American Isolationism

American Foreign Policy Before and During World War II

During the years before the second world war, America adopted an isolationist approach to foreign policy. After suffering casualties and experiencing conflict in World War I, it was most likely true that the general American attitude towards foreign interaction was cautious and unwilling. Indicative of this feeling was Congress' denial of U.S. entry into the League of Nations, signifying that the government was simply not ready to become involved with other countries at the time, even if the League of Nations had contributed to global security. The biggest factor, and one that could have ultimately forced the issue, was Article X of the League of Nations Covenant. Known as the "Collective Security Clause", it stated that members would be obligated to "respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence " of other members. Wary of entangling itself with other nations and feeling legally bound to do so, Congress decided against taking such actions and remaining neutral. 

During the early1930s, American policies showed the country's continued agenda towards establishing a neutral position. In the midst of the Depression, the London Economic Conference was created, hoping to stabilize the international economy. President Roosevelt declined to send any American delegates, effectively sinking the entire conference. Later on, Roosevelt declared his "Good Neighbor Policy", removing U.S. troops stationed in areas in the Caribbean and Central America, aiming to foster better relations with Latin American nations. 

As totalitarian dictators took power, the United States tightened down on their isolationist strategies. During 1934-1937, Congress passed series of acts that sought to protect and isolate the United States economically. The Neutrality Acts stated that any country involved in a foreign war recognized by the president was not able to receive loans or any other aid from the United States. This extreme policy separated America even further from other nations, possibly creating an even worse situation.

Isolationism-Achievable or Unrealistic?

Since George Washington's famous Farewell Address advocating the United States to not become involved in foreign affairs, the topic of isolationism has been brought up frequently regarding international conflict. Is it a valid point to say that our country should become less involved in conflict in other parts of the world, or is it ultimately unavoidable? Is non-intervention a morally reasonable strategy, or should it be considered the duty of America to fight for its ideals?

Sources:

American Pageant textbook

http://www.ushistory.org/us/50a.asp

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/american-isolationism

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp

Can War and Democracy coexist?:WWI Committee of Public Information and Propaganda

It is clear that Woodrow Wilson praised the idea of a "world safe for democracy", but the irony behind this idea is that it can only be achieved through propaganda and oppression of opposition towards war.
Is war really the only way to achieve peace?

The Committee of Public Information, also known as the CPI was an organization to boost American public morale towards the war effort. They achieved this through means of propaganda that resembled propaganda of a totalitarian regime. Much like Big Brother in the novel 1984 by George Orwell, George Creel, a muckraking journalist publicized war effort with help from business, art, and media worlds. The CPI incorporated psychological tactics into their propaganda to touch on people's patriotic sides.

The Four Minute Men created by George Creel was a group of volunteers that visited theaters and meetings to give pro-war speeches. This was to ensure that those who didn't read the newspapers, although few, would still receive the pro-war sentiment and rally. War propaganda flourished in the art world as well. Charles Dana Gibson recruited a group of artists to create war posters and art to gain public support. Illustrators such as James Montogomery Flagg and Joseph Pennell used their talent to boost public morale for the war effort.

Although war propaganda was a large part of rallying public support for the war, suppression of opposition towards the war effort was a large part of it as well. In a country where the idea of democracy flourished, it quickly diminished so that the war could live on. The Committee of Public Information passed the Espionage Act of 1917 to imprison and fine those who spoke up against the war. People who spoke up could receive a 20 year imprisonment and fines up to $10,000. Additionally, the Sedition Act of 1918 made it illegal to publish any information that criticized the government or America's decision to join the war. This act collided with America's principles of free speech in many free speech cases such as Debs v. U.S. and Abrams v. U.S.. In both cases, the Court upheld the convictions.

Living in a country where democracy is so highly praised, as citizens it is difficult to understand that the means to get to this state was exactly the opposite, war propaganda and oppression of freedom of speech. So the question still remains, can war and democracy coexist? Can democracy be upheld without the means of war and oppression? Can one exist without the other? In a world where contradicting ideas are constantly at war with each other, it seems as though there is no way that one can exist without the other.



Sources:
http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/ww1.cpi.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/gallery/posters.html
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1344.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/sources_document1.html

Hawaiian annexation

       The Hawaiian islands were formally annexed by the United States in 1898, following a Joint Resolution by Congress. But even before the islands were annexed, Americans were influencing Hawaiian culture and politics.

        In 1778, James Cook became the first European explorer to land on the Hawaiian islands, and the influence of white settlers quickly began to influence Hawaiian politics. Less than two decades after Cook landed, in 1795, the Hawaiian islands were unified under the monarch King Kamehameha. The absolute monarchy was later replaced with a constitutional one, and later by an aristocracy (a republic where only certain voters were enfranchised).

        During the early 1800's the Hawaiian government was forced to accept treaties by several major powers including Britain and France that gave the powers special trade relations with the islands. In 1842, Daniel Webster (then secretary of state) told Hawaiian ministers in Washington of America's interest in the islands. Webster even went so far as to suggest what might be considered a precursor of the open door policy, asking for no power to be given special perks or benefits in Hawaii.

        Liliuokalani, or the last queen of Hawaii took power after her brother died, and in 1887 rewrote the Hawaiian constitution to give herself more power. The queen was deposed after Americans under the leadership of Samuel Dole in 1893. Minister Stevens of the US state department recognized the provisional government and named Hawaii a US protectorate. A treaty to annex the Hawaiian islands was submitted to Congress by President Harrison, but the required 2/3 majority was not met. 

        Luckily for Hawaii, Cleveland replaced Harrison and quickly withdrew the treaty and put special investigator James Blount in charge of the Hawaiian coup. It was found that Minister Stevens had done wrong, and the provisional government was forced to lower the American flag from government buildings. As it turned out, a majority of Hawaiians did not favor annexation.

        However the leadership in Washington changed again with the election of McKinley, who favored annexing Hawaii. The president quickly submitted another treaty of annexation to the senate, which prompted political action by Hawaiian nationalist groups. The groups started a "Petition Against Annexation" and collected more than 20,000 signatures. The hope was to show the American people that Hawaiians did not want to be part of America. The petition and political efforts of both Hawaiian nationalist groups and Queen Liliuokalani paid off, the Senate could not obtain the 2/3 majority it needed to ratify the annexation treaty.

         With the treaty defeated it appeared that Hawaii would remain sovereign, until the explosion of the Maine and the plunging of the US into the Spanish-American war. Hawaii was considered valuable to naval operations in the Pacific and so a Joint Resolution was passed to annex Hawaii (Joint Resolutions require a simple majority in both the House and the Senate, so the necessary support was found). And so Hawaii was annexed to the United Sates of America in 1898. Within two years it was made an official territory although it did not become a state until 1959.

 Sources:

State Department

National Archives

History.com

"Colonel" House, and his political influence

          Edward House was born in 1858 to a prominent Texan family whose cotton plantations allowed House some financial "breathing room" as he moved through life. House became interested in politics, though he never ran for public office himself. House earned his honorary title of "Colonel" when he managed the campaign of one Texas governor. While House's advice was widely sought after, he made a conscious effort to anger nobody with his politics.
          The "colonel" joined the sphere of national politics when he met Woodrow Wilson in New Jersey in 1911. House was at first only one of many advisers to Wilson, but would eventually be the only one Wilson could trust do to their increasingly close relationship. To aid Wilson's presidential campaign, House secured the invaluable support of the long time Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan.
          In the summer of 1914, Wilson sent House to Europe, specifically London and Berlin, to desperately attempt to negotiate a political alliance between America, Britain and Germany, the purpose of which would be to preserve peace, not only in Europe but worldwide. House achieved success with Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm reportedly agreed to the alliance, saying that the three powers were the most logical defenders of "Christian Civilization".
           House's results in London were less impressive. The English representative (Sir Edward Grey) told House that Germany's militarism was too threatening to the peace for Britain to forge an alliance with and telling House that “Neither England, Germany, Russia, nor France desire war” (History.com).
           Unfortunately, House's adept political maneuvering did not stop Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip from assassinating Austrian Arch-duke Franz Ferdinand, and it did not stop Europe from plunging itself into war.
           As the war ended, House helped to draft the fourteen points along with Wilson and Walter Lippmann, a moderate political journalist. House was one of the few political advisors Wilson trusted enough to take with him to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and House was assigned with amending the fourteen points to ensure that the European Parliaments would pass them. House ultimately failed in Wilson's eyes because he sided more with the European allies and less with Wilson himself. This led House to make several political concessions that might be seen as pragmatic, but to Wilson were unacceptable (Wilson hated compromise). Disagreements between House and Wilson drove the two old friends apart. Between Wilson's stubborn negotiating and House's concessions, very few of the fourteen points were fully realized in the Treaty of Versailles.

Sources:
pbs.org
firstworldwar.com
history.com

Civil Liberties during the Great War

During any war, public suspicion will turn towards anyone who looks or thinks differently than the rest of the population. There have been innumerable cases of this in American history, including the Sedition and Espionage Acts, and the American Public League during World War I.
The Espionage Act of 1917 made it illegal for any American citizen to interfere with the war effort, help another country, or escape the draft. The Sedition Act, which built upon the Espionage Act, punished individuals who dared to speak out against the war. Anyone who dared to cross the line the acts set could be thrown in jail for 5-20 years. Out of the entire American population, it was the political dissenters who bore the worst of the repression. Senator Eugene V. Debs urged socialists to resist militarism, and he was thrown in prison for years. Debs even ran for president in the election of 1920 while still in jail.
Robert Goldstein was an American filmmaker who created a film about the American Revolution called The Spirit of '76. The film depicted the cruelty of the British soldiers during the rebellion. Because the government feared that the film would create anti-British feelings towards America's ally, they prosecuted Goldstein under the Espionage Act. The filmmaker received a 10-year sentence and was charged $5000, which is worth over $100,000 today.
The enforcement of the acts was left up to the local US Attorneys. The US Attorney General, Thomas Gregory, instructed the Postmaster General to discontinue delivering anti-American or pro-German mail. This included letters, magazines, and newspapers. Through the violation of their privacy, Americans were thus only exposed to material that the government wanted them to see.
The American Public League(APL) was a private organization made up of citizens that worked with the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation to identify possible alien spies and saboteurs of the war effort. The volunteers wore "official" badges, intimidated and harassed people, detained more than 40,000 people, and staged raids on private homes. The acts of the APL caused a sense of distrust among the various groups of the US population, which had the opposite effect the government intended.

With the passage of the Espionage and Sedition Acts, along with the formation of the American Public League, the civil liberties of American people were repressed during WWI. It is interesting how individualism was encouraged during times of peace, but during times of war, the government required that all Americans have similar feelings about the war. During wartime, fear and hate was not exclusive to the battlefield; the fear of the government that the American people were not fully behind the war led to the suppression of civil liberties.

American Troops in WW1:

American Troops in WW1:

Any student who has taken a world history course has more than likely heard the term “World War One”. They may have studied the battles of this war of attrition, but the concept of this war that many are unfamiliar with is the sheer desolation in which soldiers in the trenches lived.

The trenches dug in the great war were terrible and infested. Soldiers who did not die due to monotonous enemy fire or a sniper’s carefully aimed bullet often died of disease. There were many carriers of disease in the trenches, Lice, Rats, and Frogs being the most prevalent. Rats in the trenches were a huge problem, because no matter how many a soldier killed, more would likely be produced to continue to contaminate the food supply and nip at both the living and the dead soldiers in the trenches. Lice were a similarly difficult to exterminate pest. These ran rampant among the uncleanly soldiers. Hygiene was not a much thought about part of the war, and as such it was easy for lice to infest the clothing of soldiers, laying eggs along the linings of their jackets. Even if the clothing was washed, the eggs would typically stick and the body heat from the soldier putting the clothing back on would heat them up and cause them to hatch, starting the cycle all over again. The reason lice were so detrimental to the soldiers was because they could cause trench fever, which struck fast and left the soldier with an extremely high fever. They were discovered to be the reason behind this in 1918. Frogs also made a home for themselves in the trenches, and due to the constant muck around the floor of the trenches, were able to thrive and contaminate the food and water supply of the soldiers as well.

One of the most painful ailments developed during trench warfare was trench foot. This was a fungal infection in the soldier’s feet that caused by the constant standing of soldiers in wet boots throughout the entire duration of their stay in the trenches. This dangerous infection would cause swelling, and sometimes would require amputation. There was no way to keep their feet dry, and as such many, many soldiers were subject to trench foot.

Soldiers were not only assailed by a plethora of infections and pests, but by the constant shelling of the trenches. Opposing sides would monotonously shoot at the other side, trying to take out as many from the enemy lines as possible. Moreover, snipers dotted the lines of the trench, firing at any soldier who would stick their head out to look at the “no man's land”. Trench warfare was a frightening, devastating new way of waging warfare. This new way of waging war was one of the key elements that made the “Great War” one of the most deadly wars that the world has ever seen.

Resources: 

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/trenchlife.htm

The Legacy of Self-Determination

Self-determination is defined to be the process by which a group of people "form their own state and choose their own government" (Britannica). It came about as a result of the doctrine of nationalism, as seen in the American Revolution and the subsequent French Revolution. However, this right to national independence was not yet known as the principle of self-determination. The growth of this principle was fueled largely by the formation of modern European states and the increase in nationally unified thought.

At the core of Wilson's belief, self-determination was required in order for government to be truly democratic. After all, his main belief was in making America "safe for democracy," meaning that he wanted to liberate the people from oppressive regimes. He was firmly convinced in the inherent goodness of humans, and he wished to embody these democratic ideals on a worldwide scale. Simply put, he believed that the general will of the people is perhaps the only source of world peace. In his Fourteen Points, he listed self-determination as an important objective to be achieved after the war, and it was the part of his policy that he most passionately advocated and called for at the Paris Peace Conference.

In the current day, the legacy of Wilson's policy of and support for self-determination still exists and has a positive impact on international relation. The UN Charter, ratified after World War II in 1945, clarifies a couple of things about self-determination. Its purpose is to "develop friendly relations among nations" and "take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace." (UN Charter) His vision of a world made "safe for democracy" by the collective actions of multiple nations was the was what former secretary of defense and head of the World Bank Robert McNamara called "Wilson's ghost." (millercenter.org) The spread of democracy headed by Wilson benefited everyone in that a free, democratic world is one in which the welcoming attitude towards American products makes the nation stronger. The question we face today is whether collective, unified international action, such as Wilson supported, or single-minded American policy in the interest of the nation alone will best fit 

the needs of the people.

Sources:

http://millercenter.org/president/biography/wilson-impact-and-legacy