President Woodrow Wilson and the First World War (1917)
The text of Woodrow Wilson's Speech and corresponding comprehension questions.
President Wilson and the First World War (1917)
Building Context: When World War I broke out in 1914, the United States remained neutral. But in 1917, Germany declared “unrestricted submarine warfare” and sank U.S. trade ships. Germany also angered Americans by issuing the Zimmerman Telegram, in which Germany offered Mexico land in the American Southwest if Mexico would go to war against the United States. As a result, on April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went to Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany.
President Wilson was a progressive Democrat who pushed Congress to support his agenda of expanding the federal government’s s power to regulate the economy and society. Wilson sought to use experts in executive branch agencies to avoid messy congressional politics and achieve order and efficiency in the economy. For example, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Act, and regulation of working hours for child and industrial labor–all of which were passed during Wilson’s presidency–all expanded the powers of the federal government.
During the war, Wilson sought to use the executive branch to achieve the same goals of efficiency and order in the war effort, fighting a total war. The president created the War Industries Board to coordinate wartime production, the Food Administration and Fuel Administration to conserve food and fuel for the armed forces, and the Committee of Public Information to create propaganda and censor information to mobilize popular support for the war.
Wilson set a significant precedent. During the Great Depression and World War II in the 1930s and 1940s, President Franklin Roosevelt built upon Wilson’s example to create the New Deal, which aimed at economic recovery, reform, and regulation by the federal government and especially the executive branch. President Roosevelt also created a range of executive agencies to organize the wartime mobilization efforts.
When Wilson addressed Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany, he signaled his intent to continue to use the executive branch to increase the efficiency and coordination of the federal government through the executive branch. Read excerpts of his speech below with this in mind and then answer the questions that follow.
Caption: President Woodrow Wilson
Address to Congress Requesting a Declaration of War Against Germany (1917)
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I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making…. |
Permissible: allowed |
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When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable…. |
Suffice: be enough or adequate Right: a power or privilege held lawfully |
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With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps, not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of the German Empire to terms and end the war…. |
Profound: deep, sincere Solemn: serious, formal, and dignified Tragical: very sad, involving grief, death, or destruction Grave: serious and sad Obedience: act of obeying, altering behavior to follow an authority Belligerent: aggressive, hostile |
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It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany and, … the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits,…It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country … It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects …It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men,… |
Cooperation: working together, assisting Liberal financial credits: Wilson is referring to supporting the countries at war with Germany with money. Material resources: physical materials like weapons, food, clothing, and raw materials to make them |
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It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the government, sustained, … by well-conceived taxation. |
Adequate: appropriate or enough Well-conceived taxation: Wilson is referring here to good plans to collect taxes in the U.S. for the war effort. |
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I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive departments of the government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most directly fall…. |
Liberty: power or freedom to act as one sees fit Committees: a reference to parts of Congress, the body of people that Wilson is speaking to The branch of government: Wilson is referring here to his own branch, the executive branch |
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It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free…. |
Oppressive: heavily weighing on the mind, causing depression or discomfort Trial: a test of performance Dominion: sovereignty or control |
Comprehension and Analysis Questions
- Who is President Wilson’s audience?
- Why does President Wilson say he is calling Congress into session?
- What decision does Wilson say he is not constitutionally permitted to make?
- What does President Wilson understand his constitutional duty to be? Why?
- What issues will the war effort involve? Are these things the executive or legislative branch can provide? Answer which branch and why.
- What do you think Wilson means when he says the executive branch has the “responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation?”
- President Wilson dramatically increased the role of the executive branch and the bureaucracy during the war to effectively manage the war effort. How does this align with the ideas of “dispatch” and “energy” of the executive discussed by the Framers?
- How might the expansion of the bureaucracy limit self-government?
- Is Wilson acting as Commander-in-Chief by requesting a declaration of war?