Teddy Roosevelt Progressive Contract with America
America in World War I
Part I: Europe goes to war….finally!
European powers had been heading for War for decades. They had
formed defensive alliances that were just waiting to explode
Their fight was over who got to control the World’s
resources…Imperialism
A political and economic war had been going on for years
An arms race had been fed for years
At the bottom of all this lies Germany’s conviction that everyone
else was ganging up on them to squeeze them out of economic
prosperity
How would this economic competition affect
America in 1914?
America in World War I
Part II: WWWD-Avoid Foreign
entanglements, while still demanding we can trade with any folks we
want
Roosevelt Corollary
gentlemen's agreement
dollar diplomacy
General John J. Pershing in
Mexico and Europe
America in World War I
Part III:America is drawn into the
war and begins to ready itself
Poster Art of WWI
U-boats and unrestricted submarine warfare
Lusitania
Wilson's Sussex threat and Germany's pledge
Zimmermann telegram
Frank Vanderlip on Commiting to the War
National Security League and preparedness JD Rockerfeller on Fund Raising
Jane Addams, Carrie Chapman Catt, and the
Woman's Peace party
Wilson on the Democrats
Wilson realized war was inevitable but agonized over
the decision for what it might do to the spirit of the
nation. He feared war would change America forever,
making her tougher, less humane. "Once lead these
people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a
thing as tolerance ... the spirit of ruthless brutality will
enter into the very fiber of our national life ... every
man who refused to conform would have to pay the
penalty."
Full Text of Declaration
'Once lead this people into war,' he said, 'and they'll forget there
ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight you must be brutal and
ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very
fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the
policeman on the beat, the man in the street.' Conformity would be
the only virtue, said the President, and every man who refused to
conform would have to pay the penalty.
He thought the Constitution would not survive it, that free speech
and the right of assembly would go. He said a nation couldn't put
its strength into a war and keep its head level; it had never been
done.
'If there is any alternative, for God's sake, let's take it,' he
exclaimed. Well, I couldn't see any, and I told him so.
The President didn't have illusions about how he was going to come
out of it, either. He'd rather have done anything else than head a
military machine. All his instincts were against it. He foresaw too
clearly the probable influence of a declaration of war on his own
fortunes, the adulation certain to follow the certain victory, the
derision and attack which would come with the deflation of
excessive hopes and in the presence of world responsibility. But if
he had it to do over again he would take the same course. It was
just a choice of evils."
Bernard Baruch and the War Industries Board
Herbert Hoover and the Food Administration
William G. McAdoo and the U.S. Railroad Administration
American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks
George Creel and the Committee on Public Information
Randolph Bourne
Espionage and Sedition acts, 1917, 1918
Eugene Debs
Schenck v. United States and the "clear and present danger" doctrine
East St. Louis race riot, 1917; Chicago race riot, 1919
America in World War I
Part VI:Over There!
Title page
Europe Thinks it owns the World
Great Britain
France
Germany
U.S.
Title page
What is Germany’s Nightmare!
Title page