The abandonment of the neutrality policy came by a very gradual process, which is partly reflected in the speeches of President Wilson, especially during the year 1916. The develop ment of the President's policy was undoubtedly much too slow for those who had felt from the beginning that France and England were guard ing democracy and international justice against the militaristic traditions of the Central Em pires. On the other hand, his gradual assump tion of American responsibility in the inter national crisis was, up to the date of his war message of 2 April 1917, somewhat in advance of the great body of American opinion. He had, however, by that time so far won the con fidence of this uncertain group, both as to his understanding of the international situation and the political ideals toward which he was work ing, that it was willing to accept his leadership.
The direct menace to the United States of German methods and German aims was brought home more and more by the recklessness of the submarine warfare; by the intrigues of German agents in the United States and the acts of vio lence instigated by them; by their persistent appeals to the separate consciousness of the German-born element; and lastly by their ef forts to disturb the friendly relations of the United States with Latin-America. From a strictly nationalistic point of view, these things fully justified the President in asking and Con gress in voting the declaration of war in April 1917.
There was, nevertheless, an important group which was not satisfied by any purely national istic conception of the issue. These men were patriotic, but American loyalty meant to them not only the defense of immediate national in terests but allegiance to American ideals. In the Civil War Lincoln had summoned to the preservation of the Union not merely the senti ment of American patriotism but the devotion of those who valued America as the chief rep resentative in the world of democratic ideals of government by the people. On that ground also he asked the moral support of European liberals, especially the British working-classes. More and more the great European War seemed to involve equally momentous consequences for civil liberty. The victory of a highly organ ized military monarchy like Prussia over the democracies of western Europe was likely to discredit democracy as the less efficient form of government and thus exert a reactionary in fluence on political thinking everywhere. This
issue was clarified when the Revolution of March 1917 overthrew the Russian autocracy and the conflict became more distinctly than before one of the free nations against the most aggressive exponents of the monarchical tra dition. So President Wilson was able to rein force the nationalistic appeal by raising the larger issue. As Monroe's message asserted the interest of the United States in the preservation of the Latin-American republics, so Wilson, dealing with a world far more closely knit to made his plea, that the should be made safe for democracy." In his presentation of war aims, the Presi dent also appealed to the growing sentiment among thoughtful men everywhere, nowhere stronger than in the United States, for some escape from national egoism and international anarchy. Such men followed with sympathy the President's stubborn refusal to be drawn into an imperialistic policy toward Mexico; they defended his extraordinary patience in the face of German aggression; and they hoped to the last that the United States, without actu ally entering the war, might contribute some thing to the establishment of a just and lasting peace. The clearest expression of this idea that America must accept a more definite re sponsibility for the establishment of a new in ternational order is to be found in the Presi dent's speech to the Senate of 22 Jan. 1917. The time had come, he said, "to lay afresh, and upon a new plan, the foundations of peace among the nauons.s is inconceivable,* he continued, *that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise. To take part in such service will be the op portunity for which they have sought to pre pare themselves by the very principles and purposes of their policy and the approved prac tices of their government ever since they set up a new nation in the high and honorable hope that it might in all that it was and did show mankind the way to liberty.* It must be said, however, that this emphasis on the larger responsibility of the United States aroused the antagonism of certain senators who urged the clinger of abandoning the traditional policy of isolation.
A few days later the German government by its announcement of practically unrestricted submarine warfare not only declared virtual war against the United States but proclaimed its entire lack of sympathy with the inter national ideals of which the American Presi dent had become the chief exponent.