CHAPTER 22 Global Involvements and World War I, 1902–1920 t was April 6, 1917, and Jane Addams was troubled. By overwhelming mar- Igins, Congress had just supported President Woodrow Wilson’s call for a declaration of war on Germany. Addams belonged to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR); her father had served in the Illinois legislature with future President Abraham Lincoln. But she believed in peace and deplored her nation’s decision to go to war. As the founder of Hull House, a Chicago settlement house, Addams had worked to overcome tensions among different ethnic groups. In Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), she had insisted that the multiethnic “internationalism” of America’s immigrant neighborhoods proved that national and ethnic hostilities could be over- come. Addams had also observed how war spirit can inflame a people. CHAPTER OUTLINE During the Spanish-American War, she had watched Chicago street urchins Defining America’s World Role, playing at killing “Spaniards.” 1902–1914 When war broke out in Europe in 1914, Addams worked to end the con- flict and to keep America out of the fray. A founder of the Woman’s Peace War in Europe, 1914–1917 party in January 1915, she attended an International Congress of Women in Mobilizing at Home, Fighting in France, April that called on the warring nations to submit their differences to arbitra- 1917–1918 tion. Addams personally met with President Wilson to enlist his support for arbitration, but with no success. Promoting the War and Suppressing Dissent Now America had entered the war, and Addams had to take a stand. Deepening her dilemma, many of her friends, including philosopher and Economic and Social Trends in Wartime America Joyous Armistice, Bitter Aftermath, 1918–1920 677 678 CHAPTER 22 Global Involvements and World War I, 1902–1920 educator John Dewey, were lining up behind Wilson. forms, worked on farms or in factories, or simply experi- Theodore Roosevelt, whose 1912 Progressive party pres- enced U.S. life in wartime, all Americans were touched by idential campaign Addams had enthusiastically sup- the war. Beyond its immediate effects, the war had long- ported, was beating the drums for war. lasting social, economic, and political ramifications. Despite the pressures, Addams concluded that she Well before 1917, however, events abroad gripped must remain faithful to her conscience and oppose the the attention of government officials, the media, and war. The reaction was swift. Editorial writers who had ordinary Americans. From this perspective, World War I earlier praised her settlement house work now criticized was one episode in a larger process of deepening U.S. her. The DAR expelled her. For years after, the DAR, the involvement overseas. In the late nineteenth century, American Legion, and other patriotic organizations America had become an industrial and economic pow- attacked Addams for her “disloyalty” in 1917. erhouse seeking markets and raw materials worldwide. Addams did not sit out the war on the sidelines. In the early twentieth century, these broadening eco- She traveled across America, giving speeches urging nomic interests helped give rise to a new international increased food production to aid refugees and other war role for the nation. This expanded role profoundly influ- victims. Once the war ended, she resumed her work for enced developments at home as well as U.S. actions peace. In 1919 she was elected first president of the abroad, and has continued to shape American history to Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. the present. These broader global realities, culminating She described her wartime isolation in a moving book, in World War I, are the focus of this chapter. Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922). In 1931 she won the Nobel Peace Prize. During the 1960s, some oppo- This chapter will focus on five major questions: nents of the Vietnam War found inspiration in her earlier example. ■ What general motivations or objectives underlay Addams’s experience underscores how deeply World America’s involvement in Asia and Latin America in War I affected American life. Whether they donned uni- the early twentieth century? ■ Considering both immediate provocations and broader factors, why did the United States enter the European war in April 1917? ■ How did America’s participation in the war affect the home front and the reform spirit of the prewar Progressive Era? ■ How did the role of the federal government in the U.S. economy, and in American life generally, change in 1917–1918? ■ What was President Woodrow Wilson’s role in the creation of the League of Nations and in the Senate’s rejection of U.S. membership in the League? DEFINING AMERICA’S WORLD ROLE, 1902–1914 As we saw in Chapter 20, the annexation of Hawaii, the Spanish-American War, the occupation of the Philippines, and other developments in the 1890s sig- naled an era of intensified U.S. involvement abroad, especially in Asia and Latin America. These foreign engagements reflected a growing determination to assert American might in an age of imperial expansion by European powers, to protect and extend U.S. busi- ness investments abroad, and to impose American stan- Defining America’s World Role, 1902–1914 679 dards of good government beyond the nation’s borders. This process of foreign engagement continued under presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. The strongly moralistic tone of the progressive movement, whose domestic manifesta- tions we examined in Chapter 21, emerged in America’s dealings with other nations as well. The “Open Door”: Competing for the China Market As the campaign to suppress the Philippines insurrec- tion dragged on (see Chapter 20), American policy mak- ers turned their attention farther west, to China. Their aim was not territorial expansion but rather protection of U.S. commercial opportunities. Proclaimed Indiana Senator Albert J. Beveridge in 1898, “American factories are making more than the American people can use; American soil is producing more than they can con- sume....[T]he trade of the world must and shall be ours.” The China market beckoned. Textile producers dreamed of clothing China’s millions of people; investors envisioned Chinese railroad construction. As China’s 250-year-old Manchu Ch’ing empire grew weaker, U.S. businesspeople watched carefully. In 1896 a consortium of New York capitalists formed a company to promote trade and railroad investment in China. But other nations were also eyeing the China mar- ket. Some pressured the weak Manchu rulers to desig- nate certain ports and regions as “spheres of influence” but it did want to keep Chinese markets open to where they would enjoy exclusive trading and develop- American businesses. ment rights. In 1896 Russia won both the right to build a As Hay pursued this effort, a more urgent threat railway across Manchuria and a twenty-five-year lease emerged in China. For years, antiforeign feeling had on much of the region. In 1897 Germany forcibly simmered in China, fanned by the aged Ch’ing empress secured a ninety-nine-year lease on a Chinese port as who was disgusted by the growth of Western influence. well as mining and railroad rights in the adjacent In 1899 a fanatical antiforeign secret society known as province. The British won various concessions, too. the Harmonious Righteous Fists (called “Boxers” by In September 1899 U.S. Secretary of State John Hay Western journalists) killed thousands of foreigners and asked the major European powers with economic inter- Chinese Christians. In June 1900 the Boxers occupied ests in China not to interfere with American trading Beijing (Peking), the Chinese capital, and besieged the rights in China. Specifically, he requested them to open district housing the foreign legations. The United States the ports in their spheres of influence to all countries. contributed twenty-five hundred soldiers to an interna- The six nations gave noncommittal answers, but Hay tional army that marched on Beijing, drove back the blithely announced that they had accepted the principle Boxers, and rescued the occupants of the threatened of an “Open Door” to American business in China. legations. Hay’s Open Door note showed how commercial The defeat of the Boxer uprising further weakened considerations were increasingly influencing American China’s government. Fearing that the regime’s collapse foreign policy. It reflected a form of economic expan- would allow European powers to carve up China, John sionism that has been called “informal empire.” The U.S. Hay issued a second, more important, series of Open government had no desire to occupy Chinese territory, Door notes in 1900. He reaffirmed the principle of open 680 CHAPTER 22 Global Involvements and World War I, 1902–1920 guage of the day, privately denounced the Colombians as “greedy little anthropoids.” Determined to have his canal, Roosevelt found a willing collaborator in Philippe Bunau-Varilla, an official of the bankrupt French company. Dismayed that his company might lose its $40 million, Bunau-Varilla organ- ized a “revolution” in Panama from a New York hotel room. While his wife stitched a flag, he wrote a declaration of independence and a constitution for the new nation. When the “revolution” occurred as scheduled on November 3, 1903, a U.S. warship hovered offshore. Proclaiming Panama’s independence, Bunau-Varilla appointed himself its trade in China for all nations and announced America’s first ambassador to the United States. John Hay quickly determination to preserve China’s territorial and admin- recognized the newly hatched nation and signed a treaty istrative integrity. In general, China remained open to with Bunau-Varilla granting the United States a ten-mile- U.S. business interests as well as to Christian missionary wide strip of land across Panama “in perpetuity” (that is, effort.