Reading the American Past: Printed Page 122
DOCUMENT 22–1
The North American Review Considers War a Blessing, Not a Curse
Many Americans' growing determination to enter the war in Europe is captured by the following editorial from the North American Review, written on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson's request for a congressional declaration of war. In the selection below, the editors outlined the reasons for war and called upon all Americans to unite behind the president. The editors looked forward to a benevolent war and a prosperous peace that harmonized the interests of the government with that of industries and all citizens. Behind these bellicose arguments lay the editors' perception that some Americans remained unconvinced that war was necessary or desirable.
For Freedom and Democracy, April 1917
The point ... is that Germany's only way to keep peace with us is to renounce absolutely assassination from ambush at sea, as long ago she was warned by the President [Woodrow Wilson] she must do and as she solemnly promised him she would do. Seemingly this cannot now be achieved. ... Consequently we look — and hope and pray — for War to follow soon the great Message of Patriotism [seeking a declaration of war] which we have no question the President will deliver to Congress, to America and to all the world. ...
We shall await with grimmest zest [Wilson's] recital of treaties broken, of wrongs done, of lies told, of treacheries bared, of insults borne, of murders committed, of all the most shameful shocking, mean and low practices against civilization, humanity and common decency recorded even in the history of barbarism, in the face of [U.S.] forebearance for the sake of peace. ... Well and truly might President Wilson say now, as President Madison did say a century and five years ago: “Our moderation and conciliation have had no other effect than to encourage [our adversaries'] perseverance and to enlarge pretensions. ...”
“We behold ...” the President might [say] ... , “on the side of Germany, a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Germany.” ...
[T]he President [recently] remarked ... that “we are provincials no longer, the tragical events of the thirty months through which we have just passed have made us citizens of the world.”
The fact is ... that we have not been provincials since the Fourth of July, 1776, but ever since that date have been citizens of a world Power. We proclaimed ourselves as such when we declared to the world that these States were free and independent and that as such they had “full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do[.]” ...
Surely it is high time for us to realize justly our own status, and to see that in taking part in the affairs of the world we are not entering upon any dubious and perilous “new departure,” but are maintaining the sound and consistent policy which was enunciated and practiced by the founders of the Republic and the makers of the Constitution, which has been sustained by every President beginning with Washington and which is bound now to be upheld to the limit of his own courage and his country's resources by Woodrow Wilson.
The issue is in doubt no longer. We know now, if we have not known before, what this war is. It is the last of the great battles for Freedom and Democracy. ... Personal government has disappeared forever from every part of the Western hemisphere. ... Can anyone doubt that the beginning of the end of absolutism is at hand; ... that liberty for the patient German people is as certain as freedom for downtrodden Hungary, for despoiled Serbia and for bleeding Armenia?
So mighty a change cannot be wrought in a month or likely in a year — and not at all unless and until the rulers of Central Europe shall yield to a world of freemen. Wholly aside, then, from the injuries and insults which America has endured at the hands of the [German] War Lord ... , does not America's higher duty, her greater opportunity, lie along the path of the shot heard 'round the world? Are we to permit others to finish the glorious work which we began ... in the name of Almighty God? Shall we renounce our own professed ideals so completely that, at the end of the war, we may not deny ... the transshipment of Liberty Enlightening the World from the harbor of New York to that of Hong Kong or Vladivostock? ...
We are for war; of course, we are; and for reasons good and plenty, to wit:
(1) Because we have reached and passed the limit of forbearance in trying to maintain amicable relations with a barbaric brute [Germany] who has presumed so far upon our good intent as to treat our most conciliatory and helpful suggestions with glaring contempt, who has incited all manner of treasonable activities and damnable outrages without our borders, has gloated over his avowed assassination of our innocent and harmless citizens of both sexes and all ages upon the high seas and has missed no opportunity to deceive, to sneer at and to lie to our constituted authorities; because to conserve our own self-respect we are driven finally to the point where we must fight or forfeit the decent opinion of all mankind; because we cannot even seem to condone the breaking of treaties, the burning of villages to no purpose except to deprive the poor and helpless of shelter essential to mere existence, the enslavement of men who alone could save their families from destitution and death from starvation, the violating of women and young girls, the bayoneting of little children, the approved indiscriminate slaughter by the unspeakable Turks of thousands of helpless Christians in Armenia, and God only knows what else and what more that has stamped the Hun for more than one generation to come as the sublimated hero of the shambles of humanity; because, in a word, we cannot acknowledge the supremacy of might and frightfulness over right and righteousness without denying our faith in the living God; —
(2) Because we owe it to our forefathers who founded the Republic and to our fathers who saved the Union to prove ourselves not merely worthy of the happiness which flows from prosperity but eager and fearless in support of free life and full liberty the world over, to the end that the noble example set by them may not be degraded in gluttonous realization by us; because as a practical matter if spies and traitors infest our land now is the time to smoke them out; if a few scattering undersea waifs can break down our defense and damage our cities, let them do their utmost, that we may discover what might be anticipated from a fleet and prepare accordingly; if our navy is lopsided and deficient, our provision for a defensive army unfulfilled and unrealizable, our stores of ammunition insufficient, our air-machines and submarines but samples, to-day when only negligible harm can come to us is the day to acquaint ourselves with the facts; and if, as we are told, so many of us are pro-this or pro-that and so many more are putting pelf [profits] above patriotism ... , then what we need is a test — a test of body, of mind and of spirit, — a trying-out by fire while yet there is time to make America fit for any real emergency; yes, and able, through universal [military] training, to obviate the necessity of universal service; because simply and finally, in such a case, war is curative, not destructive; a blessing, not a curse.
(3) Because our going into the great conflict at this psychological moment would not only complete the ring of democracies around the doomed autocracy and so render the ultimate result certain to the dullest and the blindest, but from that very fact would infect all Germany, all Austria and all Hungary with the new spirit of Russia, and so by surely shortening and perhaps quickly ending the war, would save millions of precious lives, certain else to be sacrificed to no purpose other than impoverishment of the human race for centuries to come. ...
So much is at least clear. ... If at any time, while hearkening to the timorous voices of Representatives whose fair constituents did not raise their boys to be soldiers or, speaking more precisely and less agreeably, to fight for their country, Mr. Wilson may have doubted the answer to a patriotic appeal, surely all misgivings must now have disappeared before a response unprecedented in unanimity and resolution. In times of stress and danger the American people require from their Chief Magistrate neither inconclusive interpretation nor indeterminate consultation. All they ask is masterful leadership based upon mutual faith of the President in his country and of the country in its President. ...
We may indeed hope that both Houses [of Congress] will meet in a chastened and refined spirit, intent upon rendering loyal service to the nation and thus “doing their bit” toward redeeming parliamentary government from the discredit into which it has undoubtedly fallen throughout the world during the last two or three years.
This latter circumstance is indeed one of the most noteworthy connected with the era of the world war. In the Central Empires, of course, parliaments have little to do in such an emergency. They are fulfilling the words of [Germany's former prime minister and chancellor Otto von] Bismarck fifty-five years ago, that the problems of the day are to be settled not by speeches and parliamentary decrees, but by blood and iron. But in the comparatively liberal and parliamentary countries the case is little better. The British Parliament has done little that it should have done, and much that it should not have done. ... The French Parliament has been still less efficient. Nobody has thought of what it is doing. The real rule has been exercised by the commanding general of the army. ...
In the United States neither House of Congress nor Congress as a whole has been distinguished for any large or masterful grasp of one of the most important and critical situations in all our history. Senators and Representatives have showed themselves largely moved by faction rather than by patriotism. Sometimes they have supinely obeyed Presidential dictation; other times they have stubbornly resisted the will of the President, even when it was most clear that his will was identical with that of the nation. Through it all they have displayed an insatiable appetite for appropriational “pork.” It has been a sorry spectacle. ...
Preparation to meet the competition [of Britain and Germany once the war is over] ... must be effected upon the basis of ... domestic reciprocity and co-operation between Government policy and private initiative and endeavor. ... That does not mean, or at any rate it should not mean in America, government ownership of industries, nor corporate ownership of the government; either of these extremes would be a calamity, defeating the aims and objects of democracy. ...
There can scarcely be a greater delusion than that government ownership and operation of industries and utilities is the only alternative to monopolies and offensive trusts. It is as unreasonable and as unfounded as to say that anarchy is the only alternative to despotism. The essential spirit of democracy requires for the individual a free initiative in industry just as much as in politics. The citizen must be as free to work as he is to vote. Moreover, there must be similar freedom of combination; and as citizens are free to combine themselves into political parties, in order to exert an influence and to accomplish ends which would be beyond their reach if acting individually, so they must be free to combine in business corporations, in order to effect results which would be impossible to individuals. That is democracy.
That does not, however, deny governmental control and regulation of corporations, as of individuals. The Government determines who may become citizens of the commonwealth, and it makes laws for the control of those citizens. So it determines under what conditions corporations may be created ... and it can appropriately regulate and control those corporations in their activities. That is constitutional and logical. ...
We ought ... to realize the necessity of universal co-ordination of industries and complete co-operation between the Government and private enterprise, as the only rational and effective method of securing industrial and commercial efficiency which will enable us successfully to defend ourselves and to improve our opportunities in the era of restored peace which will presently come to the world.
From “For Freedom and Democracy,” editorial, North American Review 205 (April 1917), 481–501.
Questions for Reading and Discussion