WWI was not a war America easily joined, but once joined, then ended, America was transformed into a nation of warmongers.
"Woodrow Wilson’s Four Mistakes in the Early Years of World War I"
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/155810
by Richard Striner
"This is part one of a three-part series distilling the thesis of Richard Striner’s new book, Woodrow Wilson and World War One: A Burden Too Great to Bear, published by Rowman & Littlefield in April 2014. Mr. Striner is a professor of history at Washington College. His other books include Father Abraham: Lincoln’s Relentless Struggle to End Slavery and Lincoln’s Way: How Six Great Presidents Created American Power."
The case can be made that Woodrow Wilson made some profound mistakes when World War I broke out in the summer of 1914. He made four particularly bad mistakes, and he admitted to one of them later: he refused to listen to people like Theodore Roosevelt who argued at the time that the United States should build up its military power to be ready for future contingencies. "
"The second mistake was understandable and pardonable in its early phases: he envisioned himself as a peace-maker who could end the war through mediation."
". . . Wilson clung stubbornly to the illusion that he could end the war through a single magnificent gesture."
"The third mistake that Wilson made in the first year of the war was his failure to engage in bipartisan consultations on issues of war and peace. Wilson’s own party was profoundly anti-interventionist during these years. As a consequence, contingency planning for the possible use of force would have been enhanced by quiet behind-the-scenes consultations with Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge. But instead of cultivating such men, Wilson antagonized them."
". . . even as Wilson strove to maintain impeccable neutrality, he was complicit in American policies that “tipped the scale” of the wartime power balance. For American firms began selling weapons and munitions, and only one of the two sides could purchase the arms."
[Fourth?] ". . . Wilson strove to maintain impeccable neutrality, he was complicit in American policies that “tipped the scale” of the wartime power balance. For American firms began selling weapons and munitions, and only one of the two sides could purchase the arms. "
There was some good along with lots of mistakes and failures for Wilson.
"Woodrow Wilson: Accomplishments, Failures That Shaped President's Legacy"
By Ken Mandel | Sunday, 07 September 2014
https://www.newsmax.com/fastfeatures/woodrow-wilson-accomplishments-failures/2014/09/07/id/592908/
"Some of his notable successes included the ratification of the 17th Amendment, which gave power to the people in their respective states to elect their senators. They had previously been selected by state legislatures, as spelled out in Constitution."
He signed 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote.
"Other legislative victories included the establishment of a Federal Trade Commission to stop unfair business practices. Another prohibited child labor and yet another specified that railroad workers work no more than eight hours a day.
Those accomplishments, plus the slogan "he kept us out of war," [His FIRST term, of course . . . ] earned Wilson a narrow re-election, but he wasn't able to keep that promise. He concluded that America could no longer stay neutral and asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany."
To me the war brought out the worst part of Americans and hate seemed to seethe from within easily, and continuously. It was a sad evidence of America's evil inner being.
"World War I and the Suppression of Dissent"
By Wendy McElroy | April 1, 2002
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1207
"The Assault on Civil LibertiesThe federal government also intruded upon civil liberties, especially the right to dissent. The radical labor movement became a focus of government for several reasons. It was successful: in the first decades of the 20th century, labor unrest had spread like wildfire across broad sections of America and sparked effective strikes. It was anti-war: its prominent communist and socialist leaders believed the war was being fought for capitalism and they felt comradeship, not hostility, toward foreign workers. Socialism, in general, had become a political threat: in every presidential election from 1900 to 1912, the labor leader Eugene Debs had run on the American Socialist Party ticket, receiving close to a million votes in 1912."
But the ugliest example of American fears was cast upon religious objectors, people who not and could not even wear a military uniform.
Progressive and liberals who spoke out against a war were repressed, cruelly and hatefully.
Eugene Debs is one. Conscientious objectors were beaten. Hutterites were arrested, put in prison and TORTURED, even disrespected in death as Woodrow Wilson and his Cabinet Minister of War stood by and watched.
"Hutterite Martyrs of 1918"
http://www.anabaptistwiki.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Hutterite_Martyrs_of_1918
A very sad time in America where fear of peaceful people made devils out of Americans. I spit on those times!
"Of the many accounts of war resistance during the First World War, there are few more harrowing than the story of the four Hutterites who were imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth in 1918. The Hutterites are descendants of a large group of Austrian peasants who broke away from the Catholic church in the sixteenth century, living in self-sufficient communities and vowing allegiance to God over man. As pacifists, they refused to fight in any war, to hold public office, or to take oaths. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they were martyred by the thousands, but by the nineteenth century had emigrated to Russia, where they lived peacefully until the late 1800s."
More.
"Joseph, Michael, and David Hofer were blood-brothers. Together with a brother-in-law, Jacob Wipf, they were ordered to report to Camp Lewis, Washington, on May 25. Because they objected to military service on grounds of conscience, however, they refused to cooperate with even the basic induction procedures, and were thus considered to be military prisoners subject to military discipline. Persecution began immediately. Already on the train ride to the camp, another group of young men on their way to induction had grabbed the four Hutterites and tried to cut off their hair and their beards. Upon arrival, they refused to promise obedience to military commands, to stand in formation, or to put on the uniforms given to them. For this, they were thrown into a “guardhouse,” where they were kept for two months before being court-martialed and sentenced to thirty-seven years in military prison. Following their court-martial they were transferred, with hands and feet shackled, to Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. There they were forcibly stripped and commanded to dress in military uniforms. When they refused, they were taken to a dungeon where water trickled down the slimy walls and out over the bare rock floor. The darkness, cold, and stench were overpowering. Their uniforms were thrown down next to them, and they were told: “If you don’t give in, you’ll stay here till you die, like the four we dragged out of here yesterday!” "
It gets worse . . . inhuman. John Cleese is right, extremism is an excuse for the anger, hate, and sickness we all have within us.
"Shivering in their underwear, the prisoners were forced to sleep on the cold, damp floor without blankets. During the first four-and-a-half days, they were given nothing to eat and received only a half glass of water every twenty-four hours. Then, for the next two days, their hands were chained to iron rods above their heads so that their feet barely touched the floor. They were beaten with sticks, and Michael passed out. All the same, they were separated from one another so as to prevent communication; David later heard Jacob crying out: “Oh, have mercy, almighty God!”
When the men were brought up from the dungeon into a yard containing other prisoners, they had severe eczema and scurvy and had been badly bitten by insects; their arms were so swollen that they were unable to put on their coats. Altogether, they had not eaten for six days. They were finally fed but then were returned to their cells and locked in for twenty-four hours a day, apart from a single hour on Sundays when they were allowed to stand in the courtyard under heavy guard.
They endured this treatment for four months until they were chained once again for the four-day journey east to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. They arrived in Kansas at eleven o’clock at night and were driven through the streets like pigs, prodded by shouting guards with open bayonets; they fumbled to retain the Bible, bag, and pair of shoes each had been given to hold in his manacled hands. After being forced to run uphill to the prison gates, they were made to undress in the raw winter air and kept waiting, soaked in sweat, for their prison garb to be brought out. For two hours they shivered naked in the wind; by the time their clothes arrived, around 1:30 a.m., they were chilled to the bone. At 5:00 a.m. they were brought outside again and forced to stand in the cold wind. Joseph and Michael collapsed in pain and were taken to the infirmary. Jacob and David stood fast but refused to join a work detail and so were put in solitary confinement. Their hands were stretched through iron bars and chained together, and they were forced to stand in this position for nine hours each day, with only bread and water for nourishment. After two weeks, they began to receive occasional meals."
Why was the done? What was the point? How could it possibly help anyone to torture and kill these innocent peaceful people?
"Heavy With History: A Past Marred by Persecution is one Reason for Hutterites' Wariness of World"
Aksamit, Nichole. "Heavy With History: A Past Marred by Persecution is one Reason for Hutterites' Wariness of World." Forum, 14 November 1999, sec. E1 & E3.
https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/articles/newspapers/news/hutterite14b.htm
