayton Anti-Trust (1914)
• Increased the list of practices deemed
  objectionable
• Price discrimination and interlocking
  directorates (where the same individual serves as
  director of supposedly competing firms)
• Achieved through holding companies (see Figure
  29.1)
• Conferred long-overdue benefits on labor
• Sought to exempt labor and agricultural
  organization from anti-trust prosecution, while
  explicitly legalizing strikes and peaceful
  picketing
• Samuel Gompers, Union leader, hailed the act as
  the Magna Carta of labor.

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VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at High Tide

• Other progressive legislation
• The Federal Farm Loan Act (1916)
• Made credit available to farmers at low rates of
  interestlong demanded by the Populists
• The Warehouse Act (1916)
• Authorized loans on the security of staple
  cropsanother Populist idea
• Laws to benefit rural areas providing for
  highway construction and the establishment of
  agricultural extension work in state colleges.

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VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at High Tide (cont.)

• La Follette Seamans Act (1915)
• It required decent treatment and a living wage on
  American merchant ships
• It did cripple Americas merchant marine.
• The Workingmens Compensation Act (1916)
• Granting assistance to federal civil-service
  employees during periods of disability
• In 1916 Wilson approved an act restricting child
  labor on products flowing into interstate commerce

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VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at High Tide (cont.)

• The Adamson Act (1916)
• Established an 8-hour day for all employees on
  trains in interstate commerce, with extra pay for
  overtime.
• The Supreme Court
• Wilson endeared himself to the progressives when
  he nominated prominent reformer Louis D.
  Brandeisfirst Jew to the high court bench

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VII. Wilsonian Progressivism at High Tide

• Wilsons limit on progressivism
• It clearly stopped short of better treatment for
  blacks
• His reelection (1916)
• He needed to identify himself clearly as the
  candidate of progressivism
• He appeased businesspeople by making conservative
  appointments to the Federal Reserve Board
• He devoted most of his energy to cultivating
  progressive support
• To remain in office he would have to woo the bull
  moose voters into the Democratic fold.

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VIII. New Directions in Foreign Policy

• Wilsons reaction to earlier foreign policies
• In contrast to Roosevelt and Taft he recoiled
  from an aggressive foreign policy
• Hating imperialism, he was repelled by TRs big-
  stickism
• Suspicious of Wall Street, he detested the
  so-called dollar diplomacy of Taft
• In office only a week, he declared war on dollar
  diplomacy
• He proclaimed that the government would not
  support American investors in Latin America and
  China.

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VIII. New Directions in Foreign Policy (cont.)

• Persuaded Congress to repeal the Panama Canal
  Tolls Act of 1912
• exempted American coastwide shipping from tolls
• thereby provoked sharp protests from injured
  Britain
• The Jones Act (1916)
• Granted the Philippines the boon of territorial
  status and promised independence as soon as a
  stable government could be established
• Wilsons racial prejudices did not expect this to
  happen for a long time
• On July 4, 194630 years laterthe United States
  accepted Philippine independence.

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VIII. New Directions in Foreign Policy (cont.)

• His Japanese situation (1913)
• California prohibited Japanese from owning land
• Tokyo, understandably irritated, lodged vigorous
  protests
• At Fortress Corregido, Philippians were put on
  around-the-clock alert
• Tensions eased when Secretary of State William
  Jennings Bryan pleaded the California legislature
  to soften its stance.
• The Haiti political situation (1914-1915)
• Political turmoil in Haiti 1914-1915 when an
  outraged
• populace literally tore to pieces the brutal
  Haitian president
• Wilson dispatched marines to protect American
  lives and property
• They remained in Haiti for 19 years making Haiti
  an American protectorate.

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VIII. New Directions in Foreign Policy (cont.)

• In 1916 he used the Roosevelts corollary to the
  Monroe Doctrine and concluded a treaty with
  Haiti
• Providing for U.S. supervision of finances and
  the police.
• In 1916 he sent marines to the Dominican Republic
• Their debt-cursed land came under American
  control for 18 years
• In 1917 the United States purchased from Denmark
  the Virgin Islands
• Uncle Sam was taking grip in the Caribbean Sea,
  with its vital approaches to the Panama Canal
  (see Map 29.2).

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IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico

• Mexican revolution (1913)
• In early 1913 the new revolutionary president was
  murdered and replaced by General Victoriano
  Huerta
• Caused a massive migration of Mexicans to the
  United States
• More than a million Spanish-speaking newcomers
  came and settled in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,
  California
• They built highways and railroads, followed the
  fruit harvests as pickers
• Segregated in Spanish-speaking enclaves
• they helped to create a unique borderland
  culture that blended Mexican and American
  folkways.

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IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico(cont.)

• The revolutionary bloodshed also menaced American
  lives and property in Mexico
• Hearst was among those crying for intervention in
  Mexico
• President Wilson again refused to practice the
  same old diplomacy of his predecessors
• Deeming it perilous to determine foreign policy
  in terms of material interest
• Wilson tried hard to steer a moral course in
  Mexico
• In 1914 he allowed American arms to flow to
  Huertas principal rivals, white-bearded
  Venustiano Carranza and the firebrand Francisco
  (Pancho) Villa.

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IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico(cont.)

• The Tampico Incident
• The Mexico volcano erupted at the Atlantic
  seaport of Tampico in April, 1914
• When a small party of American sailors were
  arrested
• Mexicans released the captives and apologized
• But refused to salute with twenty-one guns the
  affronted American admirals demanded
• Wilson asked Congress for authority to use force
  against Mexico

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IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico(cont.)

• A full-dress shooting conflict was avoided by an
  offer of mediation from the ABC powersArgentina,
  Brazil, and Chile.
• Huerta collapsed in July 1914 under pressure from
  within and without
• He was succeeded by his archival, Venustiano
  Carranza
• Pancho Villa, chief rival to President Carranza
• Killed 16 American mining engineers traveling
  through northern Mexico in January 1916
• And a month later Villa and his followers crossed
  over into Columbus, New Mexico and murdered
  another 19 Americans.

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IX. Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico(cont.)

• General John J. (Black Jack) Pershing
• Was ordered to break up the bandit band
• He hastily organized force of several thousand
  mounted troops penetrated deep into Mexico
• They clashed with Carranzas forces
• Mauled the Villistas but missed capturing Villa

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X. Thunder Across the Sea

• Europes powder situation
• A Serb patriot killed the heir to the throne of
  Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo
• Vienna presented a stern ultimatum to Serbia
• An explosive chain reaction followed
• Serbia, backed by Russia, refused to back down
• The Russian czar began to mobilize his war
  machine, menacing Germany on the east
• France confronted Germany on the west
• Germans struck suddenly at France through
  unoffending Belgium

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X. Thunder Across the Sea(cont.)

• Great Britain, its coastline jeopardized by the
  assault on Belgium, was sucked into the
  conflagration on the side of France
• Now Europe was locked in a fight to the death
• The Central Powers Germany, Austria-Hungary,
  later Turkey and Bulgaria
• The Allies France, Britain, and Russia, later
  Japan and Italy
• Americans thanked God for the ocean and
  self-righteously congratulated themselves on
  having ancestors wise enough to have abandoned
  the hell pits of Europe
• America felt strong, snug, smug, and securebut
  not for long.

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XI. A Precarious Neutrality

• President Wilsons grief at the outbreak of war
  was compounded by the death of his wife
• He sorrowfully issued the routine neutrality
  proclamation and called on Americans to be
  neutral in thought and deed
• Both sides wooed the United States, the great
  neutral in the West
• The British enjoyed
• The boon of cultural, linguistic, and economic
  ties with America
• The advantage of controlling the transatlantic
  cables
• Their censors sheared away war stories harmful to
  the Allies and drenched the United States with
  tales of German bestiality.

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XI. A Precarious Neutrality(cont.)

• The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians
• Counted on the natural sympathies of their
  transplanted countrymen in America
• Powers numbered some 11 million in 1914
• Some of these recent immigrants expressed noisy
  sympathy for the fatherland
• But most were simply grateful to be so distant
  from the fray (see Table 29.1).
• Most Americans
• Were anti-German from the outset
• To them Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed the embodiment
  of arrogant autocracy
• An impression strengthened by Germans ruthless
  strike at neutral Belgium.

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XI. A Precarious Neutrality(cont.)

• German and Austrian agents tarnished the image of
  the Central Powers in American eyes
• When they resorted to violence in American
  factories and ports
• When a German operative in 1915 absentmindedly
  left his briefcase on a New York elevated car
• Its documents detailing plans for industrial
  sabotage were quickly discovered and publicized.
• American opinion, already ill-disposed, was
  further inflamed against the kaiser and Germany
• Yet the great majority of Americans earnestly
  hoped to stay out of the horrible war.

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XII. America Earns Blood Money

• When war broke out in Europe it was in a
  worrisome business recession
• British and French war orders pulled American
  industry out onto a peak of war-born prosperity
  (see Table 29.2)
• Part of the boon was financed by American
  bankers
• Notably the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan and
  Company, which advanced to the Allies the
  enormous sum of 2.3 million during the period of
  American neutrality
• The Central Powers protested bitterly
• Against the immense trade between America and
  Allies
• But this did not violate the international
  neutrality laws.

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XII. America Earns Blood Money(cont.)

• Germany was technically free to trade with the
  United States
• It was prevented from doing so not by American
  policy but by geography and the British navy
• The British blockaded the mines and ships across
  the North Sea gateway to German ports
• Over protests from various Americans, the British
  forced American vessels off the high seas
• This harassment of American shippers proved
  highly effective, as trade between Germany and
  the United States virtually ceased.

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XII. America Earns Blood Money(cont.)

• Germany did not want to be starved out
• Berlin announced a submarine war area around the
  British Isles (see Map 29.3)
• They posed a threat to the United Statesso long
  as Wilson insisted on maintaining Americas
  neutral rights
• Berlin officials declared they would try not to
  sink neutral shipping
• But they warned that mistakes would probably
  occur
• Wilson emphatically warned Germany that it would
  be held to strict accountability for any
  attacks on American vessels or citizens.

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XII. America Earns Blood Money(cont.)

• The German submarines (known as U-boats)
• These undersea boats meanwhile began their
  deadly work
• In the first months of 1915, they sank 90 ships
  in the war zone
• The British passenger liner Lusitania was
  torpedoed and sank off the coast of Ireland, May
  7, 1915
• With the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128
  Americans.
• The Lusitania was carrying forty-two hundred
  cases of small-arms ammunition
• A fact the Germans used to justify the sinking
• Americans were shocked and angered at this act of
  mass murder and piracy.

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XII. America Earns Blood Money(cont.)

• Talk of war
• From the eastern United States
• Not the rest of the nation
• Wilson did not want to lead a disunited nation
  into war
• By a series of strong notes, Wilson attempted to
  bring the German warlords sharply to book
• Secretary of State Bryan resigned rather than
  sign a protestation that might spell shooting
• Wilson resolutely stood his ground
• The British liner, the Arabic was sunk in August,
  1915
• With the loss of two American lives
• Britain reluctantly agreed not to sink unarmed
  and unresisting passenger ships without warning.

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XII. America Earns Blood Money(cont.)

• The pledge appeared to be violated in March,
  1916
• When the Germans torpedoed a French passenger
  steamer, the Sussex
• Infuriated Wilson informed the Germans
• That unless they renounced the inhuman practice
  of sinking merchant ships without warning he
  would break diplomatic relations
• An almost certain prelude to war.
• Germany reluctantly knuckled under Presidents
  Wilsons Sussex ultimatum
• Germany agreed to not sink passenger and merchant
  ships without warning
• But attached a long string to their Sussex
  pledge.

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XII. America Earns Blood Money(cont.)

• The German Sussex pledge
• The United States would have to persuade the
  Allies to modify what Berlin regarded as their
  illegal blockade
• This obviously, was something that Washington
  could not do
• Wilson promptly accepted the pledge, without
  accepting the string.
• Wilson won a temporary but precarious diplomatic
  victory precarious because
• Germany could pull the string whenever it chose
• And the president might suddenly find himself
  tugged over the cliff of war.

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Map 29-3 p672
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XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916

• The presidential campaign of 1916
• Both the bull moose Progressives and the
  Republicans met in Chicago
• The Progressives nominated Theodore Roosevelt
• But the Rough Rider had no intention of splitting
  the Republicans again
• In refusing to run, he sounded the death knell of
  the Pro-gressive party
• Roosevelts Republican admirers clamored for
  Teddy
• But the Old Guard detested the renegade who split
  the party in 1912

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XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916 (cont.)

• They drafted Supreme Court justice Charles Evans
  Hughes
• The Republican Party platform
• Condemned the Democratic tariff
• Assaults on trusts
• Wilsons wishy-washiness in dealing with Mexico
  and Germany.
• Hughes on the campaign trail
• In anti-German areas Hughes assailed Wilson for
  not standing up to the kaiser
• In isolationist areas he took a softer line
• This fence-straddling operation led to the jeer
  Charles Evasive Hughes.

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XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916 (cont.)

• Hughes was further plagued by Roosevelt,
• Who was delivering a series of skin-em-alive
  speeches against that damned Presbyterian
  hypocrite Wilson.
• Frothing for war, TR privately scoffed at Hughes
  as a whiskered Wilson, the only difference
  between the two, he said, was a shave.
• Wilson, nominated by acclamation at the
  Demo-cratic convention in St. Louis
• His campaign slogan, He Kept Us Out of War.
• Democratic orators warned that by electing
  Hughes, the nation would be electing a fightwith
  a certain frustrated Rough Rider leading the
  charge.

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XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916 (cont.)

• On election day
• Hughes swept the East
• Wilson went to bed that night prepared to accept
  defeat
• But the rest of the nation turned the tide
• Midwestern and westerners, attracted by Wilsons
  progressive reforms and antiwar policies, flocked
  to him
• The final result, in doubt for several days,
  hinged on California which Wilson carried with
  3,800 votes out of about a million

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XIII. Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916 (cont.)

• The final count
• Wilson with a final vote of 277 to 254 in the
  Electoral College,
• 9,127,695 to 8,533,507 in the popular column
  (see Map 29.4)
• The prolabor Wilson received strong support from
• The working class and from renegade bull moosers
• Wilson did not specifically promise to keep the
  country out of the war.

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