Declaring War on Germany in 1917 and La Follette's Response
Dec 28, 2010 Michael Streich
President Woodrow Wilson asked the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war against Germany and her allies on April 2, 1917. Wilson’s war message reflected his ideals of democracy and freedom, but also his stubborn arrogance and refusal to compromise. It was the Wilson administrations inconsistent handling of Great Britain that resulted in Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette’s rebuttal speech on April 4, 1917. La Follette detailed these inconsistencies, ending with the admonition that the United States had a right and a duty to “enforce our rights equally against both…,” Britain and Imperial Germany.
Was the United States Right to Support Great Britain in the Great War?
Senator La Follette could well have noted that Wilson’s Cabinet and many in the executive branch were pro-British sympathizers, but he chose not to. Rather, La Follette began with the Armed-Ship Bill, a measure requested by Wilson in the preceding Congressional session but voted down.
La Follette reminded the senators that Wilson proceeded to arm American merchant ships anyway, “without authority” from the Congress. La Follette predicted that U.S. entry in the war would prolong it and that most Americans opposed participation in the European war. The Wisconsin Senator quoted from several of the 15,000 letters his office had received, attempting to demonstrate American dissent with Wilson’s request.
Was the U.S. Truly Entering the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy?
La Follette reminded his listeners that Britain was a hereditary monarchy and that English society was heavily class-oriented, referring to the, “grinding industrial conditions for all wage workers.” He also questioned why any war declaration supporting Britain was not conditional on “home rule” for Ireland, Egypt, and India.
This same argument would be revisited after the war when President Wilson lobbied for U.S. participation in the League of Nations. The Senate debate on the League questioned the colonial status of nations like Ireland. Was the United States not indirectly supporting colonialism and helping to perpetuate imperial goals?
La Follette mentioned Italy and Japan, allies in the war against Germany. According to La Follette, “No one of them has done as much for its people in the…securing of social and industrial reforms as Germany.” La Follette, in all of his examples, was leading up to the equal treatment of belligerent nations. He was not supporting the German Kaiser and such appelations as the "Kaiser's Senator" belie the facts of La Follette's arguments.
La Follette Recounts Past and Recent Historical Events
La Follette noted that Germans had been demonized. But he also provided statistics showing that during the Civil War, foreign born Germans serving in the Union forces totaled 187,858, by far the largest group, followed by the Irish with 144,221 men. Germans who came to America as immigrants were loyal and posed no threat.
He then devoted several paragraphs on the 1909 London declaration which defined the internationally acceptable rules of naval warfare. Although delegates from Britain signed the accord, it was never ratified. Among other items in the declaration, the distinction between contraband and conditional contraband was defined, the latter including foodstuffs. Britain had adhered to this distinction in the Boer War, according to La Follette, but was reluctant to do so in the Great War. (La Follette referred to Lord Salisbury's interpretation)
British Violations of International Law and the Rights of Neutrals
La Follette referred to the RMS Lusitania, “loaded with 6,000,000 rounds of ammunition destined for the English army…” as well as Britain’s violation of “our neutral flag.” First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had, in late 1914, instructed British ships like the Lusitania to fly the U.S. flag in the North Sea “war zone,” declared as such by the British.
This war or military zone was another point La Follette detailed. According to La Follette, Britain was being disingenuous. British reasons for declaring the war zone related to German mines placed on the high seas.
But, as La Follette pointed out, this was merely an excuse to interdict neutral shipping of non-contraband to regions like Scandinavia. The Senator noted that of all floating mines recovered off the coast of Holland, most were of British manufacture.
Enforcing U.S. Neutrality on all Belligerent Nations
Senator La Follette demonstrated that from the very beginning of the war, the U.S. had favored Britain even though Germany had made every effort to respond to American indignities. La Follette told the Senators, “We from early in the war threw our neutrality to the winds by permitting England to make a mockery of it to her advantage against her chief enemy.” The Senator invoked Thomas Jefferson and quoted from American history to prove his thesis.
La Follette correctly demonstrated that Woodrow Wilson’s war message was based on propaganda, duplicity, and the obvious predilection toward Britain. La Follette, however, could not overcome the realities of global finance and debt: if the U.S. had not entered the war and Germany prevailed, key banks, like J.P. Morgan’s in New York, and industrial giants like Bethlehem Steel might have foundered.
La Follette’s Idealism Versus Woodrow Wilson’s
Both Woodrow Wilson and “Fighting Bob” La Follette were idealists and progressives. La Follette began his anti-war speech by asking whether the president was right or wrong and concluded emphatically that Senators, even those representing a majority opinion in the face of minority leadership, must “speak and vote their convictions.”
In the end, La Follette was more prophetic than Wilson. The Great War ended, “open covenants” were scorned by the traditional European powers, and Wilson’s dream of a world made safe for democracy folded in the face of fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain. Russia devolved into a Civil War and the relentless purges of Stalinism.
Source:
Senator Robert La Follette’s U.S. Senate Speech, April 4, 1917, Wisconsin History.org
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