Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was born on December 28 in Virginia
and was
brought up by Presbyterian parents; he admired his father.
During the Civil War his father’s church was a hospital for the wounded,
and the churchyard held Union prisoners.
Wilson was religious and prayed daily and read the Bible.
He went to a Presbyterian college and studied politics and history
before going to Princeton in 1874.
He admired parliamentary government, studied law, practiced debate,
and wrote about Bismarck and Gladstone.
The editor Henry Cabot Lodge of the International Review
helped him publish “Cabinet Government in the United States.”
In 1885 Wilson published Congressional Government.
He taught women at Bryn Mawr, men at Johns Hopkins,
and became the only U. S. President to earn a Ph.D.
He published several volumes on American history.
He opposed annexing the Philippines in 1899.
Wilson taught at Princeton University, became its president in 1902,
and implemented reforms.
He wrote Constitutional Government in the United States in 1908.
Democrats elected Wilson Governor of New Jersey in 1910.
Joseph Tumulty became his private secretary, and in May 1911
Wilson began running for President with a speaking tour.
The Texan diplomat Col. Edward M. House became a trusted counselor.
Republicans gained a majority in the New Jersey legislature in January 1912,
and Gov. Wilson vetoed 38 of 130 bills.
The Democratic National Convention nominated Wilson for President on July 2.
He spoke to Negroes on July 30, and he gave a long acceptance speech
for the nomination in New Jersey on August 7 promising to rule with justice.
Wilson refused to accept money from corporations or anyone expecting favors,
and his friends raised over a $1 million.
He adopted “new freedom” as his slogan.
He accepted advice from Louis Brandeis to take on the monopolies and trusts.
Because Theodore Roosevelt ran as a candidate for the Progressive Party,
Wilson won with a plurality and a record 435 electoral votes
over Roosevelt and the Republican President Taft.
President-elect Wilson received 15,000 letters.
He announced that he would summon a special session
by April 15 to work on the tariff.
He replied to a congratulating cable from China’s President Sun Yat-sen.
Wilson went on vacation in Bermuda and completed his book
The New Freedom taken from campaign speeches.
He read House’s 1912 novel about an administrator who implements progressive
reforms in the future including social security and an international coalition.
Wilson chose his own cabinet himself and warned others
that those who apply would not likely be appointed.
On December 16 he began a series of speeches.
He hoped to help the poor by making prosperity more pervasive.
He met with William Jennings Bryan and appointed him Secretary of State.
Bryan was opposed to wars and worked for peace treaties.
In January 1913 Wilson urged members of the Commercial Club
in Chicago to husband common resources.
He said he would have only progressives in his administration.
In Trenton, New Jersey he emphasized a new spirit of service.
Col. House rejected any position except advisor.
Wilson made House’s friend David Houston the Secretary of Agriculture.
House also recommended James C. McReynolds of Tennessee,
and he became Attorney General.
Wilson made his own friend Walter Hines Page the Interior Secretary.
Rep. William Redfield of Brooklyn was for low tariffs,
and Wilson named him Secretary of Commerce.
Joseph Tumulty suggested Lindley Garrison of New Jersey,
and he became Secretary of War.
Wilson resigned as governor and said goodbye to Princeton on March 3.
In his inaugural address on March 4 President Wilson noted the Government
of the United States had changed from Republican
with Democrats having a majority in both houses of Congress.
He talked about individual genius and moral force in men and women.
He warned that riches had brought “inexcusable waste.”
He said their duty was to cleanse, reconsider, and restore to correct evils.
He urged scientific agriculture and reclaiming forests.
Justice is needed to provide equal opportunity.
Instead of triumph he advised dedication, and he asked for counsel to help him.
Wilson’s wife Ellen did not like ostentation, and Wilson cancelled the inaugural ball.
On March 9 Wilson appointed Franklin D. Roosevelt the Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Wilson held his first press conference on March 15
and said they would be semi-weekly.
He asked the reporters to assist him.
His idea of patronage was to give his Cabinet officials
a list of progressives and let them make appointments.
Postmaster General Albert Burleson advised consulting
with Congressmen to avoid offending them.
Wilson took his advice, and Democrats increased the number of
deputy revenue collectors and deputy marshals.
Some would criticize him for lowering civil service standards.
Wilson named Walter Hines Page the Ambassador to Britain,
and Wilson’s friend Cleveland Dodge donated $25,000 a year
for diplomatic expenses to help Page do that job.
On May 2 Wilson spoke on jury reform in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
The Negro Democrats he appointed were
blocked from confirmation by southern Senators.
He wrote to editor Oswald Garrison Villard that
colored employees were segregated to avoid conflicts.
In some bureaus and sections negroes could work together
without suffering discrimination.
Wilson summoned the Congress to a special session on April 7.
He and Chairman Oscar Underwood worked on a bill to lower tariff rates,
and in the President’s special address to Congress on the 8th
he explained why they should pass the bill.
He complained there were too many lobbyists using money to corrupt Congress.
The Senate decided to investigate, and they voted
that financial interests must be disclosed.
Congress finally passed the tariff bill on October 2,
and Wilson said they had set business free.
On October 25 Wilson addressed Swarthmore College
and talked about the spiritual qualities of William Penn and the Friends (Quakers),
and he noted his spiritual influence is still emulated.
He urged the students to serve mankind to enrich the world.
Suffragists in November protested in Washington,
and Wilson met with 73 ladies and promised he would attend to their concerns.
In his first annual address to Congress he did not mention women,
and six days later Dr. Anna Howard Shaw led a hundred women.
She interviewed the President and told the women that
he favored a committee in Congress on woman suffrage.
The House banking committee studied money trusts
and learned that J. P. Morgan & Co. controlled credit.
Senator Carter Glass of Virginia suggested a decentralized system,
and Wilson asked for a central board.
Glass advised a reserve system, and they proposed
a Federal Reserve Board in a bill on 1 May 1913.
Treasury Secretary McAdoo was providing millions to banks in the South and West
in 1913 and 1914 to help farm business, and then he supported the Glass bill.
Wilson supported the regional reserves in order to defeat the Money Trust.
Louis Brandeis advised the President on banking and currency.
Wilson spoke to Congress on June 23, and Congress finally passed
the Glass-Owen Federal Reserve bill on December 23.
Wilson and Secretary of State Bryan had begun
working on foreign policy in March 1913,
and they replaced Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy”
with friendship and mutual advantage.
Wilson announced his peace policy on April 24.
He recognized China’s President Yuan Shikai on May 2.
Wilson reprimanded the Joint Board of the Army and Navy on May 16.
He approved a treaty with Nicaragua on June 19.
Bryan began negotiating peaceful treaties and signed one with El Salvador on August 7.
Wilson announced his benevolent policy for the
Philippines
on October 3 and appointed a new Governor-General.
He spoke on Latin America to the Southern Commercial Congress
at Mobile, Alabama on October 27.
In 1913 Wilson sent ambassadors to Italy, Austria-Hungary,
Japan, Spain, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire.
In February 1913 General Huerta had Mexico’s President Madero
and Vice President Suarez murdered and made himself President.
On March 11 Wilson issued his statement on this to the press,
and he warned dictator Huerta that he objected to the coup.
Wilson’s Counselor John B. Moore resigned, and Wilson replaced him
with the lawyer Robert Lansing who had handled
four arbitration cases for the United States.
On May 12 Wilson sent a letter for Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson
to give to President Huerta.
On May 23 Wilson gave an interview that was published outlining his policy to Mexico
which was not to seek Mexican territory or exploit that country
while he insisted that Mexico settle their agrarian issues peacefully
and that the current government needed to be changed.
Bryan and Wilson approved a policy urging Huerta to hold an election.
On June 14 Wilson offered his government’s help
to mediate the conflicts in Mexico.
Wilson sent Minnesota’s former Governor John Lind to Mexico for this mission on July 28.
Huerta replied that he would resist this with arms.
Lind arrived in Mexico City on August 11, and on the 26th
Mexico’s Foreign Minister rejected a loan and asked Wilson not to interfere.
Lind left Mexico the next day as Wilson
was giving Congress his special message on Mexico.
Huerta assumed dictatorial power in October
and said he was not a candidate on the 23rd.
Mexico’s Congress canceled the election and made Huerta
interim President until elections in July 1914.
On November 1 Wilson denounced that and suggested a provisional government.
On the 14th Carranza wrote to Secretary of State Bryan that
the Constitutionalists only wanted to purchase arms from the United States.
Huerta negotiated with Wilson and surrendered on November 13.
On 9 April 1914 a U. S. ship arrived near Tampico, Mexico
with supplies, and seven men were arrested.
On the 15th Wilson ordered warships to go there.
The House of Representatives approved the use of armed forces,
and Admiral Badger led five battleships that reached Veracruz on April 22;
3,000 men landed before dawn and defeated the Mexicans who had 126 killed.
Huerta broke off diplomatic relations, and Carranza demanded that U. S. forces leave.
Wilson stopped offensive operations, and on April 25 he accepted
mediation by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in Washington.
Delegates finally made an agreement on June 24.
Huerta left on July 15 to go into exile.
Wilson warned Carranza who promised to protect foreigners and legitimate contracts.
Wilson ordered the 5,000 forces to withdraw from Veracruz,
and they did so on November 23.
In July 1913 the United States brought a suit against the Bell telephone system
to prevent a monopoly in the northwest states.
President Wilson on 20 January 1914 gave the Congress
his message on trusts and monopolies.
Next they sued a railroad in New York and Connecticut for violating the Sherman Act.
J. P. Morgan had gained control of New Haven in 1903.
Negotiations persuaded Morgan directors to give up some of their holdings.
When they did not comply, the Attorney General McReynolds wrote to Wilson
who suggested an equity filing to dissolve the monopoly,
and he advised a negotiated settlement which was agreed on August 11.
Wilson supported Clayton’s anti-trust bill in April 1914.
Several bills were passed, and Wilson signed
the Federal Trade Commission bill on September 26.
He signed the Clayton bill on October 15.
Senator Elihu Root was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912
for negotiating arbitration treaties, and by 1914 he had done this with 24 nations.
The United States was paying lower tolls in the Panama Canal,
and on 5 March 1914 Wilson asked Congress to repeal the U. S. exemption.
They did so over the objection of House Speaker Champ Clark.
Wilson on July 4 in Independence Hall at Philadelphia spoke about
his belief in democracy, moral judgment, freedom, and human rights.
Coal miners had gone on strike in Colorado in September 1913,
and Governor Elias Ammons sent in the National Guard on October 28.
There were clashes, and on 20 April 1914 state troops
burned a tent community in the “Ludlow Massacre.”
President Wilson asked John D. Rockefeller Jr. to accept federal arbitration,
but they refused.
Wilson sent the army to occupy the community on April 28,
and order was restored.
The United Mine Workers strike went on until December 10,
and the army left in January 1915.
Col. House visited Germany as a diplomat in 1914,
and in June he moved on to London to ease tensions.
By then more than 30 nations having 80% of the world’s population
had signed Bryan’s peace treaties including most of Europe but not Germany.
During a business depression in 1914 and 1915
Wilson promised to help legitimate businesses.
He wrote a letter to T. D. Jones advising cooperation and trust
to attain social justice and peace, and the New York Times printed his letter.
On 28 June 1914 Serbian nationalists killed
Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife.
When Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia on July 28,
financial markets panicked.
The New York Stock Exchange shut down,
and on August 1 Germany declared war against Russia
and then opposing France two days later.
German forces invaded Belgium on August 4,
and the British reacted by declaring war on Germany.
On the 3rd Wilson had announced that
the United States was neutral and would work for peace.
As an official in The Hague Convention he offered to help Europe make peace.
Wilson wrote letters to the rulers of
Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, Britain, and Russia.
He asked the U. S. Senate to ratify 21 of Bryan’s pending “cooling off” treaties.
Purchases from the warring countries began to stimulate the American economy.
Wilson’s wife Ellen tried to help the poor in the slums, and her last wish
before her death on August 6 was for Congress to fund that project.
The Senate approved the bill that day.
Secretary of State Bryan was a pacifist and was criticized
for not serving alcohol and for making money on speeches.
Bryan opposed the House of Morgan’s offer to loan $100 million to France.
Wilson agreed with him, and on August 15 he banned loans to belligerents.
Wilson asked the Congress to fund Americans fleeing from the European war.
He and Treasury Secretary McAdoo persuaded New York banks
to provide $80 million to prevent bank failures.
On August 10 Bryan reminded Wilson that loans to belligerents violated neutrality.
On the 15th Wilson told the press that loans would be made
to neutral nations’ governments.
Wilson described these four things as essential to world peace:
no conquest of land, equal rights for small and large nations, public control of war munitions,
and an association of nations to protect all nations from war.
Wilson asked Congress to appropriate money for ships to carry American commerce,
and he signed the bill on August 18.
The next day Wilson made an appeal to the American people.
He asked them to speak and act in the “true spirit of neutrality”
and not take sides for one nation or another.
Loyalty to their Government will unite them.
One great nation at peace could help mediate as a friend.
He urged the “dignity of self-control.”
Wilson nominated Attorney General McReynolds for the U. S. Supreme Court,
and the Senate confirmed him on August 29.
Wilson opened the Democratic campaign on September 4 with letter writing.
He announced that October 4, a Sunday, would be a
“Day of Prayer and Supplication for Peace in Europe.”
On September 14 Bryan and the British Ambassador in Washington
signed a conciliation treaty.
On the 17th Wilson told Belgian diplomats that
there would be an accounting after the war.
American banks began extending lines of credit to the Allied Nations
and would provide $2.3 billion during the war.
Only 1% went to Germany.
Germans had sunk an English cruiser on September 5,
and they demolished three more on the 22nd.
In a long letter that Wilson made public he asked Americans
to elect Democrats to Congress on November 3.
Democrats lost 61 seats in the House of Representatives and still had a 230-196 majority.
They gained three in the Senate for a 56-39 advantage.
In his second annual message to Congress on December 8
Wilson asked the Senate to grant self-government to the Philippines.
He reminded them, “We are at peace with all the world.”
He said they could defend themselves without turning “America into a military camp.”
He claimed that a powerful navy was a “natural means of defense.”
He urged them to develop their resources
“to supply our own people and the people of the world.”
On December 3 the New York World editor Frank I. Cobb noted that
the day was exactly 90 years since the Monroe Doctrine was announced
and that it was “a bold doctrine and a radical doctrine.”
In early January 1915 President Wilson met with the
Women’s Peace Party’s leaders Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt.
On January 8 Wilson spoke to progressive Democrats about serving mankind.
On the 28th he vetoed the bill restricting illiterate foreign immigrants.
The German navy captured 350 people and released them on March 10.
Wilson sent Col. House as his envoy to the Europeans.
Germans were starving, and Wilson wanted to ship food to the civilians.
Ambassador Page learned that the German Army was taking food sent for the Belgians.
Wilson spoke to the Chamber of Commerce in Washington
on February 3 urging the “pursuits of peace.”
One week later Bryan sent a telegram to the U. S. Ambassador Gerard in Berlin
to warn Germans not to violate neutral rights.
On March 1 the British and French told the United States that
they would search all ships going to Germany.
On the 4th Wilson signed the Seaman’s Act,
and the labor leader Samuel Gompers commended that.
On March 25 Wilson told Methodists that human brotherhood can end wars.
Three days later a German submarine killed over a hundred people including one American.
On April 15 Wilson set aside the Teapot Dome oilfield for use by the Navy.
On the 20th he spoke for “America first” so that America could be Europe’s friend.
He said, “Neutrality is sympathy for mankind.”
A German plane dropped a bomb on an American merchant ship, and on May 1
a German ship torpedoed an American tanker killing the captain and two sailors.
On May 7 a German submarine sank the Lusitania ocean-liner,
and 1,198 people died including 128 Americans.
Bryan noted that the Lusitania was carrying contraband cartridges and steel shells,
and he advised not letting passengers on ships with risky cargo.
On May 10 Wilson spoke to 4,000 new citizens in Philadelphia
urging them to love humanity with sympathy and justice.
He said America must be an example of peace and healing.
Ex-President William Howard Taft urged Wilson to declare war.
Wilson met with his cabinet and said
his government would support travel on the high seas.
On May 13 Wilson sent a note to Germany on the Lusitania issue.
He told reporters that he hoped they could settle that with the Germans
who replied that the Lusitania carried Canadian soldiers and munitions.
On May 23 Italy declared war against Austria-Hungary.
On May 24 President Wilson hosted 3,000 guests during
the Pan-American Union Conference in Washington.
Bryan criticized Wilson for favoring belligerent Allies
by using Americans to safe-guard them.
On June 3 Germany’s Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg wrote to Wilson
urging him to start a “peace movement.”
Wilson replied with a second note on the Lusitania.
On June 5 Bryan wrote to Wilson advising him to arbitrate the Lusitania dispute,
to keep Americans off ships carrying weapons, and to protest the British blockade.
Three days later Bryan resigned because he wanted to prevent war.
Wilson admitted he lost his temper, and he stopped having press conferences.
He made Robert Lansing the Acting Secretary of State on June 23.
Lansing worked on the third Lusitania note that was sent on July 21.
An American agent found a German briefcase
describing German actions in the United States.
The New York World published them in August,
and editors suggested getting conspirators out of the German Embassy.
In the first year of the Great War 2.4 million people died
with 5 million wounded and 1.8 million captured or missing.
The war cost of $18.6 billion was more than
all wars by Great Powers since the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815.
German submarines kept sinking ships.
Wilson’s main objective was to keep out of the war.
German intrigues in Latin America were exposed on September 25.
Germany’s Ambassador Bernstorff in Washington made promises to Lansing.
Wilson in October accepted plans to spend $500 million
to build at least 176 warships including 100 submarines and 50 destroyers.
In the fall of 1915 Wilson issued many peace messages.
On November 4 he described their “Preparedness for National Defense.”
On the 26th he met with the leaders of the Woman’s Peace Conference.
His third annual message to Congress on December 7
discussed neutrality and national preparation.
He valued “self-government, industry, justice, liberty, and peace.”
He courted the widow Edith Bolling, and they married on December 18.
Wilson advised Col. House to seek disarmament on his diplomatic mission to Europe.
From January 1915 to March 1917 President Wilson dealt with the conflicts
during the Mexican Revolution to protect Americans there while
urging Mexico to be self-governing, democratic with elections, and peaceful.
In November 1915 Pancho Villa’s army attacked the border area.
In January 1916 Wilson welcomed delegates to
the Pan-American Scientific Congress in Washington.
Wilson had Lansing telegraph Villa to punish murderers.
In March Villa’s army of 1,500 attacked Columbus, New Mexico.
On the 10th Wilson authorized General Pershing
to stop the raids into the United States.
On March 15 Pershing’s force of 4,000 entered Mexico in pursuit of Villa’s army.
Yet they were not able to confront Villa’s forces, and finally
Wilson ordered them to withdraw from Mexico which they did on 5 February 1917.
A revolution in Haiti in January 1914 had caused chaos.
Secretary of State Bryan worked on bringing stability to Haiti.
During an insurrection on 27 July 1915
U. S. Admiral Caperton landed 400 marines to restore law and order.
By August the Americans had taken over government offices,
military installations, and customshouses.
Caperton allowed the Haitian National Assembly
to elect Senator Sudre Dartiguenave the President on August 12,
and they signed a treaty that the United States Senate ratified on 28 February 1916.
The Dominican Republic was also unstable.
Horacista José Bordas Valdés was elected provisional President on 14 April 1913.
Bryan in September asked for U. S. Navy warships to support the blockade.
Wilson sent three diplomats and 30 agents in December
to monitor elections that the opponents of Bordas won.
Various factions formed.
Bordas held conferences on U. S. warships, and he was re-elected in June 1914.
The Wilson Plan on July 27 advised ways to improve the government,
and on October 27 the Dominicans elected General Juan Isidro Jiménez their President.
In August the Congress tried to impeach Jiménez,
and his health broke down in August.
War Minister Arias gained control of the capital in April 1916,
and on May 2 the U. S. Navy reinforced the Santo Domingo harbor.
General Jiménez resigned and left.
On the 6th Lansing sent destroyers to three Dominican ports.
Admiral Caperton with 600 marines and sailors controlled the capital by May 15.
By July some 2,000 marines and bluejackets occupied the nation.
Wilson approved what he considered “a lesser evil,” and Military Occupation
was proclaimed on November 29 and would last until
the U. S. Marines left the Dominican Republic in 1924.
On 6 April 1914 the United States agreed to pay its debt of $25 million to Colombia.
The United States signed the canal treaty with Nicaragua on 5 August 1914,
and the Senate ratified it on 18 February 1916.
Threats of defiance from President Adolfo Díaz caused the United States
to send warships to both coasts and more Marines to the capital.
On June 24 the United States ratified a convention protecting rights of Costa Rica,
El Salvador, and Honduras, but the United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty.
In January 1916 Wilson and Lansing began working diplomatically
to keep ocean-liners and merchant ships disarmed.
Wilson opposed military conscription.
He went on a tour speaking in New York, Milwaukee,
Chicago, Des Moines, Kansas City, and St. Louis.
On April 19 Wilson warned the Congress that the
German Government was stepping up its submarine warfare.
By May 20 Congress passed the Army Reorganization increasing the Army
and the National Guards, and Wilson signed it on June 3.
Naval appropriations had passed on June 2.
On May 16 Wilson asked Col. House to cable the British Foreign Secretary
Edward Grey so that Wilson could mediate a convention
to plan how to maintain peace after the war.
On May 27 Wilson addressed the League to Enforce the Peace in Washington
which he believed could be his most important speech.
The new Tariff Commission approved the Revenue Act
to raise taxes on incomes and the estate tax.
On July 17 Wilson signed a bill to support farmers’ cooperatives,
and Agriculture Secretary Houston proposed bonded warehouses.
On 28 January 1916 Wilson had nominated Louis Brandeis to be the first Jew
on the U. S. Supreme Court, and there was much opposition.
On May 5 Wilson wrote a letter that was printed in the New York Times,
and the Senate approved Brandeis on June 1.
On the 13th Wilson spoke to the Military Academy at West Point.
In the election Wilson faced the former Governor of New York and
Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes who became the Republican candidate.
Wilson nominated the progressive John Hessin Clarke for the Supreme Court.
He replaced the Democratic National Chairman McCombs
with the Progressive newspaper publisher Vance McCormick.
At the Democratic convention Wilson was heralded for avoiding war,
and he was nominated for re-election.
“He kept us out of war!” became the theme of his campaign for re-election.
On July 4 Wilson gave a speech for the dedication of the Federation of Labor
Building in Washington and another to the Salesmanship Congress in Detroit on July 10.
Progressives increased the income tax and the estate tax,
and the estimated increase of revenues was $250 million.
Wilson signed the bill on September 8.
Wilson had Secretary Lansing negotiate with Denmark so that the
United States could occupy Greenland to prevent the Germans from going there.
A treaty with Denmark was signed on August 4.
The United States also bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million in gold
that was transferred on 31 March 1917.
On August 25 Wilson signed the bill for the National Park Service.
On the 29th he signed the Naval Act for more ships and the Jones bill
giving people in the Philippine Islands more freedom.
They would elect their legislature on October 16.
Wilson signed the child labor bill on September 1.
He appointed Newton D. Baker the Secretary of War
even though he was a pacifist and said he would fight for peace.
The railroad brotherhoods on August 8 had voted to strike to get the 8-hour day.
Wilson supported that, though railroad executives rejected it and gave some concessions.
Wilson met with 600 brotherhood chairmen and 50 railroad presidents to no avail.
The strike was to begin on September 4.
On August 29 Wilson asked the Congress to approve his plan,
and the House passed the 8-hour day bill on September 1
followed by the Senate on the next day, and Wilson promised to sign it.
The strike was called off, and Wilson signed the bill in a railroad car on September 3.
Wilson formally accepted the nomination with a long speech on September 2.
He reviewed his reforms and accomplishments, and then he looked forward
to what they could do after the war to maintain peace.
He and his wife attended the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association on September 8, and their president
Carrie Chapman Catt was moved by his speech.
The Democrats organized their command from headquarters in New York and Chicago.
On September 23 Wilson told the Business Men’s National League
why the 8-hour day was needed.
He campaigned as far west as Omaha, Nebraska as a progressive.
In early October a German submarine sank ten ships off the coast of Rhode Island
after letting passengers be rescued, and no one died.
At Indianapolis on October 12 Wilson spoke about the ideal
of universal cooperation to avoid mutual destruction.
On the 20th Mrs. Wilson sat next to Jane Addams
as Wilson spoke to 4,000 in the Chicago Auditorium.
He noted that society was “organizing its whole power” to understand itself.
He suggested that women are providing mediation.
Wilson was supported by many progressives and leftists such as
Lincoln Steffens, George Creel, John Dewey, Herbert Croly,
John Reed, George Foster Peabody, and Max Eastman.
Most of the wealthy men were supporting the Republican Hughes.
Wilson spoke to 3,000 farmers on October 21.
On the 26th he gave four speeches in Cincinnati preaching America’s “moral influence.”
He took Tumulty’s advice and gave interviews to Samuel G. Blythe, Ray Stannard Baker
and Ida M. Tarbell who appreciated that he cared about “the common man.”
He spoke to 15,000 in Madison Square Garden
while 25,000 were outside on November 2.
Just before the election Wilson wrote to Lansing that he would resign immediately
if Hughes won and would arrange for Hughes to be Vice President to take over.
The election was close, and Wilson won the popular vote
and the electoral college 277 to 254.
On November 14 Wilson spoke to the National Grange in Washington on agriculture,
and on the 19th he invited the American Federation of Labor to the White House.
After the New York Times published a series by Cosmos
(Columbia University president Murray Butler) that proposed a negotiated peace
on November 18-21, Wilson wrote his response on the 25th
suggesting “a league to enforce peace.”
In his annual address on December 5 Wilson noted the 8-hour day reform
and the expanded Interstate Commerce Commission.
He also gave his views on Puerto Rico and on vocational and industrial education.
On December 18 Lansing sent Wilson’s “Note to the Belligerent Governments
Suggesting That Respective Peace Terms be Stated.”
On December 26 Germany’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman
gave his reply to the American Ambassador Gerard.
Emperor Wilhelm sent Zimmerman’s draft to Washington on 7 January 1917.
On January 22 Wilson delivered his speech on “Essential Terms of Peace in Europe”
explaining his plan for ending the war and for making sure that no wars occur in the future.
The New York Times called it “a guarantee of peace” and “a moral transformation.”
On February 5 Wilson announced that all German property
in the United States would be protected by law.
The Wilson administration was maintaining diplomatic relations with Austria-Hungary,
and their Foreign Minister Ottokar Czernin wrote back
that people there were praying for peace.
On February 24 British Foreign Secretary Balfour gave U. S. Ambassador Page
the deciphered telegram from Zimmerman to the German Minister in Mexico
that proposed getting back Mexico’s land lost in the U. S. war of 1846-48
if Mexico allied with Germany.
On the 26th Wilson asked Congress for emergency powers and $100 million.
On March 1 newspapers published the Zimmerman Telegram.
The House of Representatives passed the ship bill 403 to 13.
The four senators La Follette, Norris, Cummins, and Gronna wanted to delay
the United States entering the war;
they engaged in a filibuster until the Senate adjourned on March 4.
On 5 March 1917 Woodrow Wilson gave his second inaugural address
to about 40,000 people who gathered in the cold and wind.
They could not hear his words and did not applaud.
Yet his speech could be read in newspapers by many people.
He spoke of great problems and the future.
He noted that the war in Europe was harming their shipping,
and he said he was working for justice.
Their neutrality had become armed, and he hoped he could help bring about peace.
The war made them citizens of the world, and they would maintain
the American principles that were liberating mankind.
He said peace depends on the equality of nations
and that national armaments should be limited.
They can stand together, and each person can be dedicated
to the nation’s purpose of bringing peace.
He prayed for wisdom from God, and he promised to serve a great people.
They can dispel shadows and be true to themselves
so that liberty and justice can be exalted.
Wilson proposed four “Bases of Peace” to guarantee political independence
in domestic and external relations, territorial integrity, opposing economic warfare,
and limiting armaments.
He summoned the Congress to vote on a treaty with Colombia;
Senator Lodge prevented ratification, and they adjourned on March 16.
Germany on March 2 had let it be known that their submarines
would be sinking all ships without warnings.
Wilson, Secretary of State Lansing, and Navy Secretary Daniels
worked on preparing armed merchant ships.
Wilson said that war would cause men to lose their heads and dismiss right and wrong.
He still hoped to avoid war and realized it depended on Germany.
The United States recognized Russia’s new Foreign Minister Milyukov
and the Minister of Justice Kerensky.
On March 20 Wilson’s entire Cabinet of ten agreed
they were heading for war against Germany.
On March 29 War Secretary Newton Baker authorized drafting 500,000 men.
President Wilson called a meeting of the Congress on April 2,
and he made a long speech declaring war against Germany
because of the submarine warfare.
He said they would “fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world”
because “the world must be made safe for democracy.”
He said they had no selfish ends such as for conquest, dominion,
or compensation for sacrifices they would freely make.
He explained they were not yet at war against Austria-Hungary,
and he still wanted to be “sincere friends of the German people.”
He was aware that there were millions of German-Americans.
He hoped that “a concert of free peoples” could “bring peace and safety
to all nations and make the world itself at last free.”
On April 4 the U. S. Congress voted overwhelmingly for war,
and this was announced by telegraph and radio.
Wilson signed the proclamation, and the government took over the radio stations.
On the 13th he set up the Committee on Public Information (CPI),
and two days later he appealed to the American people to support the war effort.
They must supply food not only for the Army and Navy
but also for many desperate nations.
Farms, shipyards, mines, and factories must become more efficient.
He asked people to cultivate gardens.
He even hoped that advertising agencies and clergy would serve the country.
On April 18 he ordered the government to censor cables, telephones,
and telegraph lines, and the Navy would use radio.
He ordered the forming of a War Trade Committee.
On May 10 the President set up the Red Cross War Council,
and on the 14th Treasury Secretary McAdoo announced the Liberty Loan of 1917
offering a bond issue of two billions.
Wilson invested $10,000 in the first Liberty Loan drive.
He discussed censorship with CPI, and he informed the press
that he still valued their intelligent criticism.
He appointed George Creel to run CPI,
and later he wrote the book How We Advertised America.
CPI sent out 75,000 speakers who gave over 750,000 speeches.
They suspected the country had 300,000 foreign agents,
and they had speeches made in several languages.
On May 18 Wilson signed the Selective Service Act that required
“all male persons between the ages of 21 and 30” to register for the draft.
Men were classified for their best service.
The next day Herbert Hoover was made the
Relief Commissioner for the Food Administration.
On May 24 General Pershing was sent to Europe with thousands of troops.
Albert Briggs had started the American Protective League (APL) on March 30
and by 1919 they claimed they had 250,000 members.
They supported the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Congress passed the Espionage Act on June 15,
and under it 2,000 people were arrested.
By June the draft registered 10,264,896 men including 1,290,527 African Americans.
In the war the total would increase to 23,900,000
with 6,400,000 doing military service including 2,700,000 in the Army.
About 1,500,000 enlistments increased the Army total to 4,200,000.
On June 23 Wilson allowed the Federal Trade Commission
to fix prices on coal and other items.
His bulletin began controlling exports on the 26th,
the day suffragettes were arrested at the White house.
Wilson pardoned the suffragists on July 19.
He arranged for the use of Filipino troops.
On July 1 about 20,000 people protested the war in Boston,
and they were attacked by opponents.
The next day 30 people died during a race riot in East St. Louis.
Mining companies produced copper for rifle cartridges,
and in late June the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) began a strike.
A posse of 2,000 vigilantes raided homes of strikers and captured 1,186 miners
and shipped them in cattle cars to New Mexico.
Vigilantes also forced people to buy war bonds.
Riots occurred in Berkeley, California, in Seattle, and in Butte, Montana.
On July 12 Wilson issued a statement on price controls.
Postmaster General Burleson stopped the mailing of the New Masses
edited by Max Eastman and Amos Pinchot,
and Wilson told Burleson to let the radicals alone because he knew them.
On the 24th Wilson approved $640 million in the Aviation bill.
On July 28 Wilson advised Agriculture Secretary Houston
to promote preserving fruit and garden products.
On August 8 Elihu Root reported to Wilson on the Russian revolution
led by Alexander Kerensky.
Wilson corresponded with the labor leader Samuel Gompers.
On the 11th Wilson urged sailors on the dreadnought Pennsylvania
to do what “was never done before” and be “audacious.”
Pope Benedictus XV had proposed a peace challenge on August 1,
and Wilson sent him a telegram on the 27th suggesting a “covenanted peace.”
Wilson in September approved raids on all 48 IWW offices that arrested 300 people,
and in the next two years 400 IWW members were incarcerated.
The Espionage Act was used to cancel the mailing permits of 44 American periodicals.
On September 7 the American Bar Association termed “pro-German
those who tried to hinder the war.
Wilson in a letter on October 5 advised a journalist to refrain from discussing
peace then because the Germans had accomplished much of their imperial designs.
On the 25th he wrote to a delegation of suffragettes commending their efforts,
and he offered his support.
Italy was hoping to gain more territory in the war, and on October 30
the United States extended to Italy a line of credit for $230 million.
Bolshevik Communists overthrew the liberal government of Kerensky
on November 6 and took control of Russia.
Wilson hoped that Russians would “take their proper place in the world.”
He urged people to join the American Red Cross,
and he proclaimed November 29 a day of thanksgiving and prayer.
Wilson learned from an agent in Cairo that
the Allies intended to dismember the Ottoman Empire.
Philanthropic Cleveland Dodge wrote Wilson advising him
not to fight Turkey and Bulgaria because it would harm missionary efforts.
Wilson replied that he was trying to keep Congress from going after Germany’s allies.
On December 10 President Wilson took control over the railroads,
and the United States Railroad Administration operated the railways
from December 28 until 1 March 1920.
On December 11 he met with his cabinet,
and they decided on war against Austria-Hungary.
On the 15th Russia made a peace treaty with Germany,
and they called for a conference.
This meant that 350,000 German soldiers could move into France.
Leon Trotsky on December 29 asked the Allies to state their aims
and negotiate with Germany.
By the end of 1917 the Americans had 177,000 troops in France.
Treasury Secretary McAdoo raised about $17 billion from Liberty Loan campaigns
in 1917 and 1918 while the U. S. Government was spending $24.3 billion.
President Wilson’s annual message to Congress on December 4
was about how to win the war.
His dilemma and contradiction was “seeking to make conquest of peace by arms.”
He believed that autocracy must be shown to be futile “in the modern world.”
He stated wrongs Germany had done that needed to be reversed.
Yet he said he did not want “to rearrange the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
He hoped to liberate peoples of the Balkan peninsula and the Turkish Empire.
He said “a partnership of peoples” was needed.
Deep wrongs must be made right.
He said Russians also had been poisoned by falsehoods.
He was for permanent solutions that bring peace.
He asked Congress to declare war against Austria-Hungary.
He said that price controls were needed to restrain selfishness.
In January 1918 the British asked the United States to send a force
to help the Japanese prevent the Bolsheviks from taking military equipment
at Vladivostok, and the USS Brooklyn was sent to Yokohama.
On January 4 President Wilson explained to a joint session of the Congress
why the government was taking over the railroads.
On January 8 Wilson made his famous speech
on his “Fourteen Points” to the Congress.
He reported that the Central Empires wanted to discuss
objects of the war and ideas for peace.
Russians also suggested principles for making peace.
They challenged their adversaries to make known their objectives.
Wilson had been doing this for the Americans, and he noted that
Lloyd George had spoken well for the British.
Wilson said that only Germany and her allies had failed to do this.
Wilson believed that the American people wanted him
to respond to the Russians’ request.
Wilson said that the processes of peace should be open
with “no secret understandings.”
Now every nation could express their purposes that “are consistent
with justice and the peace of the world.”
He believed that the world must be made “safe for every peace-making nation.
This is a summary of his 14 points:
1. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at with no private understandings.
2. Free navigation on the seas outside territorial waters
except when closed for international covenants.
3. Removing economic barriers with equal trade conditions for all nations agreeing on peace.
4. Guarantees that national armaments will be reduced
as low as possible consistent with domestic safety.
5. Free, open, and impartial adjustment of colonial claims
with equal weight for the peoples’ interests.
6. Evacuation from Russian territory and settling Russian questions
with cooperation from other nations for her independence and political development.
7. Evacuation from and restoration of Belgium
with no limit on her sovereignty as a free nation.
8. Liberation of French territory that had been invaded and taken by Prussia in 1871
and the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France for the peace of the world.
9. Readjusting Italy’s frontiers by recognizable lines of nationality.
10. Safeguarding and assuring the peoples of Austria-Hungary
and according them the opportunity for autonomous development.
11. Evacuation of Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro securing access to the sea
by Serbia and determining the relations of the Balkan states by allegiance and nationality.
12. Assuring secure sovereignty to Turkish portions of the Ottoman Empire
and also for other nationalities for autonomous development and with open and free
passage in the Dardanelles for ships and commerce of all with international guarantees.
13. An independent Polish state inhabited by Polish people with free and secure access
to the sea and political and economic independence and territorial integrity
with international guarantees.
14. Forming a general association of nations under covenants with mutual guarantees
of political independence and territorial integrity with equality for great and small states.
Wilson urged them to stand together against the Imperialists
and not be separated by interest or divided by purpose.
He concluded that the main principle is justice for all peoples and nationalities
on equal terms with liberty and safety.
He hoped that the moral climax would be this final war culminating in human liberty.
Four million copies of the “14 Points” speech were made,
and it was translated into Russian and German.
On January 18 Wilson urged people to conserve food,
and for needed coal they closed down 30,000 plants in New York City.
On January 31 he sent a message to the Farmers’ Conference at Urbana, Illinois,
and he encouraged them to make use of the scientific advances in agriculture
and of the experts in the colleges.
He noted that in the fall of 1917 they had planted 42,170,000 acres of wheat.
On 11 February 1918 Wilson reported to Congress
what the responses were from Germany and Austria-Hungary.
He explained what they will need to do to make peace
in such a way to establish justice and ways to prevent another war.
Every settlement should be for the benefit of the people.
They should not perpetuate the old antagonisms.
On March 11 Wilson sent a message to the Fourth All-Russia Congress
of the Soviet that he would help Russia to secure independence.
Wilson on March 20 began meeting with a war cabinet that included
Edward N. Hurley on trade, Bernard Baruch for industry, Harry Garfield on fuel,
Herbert Hoover on food, and Vance McCormick,
the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
He also sent a letter on democracy to New Jersey Democrats.
The Germans launched a major offensive on March 21,
and the Allies’ Supreme War Council made General Foch a Marshall
and commander of the Allied armies.
On March 27 General Pershing agreed to put all American soldiers
under France’s General Pétain or under British General Haig.
British Prime Minister Lloyd George informed Washington
that American reinforcements were especially needed.
Wilson said he would send 120,000 infantry to France in April.
On 18 April 1918 Wilson proclaimed the functions of the
War Labor Conference Board he had appointed.
They were to settle controversies by mediation and conciliation.
On May 16 Wilson signed an amended Sedition Act,
and in 1921 he would grant clemency to most of those who had been convicted.
On the 18th in New York he spoke about the great work of the Red Cross.
He thanked the Italian people for being with the Allies for three years on May 23rd.
That day Treasury Secretary McAdoo requested higher taxes
on war industries, on unearned incomes, and on luxuries.
The annual deficit rose from $1.1 billion in 1917 to $9 billion in 1919.
President Wilson asked Congress for McAdoo’s requests on May 27.
One million American soldiers were in France by June.
On the 7th Wilson talked to Mexican editors about his policy toward Latin America.
He claimed no right to interfere unless they could improve the situation by assisting.
He explained the Monroe Doctrine that protects Latin America.
He talked about a peaceful future when no nation will violate another’s independence.
On June 13 Wilson in a letter to Carrie Chapman Catt,
President of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance,
thanking her for her “memorial of the French Union.”
He appreciated the women’s services in this extreme crisis.
He hoped that the suffrage amendment would soon be in the federal Constitution.
Two U. S. Army divisions and Marines led by Pershing filled the gap
between the British and French forces in June.
On the 19th Wilson met with the Czech leader Thomas Masaryk
who persuaded the President that the Czech cause was just.
The Allies wanted the Japanese fighting in Siberia and would accept Japan
taking some territory which Wilson would oppose.
On June 30 the socialist Eugene V. Debs was arrested
in Cleveland for violating the Espionage Act.
On July 4 Wilson talked to the Diplomatic Corps at Mountain Vernon.
He described four principles for world peace.
First is destroying arbitrary power that can disturb the peace.
Second is to settle every question of territory or sovereignty
based on the settlement of people who are concerned.
Third is the consent of all nations to be governed by honor and respect
in relations with others and mutual respect for what is right.
Fourth is establishing an organization of peace with the combined power of free nations
who will prevent any invasion and will make peace and justice secure.
This is the reign of law by consent of the governed.
On the holiday Wilson wrote about “Four-Minute Men”
who distributed a bulletin in 5,300 community meetings.
He wrote the Four-Minute Speech for liberty-loving people.
Col. House advised Wilson on the importance of Japan.
On July 6 Navy Secretary Daniels sent a ship to support the safety of the Czechs.
On the 10th a Russian woman pleaded desperately with Wilson
to help the starving Russians.
The Japanese ambassador in Washington told the United States
that Japan would not intervene in Russian politics.
Wilson asked the Allies not to dissipate American forces anywhere
but keep them in France.
He said intervention would injure Russia rather than help,
and that it would not help defeat Germany.
Wilson wanted the United States to help protect the Czecho-Slovaks,
and he did not want to interfere with Russia.
Wilson intended to send merchants, experts, labor advisors, and the Red Cross
to help Russians in Siberia.
American Forces with the Allies on July 18 defeated the Germans at Château-Thierry.
On the 26th Wilson denounced mobs and lynching.
In August 1918 Germany’s army was in decline,
and the British cabinet committee sent a plan for a League of Nations to Woodrow Wilson.
On August 15 he began a seaside vacation and worked on the League idea.
The United States Justice Department had arrested 165 members
of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW);
97 were put on trial in August, and a jury convicted all of them on four counts.
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis sentenced them
to a total of 807 years in prison and fined them more than $2 million.
Big Bill Haywood got 20 years, and some were sentenced to 10 years or 5 years.
On August 29 Edward N. Hurley wrote to Wilson advising him
not to make it obvious that their shipping will give the U. S. advantages after the war.
On the 31st Wilson wrote to the former President of the Provisional Zionist Committee,
Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise and expressed his support for the Zionist movement
and the Weitzman Commission’s new Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Wilson on September 27 began campaigning for the Fourth Liberty Loan program
by describing the main issues of the war and what a permanent peace could mean.
He refused to “compromise with the governments of the Central Empires.”
He would not let them take advantage of others,
and he was determined to establish “a secure and lasting peace”
by negotiations and the value of impartial justice.
He began defining a constitution for a League of Nations
as a new alliance of nations with a peace settlement.
He noted that Russia was deceiving Romania.
He believed they had these five duties: establishing “impartial justice,”
the common interests of all,
no special alliances within one family of the League of Nations,
no “selfish economic combinations,”
and publishing all “international agreements and treaties.”
He promised that the United States would not make special arrangements
with particular nations or “entangling alliances.”
He was hoping for a general alliance for the world.
On September 30 President Wilson made a speech to the United States Senate
for the woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution.
He affirmed that the “people’s war” had morale and was leading the world to democracy.
The Democracy of the West can lead nations toward peace.
They have become partners with women during the war and can trust the women.
They need the “clear moral instinct of the women of the world.”
The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) had been organized on 5 July 1917,
and their 1,200,000 soldiers fought in the Argonne Forest by the Meuse River
on 26 September 1918 suffering nearly as many killed as the Germans
and many more wounded.
The French and the Americans captured 56,000 prisoners of war,
and the Allies gained 485,000 square miles of territory.
The influenza pandemic would kill over 25 million people
from February 1918 to April 1920.
By October 1918 it was in 43 states.
The public took measures in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities,
and over 500,000 would die in the United States.
On October 6 Treasury Secretary McAdoo promoted
the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign.
Wilson invested $20,000 on October 6, and on that day the German government
began asking him for the peace promised in his speeches.
The next day the Swedish minister gave a second note from Austria-Hungary
to President Wilson with similar requests.
Wilson replied on October 8 asking if the Imperial German Government accepted
the terms in his January 8 speech to Congress.
On October 12 President Wilson led a Liberty Day parade
through the streets of New York, and that day the Germans accepted his terms.
The next day the former President Theodore Roosevelt issued a statement
repudiating “the so-called fourteen points.”
On the 14th Wilson sent another note to the Germans stating that
an armistice must be organized by “the military advisers
of the Government of the United States and the Allied Governments.”
He urged the German government to stop its “acts of inhumanity.”
By October 16 the Germans were retreating from Belgium.
On the 18th President Thomas G. Masaryk announced the Czechoslovak Declaration
of Independence which the German government had accepted on the 15th.
The National Council of Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes
declared their independence from Austria-Hungary on October 29.
On November 4 the Allied Supreme War Council announced
the military terms for the armistice with Germany.
On October 25 President Wilson asked voters to vote for Democrats,
and Republican leaders criticized that partisan ploy.
In the November 5 election the Republicans gained six seats in the United States Senate
giving them a 49-47 majority, and they added 25 seats
in the House of Representatives for a 240-216 advantage.
Also on November 5 Wilson sent a short message to the peoples of the nations
of Austria-Hungary promising to help liberated peoples
gain “genuine freedom” with order and moderation.
The German Chancellor Maximilian of Baden stopped the fighting on November 7,
and Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated on the 9th.
The Armistice ending the first World War became effective on November 11
when the French signed at 11 that morning.
German forces withdrew to what they had on 1 August 1914.
Wilson read to a joint session of the Congress
the Armistice agreement with 35 clauses and conditions.
Then he made a speech on what would be possible now that the war was over.
On November 18 President Wilson announced that he was going to attend
the Peace Conference in France, and on the 29th he invited Secretary of State
Robert Lansing, his adviser Edward M. House, the diplomat Henry White,
and General Tasker H. Bliss as the four commissioners to go with him.
Prince Alexander of Serbia on December 1 proclaimed
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
The next day Wilson gave his sixth annual message to Congress
noting that they had 1,950,513 men overseas in the war.
He commended the service of women.
He discussed domestic issues and asked for support
for those in need in Belgium and France.
He urged them to reduce taxes from $6 billion to $4 billion in 1920.
Then he shared with them goals he hoped to achieve in the Peace Conference.
Wilson and the two commissioners sailed on the S.S. George Washington
on December 4 and reached Brest-Litovsk on December 13
and met the other two men in Paris.
On the 17th Lansing asked House to urge Wilson
to include an international court with codified international laws.
On December 21 Wilson gave his first speech at the University of Paris
and talked about his theory of education and the spirit of mankind.
Two days later Lansing gave Wilson what he considered
secret and urgent suggestions on the League of Nations.
Lansing also gave him the memoranda
“The Constitutional Power to provide Coercion in a Treaty.”
Wilson’s draft intended to make “the peace of the world”
more important than any other issues.
On December 31 the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau spoke
to the Chamber of Deputies and asked them to support the meeting of the “Great Powers.”
After Wilson toured Rome, Secretary of State Lansing gave him his articles on
“Peaceful Settlements of International Disputes.”
The South African General Jan Christian Smuts
proposed a system of mandates to replace imperialism.
On 7 January 1919 Lansing argued that allowing the Five Powers of
Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States to control smaller states
as mandates was against Wilson’s principles.
The United States was the only Great Power opposed to mandates.
On January 11 Wilson wrote to U. S. Senators asking Congress
to fund the food relief directed by Herbert Hoover.
He excluded helping the Germans because they could buy food.
Lansing argued for judicial solutions to international conflicts,
and he criticized Wilson for his dominating role at the Peace Conference.
On the 18th France’s President Raymond Poincaré opened the conference.
Wilson nominated France’s Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau
to be chairman of the conference, and he was elected.
Heads of state and foreign ministers of the Five Powers met as the Council of Ten,
and on January 22 Lansing presented his plan to the American commissioners
which included using arbitration to settle “justiciable disputes,”
investigation and diplomacy for others, reducing armaments, restricting military service
and the manufacture and sale of munitions, public treaties, equality for all nations
on trade regulations, and independence.
On the 23rd Clemenceau suggested disarmament,
and British Prime Minister Lloyd George proposed a plan for that.
On January 25 President Wilson made appeals
at the second plenary session of the Peace Conference.
He urged them to help the suffering people and make a secure peace
with liberty and justice.
He said that an association of nations could help maintain peace,
and he suggested the League of Nations.
He said they must emancipate the small nations
that have been exploited “as pawns in a game.”
Britain accepted the mandatory principle.
French and American delegates clashed on issues,
and French newspapers criticized Wilson.
In February a general strike by 60,000 employees in Seattle lasted five days.
In 1919 some four million workers would go on strike in the United States.
On February 8 Wilson in the Council of Ten proposed a Supreme Economic Council,
and on the 14th he presented his draft for the Covenant of the League of Nations
with a preamble and 26 articles.
He urged the use of moral force and armed force by the League as “the last resort.”
On that day Wilson left Paris.
On February 24 he reached Boston and was welcomed by Governor Calvin Coolidge.
Wilson spoke about the new things they were working on at the Conference.
On February 28 Wilson told the Democratic National Committee
that they needed “a united Europe” to rescue Russia.
On March 3 at the Conference of Governors and Mayors
he described the reconstruction problems.
They must take care of the people and provide the services needed.
On March 4 Wilson spoke to the Congress on the last day of their session,
and senators urged him to make three changes in the League of Nations—
recognizing the Monroe Doctrine, letting nations withdraw,
and excluding domestic issues from international jurisdiction.
Attorney General Thomas Gregory had criminalized dissent and arrested
over 2,000 people with the Espionage Act,
and the Sedition Act extended it to opinions in May 1918.
Also on March 4 Wilson replaced Gregory with the Quaker Mitchell Palmer
who had declined to be War Secretary.
He persuaded Wilson to pardon over a hundred of those in prison.
On that busy day Wilson then made a long speech in New York City,
and William Howard Taft spoke about the League of Nations.
Wilson left New York the next day and returned to Paris on March 14.
Herbert Hoover had requested the Council of Ten to support the food relief.
Wilson argued that even the Germans should not be allowed to starve.
The Council of Four that included Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau,
and Italy’s Prime Minister Orlando began meeting in secret on March 23.
Wilson was criticized for going against his “open covenants openly arrived at.”
Wilson proposed a six-point plan for reducing armaments.
He opposed sending Allied troops against the Soviet Republic of Hungary
formed by the Communist Béla Kun who had led a coup
against the wealthy liberal Mihály Károlyi.
Wilson suggested sending food instead.
Wilson and Lloyd George were liberal and often clashed with Clemenceau.
Sometimes Orlando and Japan’s Makino Nobuaki of Japan made it the “Big Five.”
William Bullitt asked Wilson to recognize the Bolshevik government in Russia.
Wilson asked Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover for a memorandum on Soviet Russia,
and Hoover provided a policy paper on March 28.
He noted that the Bolsheviks used terror and were tyrannical.
Yet he opposed military invention in Hungary which could make things worse.
Clemenceau began demanding that France get the Saar back for access to coal.
Wilson warned him that wronging Germans could turn people
against France and “sow the seeds of war.”
Wilson also opposed trying and hanging Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The Four argued about reparations on April 3.
Wilson opposed giving Fiume to Italy, and he had a minor stroke and became ill.
He recovered on April 6 and prepared to leave.
Lloyd George threatened to oppose the League of Nations
if the United States built more warships.
On the 8th the Big Four met in his bedroom,
and Wilson proposed an Allied commission on Syria.
The Four put off Turkey until the League decided on the mandates.
On April 10 Wilson proposed a Monroe Doctrine amendment for the Covenant.
The Japanese wanted racial equality affirmed in the preamble.
Many leaders supported that.
Wilson ruled it failed because it was not unanimous.
He said the League’s equality was based on nations.
On April 14 they accepted France’s occupation of the Saar.
Wilson said that the Saar region had 650,000 Germans.
Clemenceau called him “pro-German” and said Wilson
was acting like “a second Messiah.”
Wilson sent a comprehensive memorandum to the Italians
suggesting solutions to complicated problems.
The Italian delegation left Paris on April 23.
On the 25th Wilson suggested that Germany would need commerce
to be able to pay reparations.
On April 28 the fifth plenary session approved the amended
Covenant of the League of Nations.
Lloyd George was concerned that the French Army was planning a Rhine rebellion.
Wilson was working on the conflicts between Japan and China
over the Shantung Peninsula, and he facilitated a compromise
with the Japanese promising to withdraw from there.
The Versailles Treaty was printed on May 4.
The next day Wilson wrote to Lloyd George
that they should not take away all of Germany’s capital.
The French were secretly amending the Treaty, and some were corrected.
On May 6 the Big Three gave Smyrna to Greece, provoking a conflict
between Greeks and Turks that killed about 450 people.
Wilson spoke to the International Law Society in Paris on the 9th,
and he discussed how the League of Nations could prevent wars
if we can change society’s habits.
On May 14 South Africa’s Jan Christian Smuts criticized the Versailles Treaty
in “A Practical Suggestion” and warned that it would not bring peace to Europe.
Wilson replied that he was working to be just to the Germans.
He attempted to protect the Jews in Poland and Palestine.
The Treaty accepted the unified Czecho-Slovakia and combined
Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and others into Yugoslavia.
The Hapsburg Empire was broken up.
The Treaty designated France to have mandates for Syria and Lebanon,
and Britain was to supervise Palestine and Jordan.
Religious factions were divided in Iraq.
The Economist John Maynard Keynes would criticize the Treaty in
The Economic Consequences of the Peace which was published in October.
On May 7 the Allied leaders met with the new leaders of the Weimar Republic
who were given 15 days to respond to the Versailles Treaty
which was printed in French and English.
The Germans were required to demobilize, disarm, demolish fortifications,
and replace ships they destroyed.
Their former colonies became mandates of Britain.
They were allowed to keep the Saar coal mines for 15 years,
and they had to provide coal for France, Belgium, and Italy.
On May 22 Clemenceau, Wilson, and Lloyd George said they would reestablish
the blockade of Germany if they did not sign the Treaty.
The naval blockade remained.
The Big Four chose two experts each to investigate.
Wilson persuaded the other three to agree to advise the Yugoslavs
not to resort to arms against the Peace Conference authority.
Germany was to reduce its army to 100,000 and its navy to 15,000 with no submarines.
Several new nations were formed from the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
The Germans responded with 119 pages and rejected the Treaty on May 28.
Two days later Wilson gave an emotional speech
at a cemetery for war veterans near Paris.
On June 2 in different American cities eight bombs exploded.
The home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was damaged;
he and his family were not injured.
He reacted by starting an intelligence division and hired young J. Edgar Hoover
to head the Bureau of Investigation within the Justice Department.
His agents compiled files on about 60,000 aliens and radicals,
and they arrested 10,000 in the next two years.
Also on June 2 the Big Four met, and Wilson and Lloyd George tried
to persuade Clemenceau to cooperate, but he would not change his positions.
George warned them that if British demands were not met, and the Germans
did not sign the treaty, he would oppose reviving the fighting.
That day the peace terms were presented to the delegates
of the Austrian Empire in a ceremony.
On the 3rd Wilson with the American delegates discussed economic problems
with the plan for the League of Nations.
He was concerned that relations of the Allied nations were dividing.
They agreed it was right to withdraw the army.
Wilson then met with the technical advisors of the American Commission.
On June 6 a committee advised that England, France, and Italy
did not have enough resources to aid the Germans.
The Council worked on the Treaty in order to get the Germans to sign.
On June 9 Wilson explained the economic situation in the Council of Four.
Germany could not pay reparations until they had adequate assets.
The United States could not grant credits that were not backed up by assets.
Americans persuaded Clemenceau to make some concessions on June 10.
On the 16th Germany responded with 80 pages,
and Clemenceau, George, and Wilson agreed
to limit the expenses of the occupying army.
Two days later Marshal Foch visited the Allied camps on the Rhine.
With some Belgians they had 600,000 troops ready to march on Berlin
if Germans rejected the Treaty.
On June 19 the Italian Parliament removed Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando.
He was replaced by Sonnino and two others at the Peace Conference,
and they were ready to sign the Peace Treaty.
On June 20 Gustav Bauer became Chancellor of Germany,
and the next day 74 German warships captured by the British were scuttled.
Bauer arrived on June 22, and the Germans signed the Peace Treaty.
Representatives wanted Turkey to join the League of Nations
so that the Turkish Empire would continue.
The British on June 23 ordered Atatürk to go back to Constantinople.
Germany’s new Foreign Minister Hermann Müller and the
Colonial Minister Johannes Bell came to Versailles on June 27.
The next day in the Hall of Mirrors on the fifth anniversary of Archduke Ferdinand’s
assassination they signed the Peace Treaty to end the war that involved 23 nations
with 65 million soldiers that killed about 17 million people, and almost half were civilians.
Wilson would not let the Chinese sign with reservations on Shantung,
and the fate of the Ottoman Empire had not yet been decided.
Germans agreed to pay 120 million gold marks for reparations,
and in 1921 that was reduced to $33 billion.
By 1932 the Germans had paid only $4.5 billion.
The treaties blocked Austria from uniting with Germany.
The new boundaries could not please all nations and peoples.
Yet Wilson’s 14 Points had been fulfilled.
Belgium became independent, and France got back Alsace-Lorraine.
They were to reduce arms, and trade barriers were removed and debated by nations.
The world had never seen such a universal and practical government for all humanity.
Lloyd George thanked Wilson for bringing their nations closer than ever.
Wilson and his wife Edith returned to New York on July 8 and were welcomed
by hundreds of thousands in the streets, and he spoke that evening at Carnegie Hall.
On July 10 President Wilson held a press conference and then made a long speech
in the Senate explaining what they had accomplished and what still needed to be done.
The United States Senate began debating the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations.
The Republicans’ Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge led the opposition.
Wilson met with Congressmen in the White House on July 17.
Franklin D. Roosevelt revealed that Republican leaders had met secretly in Washington
in January 1919 and agreed to criticize Wilson’s Treaty with the League of Nations
so that they could regain the presidency in 1920.
Lodge spent two weeks reading aloud the entire Versailles Treaty
in a Senate committee room that few or none attended.
His hearings would go on for six weeks.
A poll of 1,377 newspapers in the United States had found that 87% of the editors
favored the League of Nations.
Rising cost of living and unemployment led to riots,
and in 1919 mobs would hang or burn 70 black Americans.
Many moved into the cities.
Wilson called the massive catastrophe the “World War.”
On August 19 he met with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the White House
and explained how Article 10 will work to prevent wars
and that the United States could choose whether to participate in such actions.
Warren Harding asked Wilson to explain the difference between moral and legal obligations.
The next day the Senate began debating four reservations to Article 10.
On August 26 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved some
fifty amendments that would block Americans from being members
in most of the international committees.
President Wilson decided to go on a western tour to promote the Peace Treaty
and the League of Nations despite concerns about his health.
He believed he owed it to the soldiers who had fought.
He was willing to risk his life.
On August 31 he advised the Democrats’ Senate Minority Leader Gilbert Hitchcock
who led the effort to ratify the Treaty.
On September 5 Secretary of State Lansing in a speech to the American Bar Association
suggested an international tribunal such as The Hague Court.
Wilson on his presidential train left Washington at night on September 3
with his wife Edith, Dr. Grayson, his advisor Tumulty, stenographers, cooks,
Secret Service agents, and many reporters.
They traveled at night, and he usually spoke twice a day mostly to large crowds.
He would explain how the Peace Treaty with the League of Nations
could maintain the peace by preventing future wars.
His stops included Columbus in Ohio, Richmond in Indiana, Indianapolis, St. Louis,
Kansas City, Des Moines, Omaha, Sioux Falls in South Dakota, St. Paul, Minneapolis,
Billings and Helena in Montana, Coeur D’Alene in Idaho, Spokane, Tacoma and Seattle
in Washington, Portland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, San Diego, Los Angeles,
Sacramento, Reno, Ogden and Salt Lake City in Utah, Cheyenne,
Denver and Pueblo in Colorado.
That would be the last major speech he would make in his life.
At Wichita his poor health persuaded them to go straight back to Washington
which they reached on September 28.
He had traveled 8,000 miles.
Wilson began to rest, and on October 2 he had a stroke
that paralyzed the left side of his body.
Dr. Grayson called in other doctors.
Edith took care of her husband and became a kind of chief of staff
determining who could speak to him and on what issues.
Dr. Dercum encouraged her to do this, and he noted that
Louis Pasteur had recovered from such a condition to do great work.
The Congress had passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution
prohibiting liquor in December 1917, and the states ratified it in January 1919.
On October 27 Wilson’s secretary Tumulty wrote the message vetoing the Volstead Act,
which would enforce prohibition, for Wilson who could sign his name.
Congress overrode the veto, and Prohibition became law on 17 January 1920.
Tumulty also helped Wilson write his annual message that was delivered to Congress
on December 2 and drew from the brilliant speeches Wilson made on his tour
that had helped many westerners to accept the Peace Treaty.
Wilson continued to resist reservations to the Treaty
because it would cause other nations to demand them also.
Wilson declined to resign, and Vice President Thomas Marshall, who was loyal to Wilson,
kept on presiding over the Senate, though Wilson never talked to him again.
The Senate in November had a majority for the Peace Treaty
but not the two-thirds needed.
Wilson and Edith continued to work as a team for the rest of his term.
Wilson sent a message to the Democrats on Jackson Day in January 1920,
and he advised them to make a separate treaty with Germany.
On January 13 he sent a cable to the governments in Europe to open
the League of Nations, and he sent a message welcoming delegates
to the Pan-American Financial Conference in Washington on January 19.
Congress made compromises, and efforts to ratify the Treaty failed again in February.
Wilson urged the government to return the railroads to the private owners.
He wrote a long letter to Senator Hitchcock
that the New York Times published on March 9.
He urged the government to work for humanity
rather than for the special interests of the nation.
On 14 April he attended a cabinet meeting and tried to make new appointments.
Mrs. Wilson and Dr. Grayson came in and told them it was just an experiment.
On May 24 Wilson praised the Congress for relieving misery in Armenia.
Wilson was not nominated at the Democratic convention in June,
and they made James Cox of Ohio their candidate
with Franklin D. Roosevelt for Vice President.
The Republicans Senator Harding and Governor Coolidge
were easily elected in November for a return to “normalcy.”
On November 15 the League of Nations began meeting at Geneva.
Wilson’s annual message read to Congress on December 2 urged them
to make economic and social reforms to achieve “justice and orderly process.”
He also advised the Congress to grant independence to the Philippine Islands.
On 3 March 1921 Wilson vetoed an emergency tariff bill for its lack of equal justice.
The next day the Wilsons moved out of the White House
to a new home in Washington to make way for President Cox.
Wilson let journalist Ray Stannard Baker have access to his papers and documents
so that he could write an accurate account of the Peace Conference at Paris.
In August 1923 Wilson published the essay “The Road Away from Revolution”
in the Atlantic Monthly.
He wrote that to survive civilization needed to be redeemed spiritually.
On 11 November 1923 in his only public address on radio Wilson’s last public words
were “I have seen fools resist Providence before, and I have seen their destruction,
as will come upon these again, utter destruction and contempt.
That we shall prevail is as sure as that God reigns.
Thank you.”
Woodrow Wilson died on 3 February 1924.
Woodrow Wilson was an idealist, and he followed ethical principles.
His main political ideals were peace, justice, equality, and self-government.
He was a progressive Democrat, and he has been criticized
by many Conservatives and Republicans.
He was the first Democrat since Andrew Jackson
to be President for two consecutive terms.
He was brought up in the racist South during the Civil War and Reconstruction
and may have been traumatized by the war as a child from seeing the wounded
in his father’s church and Union prisoners in the churchyard for four years.
He admired his father and became a skillful politician and an advocate for peace.
Wilson was probably better educated than any other President
as he is the only U. S. President so far to earn a Ph.D.
He studied law and became a lawyer, and he preferred teaching and politics.
He especially admired the British Prime Minister Gladstone,
and he strove to be a political leader.
Wilson opposed the imperialism that took over the far-away Philippines,
and he advocated their independence.
He learned about management as the President of Princeton University for eight years.
His writing Congressional Government, five volumes on American history,
and Constitutional Government in the United States made him
an expert on American government and history.
While he was Governor of New Jersey for two years, he ran for President
and was elected at the same time New Jersey’s legislature became Republican.
Wilson had a spiritual consciousness and believed deeply in divine providence.
He believed that God was guiding him to bring peace to humanity,
and no one worked harder at bringing about world peace than Woodrow Wilson.
Theodore Roosevelt, who was a warmonger before and after his peaceful presidency,
opposed Wilson and President Taft in the 1912 election, and that actually helped Wilson
win with a plurality and a record number of Electoral College votes.
Wilson knew there were progressives in all the parties at that time,
and he was able to implement many reforms that included the income tax,
woman suffrage amendments, and the Federal Reserve system to improve banking
and prevent domination by a few capitalists.
When Europe fell into a disastrous war between imperial powers,
Wilson immediately declared neutrality for the United States,
and he began to prepare himself and the country for a process that could end the war
and institute a practical system to enforce international law that would give less
powerful nations self-determination and equal rights.
Wilson used diplomacy to attempt to protect American shipping during the World War,
and eventually the German imperialists unleashed their submarines
with no concern for human life.
Perhaps he could have reduced shipping to the western hemisphere to lessen the danger.
Wilson chose to enter the war so that the power of the United States
could shorten the war and influence the peaceful settlements that would follow.
Because of his ethical ideals the American soldiers came to Europe
as friends and were known for not exploiting the situation.
Even though his immense task was sabotaged by the selfish Republicans
in the United States Senate, several of the monarchical empires of Europe
were dismantled, and Wilson did his best to give various peoples
self-determination in democratic nations.
Wilson sacrificed his health in his zeal to educate American citizens during a spiritual era
for political reforms on a global scale that could bring about disarmament
and keep the peace with justice and human rights.
Wilson often spoke about a “new age” that would be more spiritual and democratic
based on human and national equality.
The planet of revolution Uranus is co-ruler of Aquarius, and according to astrologers
the Aquarian Age, which will go on for over 2,000 years,
probably began around the late 19th century.
Aquarius is symbolized by the water-bearer and represents the common man.
Uranus is related to revolution, friendship, science, and inventions,
and it was in Aquarius from February 1912 to January 1920
which corresponds almost exactly to Wilson’s presidency.
During this 1912-1920 period there were major revolutions in China, Mexico, and Russia
in addition to the radical changes in Europe during this world war.
Even Clemenceau said that he thought that Wilson believed he was a Messiah.
Jesus the Christ lived near the beginning of the Piscean Age about 2,000 years ago.
Wilson once said that Jesus “taught the ideal without
devising any practical means of attaining it.”
Wilson believed he was offering practical solutions to the deadly problem of war
which is devastating modern civilization.
During the eight years of his presidency the national debt went up $21,061,245,638
mostly because of the war.
That amount would be surpassed by Franklin Roosevelt over ten times,
by Eisenhower, by Lyndon Johnson, and by every President after him.
Although I believe that Wilson’s methods could have been better
if he had followed the nonviolent way of Jesus, William Penn, Mahatma Gandhi,
Dr. Martin Luther King, and many others, his efforts at political reform
on an international scale puts him above all other presidents.
Gandhi managed without violence to help liberate the large country of India
from British domination, though it took many years.
Wilson going to war tipped the balance and probably shortened the war considerably.
Yet this still was a bad example of how to solve problems,
and the war pattern would re-emerge even more powerfully by Japan, Germany, and Italy
in World War II because they did not get want they wanted in this war.
Yet the greatest scholar of Woodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link who wrote
a 5-volume biography and edited Wilson’s papers in 69 large volumes,
argued that the Great Depression caused those nations to engage in aggressive wars.
Wilson even prophesied something like that would occur if the League of Nations
was not successfully implemented, and the Republicans blocking the United States
from joining eventually doomed the League of Nations.
Although Wilson failed in his awesome undertaking,
he showed how the conflicts that still plague humanity could be solved.
I rank Woodrow Wilson #2.
Warren G. Harding (1865-1923) was born on November 2 in Ohio.
He was well educated and worked at various jobs.
In college he became president of the Philomathic Literary Society.
He learned the newspaper business from his father.
He studied law and then became a newspaper editor and publisher
and learned about politics by writing editorials.
In June 1884 he covered the Republican National Convention in Chicago
and supported their candidate James G. Blaine.
Harding published a newspaper in Marion, Ohio,
and in 1889 he made the Star a daily newspaper.
In November 1890 he had a nervous breakdown,
and he went to the Battle Creek Sanitarium run by vegetarian Seventh-day Adventists.
He went back there five times in 12 years.
He wrote thousands of editorials as the population of Marion tripled.
In 1892 he met William Jennings Bryan in Washington.
He got involved in Republican politics and made speeches to help McKinley in 1896.
As a reporter he made friends with state senators in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1899 Harding was elected to be an Ohio state senator,
and in September 1901 the senators selected him to give the eulogy for McKinley.
Harding was a mixer and was very popular, and he was re-elected serving 1900-1904.
He was elected and was Lieutenant Governor 1904-1906.
He toured as a speaker and lectured on “Hamilton, Prophet of American Destiny.”
In January 1908 Harding’s Star endorsed
Secretary of War William Howard Taft for President.
Harding lost a race for Governor against the incumbent in 1910,
and in 1912 his speech nominating Taft for re-election in 1912
at the Republican convention made him a national figure.
In 1910 he ran for governor and lost.
In 1912 President Taft asked Harding to nominate him at the Chicago convention,
and he called Taft “the greatest Progressive of the age.”
Harding criticized Roosevelt for opposing the President, and Taft came in third.
Harding respected the winning Wilson as a “clean, learned, honorable, and patriotic man,”
and that showed he could be bipartisan and open-minded.
In 1914 Harding ran for the United States Senate
against the experienced Joseph B. Foraker.
This was the first time people elected U. S. senators directly.
Harding got the nomination over Foraker in the primary, and Taft endorsed him.
Republican Harding was elected by a substantial margin
while the Democrats were increasing their majority to 56-39.
He invited senators to play poker at his home.
Harding was the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention in June 1916
at Chicago, and he criticized President Wilson for ruining the economy with lower tariffs.
Harding praised the nominee Charles Evans Hughes,
who had been Governor of New York and a U. S. Supreme Court Justice.
The Republican Hughes in 1916 was defeated by President Wilson.
On 4 April 1917 Senator Harding supported the declaration of war against Germany,
and on the 23rd he offered an amendment to allow three divisions of volunteers
that was not in the final bill.
In the November 1918 election Republicans gained six more seats in the U. S. Senate
giving them a 49-47 majority, and they increased their advantage in the House to 240-192.
Harding was married and had occasional love affairs with two mistresses,
and he had heart trouble.
He said the armistice on 11 November 1918 met “American aspirations.”
He missed at least 46 roll-call votes in the Senate.
After Theodore Roosevelt died on 6 January 1919,
Harding gave a memorial address in the Ohio General Assembly.
In Dayton, Ohio at a McKinley Day banquet on January 29
Senator Harding was hailed as “our next President.”
He said he did not oppose the League of Nations and a world court.
On August 17 the Republican majority leader Henry Cabot Lodge
put Harding on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Two days later Harding and other Senators questioned Wilson’s plans in the White House.
He criticized Wilson for accepting the secret agreements
of European nations on national borders.
His friend Thomas Edison recorded a large portion of a speech that
Harding had made in the Senate on the peace process that praised America.
Then Harding and three other senators presented President Wilson
with reservations on articles 11 and 12 in the Peace Treaty.
The lawyer Harry Daugherty helped Harding run for President in 1920.
In five years he had introduced 134 bills with 122 on local affairs in Ohio.
General Leonard Wood of Ohio was also running, and he raised $1,773,303.
Illinois Governor Frank Lowden spent $414,984, Hiram Johnson of California $194,393,
and Harding had only $113,109.
He adopted the “America first” policy, and on April 27 he won the Ohio primary.
He discussed more policies in Boston on May 14 and called for healing and peace.
After the primaries Harding was fourth with only 39 delegates.
Daugherty got delegates to make Harding their second choice,
and he predicted that Harding would eventually win.
The Republican platform criticized Wilson’s foreign policies.
At the convention Harding said he would not be Vice President.
By the eighth ballot he was still a distant third behind Wood and Lowden.
After Utah Senator Smoot argued that Harding would defeat
Ohio Governor James M. Cox, Harding was soon nominated.
They made Gov. Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts the candidate for Vice President.
Harding made a long speech accepting the nomination,
and he promised a budget system and more business-like departments,
a protective tariff, expanded trade, rights for Negro citizens, peace with Mexico,
and women voting.
Harding chose the Republican National Committee chairman Will Hays
to be his campaign manager.
The Democrats nominated Governor Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York.
Harding made fun of Roosevelt for saying he wrote Haiti’s constitution.
Harding followed McKinley’s campaign style at his home in Marion
where he received large crowds.
Hays and Harding hired Albert D. Lasker to advertise the campaign by radio,
newspapers, magazines, movie news, audio recordings, and billboards.
On July 22 some 90,000 people showed up to see Senator Lodge notify Harding
who gave five speeches that day.
He promised to cooperate with Congress.
In the second speech on foreign policy he promised
“no surrender of rights to a world council.”
The third speech discussed relations between labor and management.
Then he talked about the revolution in Russia and contrasted it
to American liberty and rights.
About 600,000 people came to Marion to hear Harding by the end of September.
Then he went on a tour and made speeches in the 15 states of Ohio, Indiana,
West Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Oklahoma, New York, Tennessee,
Minnesota, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Maryland.
Harding loved to talk with fellow journalists,
and he missed a train so that he could shake hands with a hundred reporters.
He criticized Wilson’s policies but did not mention his health or
Cox’s having been divorced and remarried.
Harding was accused of having Negro ancestors
because his family had lived in a Negro neighborhood.
On August 28 in Indianapolis he opposed Wilson’s League as an “unworkable device,”
though he believed in an international association and a world court.
Harding won the voting in Maine on September 13,
and Elihu Root and other prominent men endorsed him on October 2.
Harding published “Less Government in Business and More Business in Government”
in World’s Work.
Harding’s popularity enabled the Republicans to defeat the Democrats
Cox and Franklin Roosevelt by over seven million votes.
The Republican Party majorities increased to 59-37 in the Senate
and 303-131 in the House of Representatives.
Republicans spent four times as much money as the Democrats.
Harding took time off to visit Panama and returned to Congress on December 6.
President-elect Harding based his cabinet choices on public service,
the public’s attitude, and political considerations, and they would all be Republicans.
He believed he did not owe anyone anything except for Daugherty.
He appointed Charles Evans Hughes to be Secretary of State,
Wallace’s Farmer editor Henry C. Wallace as Agriculture Secretary,
and the experienced executive Charles G. Dawes to supervise the budget.
He let Herbert Hoover be Commerce Secretary and the wealthy financier
Andrew Mellon the Treasury Secretary.
He chose Senator John Weeks to be Secretary of War, union member Jim Davis
as Labor Secretary, Will Hays to be Postmaster General, his Senate colleague
Albert Fall as Interior Secretary, Harry Daugherty as Attorney General,
and the marine and wealthy lawyer Edwin Denby to be Secretary of the Navy.
Harding resigned from the Senate on 6 January 1921
so that the former Gov. Frank Willis would have seniority.
The Senate confirmed the ten members of the Cabinet in ten minutes
after Harding’s inaugural address.
Senator A. B. Fall became Interior Secretary and was the first to be confirmed
without having been referred by a committee.
On 4 March 1921 Warren Harding’s inaugural address was the first
to be broadcast by one of the two radio stations.
He emphasized “liberty within the law” and the “new order in the world.”
He desired friendship and “no permanent military alliance.”
He was open to associating with the nations of the world “for counsel”
as well as “mediation, conciliation, and arbitration.”
He hoped they would “establish a world court.”
He encouraged making wars less probable and to
“promote that brotherhood of mankind” for “justice and peace.”
He said their task was to return to their “normal way.”
He welcomed women “into our political life.”
He said he prays “for industrial peace” with “equality of opportunity
which has made us what we are.”
The Constitution makes popular will the supreme law while minorities are protected.
He called for an “era of the Golden Rule.”
Harding had the closed gates of the White House opened and welcomed guests.
He played poker with friends in the evening twice a week.
He smoked two cigars a day, a pipe, and cigarettes.
He relied most on Secretary of State Hughes, Treasury Secretary Mellon,
and Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.
He appropriately called the State Department the “Department of Peace,”
though four months went by before he began responding to communication
from the League of Nations.
He talked most with Attorney General Daugherty, and they had a private telephone line.
Daugherty told journalist Mark Sullivan that he wanted to protect Harding from crooks.
The debt of the United States was rising from the war expenses,
and it became almost $24 billion in 1921.
Inflated prices and wages had peaked in November 1920,
and the Federal Reserve Bank was attempting to bring about deflation.
On March 7 Harding met with Senator Lodge and House Speaker Gillette
and two other leaders for four hours, and they decided to reform taxes and tariffs.
The Cabinet began meeting the next day,
and Vice President Coolidge was accepted as a member.
Harding would begin with what he considered important,
and then secretaries would report on their departments.
They met twice a week, and no notes or votes were recorded.
Harding asked them to accommodate newsmen,
and he met with them after the Cabinet meetings.
He asked them not to quote him without his permission.
At the first press conference he shook hands with some fifty reporters.
In November they began putting written questions in a box.
Harding, Lodge, Smoot, and Underwood agreed, and the President
summoned a special session of Congress to begin on April 11.
Committees planned hearings, and Harding learned to be less partisan in his first year.
He spoke to the country on March 31 about Americans with ties to other nations,
and he asked for unity.
They all want a free America at home and in the world.
He also hoped to end class against class.
He began meeting with James Weldon Johnson of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
and he appointed blacks to high positions and also others.
He urged their education and hoped to bring them into the Republican Party.
He sent former Philippine Governor General Forbes and General Wood
to study the Philippine Islands, and in December they advised that
Filipinos were not yet prepared enough for Americans to leave.
On April 20 the United States finally ratified the treaty with Colombia
and the $25 million compensation for the loss of Panama.
Harding freed 13,000 postmasters from regulations,
and Postmaster General Hays warned that the patronage was becoming a liability.
Harding asked for a Department of Public Welfare
and for expanding the merchant marine, and the Congress rejected both.
Twelve senators asked Harding for reforms in agriculture business on May 9.
The Grange had a million members, and the Farm Bureau surpassed that in June.
The Emergency Agricultural Credits Act allowed loans to farmers’ cooperative
and foreign buyers starting on August 24.
President Harding named a new head of the Prohibition Unit,
and by 1922 they claimed that 17,500,000 Americans had stopped drinking alcohol.
Harding signed the Emergency Quota Act on May 19 to restrict immigration
from Northern and Western Europe.
In the fiscal year ending on 30 June 1921 the United States received 806,228 immigrants.
Although this was expected to increase,
the Quota Act reduced the aliens coming in the next year to 309,556.
On 12 April 1921 Harding gave a long speech to a joint session of the Congress,
and he made reducing national expenditures his first priority
in order to remove the war debt gradually.
He aimed to reduce appropriations and make his administration more economical.
He asked people to be thrifty.
He said they would work on a new tariff to protect American industry.
He considered self-reliance the
“foundation of the independence and good fortune of our people.”
Imports would support the government.
He would protect the American food industry.
He believed that business methods could improve “fiscal affairs.”
Government’s costs would be reduced, and he commended the legislation
for a “national budget system.”
He said “capitalistic exploitation must be removed,”
and labor should cooperate with management.
Congress must help “stamp out abuses.”
He advised “rehabilitation” and “respiritualization,” and he asked for
a new “department of public welfare.”
He urged people to “recognize new social forces and evolutions, to equip our citizens.”
He suggested that government could improve “education, public health, sanitation,
conditions of workers in industry, child welfare … and many other subjects.”
He commended the passing of the maternity bill.
He recognized the states’ administration of education, and he noted that
in the previous year national appropriations to aid education were $65 million.
Yet he wanted to avoid overlapping activities of states.
He turned to the “race question” and said
they must end “barbaric lynching” in a free democracy.
He urged adjusting race relations by mutual tolerance, understanding, and charity.
He advised that the “burdens of heavy armament” could be eliminated
by reducing expenditures on national defense.
He urged cooperating with other nations on disarmament
by “an association of nations” to prevent war.
He intended “to seek an early establishment of peace.”
Only the United States was “in a technical state of war
against the Central Powers of Europe.”
He hoped for a “spirit of cooperation” with the Congress to help solve these problems.
Mexico’s new President Obregón promised to settle differences easily,
and the United States proposed a Draft Treaty of Amity and Commerce on May 27.
That day Harding signed the Emergency Tariff
that protected American farmers from competition with imports.
He hired Wilson’s expert on tariffs, William Culbertson,
and Harding took his advice to be flexible on tariffs.
The Senate did not begin working on it until April 1922,
and Harding signed the bill on September 21.
On 25 May 1921 Congress passed 344-9 the budget that Wilson had vetoed,
and Harding signed the Budget and Accounting Act on June 10.
He hired the former Comptroller of the Currency Charles E. Dawes
as the first Director of the Bureau of the Budget to reduce government expenditures.
In his one year federal spending was lowered by $1.5 billion.
Harding then appointed General Herbert M. Lord.
The 1922 budget was $3,967,922,366, and it was $3,505,754,727 in 1923.
Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace complained that
lower taxes were hurting farmers.
The Joint Commission on Agriculture Inquiry began on 7 June 1921,
and President Harding appointed its members from the Congress.
Their report was made at a 5-day conference in late January 1922.
Harding had lectured on Alexander Hamilton, and the very wealthy financier
Andrew Mellon became Secretary of the Treasury for Harding and Coolidge
in the Republican era of the 1920s that recovered from the war debts
by adopting business methods in government and notably by using
a budget system for the first time in the federal government.
Herbert Hoover had excelled at bringing relief to suffering European nations
during and after the World War.
He was a very active Secretary of Commerce.
Charles G. Dawes in one year used a budget to reduce federal spending.
On June 30 Harding nominated former President Taft to be
Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court.
Harding signed the Congressional resolution that ended war against Germany on July 2.
That month General Leonard Wood agreed to be the Governor General of the Philippines,
and he served from 14 October 1921 to 7 August 1927.
The Soldiers’ Adjusted Compensation Bill enabled 38 states to grant bonuses in 1921.
Treasury Secretary Mellon persuaded Harding
that this was going to increase the national debt,
and he explained that veterans already had ample compensation.
Harding then opposed the bonus bill,
and on August 9 he approved forming the Veterans Bureau.
On July 15 the writer Maxim Gorky asked Herbert Hoover for aid
to relieve starving Russians, and the American and Soviet governments
made an agreement on August 19.
In ten days Americans were arriving in Moscow to provide relief.
One year later 200 Americans were running 18,000 relief stations to feed ten million people.
In late August the United States signed treaties with Austria, Germany, and Hungary.
Treasury Secretary Mellon and Commerce Secretary Hoover
reduced the highest tax rates while increasing corporate taxes by 10%.
The married couple exemption was reduced for those earning over $5,000.
The 1921 Revenue Act went into effect on November 23.
Interior Secretary Fall wanted national forests moved into his department.
Wallace opposed that and threatened to resign.
Harding could not find a compromise.
When he appointed Hoover to supervise a Colorado irrigation project,
Fall said he would resign and did not do so.
After U. S. unemployment reached 5.7 million, Hoover called for a conference
in Washington on September 26.
He explained that the world was suffering an industrial depression,
though he said that their finances were strong for those who choose to work.
On October 3 the White House released a statement acknowledging unemployment
and noted what the conference recommended.
Harding appealed to governors and mayors to follow them.
In December 1920 Idaho’s Senator Borah had managed to get the Senate
to approve an international conference with Britain and Japan
to reduce the building of more navy ships.
The Senate unanimously passed his resolution on 1 March 1921.
Harding gathered information on disarmament,
and the Congress passed a naval program with arms limitation on July 11.
Charles Evans Hughes and Harding led the conference that persuaded
several powers to stop and limit their naval arms race at least for a while.
Secretary of State Hughes sent out formal invitations
to the four great powers on August 11.
The Japanese accepted the agenda on October 17.
Britain, the United States, and Japan agreed to a 5-5-3 ratio on capital ships.
On October 26 Harding made a long speech in Alabama
urging improvement on race relations.
On November 11 President Harding speaking on radio opened
the conference
on arms limitation in Washington attended by delegates from eight other countries.
Harding named Hughes, Elihu Root, the Senate’s leaders Lodge and the Democratic
Oscar Underwood to supervise the Advisory Committee that included four women.
Harding asked them to commit “to less preparation for war.”
He said that one hundred million Americans wanted less armament and no war,
and he asked them to serve mankind.
Secretary of State Hughes became chairman of the conference, and he persuaded Britain,
the United States, and Japan to agree to a 5-5-3 ratio on capital ships.
The U. S. would destroy more warships than Britain and Japan.
Women had begun voting in 1920, and on November 23
Harding signed the Maternity and Infancy Protection Act.
In his first annual message to Congress on December 5
Harding affirmed the right of labor to organize just as capital can.
He noted that they had 200 million acres in the public domain,
and his government was supporting development for homes and farms.
He discussed mining and natural resources, and he suggested
reclaiming 79 million acres of “swamp and cut-over lands.”
He noted how the American Relief Administration was helping Russians.
He reported that the International Conference was making progress on limiting arms.
On December 23 Harding pardoned 24 imprisoned for opposing the war
including the socialist Eugene Debs who had come in third in the 1920 election.
He had a friendly visit with Harding in the White House.
The post-war depression was continuing with about 12% unemployed,
and 10% of farmers lost their land.
Wallace’s Agricultural Conference met on 23 January 1922 for four days.
The disarmament conference resumed, and on 6 February 1922
the nations attending agreed to the Nine-Power Open Door Pact
that was designed to be fair to China.
Elihu Root proposed banning use of poison gas by binding international law,
and delegates approved it unanimously.
They could not agree to limit submarines and auxiliary ships.
On February 10 the U. S. Senate ratified the conference treaty on naval limits,
and on March 11 they agreed to the Yap Treaty with Japan
that limited the U. S. Navy to 86,000 men.
On the 28th Harding asked Congress to pass his plan to subsidize merchant marine shipping.
This was passed by the House of Representatives,
and then the Senate rejected it by using a 5-day filibuster.
On April 1 United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis
began a strike by coal workers demanding a 5-day work week with 6-hour days.
Harding sent Hoover, Davis, and Fall to negotiate.
On June 4 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that striking miners
had to pay for damaged company property.
In the next two years the Labor Department’s Conciliation Service
would help settle 87% of the 1,129 possible strikes.
On July 18 Harding sent telegrams to 28 governors of coal-producing states
requesting that operators recognize miners’ right to work.
Teapot Dome oil contracts in Wyoming had been exposed in April
by the Wall Street Journal.
On June 7 Interior Secretary Fall gave Harding his 75-page report on oil leases.
The President did not read it before turning it over to the Senate.
In July several railroad strikes began,
and on the 31st the railroad executives rejected the solution offered.
Harding said he spent 90% of his time on labor problems in July and August.
He spoke to Congress on August 18 asking for legislation free of “trouble-making.”
He concluded that Government would “maintain transportation,
and sustain the right of men to work.”
U. S. Attorney General Daugherty went to Chicago,
and Judge Wilkerson finally granted his injunction and ended the strike on September 1.
Harding vetoed the bonus bill for veterans on September 19,
and two days later he signed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff that allowed him
to raise or reduce tariffs by as much as 50%.
On September 22 the Congress set up the Coal Commission.
In the election on 7 November 1922 the Republicans lost 77 seats
in the House of Representatives yet retained a 225-207 majority.
In the Senate they lost 7 seats and still led 53-42.
Some Republicans believed that high tariffs caused their losses.
On December 1 Senators La Follette, Norris, and eleven others endorsed
abolishing the electoral college, having direct primaries for elective offices,
seating elected Congresses sooner, and ending special privileges from government.
Harding in his annual message to the Congress on December 8
discussed improving transportation, reclamation and irrigation projects,
forest management, and the Conference on Limitation of Armament.
Harding supported the right to work and balanced this with workers’ right to organize
in their struggle for a greater share of the wealth from the capitalists.
Harding’s administration lowered the higher rates of personal income tax
while increasing corporate taxes by 10%.
The unemployment rate was 5.2% in 1920 and rose to about 11% in 1921.
During his administration the number of unemployment was reduced
from 3,441,000 in 1922 to 1,532,000 in 1923.
In January 1923 Harding and Hughes began supporting some
League of Nations activities without becoming a member.
Charles Forbes ran the Veterans Bureau and was involved in various scandals,
and he resigned on February 15 in Paris.
He was investigated, and his co-conspirator
Charles F. Cramer resigned and committed suicide on March 14.
Interior Secretary Fall’s resignation on January 2 became effective on March 4,
the day he made a secret contract with Harry Sinclair.
Harding and others were suffering from influenza,
and while trying to sleep he could hardly breathe.
As President he had a $73,000 salary.
Before leaving for Alaska he sold his newspaper to a Republican fundraiser
for $500,000 in Liberty bonds.
He told his friend to buy for him that much in stocks on margin.
He made a new will and said he would not run for re-election.
He continued to work on labor issues.
He expressed his frustration with his job and said that
his friends gave him more troubles than his enemies.
Daugherty’s close friend Jeff Smith, who assisted him at the Justice Department,
was suspected of bootlegging and was found dead on May 30 probably from suicide.
Harding was working about 84 hours per week.
On June 2 he commended Hughes
for his plan to remove U. S. troops from the Dominican Republic.
In June he commuted the sentences of 27 members
of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
On June 20 Harding left Washington on a train to the Pacific Coast,
and then he went by ship to the Alaska Territory.
He made a speech in Seattle and went to San Francisco
where he died in the Palace Hotel on August 2.
His death was announced as an “apoplexy stroke.”
His wife Florence was suspected of poisoning him.
She burned all his papers when she returned to White House
before the Coolidges moved in.
Harding may have committed suicide.
He was a very popular President, and nine million people
came out to see the train that carried his body to Washington.
Albert Fall had been a colleague of Harding in the U. S. Senate,
and his corruption in the Teapot Dome oil scandal tarnished Harding’s reputation.
Harding was not part of that though he neglected to monitor what was going on.
On this problem Harding was similar to Ulysses Grant
who also had wayward cabinet members who betrayed him.
The Teapot Dome scandal played out for several months involving Albert Fall,
Edwin Denby, and Edward Doheny.
Daugherty was investigated and put on trial twice but was not convicted.
President Harding wisely included Vice President Coolidge in his cabinet meetings
so that he could learn, and he probably realized that Coolidge would be able to do
at least as good a job as Harding whose death in San Francisco
after a trip to Alaska is shrouded in mystery.
While Harding was President the Army was reduced from 230,827 to 133,243
and the Navy from 132,827 to 94,094.
For many years most Presidential historians placed Harding at or near the bottom
of the lists of presidents, though in recent years some conservatives have moved Harding up.
During the 31 months of his administration the national debt
decreased by $1,627,743,187 or 6.8%.
I rank Warren Harding #35.
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) was born on July 4 in Vermont,
and his father was in the state legislature and a superintendent of schools.
Calvin admired his father’s honesty and determination.
He listened to his grandmother reading the Bible to him.
At a boarding school he learned Greek and Latin.
In his graduation speech he praised great orators including Cicero and Daniel Webster.
Like Wilson he studied British politics.
At Amherst College he also learned history and philosophy, and he was especially
influenced by the mystical Charles Edward Garman who used the Socratic method.
Coolidge engaged in debates and won a prize for oratory.
He helped publish the Life and Letters of Charles E. Garman
and followed his spiritual philosophy.
He joined the Amherst Republican Club, and from his graduation speech
he learned not to make fun of people.
He studied law at a firm of two Amherst graduates.
He passed the bar and began practicing law in February 1898.
His mentor John Hays Hammond praised his knowledge
of national problems and his sense of humor.
Coolidge was elected to the Northampton City Council in December
and to be City Solicitor in 1900.
He was the temporary court clerk for Hampshire County
and then chairman of the city’s Republican Committee.
The only race Coolidge ever lost was for the school board in 1905.
He married Grace Goodhue who was an honored graduate
of the University of Vermont, and she taught the deaf.
Coolidge was barely elected to the Massachusetts Legislature in November 1906.
After two years he became a progressive by backing the direct election of U. S. Senators,
the Women’s Suffrage Amendment, and the 6-day work-week.
He also criticized capitalist exploitation.
He became Mayor of Northampton for two years,
and he lowered taxes and reduced the city’s debt.
His father John Coolidge was in the Vermont Senate 1910-12,
and Calvin sent him advice.
Winthrop Murray Crane was a progressive Governor in 1900-03
and U. S. Senator in 1904-13 for Massachusetts,
and he supported Coolidge and became his political mentor.
In 1911 Calvin Coolidge was elected to the Massachusetts Senate,
and he helped mediate a textile strike in the winter of 1912.
He served for three years including one in 1914 as its president.
His speech “Have Faith in Massachusetts” was published
with 22 other speeches in a book with the same title.
He contributed to the Republican platform in 1914
urging public education and other reforms.
In September 1915 he advocated helping the sick, poor, and insane
who were crowded in state institutions.
In November 1915 Coolidge was elected the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts,
and he held that position for three years.
Coolidge was endorsed for Governor by the former Presidents Roosevelt and Taft,
and he was elected.
At his inauguration on 2 January 1919 Governor Coolidge spoke to the
Massachusetts legislature on the “new spirit in the laws” and “sound self-government.”
He urged “a gospel of effort and service.”
On February 24 he welcomed President Woodrow Wilson
on his return with the Treaty from the Paris Peace Conference.
In his first year Coolidge reorganized 118 departments into 18,
reduced the work-week for women and children from 54 to 48 hours,
and raised teachers’ pay.
The Boston police had grievances on pay and dangers,
and they organized a union that affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
Police Commissioner Edwin Curtis had opposed the union,
and he suspended eight leaders and said they must dissolve the union by September 4.
Boston’s Mayor Andrew Peters organized a committee to arbitrate.
Gov. Coolidge rejected their plan, refused to call out the State Guard,
and dismissed a mounted squadron.
He supported Commissioner Curtis and on September 8 spoke
to the Massachusetts Federation of Labor.
Curtis suspended 19 police officers, and policemen voted 1,134 to 2
to begin a strike on September 9.
News spread, and drinking led to a riot and looting.
The next day Mayor Peters mobilized the state militia,
and Coolidge got war veterans to help police Boston.
Gun permits were given to over a thousand people, and 390 got police licenses.
Troops facing mobs shot into crowds and killed three men.
Property damage was about $200,000.
Coolidge called out more guards to be police, and he issued a proclamation saying
there was “no right to strike against public safety,” and he noted that
President Wilson called the strike “a crime against civilization.”
Coolidge made another proclamation on September 24 saying
he would “support all those who are supporting their own Government.”
Coolidge’s handling of this crisis made him nationally known.
On 4 November 1919 Governor Coolidge was easily re-elected for another year.
He helped striking police who had lost their jobs,
and he hired returning soldiers who passed examinations.
He reduced the number of agencies from more than 100 to 20 by the end of 1920.
That year his campaign for President was assisted by the advertising pioneer Bruce Barton.
Coolidge vetoed a bill to allow beer and wine
because of the prohibiting constitutional amendment.
Coolidge was nominated at the Republican convention in June and was running seventh.
On the tenth ballot Senator Warren Harding of Ohio became the candidate.
Then they chose Coolidge for Vice President.
He made a long acceptance speech and urged people to consider
the public welfare more than personal interest.
He suggested that “character and moral force” could overcome their difficulties.
He said colored people are “to be defended from lynching.”
He agreed with Republicans opposing the League of Nations
while affirming that nations could agree to preserve peace and American independence.
Coolidge ordered an investigation of Ponzi’s scheme of recycling investors’ money.
Coolidge traveled making speeches for the campaign,
and the Harding ticket won with 60% of the votes.
Vice President Coolidge attended all of President Harding’s Cabinet meetings.
Coolidge was especially known for not saying much; yet he listened and learned.
He presided over the Senate and chose who was to speak.
He noted that Senators did whatever they wanted to do.
One Senator could overcome the majority by some of their rules.
Congress had an extra session in April 1921 that continued until 4 March 1923.
He observed the government “demobilizing” itself from war.
He learned from the wise leadership of Secretary of State Hughes
and Treasury Secretary Mellon,
and he observed the power of Senator Knox of Pennsylvania.
When President Harding became ill in the winter of 1923,
he let Coolidge take his place in budget meetings.
Harding was burdened by his responsibilities
and was grieved by those who betrayed him.
The Veterans Administration Director Charles R. Forbes was convicted
of embezzling $2 million, and President Harding
let him resign from Paris in February 1923.
Vice President Coolidge’s main work was making speeches.
He enjoyed speaking on various issues as he traveled from city to city.
On June 19 he spoke at Wheaton College on “Things That Are Unseen,”
and he emphasized the need for “more moral power.”
The next day Harding left Washington heading for Alaska on his final trip,
and he died in San Francisco on August 2.
Calvin Coolidge became President on August 3
when he was sworn by his father who was a notary.
He issued a brief statement to announce the transition.
The Coolidges let Harding’s widow Florence stay in the White House,
and she burned all of her husband’s papers in a fireplace before leaving.
President Coolidge had only one secretary and a few aides.
He doubted that telephones were private,
and he had a line installed to Treasury Secretary Mellon.
Coolidge began preparing for the 1924 elections.
His first major press conference had 150 reporters, and he followed Harding’s routine.
Coolidge would have 520 press conferences as President.
Judson Welliver had written Harding’s speeches,
and he helped Coolidge who usually wrote his own speeches.
Coolidge knew how much influence his statements could have,
and he spoke carefully and rarely.
From 4 March 1923 until December 2 the Congress was not in session.
Coolidge did not change Harding’s Cabinet.
He usually disagreed with the advice of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover
who eventually resigned in August 1928.
Coolidge asked Cabinet members not to associate him with their policies
so that he would not have to make corrections.
John L. Lewis led 150,000 coal miners in another strike on September 1,
and Coolidge declined to intervene.
He contacted the Coal Commissioner John Hays Hammond and made
Pennsylvania’s Governor Pinchot the Special Coal Strike Mediator.
The miners and owners on the 7th agreed on a wage increase,
a checkoff for union dues, and an 8-hour day that was ratified on the 17th.
Coolidge recognized the Obregón administration in Mexico on September 1,
and the U. S. would supply him with weapons
against a rebellion led by Adolfo de la Huerta.
On the 3rd Coolidge made an appeal to help the Japanese during a major disaster,
and the response was organized by the Red Cross.
In 1923 the federal government’s revenues were $700 million more than the expenditures.
When the ambassador to Britain resigned, Coolidge replaced him
with the former Senator Frank B. Kellogg of Minnesota on November 3.
Coolidge wrote to those who were working on how to outlaw war.
Coolidge’s first annual message to Congress on December 6
was carried on radio and was long.
He said his foreign policy was to avoid permanent alliances and settle conflicts peacefully.
He advocated arbitration and noted that they had been a
member of the permanent World Court of Justice at The Hague since 1899.
He asked for legislation to remove the heavy burdens of taxation.
He called for Congress to prevent and punish those lynching.
He noted funds to give negroes vocational training in agriculture
and medical courses at Howard University.
He asked for laws to regulate aviation and radio.
He said reclamation projects needed support.
He asked for idealism to overcome hatred and selfishness.
On December 8 he said that he would be running for President in 1924.
On 12 February 1924 Coolidge spoke to Republicans in New York City
about the Mexican crisis which he “discharged” as a “moral obligation” to a friend.
Also in February U. S. Marines intervened in another civil war in Honduras.
Secretary of State Hughes sent a Navy squadron,
and Coolidge sent the diplomat Sumner Welles.
A six-day peace conference on a U. S. cruiser in late April
produced a treaty that ended the war on May 3.
Panama also asked for U. S. troops during a riot in 1925.
The United States loaned Latin America $1.2 billion in 1919-1927.
On 6 June 1924 Coolidge gave a commencement address at Howard University
on the accomplishments of colored people
on this continent since emancipation from slavery.
About two million Negro students were in public schools
taught by 40,000 black teachers.
During the World War 2,250,000 colored men had registered,
and 400,000 served in the military.
He said they are needed in peaceful activities and industry.
Congress was in session from 3 December 1923 to 7 June 1924.
In January the Interior Secretary Albert Fall
and the oil tycoon Edward Doheny were accused of corruption.
On January 25 Coolidge said he did not know about the oil leases, and two days later
he released a statement that the violations and fraud would be prosecuted.
Montana’s Democratic Senator Wheeler accused the U. S. Attorney General Daugherty
of failing to prosecute Fall, Doheny, Denby, Sinclair, and Forbes.
Denby resigned on March 24, and Daugherty did so on the 28th.
Albert Fall was the first cabinet Secretary to go to prison.
Two jury trials failed to convict Daugherty.
The price of farm products was rising, and Senators McNary and Haugen introduced bills
to regulate prices; yet President Coolidge vetoed them in 1924, 1926, and 1927.
He appointed five commissioners to study the unfinished dam at Muscle Shoals.
On May 10 he fired the Federal Bureau of Investigation Director William Burns
and replaced him with his young assistant J. Edgar Hoover.
On June 2 Coolidge signed the bill that made citizens
of all native Americans born in the United States.
Republicans nominated Coolidge for President
with Charles G. Dawes for Vice President.
Dawes traveled and made 108 speeches.
The Gross National Product was steadily rising since 1921,
and unemployment was reduced from 11.7% in 1921 to 5% in 1924.
The budget surplus rose from $291 million in 1920 to $963 million in 1924.
The Democrats still required a two-thirds vote to nominate a candidate for President,
and in July they ended up with the dark-horse candidate John W. Davis of West Virginia.
Coolidge made a long acceptance speech on August 14.
On the Labor Day holiday September 1 he spoke in Washington on the
thriving American economy citing statistics to show how workers’ lives had improved.
Coolidge also made a speech when
they dedicated a monument to Lafayette in Baltimore on September 6.
Germany was not paying the reparations in the Peace Treaty
as their printed money had extraordinary inflation.
Secretary of State Hughes tried to reduce tension,
and in October he proposed a commission to study the reparations issues.
Coolidge appointed Charles Dawes, Henry Robinson, and Owen Young to the commission,
and they proposed the Dawes Plan in April 1924.
Coolidge made a speech on “Religion and the Republic” on October 15,
and five days later he invited state governors to discuss
how to enforce the Volstead Act and Prohibition.
In the election on November 2 Coolidge with 54%
easily defeated Davis who got only 29%.
The Progressive Senator La Follette also ran and got 17%.
The Republicans increased their majorities with four more seats in the Senate
and 21 more in the House of Representatives.
Coolidge concentrated on reducing the national debt.
Henry Ford’s high wages and low prices caused a boom in automobiles
that increased from 7 million in 1919 to 23 million in 1929.
Automobile accidents caused about 23,600 deaths and 700,000 injuries in 1924.
Telephones were increasing but not nearly as rapidly
as radios that went from 400,000 in 1923 to 10 million in 1929.
The richest men in America were John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and Andrew Mellon
who in 1924 published Taxation: The People’s Business to explain his plan
for fiscal reforms that lowered the taxes used for the war effort.
The Liberal writer Walter Lippmann called it the return of Gilded Age plutocracy,
and others named it “trickle-down economics” to describe how investments
made by the rich were supposed to help workers and consumers.
Mellon decreased the highest income tax rate from 70% to 50%,
and the Coolidge administration would lower it three more times.
Corporate income tax moved up to 13.5% and down to 12%.
Coolidge was keeping tariffs high.
Although they brought 70 antitrust suits, a third of the settlements benefited the companies.
Coolidge vetoed bonuses for veterans
while asking for free medical care for disabled veterans.
Arms limits failed, and he ordered 15 cruisers.
Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover got his Boulder Dam project.
The top income tax rate went down to 40%
while taxes on gifts and inheritance increased.
In his annual message to Congress on December 8
Coolidge covered various issues starting with taxes and economics.
He discussed waterways, reclamation, and agriculture.
France and Britain accepted the Dawes Plan along with the United States
to loan Germany $200 million.
J.P. Morgan & Company arranged the loans.
In 1925 Mexico began restricting foreign ownership and insisted on regulations.
On June 12 Secretary of State Frank Kellogg announced that
they would protect American citizens in Mexico which then limited oil rights to 15 years.
Coolidge withdrew most of the U. S. Marines.
On 17 January 1925 Coolidge spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors
on relations between governments and the press.
In a republic learning is not controlled by the government.
The press must be allowed to represent the truth without “concealing or perverting the facts.”
He argued that wealth is the product of industry.
Yet peace, honor, and charity are important to civilization.
Like Wilson he considered America a nation of idealists.
On March 2 Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone was put on the U. S. Supreme Court,
and Coolidge made John G. Sargent the Attorney General.
Stone had been working on an antitrust case against Alcoa Aluminum
which had large investments from Treasury Secretary Mellon.
They lost antitrust cases against Alcoa Aluminum and against Standard Oil of Indiana.
The U. S. House of Representatives voted 303-28 to join the World Court.
In his inaugural address on March 4 President Coolidge discussed
the value of reason over the threat of force in the relations of nations.
He was for “the peaceful settlement of disputes by methods of arbitration,”
and such treaties were negotiated.
Citizens were contributing to countries in Latin America
and to relieve suffering in Europe and Asia.
International law is helpful for permanent peace and should be supported.
He emphasized the value of “brotherly love.”
He asserted, “The mind of America must be forever free.”
He urged listening “to the intuitive counsel of womanhood” and education.
On March 5 Coolidge announced his arbitration settling a conflict
between Peru and Chile by allowing residents to vote.
Frank Kellogg became Secretary of State, and on April 25
he asked if the world is ready to settle disputes without war.
Coolidge preferred international law and wanted aggressive war to be outlawed.
He talked with newspaper kingpins such as Hearst and Barron of the Wall Street Journal,
and the President appeared in newsreels shown in movie theaters.
He talked in a film in April 1925.
Republicans gained control of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),
and they made rules for business conduct.
Ford’s tractors replaced horses and mules increasing farm products.
Coolidge spoke to the American Legion on October 6 in Omaha, Nebraska,
and he warned of intolerance during war.
He advised “intellectual demobilization.”
He encouraged ideas and various judgments for individuals.
He said that no one’s patriotism or service should be “impugned”
because of race, political opinion, or religion.
His press secretary Judson Welliver left in November
to get paid more by the American Petroleum Institute.
In October the Locarno Treaties were improving relations
between Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, and Britain.
Dawes and British Austen Chamberlain were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
On December 8 Coolidge presented a long annual message to Congress.
He noted that the National Government and local governments have different responsibilities.
On 26 January 1926 the U. S. Senate accepted
the World Court’s protocol with limited jurisdiction.
Congress passed Treasury Secretary Mellon’s Revenue Act,
and Coolidge signed it on February 26.
The highest tax rate for personal income over $100,000 was reduced to 20%,
and corporations owed 13.5% of profits.
Federal revenue was reduced by 10% while investment was about $350 million.
Coolidge spoke at the Pan American Congress of Journalists in Washington on April 8.
He noted increased trade with Latin America and was praised by Argentina’s Sarmiento
who had studied with Horace Mann.
Coolidge implied they are all Americans with “common ideals.”
On May 20 the Watson-Parker Act enabled
the railroad brotherhoods to bargain collectively.
On July 5 Coolidge spoke in Philadelphia to celebrate 150 years of independence
and talked about “a great spiritual development” that “acquired a great moral power.”
William Z. Ripley criticized the speculation and secrecy in the New York
stock market and warned about an economic disaster.
Welliver came to the White House and advised the President to do something about that.
Coolidge replied that he had no authority to do so.
Welliver suggested he use the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board,
or other agencies, and he noted that Roosevelt and Wilson had done so “many times.”
Coolidge talked with Ripley but still did not know what to do.
In the election on November 2 the Republicans lost 7 seats in the Senate
lowering their majority to 49-46,
and in the House 9 less seats still gave them a 238-194 majority.
Republicans dominated the 1920s.
Coolidge offered another long message to Congress on December 7.
He said he was going to reduce government bureaus and try to regulate business.
He asked local and state governments to act.
He urged high standards and punishing wrongdoing.
Mexico imposed the ownership rule and canceled oil permits in January 1927.
When Leon Trotsky was exiled in Mexico,
Kellogg warned that Bolshevik leaders had plans for Mexico.
Coolidge refused to crush “powerless Mexico.”
President Calles asked for U. S. military support,
and 400 Marines arrived on January 24.
On April 25 Coolidge at a dinner for the press reviewed the history with Mexico,
and he supported arbitration.
He sent Dwight Morrow as ambassador to Mexico with instruction to avoid war.
In December 1926 the United States sent 3,000 troops to stop a rebellion
in Nicaragua without taking sides in the revolution.
Coolidge sent Taft’s Secretary of War Stimson.
He suggested amnesty and disarmament on both sides,
and Nicaragua’s President Adolfo Díaz agreed to a truce on 4 May 1927.
The United States urged elections and promised supervision in 1928.
On July 16 biplanes dropped 20 bombs that killed about 400 Sandinistas.
In February 1927 the Radio Act enabled
the Federal Radio Commission to issue licenses.
On 25 February 1927 the Pepper-McFadden Act
authorized national banks to operate branch banking.
Coolidge proposed a conference in June at Geneva to limit navy ships.
With wars avoided military spending could be reduced.
On April 6 France’s Foreign Minister Aristide Briand
suggested a bilateral treaty with the United States,
and Coolidge and Kellogg endorsed that in December.
Also in April flooding caused massive damage
and Coolidge sent Herbert Hoover to direct the relief.
Coolidge and his wife in June took a long vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota,
and he decided not to run for President again.
Delegates from the U. S., Britain, and Japan met in Geneva and could not agree.
In his message to Congress on December 6 Coolidge reported
a peaceful “state of the Union” with unexcelled prosperity.
Yet he asked for financial sacrifices and less “public expenditures.”
That month the Congress approved building 15 large cruisers
stimulating an arms race with the British.
Coolidge attended an International Conference of the American States at Havana, Cuba
that began on 16 January 1928.
General Moncada in November was elected President of Nicaragua.
The International Conference of American States on Conciliation and Arbitration
met in Washington, and they agreed on a multilateral treaty in January 1929.
On February 28 Secretary of State Kellogg rejected the Roosevelt Corollary
to the Monroe Doctrine which had been aimed at Europeans not Latin Americans.
During Coolidge’s presidency national wealth increased from $71.6 billion in 1923
to $81.7 in 1928.
In the 1920s the United States granted 421,000 patents.
Coolidge and Treasury Secretary Mellon often made optimistic statements
to help struggling stocks.
Union membership decreased from 5.1 million in 1920 to 3.4 million in 1929.
Wages rose, and the work-week declined from 47.4 hours to 44.2 hours.
Unemployment was 3.7%.
In the late 1920s people began buying stocks by borrowing a portion
up to 73% or 90% for trusted customers.
There were about 3,000 bank failures in the Harding-Coolidge era.
Corporations were growing.
Coolidge, like Harding, also smoked many cigars.
In his autobiography he described “Presidential Duties” that included
fulfilling platform promises and supporting those in the party.
The Merchant Marine Act of 1928 provided export subsidies
for large shipping firms that increased company profits and raised wages.
In the spring Coolidge vetoed many bills to reduce spending.
In June the Republican convention nominated Herbert Hoover for President on the first ballot,
and Democrats nominated the first Catholic candidate, Governor Al Smith of New York.
Women voting helped Hoover win with 58%.
On 27 August 1928 in Paris the United States and 14 other nations
signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact that renounced war as an instrument of national policy.
By 24 July 1929 when it became effective, 31 more nations had signed the treaty.
The U. S. Senate ratified it 85 to 1 in January 1929.
In his message to Congress on December 4 Coolidge discussed the
“great wealth created by our enterprise and industry” that was spread among the people.
He felt optimistic about the future.
Yet he noted the need to conserve national resources and reduce business waste.
Reason was replacing rule by force.
Increased expenditures and taxes were being diminished.
He recognized the new government in China, and they negotiated a treaty.
Stimson helped solve problems in Nicaragua.
Coolidge considered peace and prosperity methods, and he warned against selfishness.
He left office on March 4 with about $400,000 in assets.
The greatest achievement of the Coolidge administration was the Kellogg-Briand Pact,
the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy.
His policies were fairly peaceful, and with the budgeting begun by Harding and Mellon
the economy continued to improve.
Coolidge was especially skilled at working out labor crises,
and his government made many economic and social improvements.
The Nation magazine criticized the “trickle-down” economics of the Coolidge years,
their minimal regulations, and economic inequality and hypocrisy in Latin America.
They noted that business was unleashed
while Coolidge was “complacent” and neglected regulatory controls.
The policy toward Latin Americans was considered “hypocritical and despotic.”
Yet his interventions, like those of Wilson, had good intentions and fairly good results.
President Ronald Reagan and many conservatives have admired Calvin Coolidge
for helping Republicans and the wealthy.
Coolidge did continue the improvements in the economy in the post-war period,
and his policies mostly followed ethical values.
During Coolidge’s presidency the national debt was reduced by $5,418,618,881,
and since then no U. S. President has reduced the debt.
Coolidge reduced the debt more than any President, and Harding was second on that.
I rank Calvin Coolidge #25.
Evaluating US Presidents Volume 3: Wilson, Harding & Coolidge 1913-1929
has been published as a book.
For ordering information please click here.