Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements Part 2

The embargo on s.h.i.+pments of arms from the United States still existed, preventing Huerta from supplying his troops; but there was a good deal of smuggling to the revolutionary armies in the north. Of the interventionists some wanted intervention against Huerta and some wanted intervention for Huerta; and the pressure of economic interests in Mexico was complicating all phases of the situation.

From the first President Wilson had expressed his disapproval of the methods by which Huerta had attained office. Amba.s.sador Wilson, on the other hand, thought that Huerta ought to be supported, and when his policy did not commend itself to the President he resigned in August, 1913. But already the President had been getting information about Mexico from extra-official sources. His first envoy was William Bayard Hale, author of one of his campaign biographies. Amba.s.sador Wilson was virtually replaced in August by another special representative, John Lind, who carried to Huerta the proposals of President Wilson for solution of the Mexican problem. They included a definite armistice, a general election in which Huerta should not be a candidate, and the agreement of all parties to obey the Government chosen by this election, which would be recognized by the United States. Huerta refused and presently dissolved Congress. When the elections were finally held on October 2 Huerta won, and there was no doubt that he would have won no matter how the voting had happened to go.

The President's program for Mexican reform, it may be said, was not as evidently impracticable in 1913 as it seems in retrospect. It was widely criticised at the time, and the phrase "watchful waiting" which he invented as a description of his Mexican Policy was made the object of much ridicule. Throughout the first winter of the new Administration the American Government was apparently waiting for something to happen to Huerta or for Huerta to reform, and President Wilson several times sharply criticised the actions of the Mexican dictator. But Huerta did not reform and nothing sufficient happened to him; it began to look as if watchful waiting might continue indefinitely when a trivial incident furnished the last straw.

A boatload of American sailors from the wars.h.i.+ps anch.o.r.ed off Tampico to protect American citizens had been arrested by the Mexican military authorities. They were released, with apologies, but Admiral Mayo demanded a salute to the American flag by way of additional amends, and when Huerta showed a disposition to argue the matter the Atlantic Fleet was (April 14, 1914) ordered to Mexican waters. A week later, as negotiations had failed to produce the salute, the President asked Congress to give him authority to use the armed forces of the United States "against Victoriano Huerta." There was much criticism of the policy which had endured serious material injuries for more than a year to threaten force at last because of a technical point of honor, and besides those who did not want war at all the President found himself opposed by many Congressmen who thought that the personal attack on Huerta was rather undignified, and that the President should have asked for a downright declaration of war.

While Congress was debating the resolution the American naval forces (on April 21) seized the Vera Cruz Custom House to prevent the landing of a munition cargo from a German s.h.i.+p. This led to sharp fighting and the occupation of the entire city. General Funston with a division of regulars was sent to relieve the naval landing parties; and war seemed inevitable. Even the Mexican revolutionaries showed a tendency to prefer Huerta to the intervention of the United States. But on April 25 the Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Chile proposed mediation, which Wilson and Huerta promptly accepted. A conference met at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and through May and June endeavored to reach a settlement not only between the United States and Mexico, but between the various Mexican factions. The President was still attempting to carry out his policy of August, 1913, and the chief obstacle was not Huerta, but Carranza, who had refused to consent to an armistice and for a long time would not send delegates to Niagara Falls. Meanwhile Huerta made one concession after another. Watchful waiting had indeed ruined him; for President Wilson's opposition had made it impossible for him to get any money in Europe--and in the early part of 1914 some European nations would still have considered Mexico a good risk.

Moreover, from February to April the embargo on arms had been lifted, and the Const.i.tutionalists armies in the north, munitioned from the United States, were steadily conquering the country. On July 15 Huerta resigned, and soon afterward sailed for Spain; and on August 20 Carranza entered Mexico City.

Despite the criticism that had been heaped on the President's handling of the Tampico-Vera Cruz affair, he had got rid of Huerta without getting into war. A still more important consequence, the full effect of which was not immediately apparent, was the enormous increase in the confidence felt by Latin America in the good intentions of the Wilson Administration. The acceptance of A-B-C mediation in 1914 made possible the entry of most of the Latin-American powers into the European War in 1917 as allies of the United States. And for a time it was to appear as if this had been about the only tangible profit of the episode; for Carranza presently proved almost as troublesome as Huerta. The Fall of 1914 saw the outbreak of a new civil war between Villa and Carranza, in which Zapata, Villa's ally, for a long time held Mexico City. Obregon's victories in 1915 drove Villa back to his old hunting grounds.

By this time the European war was occupying most of the attention of the American people, but Mexico was a constant irritant. Carranza carried the Presidential art of biting the hand that fed him to an undreamed-of height. Wilson, Villa and Obregon had enabled him to displace Huerta, and Obregon had saved him from Villa. Yet he had quarreled with Villa, he was eventually to quarrel with Obregon; and though the United States and the chief Latin-American powers had given him formal recognition in September, 1915, his policy toward Wilson continued to be blended of insult and obstruction. Henry Prather Fletcher, the ablest of the diplomats accredited to Latin-American capitals, had been called back from Santiago de Chile to represent the United States in Mexico; but despite his skill, despite the infinite forbearance of the Administration, Mexico sank deeper and deeper into misery, foreign lives and property were unsafe throughout most of the country, and there was a continuing succession of incidents on the border.

These were the fault of bandits, chiefly of Villa, whose repeated murders of American citizens led to futile attempts to get satisfaction out of Carranza. The culmination of these outrages came on March 9, 1916, when Villa raided across the border, surprised the garrison of Columbus, N.M., and killed some twenty Americans. A punitive expedition of regulars under General Pers.h.i.+ng was promptly organized. It pushed about 200 miles into Mexico, destroyed several small parties of Villistas, and wounded Villa himself. But it did not catch him nor any of his princ.i.p.al leaders, and in April outlying parties of Americans came into skirmis.h.i.+ng with Carranza forces at Parral and Carrizal. It was evident that further advance meant war with Carranza; and indeed much American sentiment aroused by the capture of American soldiers by Carranzistas, demanded war already. But relations with Germany were very acute at the moment, so Pers.h.i.+ng dug in and held his position throughout the Summer and Fall. In May the National Guard was ordered out to protect the border, and remained in position for months without taking active steps.

_President Wilson's Appeals for Mediation_

_Formal offer of mediation to all belligerents, August 5, 1914._

_German proposal of peace conference, December 12, 1916._

_President's appeal to the belligerents to state their terms, December 18, 1916._

_German refusal to state terms, December 26, 1916._

_Allied statement of war aims, January 11, 1917._

_President's "peace without victory" speech, January 22, 1917._

_Notification of unrestricted submarine war, January 31, 1917._

_Diplomatic relations with Germany broken, February 3, 1917._

_Declaration of war, April 6, 1917._

The Mexican policy of the Administration was one of the chief points of attack during the campaign of 1916, but the re-election of President Wilson and the progress of events in Europe presently threw the issue into the background. In February and March, 1917, when war with Germany seemed inevitable, the expeditionary force under Pers.h.i.+ng was recalled.

Carranza's pro-Germanism, or rather anti-Americanism, was hardly disguised during the war, and the confiscatory policy of his Administration in dealing with foreign oil and mineral properties threatened to do much damage to American interests. When the war in Europe had ended, the question of Mexico once more came back to the foreground of attention. Carranza's Administration had not been stained by so much guilt as Huerta's, and the opposition to it was on the scale of banditry rather than revolution; but Mexico was far worse off after years of the war than it had been in 1913, and disregard of American rights was still the cardinal policy of the Government. Carranza's security, however, was illusory. In the Spring of 1920 Presidential elections were announced at last, and Carranza's attempt to force Ygnacio Bonillas, his Amba.s.sador in Was.h.i.+ngton, into the Presidential chair led to a revolt which eventually attracted the leaders.h.i.+p of Obregon. Carranza fled from Mexico City and was murdered on May 22, 1920, and, after the interim Presidency of Adolfo de la Huerta, Obregon came into office in the Fall.

_The European War, 1914-1916_

When in the last week of July, 1914, a war of unparalleled intensity and magnitude suddenly fell upon a world which for forty years had been enjoying unprecedented well-being and security, the practically unanimous sentiment of Americans was grat.i.tude that we were not involved. The President's first steps, a formal proclamation of neutrality and equally formal tender of mediation to the belligerents, "either now or at any other time that might be thought more suitable,"

had general approval.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Federal Reserve_ We must have a currency, not rigid as now, but readily, elastically responsive to sound credit, the expanding and contracting credits of everyday transactions, the normal ebb and flow of personal and corporate dealings.

Our banking laws must mobilize reserves; must not permit the concentration anywhere in a few hands of the monetary resources of the country or their use for speculative purposes in such volume as to hinder or impede or stand in the way of other more legitimate, more fruitful uses.--_From the President's Address to Congress, April 23, 1913._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Courtesy New York Times_ July 3, 1912: Governor Wilson receiving congratulations from newspaper correspondents on his nomination for the Presidency]

But a sharp division of sentiment showed itself when, on August 18, he issued an address to the American people warning against partisan sympathies and asking that Americans be "impartial in thought as well as in action," in order that the country might be "neutral in fact as well as in name." The great majority of the American people, or of such part of it as held opinions on public questions, had already made up their minds about the war, and most of the others were in process of being convinced. Some of them had made up their minds from racial sympathies, but others had thought things out. And among these last, particularly, there was a revolt against the a.s.sumption that in the presence of such issues any impartiality of thought was possible.

Moreover, the world-wide extent of the war, and the closer inter-relations of nations which had grown up in recent years, made almost from the first a series of conflicts between the interests of the United States and those of one or the other set of belligerents.

Preservation of neutrality against continual petty infractions was hard, and was rendered harder by the active sympathy felt for the different belligerents by many Americans. A further complication came from the growing feeling that America's military and naval forces were far from adequate for protection in a world where war was after all possible. The Autumn of 1914 saw the beginning for better national preparedness, and counter to that the rise of organized peace-at-any-price sentiment which from the first drew much support from pro-German circles.

The President appeared to incline toward the pacifists. He called the discussion of preparedness "good mental exercise," and referred to some of its advocates as "nervous and excitable," and in the message to Congress in December, 1914, he took the position that American armaments were quite sufficient for American needs. In this it was apparent that he was opposed by a large part of the American people; how large no one could yet say. But the Congressional elections of 1914 had conveyed a warning to the Democrats. They were left with a majority in both houses, but the huge preponderance obtained in 1912 had disappeared. And the reason was even more alarming than the fact; the Progressive Party almost faded off the map in the election of 1914.

Most of the voters who had been Republicans before the Chicago Convention of 1912 were Republicans once again. Of the Progressive Party, there was nothing much left but the leaders, and many of these were obviously thinking of going back to the old home.

The Government had already had occasion to protest against British interference with allied commerce when, on February 4, 1915, the Germans proclaimed the waters about the British Isles a war zone open to submarine activities. The President promptly warned the German Government that it would be held to "strict accountability" if American s.h.i.+ps were sunk or American lives lost in the submarine campaign. Along with this a message was sent to the British Government protesting against British restriction of neutral commerce. There was good ground for objection to the practices of both Governments, and the simultaneous protests emphasized the neutral att.i.tude of the United States. Not until later was it evident that to the Germans this policy seemed to indicate the possibility of putting pressure on England through America.

"Strict accountability" seemed to be a popular watchword, except among pacifists and German sympathizers, but Americans soon began to be killed by the submarines without provoking the Government to action.

When the Lusitania was sunk on May 7, 1915, and more than a hundred of the 1,200 victims were Americans a great part of the nation which had been growing steadily more exasperated felt that now the issue must be faced. The President was the personal conductor of the foreign policy of the Administration; Mr. Bryan's sole interest in foreign affairs seemed to be the conclusion of a large number of polite and valueless treaties of arbitration, and it was certain that with Germany, as with Mexico, the President would deal in person. In the few days after the sinking of the Lusitania the nation waited confidently for the President's leaders.h.i.+p, and public sentiment was perhaps more nearly unanimous than it had been for eight months past, or was to be again for two years more.

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 rea.s.sured by a declaration of Mr. Bryan (entirely on his own authority) to the Austrian Amba.s.sador 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 s.h.i.+ftings 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 pa.s.sing; 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.senger 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 Emba.s.sy, and the Amba.s.sador, Dr. Dumba, was sent home in September. A few months later Papen and Boy-Ed, the Military and Naval Attaches of the German Emba.s.sy, 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 establis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sembled 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 Gla.s.s 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 surpa.s.sed; 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 a.s.sociation 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 GLa.s.s_ _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 Suss.e.x, a cross-Channel pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.senger 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 a.s.sa.s.sinations, 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 inst.i.tution of the s.h.i.+pping 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.s a series of laws accepting the basic eight-hour day, providing for a commission of investigation, and forbidding further strikes pending Government inquiry.