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Sources for Western Society: Printed Page 416

25-6 | Making the World Safe for Democracy
WOODROW WILSON, The Fourteen Points (1918)

When war broke out in 1914, the overwhelming majority of Americans were opposed to U.S. involvement, seeing the war as an “Old World” conflict that had little to do with America’s national interests. President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) matched his policies to public opinion, running for re-election in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” As the war dragged on, however, it became increasingly difficult for the United States to remain neutral, and by the spring of 1917 Wilson was ready to ask Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. In his message to Congress, Wilson justified his request by linking the war to essential American political values. Those values were further elaborated in his “Fourteen Points,” Wilson’s plan for a postwar international order that would keep the peace and pave the way for the spread of democracy around the world.

  1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at. Diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
  2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters.
  3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions.
  4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced.
  5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims. In determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined.
  6. The evacuation of all Russian territory.
  7. Belgium must be evacuated and restored. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
  8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored; and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine1 should be righted.
  9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
  10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.
  11. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
  12. Nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations.
  13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea.
  14. A general association of nations must be formed, for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

Woodrow Wilson, “The Fourteen Points,” in The Great Events of the Great War, ed. Charles F. Horne (New York: National Alumni, 1920), 6:3-6.

READING QUESTIONS

  1. Question

    How did Wilson want to treat Germany?

  2. Question

    On what underlying principles did Wilson base points six through thirteen?

  3. Question

    What do you think prompted Wilson’s demand for “absolute freedom of the seas”?

  4. Question

    In your opinion, was Wilson’s plan practical and realistic? Why or why not?