The Wilsonian Persuasion in American Foreign Policy By Matthew C ...

The first two years of Wilson’s presidency were a whirlwind of legislative activity, nearly all of it domestic. His inaugural address contained no mention of foreign relations at all. He pushed through tariff reductions, oversaw creation of the Federal Reserve System, and successfully pressed for the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission, to prevent unfair trade practices.

In the summer of 1914, everything changed. On August 3, Germany declared war on France. Three days later, Ellen, Woodrow’s beloved wife of twenty-nine years, died of a kidney disease.

Immediately upon the outbreak of war, President Wilson offered the services of the United States to mediate between the combatants. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan was preaching to the converted when he advised the president, in a letter dated December 1, that the United States had a moral obligation to do “everything in our power to bring the war to a close.” He pointed to the destructive consequences the war was having far beyond the borders of the warring sides, upon other neutral nations who “are suffering relatively more than we are and are less able than we to endure the hardships which, without their fault, have been thrown upon them…We owe it to the belligerent nations, as a friend to all of them, to earnestly advise them to consider the peaceful settlement of their differences.”⁷ Wilson’s peace efforts, an earnest attempt to reduce human suffering, were rebuffed on all sides. Also by 1914, Wilson had already expressed hopes of establishing “an association of nations, all bound together for the protection of the integrity of each, so that any one nation breaking from this bond will bring upon herself war; that is to say, punishment automatically.”⁸

“Germany has always desired to maintain peace, as she proves by a record of more than forty years,” declared German Foreign Undersecretary Arthur Zimmerman. “The war has been forced upon us by our enemies, and they are carrying it on by summoning all the power at their disposal, including Japanese and other colored races.”⁹ “Everybody seems to want peace,” wrote Colonel House, Wilson’s closest advisor and confidant, on a peace mission in Berlin. “But nobody is willing to concede enough to get it.”