Ohio History Journal

THE MIDDLE WEST AND THE COMING

OF WORLD WAR I*

 

by ARTHUR S. LINK

Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University

 

It is difficult to avoid elaborating the obvious in describing the

general attitude of the leaders and people of the Middle West

toward the European War, from its outbreak until the intervention

of the United States in 1917. Nourished as they had been upon a

tradition of the uniqueness of American democratic virtue and

upon the concept of the degeneracy of Europe, midwesterners were

certain that the war was the natural consequence of imperialism,

militarism, commercial greed, and dynastic feuds. The sentiments

of revulsion evoked by these traditional beliefs were heightened,

moreover, by the admonitions of a generation of progressives and

social gospel preachers, who had convinced a significant part of the

thoughtful population that wars were inherently evil in principle

and were made, in practice, by munitions-makers, international

bankers, and scheming diplomats.

Before February or March of 1917 the people of the Middle West

saw no reason why they should alter these basic attitudes. For the

most part, they continued to live in a happy and apathetic fool's

paradise, serene in the conviction that their country had no vital

stake in the outcome of the struggle in Europe. On the whole, this

was also the general attitude of the entire country--of editors,

politicians, preachers, and public leaders of every stripe. It was

an attitude shared and voiced on many occasions by President

Wilson, who gave little evidence before April 1917 of perceiving

the significance of the war for the vital interests of the United

States.

There were a few spokesmen who realized how important was

America's stake in the war, but they did not reside in the Middle

 

*This and the following article by Jeannette P. Nichols were originally given as

papers in a joint session on "The Middle West and the Coming of the Two World

Wars" at the forty-fifth annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley Historical Asso-

ciation held at Chicago, April 17-19, 1952.

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West--or in the South. The mass of people of those two great

sections were profoundly pacifistic in sentiments. An overwhelming

majority of them opposed any measures that might even remotely

lead to war. They expressed these sentiments through channels

that the rank and file usually employ, and their political spokesmen

faithfully reiterated them. To encompass a complex set of attitudes

in one generalization, one might say that midwesterners and their

leaders regarded neutrality as the safest and wisest rule of faith

and conduct, as the surest means of safeguarding the interests of

the country.

It is relatively easy to establish the pattern of midwestern

attitudes toward the war. Evidence gathered from manuscript

collections, newspapers and periodicals, and public documents

indicates that the pattern just set up is on the whole accurate. But

it is a different proposition to attempt to measure the effect of

midwestern sentiments upon the policies of the Wilson adminis-

tration. Yet that influence was at all times pervasive and on several

critical occasions it was decisive. Moreover, it was an important

factor in the formulation of British policies toward the United

States. So obviously one does not detract from the significance of

midwestern influence by admitting that it is impossible to measure

that influence fully.

During the first six months of the war middlewestern opinion

followed the national pattern of apathy or self-congratulation.

To be sure, there was a lively debate among the newspapers and

public spokesmen about the causes and merits of the war. German-

Americans, a powerful element in the section, condemned Bryan

and the state department for alleged favoritism to the Allies and

defended the German cause. By the end of the period of restrained

maritime warfare the general causes of the war had been thoroughly

discussed and probably a majority of the midwesterners had formed

a mild bias in favor of the Allies. Even so, midwestern opinion was

apathetic. In the South there was bitter hostility to Great Britain.

because the British blockade had ruined the cotton producers. Or

the other hand, there were no important coalitions of anti-British

sentiment in the Middle West, except in Montana, where the

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The Middle West and the Coming of World War I     111

copper interests had been hard hit by the blockade, and except

among the German- and Irish-Americans. The farmers of the region,

even by the end of 1914, were enjoying the inflationary effects of

Allied purchases, while industry and trade were recovering from

the depression of 1913-14. Wilson's policy of strict neutrality-

of neutrality "in thought as well as in deed"-therefore harmonized

perfectly with midwestern interests.

The period from February to about October 1915 witnessed the

first phase of the strenuous efforts of Great Britain and Germany

to control the Atlantic sea lanes in the interest of their military

policies. From the beginning of the war Wilson and Bryan had

acquiesced in the British maritime measures, which under traditional

legal concepts were illegal, while reserving American rights by

verbal protests. This policy of conforming realistically to the then

existing configurations of military and naval power met with

widespread approval in the Middle West, except among the

German-American element. The development which upset the

existing power structure and compelled a reexamination of Wilson's

Course was the German challenge to the British system, embodied

in the so-called war zone decree of February 4, 1915. Hereafter it

would be impossible for the United States to continue to acquiesce

In the British blockade without seriously impairing friendly re-

ations with Germany.

Wilson's reply of February 10, 1915, to the German threat was

explicit, but it defended only the rights of American ships on the

?eas, and passengers on them. The German government soon

racked down from its threat to destroy American ships. Wilson

then proposed a compromise involving the relaxation of the British

2nd German blockades, but the British saw no reason why they

should enervate their economic warfare to help the United States

?reserve friendly relations with Germany. Upon Britain's rejection

of Wilson's modus vivendi, the German admiralty extended the

ubmarine warfare against the great passenger liners, and an

entirely new issue was raised.

The great debate over the right of American citizens to travel

nmolested on passenger vessels of belligerent nationality raged far

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and wide in this country during the late spring and early summer of

1915. When Wilson, in the second Lusitania note, refused to

suggest that the issue be deferred for arbitration, Bryan resigned

as secretary of state to assume leadership of the extreme anti-war

elements of the South and Middle West. Middlewestern reaction

to these events was almost instantaneous. It was as if midwesterners

awoke for the first time to a realization that war with Germany

was a possibility.

It was obvious from the great anti-war meetings, from resolutions

adopted by hundreds of different groups, and from the success of

Bryan's peace campaign that a large number, perhaps a majority,

of midwesterners and southerners opposed going to war over the

issue that Wilson had raised with the German government. The

overwhelming and spontaneous popular revulsion against war

over the submarine issue might have had an immediate effect on

the administration's policies if Wilson had been determined to

force the issue with Germany at this time. For example, Senator

Martin and Representative Flood, both from Virginia and both

powerful Democratic leaders in congress, at the height of the

Lusitania crisis warned the president that he probably could not

obtain a congressional majority for a war resolution. Members of

the cabinet advised him that three-fourths of the people of the

South and West were for peace. Writing in his private diary soon

after the United States entered the war, Secretary of State Lansing

recalled that at the time of the Lusitania crisis the president could

not have carried the country into war.

While this point is significant and correct, it should not be

assumed that midwestern and southern resistance to war paralyzec

Wilson's arm and prevented him from adopting a strong policy

The evidence is conclusive that Wilson did not want to adopt sucl

a strong policy and did not intend to do so unless the submarine

campaign became so frightful as to arouse a sweeping popula

demand for war. All during the great crisis he kept on talking ii

terms that the isolationists could heartily approve. We know nov

that the Germans did not have enough submarines in 1915 to make ai

all-out underseas campaign worthwhile. When they seemingl

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The Middle West and the Coming of World War 1      113

 

capitulated to Wilson's demand for a cessation of their ruthless

warfare against unarmed, peaceful Allied passenger ships, the

issue was momentarily settled.

Wilson's apparent triumph provoked an outpouring of joy and

relief from midwesterners and most other Americans. The president

was hailed as the victor in a struggle of humane idealism against

the philosophy of brute force. But when Wilson undertook to

press home one of the significant lessons of the submarine con-

troversy, namely, the powerlessness of the United States to protect

its interests against assaults upon them, he set off a new public

debate over the nation's foreign policy.

Actually, the advocates of preparedness had already got their

campaign in high gear long before Wilson gave his endorsement

to it. The effect of Wilson's coming out for preparedness in the

fall of 1915 was merely to stimulate the energies of the anti-

preparedness forces in the Middle West and South, since they had

heretofore counted Wilson on their side.

Public opinion on such important issues is of course extremely

difficult to measure. None the less, the evidence of midwestern

opposition to the administration's preparedness program is so

overwhelming that one can only conclude that at least the vocal

majority of midwesterners were ranged against Wilson in this

fight. This was true also of the South. Wilson recognized the

extent of midwestern hostility to preparedness and endeavored to

counteract it by a spectacular speaking tour through the region in

late January and early February 1916. It is highly doubtful that

he won many converts. Certainly his appeals had slight effect on

the midwestern representatives in congress. And this was true in

spite of the fact that the large city newspapers and many of the

business leaders supported defensive preparedness as strongly as

their eastern counterparts.

In the struggle over preparedness practically all the progressive

elements who had hitherto supported Wilson on domestic questions

deserted him. The result was virtual defeat of the administration

by what now amounted to a strong southern-western coalition in

congress. The administration had proposed an army bill which

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would have soon created a reserve force of a million potential

soldiers under national control--the so-called continental army plan.

The consequences of the carrying through of such a program for

American foreign policy were not lost upon the anti-preparedness

leaders, who were of course also the leaders of progressive,

isolationistic, anti-war sentiment. The continental army plan was

decisively rejected, and Wilson surrendered in such a way as to

provoke the resignation of his secretary of war, Lindley M. Garrison.

As for the administration's naval program, different circumstances

prevailed. A few of the anti-preparedness leaders like Claude

Kitchin, Warren Worth Bailey, and Bryan opposed on principle

the administration's plans for an immense expansion of the navy,

but most of the anti-preparedness coalition did not. A great army

might be used offensively in Europe or Mexico, they argued, while

a powerful navy could never be used except in the defense of

American interests at home or on the seas. The movement for a

larger navy, moreover, had the support of all the anti-Japanese

and anti-British elements among the population. A great navy

could never be used against German land power, but it might

prove decisive in the event of a show-down with the British over

the blockade.

Up to this time, that is, late 1915 and early 1916, midwestern

and southern opposition to strong foreign and preparedness policies

had succeeded in emasculating the administration's plan to create a

dependable army reserve and had operated to remind Wilson that

warlike threats against Germany, if ever he should want to make

them, would draw sharp opposition from the people and their

spokesmen in congress. This opposition was soon aroused over the

armed ship issue. But it was aroused only because of the secret,

bungling, and contradictory diplomacy of the president, Secretary

Lansing, and Colonel House.

The question of the right of Americans to travel on belligerent

armed merchant ships had been studiously avoided by Wilson in

negotiations with Germany during the summer and fall of 1915.

At the beginning of the war the state department had countenanced

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The Middle West and the Coming of World War I   115

the defensive arming of merchant ships, but the question was at

that time academic. During the latter part of 1915 and early in

January 1916, however, the American government and people

obtained conclusive evidence that the Allies were arming some

merchant ships and ordering them to take offensive action against

submarines. Confronted with this evidence, Lansing, with the full

approval of Wilson, began a diplomatic campaign to force the

Allies to disarm their merchant ships. In return, the German

government would be asked to continue to observe the rules of

cruiser warfare in its submarine operations. Lansing's modus vivendi

was embodied in a circular to the Allied governments dated

January 18, 1916.

The German officials of course gleefully approved Lansing's

proposal, and knowing full well that the Allies would never agree

to the obliteration of their merchant fleets, announced on February

8 and 10, 1916, that submarine commanders would hereafter be

instructed to sink armed merchantmen on sight. Wilson and

Lansing immediately reversed themselves and a few days later

announced that they would hold the German government strictly

accountable for American lives lost as a result of the new sub-

marine order.

Midwestern reaction to Wilson's baffling shift in policy was

immediate and hostile. There at once arose a demand that was

nationwide, but strongest in the Midwest, that congress intervene

to prohibit Americans from traveling on armed merchant ships.

The evidence strongly suggests that neither the people of the

Middle West and the South, nor their representatives in congress,

were willing to go to war in defense of an obsolete legality.

Resolutions introduced in the two houses earlier by Representative

McLemore of Texas and Senator Gore of Oklahoma were at once

resurrected as an answer to the administration.

It was evident that a situation was developing in congress that

might soon get out of control. On February 21 Senators Stone and

Kern and Representative Flood informed Wilson of the growing

revolt. Four days later Speaker Clark and Representatives Kitchin

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and Flood called on Wilson--the much misunderstood "sunrise

conference"--and warned him that sentiment in the house was

overwhelmingly in favor of the McLemore resolution.

The spectacular manner in which Wilson met this challenge to

his leadership in foreign affairs is well known. But it is usually

not remembered that the administration's strategy prevented an

open expression of congressional opinion on the armed ship issue.

The McLemore and Gore resolutions were tabled, it is true, but

only because Wilson and Postmaster General Burleson put enormous

pressure on the southern Democrats. The patronage stick was not

so threatening to midwestern congressmen. A majority of them,

including the solid delegations from Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota,

and Wisconsin, voted to repudiate the president's foreign policy

at a critical juncture.

The armed ship controversy was a dismal affair and a grim

reminder to Wilson that the Middle West, at least, and probably

the South also, was still inflexible in its opposition to any measures

that might conceivably lead to war. It was a tragic affair, also,

because congressional leaders began to suspect that Wilson was

maneuvering to involve the country in the European conflict. There

was a purpose behind Wilson's strange reversal on the armed ship

question, but that purpose was not intervention. It was mediation

and peace. At the very time that Lansing was preparing his modus

vivendi of January 18, 1916, Colonel House was in London

endeavoring to persuade the British cabinet to cooperate in a plan

to end the war on the basis of a reasonable peace settlement. The

issuance of Lansing's memorandum nearly wrecked these negotia-

tions. Wilson abandoned the modus vivendi at House's urging,

therefore, in order to undo the damage that it had done. It is no

coincidence that the so-called gentlemen's agreement was initialed

by Grey and House on February 22, at the very moment when

Wilson was standing firm against the congressional majority.

The existence of the gentlemen's agreement was of course not

publicly known, nor were the reasons for Wilson's stand in the

armed ship controversy even faintly comprehended. And ignorance

of his purposes only added to the misunderstanding of congressmen

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The Middle West and the Coming of World War I   117

 

and their constituents. A short time later, when Wilson was certain

he would succeed in compelling the belligerents to come to the

peace table soon, he pressed the German government hard in the

Sussex case and won a reaffirmation of the Arabic and Persia

pledges. Thus the president thought he had rehabilitated himself

in the respect of the British leaders and was in a position from

which he could dictate the peace settlement. The Sussex crisis of

course brought the country to the verge of breaking diplomatic

relations with Germany, and it is doubtful that Wilson had any

substantial support from the Middle West for his diplomacy.

Yet he was now playing for stakes no less than the peace of the

world, and he pursued his course relentlessly.

The six weeks following the ending of the Sussex crisis were

weeks of confusion and uncertainty among political leaders and

the people. Theodore Roosevelt, the leading American inter-

ventionist, had called for strong action and denounced the presi-

dent's weak policy. When Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge

took up Roosevelt's theme in important political speeches in

February and March, it seemed certain that the Republicans would

make this their chief point of attack in the coming presidential

campaign. At least, it appeared so to the newspapers and to Re-

publican leaders like former President Taft, who was sure his

party was headed straight for defeat if it became avowedly a war

party.

The startling political developments after the Sussex incident,

however, soon resolved all doubts as to public sentiment on the

issue of war or peace. It was as if the people of the Middle West

sensed that they had narrowly averted intervention, and during

May and the first weeks of June there occurred such striking

evidences of the section's overwhelming passion for peace as the

country had not heretofore witnessed. This virtual peace obsession

had its most significant impact on the two major parties.

Roosevelt was now campaigning for the Republican nomination

on what amounted to an interventionist platform. Root and Lodge

had given him tacit endorsement in their speeches opening the

Republican campaign. But it was soon evident that the people of

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the country, and above all of the Middle West, were not in a

heroic mood. The defeat of Robert Bacon, an avowed interventionist,

for the Republican senatorial nomination in New York by a man

who had the support of the German-Americans and the peace

element, indicated that interventionism could not command a

majority even among eastern Republicans. More significant, however,

was Henry Ford's sweeping success in the Republican presidential

primaries in Michigan and Nebraska. Ford, an outstanding pacifist,

was not even a candidate and tried to take his name off the

Michigan and Nebraska ballots. The peace Republicans in those

states were obviously using Ford's candidacy as a warning to their

national leaders. Finally, the nomination of Charles Evans Hughes

by the party in June brought a resolution of all doubts as to the

sentiments of the Republican rank and file. Hughes had been put

forward as a candidate by the peace forces and the German-

Americans, and his nomination signified repudiation of the war

element.

The answer of the Democratic voters to the question of peace or

war was given even more decisively by their representatives in the

national convention that met in St. Louis on June 14. Smarting

under the Republican charges of weakness and vacillation, Wilson

and his managers had planned to make the convention one gigantic

demonstration of Democratic patriotism, with Americanism the

chief battle-cry of the campaign. These plans went completely

awry, however, when former Governor Martin H. Glynn's keynote

speech sounded the peace note and the convention got entirely out

of control and became one long and loud demonstration for peace,

almost at any price. Not Wilson, but Bryan, who had been cast

out of the party councils and was not even a delegate, became the

real hero of the occasion.

As it turned out, developments abroad facilitated Wilson's easy

adjustment to this new situation. By this time Grey had definitely

refused to carry through on the gentlemen's agreement, and the

British government had begun instead to intensify its economic

warfare. As a consequence, Wilson's opinion had turned sharply

against the British, so much so that he was well on the way toward

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The Middle West and the Coming of World War I    119

 

becoming genuinely neutral. This significant configuration of cir-

cumstances, in addition to the manifest demand of the South and

Middle West for a pacific, neutral foreign policy, eased Wilson's

shift from his former position as pro-Allied mediator to his new

position as champion of peace and neutrality.

The campaign that followed witnessed the fulfillment of all the

hopes and dreams of the peace forces. Much to the delight of the

Democrats, Hughes was caught in the middle of two opposing

fires within his own party. Roosevelt and the Republican inter-

ventionists kept up their steady barrage against Wilson's allegedly

spineless foreign policy, and Hughes could not silence them without

alienating an important minority in his own ranks.

In contrast, the Democrats were disturbed by no such division.

Wilson made the issue of war or peace the leading issue of his own

campaign and warned the country that a vote for Hughes was a

vote for war. His managers highlighted the peace theme in all

campaign literature and advertisements. The leading Democratic

peace advocates, led by Bryan, were turned loose in full force

on the Middle and Far West and given carte blanche to commit

their party to a policy of non-intervention. No one missed the

significance of these developments, least of all Count von Bernstorff,

who described them to his government with satisfaction and delight.

Even after taking into account the complexity of the campaign

issues and the importance of domestic questions, the conclusion is

inevitable that Wilson's victory in November was an emphatic

mandate for peace from the people of the Middle West, the South,

and the Far West. This, in any event, was Wilson's own evaluation

of the returns. Soon after the election he told Colonel House that

the American people did not want to go to war to protect the

right of Americans to travel on belligerent merchant ships. Yet

Wilson now knew that both Germany and Great Britain would

soon further intensify their maritime warfare and that it might

prove impossible for the United States to avoid decisive action

against one side or the other. In order to avert the probability of

American participation, during the next two and a half months he

radically shifted his foreign policy.

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That change involved nothing less than bringing the war to an

end through diplomatic cooperation with the German government.

The perils of such a course were evident and were pointed out by

Lansing and House. What if Germany agreed to accept a reasonable

peace settlement and the Allies refused? Would not the United

States then be drawn into a sympathetic alliance with Germany,

with the consequent danger of a rupture with Britain, House and

Lansing both asked. Wilson agreed but declared that he was

willing to accept such consequences. It is evident that he thought

the Germans were ready to accept or offer reasonable terms, that

the Allies were not, and that he could force the Allies to come

to the peace table.

Wilson's peace campaign of December 1916 and January 1917

was an implementing of the peace longings of the sections that

had returned him to power and as such evoked overwhelming

approval in the Middle West. Based as it was upon Wilson's

assumption that the German government would cooperate with

his plans for a "peace without victory," a peace of reasonableness,

it was hopelessly romantic. Wilson did not know it, but the men

then running the German government had not the slightest desire

for a reasonable settlement. They coveted nothing less than destruc-

tion of the British maritime system and absolute dominion in

Europe, both in the East and the West.

Germany's ambitions were finally revealed to Wilson on January

31, 1917, concurrently with the announcement of an unrestricted

submarine campaign against all commerce. Wilson had been

tricked, deceived, and betrayed. He had no alternative but to sever

diplomatic relations with the German Empire. As a responsible

leader, he had no alternative but to inform the American people

of the consequences to them of the success of the German drive

for dominion over Europe. Instead of doing this, however, he

justified the break in diplomatic relations solely on legal grounds

and expressed the fervent hope that the German government

really did not mean what it had said.

The people of the country overwhelmingly approved the dis-

missal of Bernstorff. But at least a large majority of southerners

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The Middle West and the Coming of World War 1    121

 

and midwesterners believed that the nation's security was in no

manner threatened by the submarine campaign, and they wanted

desperately to avoid participation in a war in which their vital

interests were not involved. During February and March 1917

there was a full-fledged public debate over the question of war

or peace, and from this debate there emerged what might be called

the anti-war element's alternative to full-scale participation. It

was the proposal, first made by Professor Carlton Hayes of Columbia

University, that the United States pursue a policy of armed

neutrality and avoid doggedly any intervention in European affairs.

Hayes's proposal evoked approval in all sections, but in the Middle

West it was seized upon as the one solution of a painful dilemma.

When the president asked congress for authority to arm and defend

American merchant ships, congressional approval was overwhelming.

Forty-seven percent of the midwestern members of the house and

Sixty-four percent of the farwestern members voted to deny pro-

section to ships carrying munitions, it is true; but when this amend-

nent failed, only thirteen votes were cast against the arming of

merchant ships. It should be added, also, that there was virtually

no opposition in the senate to the armed ship bill. The so-called

filibuster, which was not a filibuster at all, was directed against a

Provision of the bill endowing the president with extraordinary

war powers, not against the principle of armed neutrality.

The denouement of the story, in its major aspects, is so well

known that there is no need to repeat it here. Wilson soon

abandoned armed neutrality, which for a short time he, too, had

accepted as a substitute for war, although the reasons he gave for

zing so were hardly comprehensible. The Middle West con-

tinued to hope for peace. Even at this critical moment the president

failed to tell the people the facts of international life or to justify

the necessity for war on a basis that had any real significance. His

war message was a call for a great crusade for democracy that

inevitably turned bitter in the end and made disillusioned cynics

at of the crusaders. The people of the great Mississippi Valley

had no alternative but to concur in the decision for war. The

situation was out of their control.

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