Michigan ironworkers and the Spokane lumbermen. In 1913
there were armed conflicts in Colorado. In July 1917 at Bisbee,
Ariz., the tables were turned. A kind of vigilance committee
seized and carried out of town, with orders not to return, about
1,200 striking miners and their friends. When after many months
a trial was obtained in the state courts for those responsible for
this illegal action, it was found that no jury would convict.

The most serious of all these labour struggles was the threat-
ened strike in 1916 of the large and very powerful unions of rail-
way employees. A day was set for a general strike all over the
country. The companies refused to make further concessions,
believing that a few days of strike would bring the public to their
side. President Wilson intervened and all but compelled Con-
gress to pass (Sept. 3 1916) the Adamson Act by which a basic
eight-hour day was secured with pro-rata for overtime. This
turned out to be in effect a large increase of wages. The Supreme
Court upheld this statute, which went to the furthest verge of
the Federal Government's authority over labour matters, and
formed a basis for the increases of following years.



Social Movements, 1913-7. These struggles between the rail-
ways and the courts, between the trusts and Congress, between
labour and state Governments, between strikers and the Presi-
dent of the United States, are part of American history, because
they were vital to the welfare of the country. Combinations,
both of capital and labour, were too large to be dealt with by any
kind of private organization, or by the local and state Govern-
ments. Neither the capitalist nor the labourer respected the
restraint of state legislation. It was apparent that in the long
run the country would go back to the " might makes right " of
the middle ages, unless some peaceful settlement could be made
by a force that must be respected. Yet the ordinary plain citizen
was not much disturbed by these contests, unless he held stock
in a trust or his son was a member of a trade union. The first
concern of most people is their bread-getting, and the greater part
of the population was earning its bread daily. The farmers every-
where were aroused, for they looked on railways as hostile to
their interests, by overcharging for carrying their products, and
they resented the trusts which they believed raised prices. The
storm centre was in Washington, where President Wilson stood
intent on finding the remedy for these difficulties.

The anti-liquor forces steadily developed strength. They
urged out-and-out prohibition and secured it in more than half
the states. At the end of 1917 war prohibition was enacted by
the Federal Government and also prohibition in the district of
Columbia. December 19 1917 a two-thirds majority was secured
in Congress for a prohibition constitutional amendment the
i8th amendment which was at once submitted to the states.
Woman suffrage also advanced steadily. When it appeared in
1915 that a third of the male voters in the conversative eastern
states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachu-
setts favoured woman suffrage, the result was beyond doubt.
Congress submitted an amendment in 1919. Thus changes that
had been 50 years on the way finally were brought about by the
force of public opinion.

A change was also visible in the attitude of the country
toward immigration which Congress was determined to reduce by
an intelligence qualification. Wilson followed the example of
Taft by vetoing the new bill not once but twice; yet on Feb. 5
1917 it was passed over his veto. Besides a literacy test it raised
the head-tax to $8 and excluded oriental labourers coming from
certain geographical areas which did not include Japan but did
apply to Hindus and Malays. Causes connected with the World
War at the same time brought about a reduction in the number
of immigrants.

Educational Progress, jpop-2j. The decade following 1909
was marked by a new sense of the possibility of general edu-
cation, and the responsibility of the various governments within
the United States for a more direct, searching and practical
type of education. The country was accustomed to a system of
graded public schools, offering the " common school education,"
and leading up to the few surviving endowed academies, and
the thousands of public high schools, which were expected to
" prepare " the small proportion of young men who went on to
institutions of higher education. This system had been enriched
in various ways.

By 1910 girls were given about an equal chance in the public
elementary and secondary schools, and m a large number of co-
educational colleges and universities, besides a small group of high-
class colleges open to women only. Secondary education was sub-
divided into literary, commercial and industrial schools. The in-
stitutions of higher learning set up new professional departments
including the intensive study of education and separate schools of
science, engineering, agriculture and other specialties. Private
enterprise created a great number of so-called business colleges, and
a few very efficient trade schools. The prestige of the classics and
of the so-called culture courses was declining; and the most con-
servative universities moderated their requirements for entrance
and offered degrees to men and women on a variety of specialized
and technical courses. The number of students in the higher in-
stitutions increased to 355,131 in 1918.

Nevertheless there was general complaint that the schools did not
relate themselves to the life of the community in which the children
were to pass their later lives. It was a common experience that the
numerous boys and girls who left school at from 12 to 16 years of



890



UNITED STATES



age, and even the graduates of the secondary schools, did not take
hold readily of trades or business, and were hard to " break " to
new tasks. For many years a remedy had been sought in manual-
training schools, mostly secondary, which undertook to help the boy
and girl to meet the manufacturer and employer by specific training
in shop practice. The new steel town of Gary, Ind., introduced a
general system of industrial schools, in which the pupils in the lower
grades took various kinds of shop work. A National Society for
the Promotion of Industrial Education became the focus of a move-
ment to organize what now became generally known as vocational
education throughout the country.

A national commission was appointed by President Wilson, in
1914, to consider the whole subject. The Federal Government was
making annual grants to the state agricultural and mechanical
colleges, founded by the Morrill Land Grant of 1862. This idea of
grants-in-aid was incorporated into the report of the commis-
sion, and into the resulting Smith-Hughes Act, Feb. 22 1917,
which provided the machinery and laid out the outlines of plans for
action throughout the Union. It created a Federal Board for Vo-
cational Education which framed an elaborate plan for instruction
in the four vocational fields of agriculture, commerce, industry and
home-making. The Act promised to appropriate Federal funds
rising to about $7,000,000 in 1925 and thereafter, to be paid to such
states as would match these funds dollar for doljar.

The underlying idea was that training for life-tasks was to be
carried on in regular public schools alongside the usual culture
studies; that it ought to begin in the lower grades and run all the
way through; that it ought to apply to girls, particularly in the
fields of home life and women's industries; and that it ought to offer
facilities for those already employed, through continuation and part-
time schools.

Private enterprise went alongside this movement by building up
advanced engineering and trade schools of a high type, such as the
Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh; by improving the private com-
mercial schools, and establishing advanced schools of business train-
ing in colleges. Some of the great manufacturers, especially in the
automobile trade, set up schools within their own works.

When the United States plunged into the World War in 1917, and
it was discovered that a vast number of young men were physically
and intellectually unfitted for military service, a new influence was
brought to bear in favour of a type of public education which would
help to make citizens. The Government established a variety of
vocational schools to train men for the numerous specialties of
military service. It made great use of the shops and other vocational
facilities of the existing schools and colleges. When the war was
over, those institutions were used by the Government for " rehabilita-
tion, " preparing partially disabled soldiers for self-support. At the
same time the schools and colleges of the traditional cultural type
advanced in resources and efficiency, many of them taking on voca-
tional subjects as suitable for higher education. Great sums were
raised by special " drives " among the alumni and friends of the
endowed institutions, and the state universities were allotted hitherto
unheard-of grants. The strictly vocational schools were admitted
into fellowship with the other institutions. The students fraternized,
joined in athletic contests and alumni associations and university
clubs. There seemed room for both the old and the new types of
national education. (See EDUCATION : section United States.)

Foreign Policy, 1913-7. Woodrow Wilson was naturally a
man of peace, and so was Secretary Bryan. At the outset of the
administration they set themselves to aid the cause of general
peace by enlarging the plan of arbitration treaties which had
been urged by Root and Taft. Secretary Bryan prepared a
definite project for treaties by which the parties should pledge
themselves in case of difficulties to submit their grievances and
claims to a special arbitration commission; and to abstain from
war or preparations for war until the commission should have had
time to report. This method avoided the difficulty which had
either wrecked or weakened previous arbitration treaties, namely
the exclusion of certain matters from arbitration. On the other
hand, under such treaties no country would be bound to accept
the finding of a commission. The presumption was that a sen-
sible nation would submit to the judgment of an impartial tri-
bunal. There was little difficulty in concluding more than 30
treaties upon this basis in the course of a year. They were never
effective, and they disregarded the fact that since the first sug-
gestion of general arbitration on a large scale by the Hague Con-
ference of 1899, there had been five important wars, in not one of
which had any contestant expressed a desire for arbitration by
an impartial tribunal. The truth was that the American people
as a whole had been little accustomed to international questions
and had no definite foreign policy.

The Government of the Philippine Is. was altered by setting
up the first Filipino Assembly in 1908. Under President Wilson,



Gov.-Gen. Cameron Forbes was withdrawn and Burton Harrison
was appointed his successor, to carry out a policy of liberalization
and preparation for independence. The Filipinos were allowed
to hold a majority of the seats in the Commission, which was a
kind of administrative upper House. Natives were substituted
for Americans in many of the civil offices. The Filipinos were
thus given a definite opportunity to govern themselves. In
response to the pleading of President Taft, Congress in 1909
grudgingly included them within the customs boundary of the
United States and thus in practice abandoned duties on goods
arriving in the United States from the islands. The Jones bill
proposed even greater local powers. As enacted Aug. 29 1916,
it greatly enlarged the power of the popular part of the Govern-
ment, and the Commission ceased to exist. The bill promised
that the Filipinos should be given their independence when their
ability to govern themselves should be demonstrated. In April
1919 President Wilson publicly declared that he was ready to
grant complete independence. There was no answering sentiment
in the United States, perhaps because the World War had made
it clear that so feeble and unarmed a state could not hope to live
without the continued protection of the United States.

At the other end of the American empire, Cuba, while nomi-
nally independent, remained a protectorate of the United States.
March 2 1917 the Porto Ricans were for the first time made
American citizens and received a popular Government of two
elected Houses, possibly a preparation for statehood. President
Wilson continued the practical administration of San Domingo
which dated back to Roosevelt. He also took military control
of Haiti in 1914 and followed it by a treaty which was ratified by
the Senate Feb. 28 1916. He carried even farther Taft's policy
in Nicaragua by a treaty (ratified by the Senate Aug. 14 1914)
which converted that State into a virtual protectorate. Another
area came under control of the United States by a treaty for the |
annexation of the Danish West Indies (Aug. 4 1916) ; these islands
were duly organized under the title Virgin Is. of the United i
States. Little opposition was made to this creation of a virtual
empire, including dependent provinces. No reluctance was
shown by the American people in extending their borders, their
influence and their naval stations, so as to include portions of
the West Indies. They were unconsciously preparing the way for
a policy of Caribbean activity, under which the United States
would take that predominance in the West Indies which Great
Britain had held for over a hundred years. .

Latin America and the Orient, 1913-7. The peaceful policy
of the United States towards its neighbours was severely tested i
by disturbances in Mexico. Soon after Wilson's inauguration
in 1913 Madero, president of that turbulent republic, was mur-
dered and Gen. Huerta, an insurgent officer, thereupon declared
himself the head of the State. The almost invariable policy of
the United States had been to recognize any de facto head of any i
Latin-American Government, without inquiring into the source
of justice of his title. To President Wilson and to many others
it seemed an iniquity to recognize murder as a proper means of I
changing a Government. He therefore adopted what he called
a policy of " watchful waiting." He steadily refused to recognize
Huerta, who was compelled to battle for his dictatorship against
Carranza, the bandit Villa and other rival revolutionists. Not
having recognized Huerta, Wilson was not in a position to pro-
tect American rights of life and property in Mexico. Some years
later a record was published of 112 murders or violent deaths of
Americans. All Wilson could do was to declare neutrality as
between Huerta and his rivals. In April 1914 a trifling dispute
arose as to a salute of the American flag and Wilson, apparently
yielding to strong public sentiment, ordered the navy to attack
and capture Vera Cruz, of which the United States remained in
possession for some months. The real object appears to have
been to discomfit Huerta, who was compelled to flee the country.
Two years later, further and more serious trouble arose when the
brigand Villa raided the town of Columbus, N.M., and killed
several soldiers and civilians. The Government of Mexico had
no control over Villa, and President Wilson ordered a military!
expedition under Gen. Pershing to advance into the interior of



UNITED STATES



891



Mexico, which remained about eight months, without capturing
Villa or accomplishing any other definite result. The three friend-
ly nations of Argentina, Brazil and Chile commonly known as
the " A B C Powers " offered a kind of mediation; and after
many months of delay, at their suggestion Carranza was recog-
nized as president by the United States. But disorder continued;
neither life norproperty was safe. Not till 1921, after n years of
civil war and immense destruction of life and wealth, did Mexico
emerge from the state of revolution which had been its chronic
condition before the time of President Diaz.

The long controversy with Mexico was highly disturbing to
the intention of the Administration to cultivate close relations
with Latin-America in general. In spite of four pan-American
congresses and several scientific congresses, in spite of the visits
of Roosevelt and Secretary Root and Secretary Knox to S.
America, and the opening of the short route to the W. coast
through the Panama Canal there could be no harmony if the
United States were to continue annexing small and defenceless
Latin-American nations and engaging in undeclared wars with
Mexico. President Wilson sought to relieve apprehensions in
this regard, and in a speech at Mobile Oct. 27 1913 declared that
the United States had no designs on the territory or independence
of its Latin-American neighbours. Colombia, too, had a griev-
ance arising out of the loss of the isthmus when the Panama
Canal Zone was annexed in 1904. Wilson gave his approval to a
treaty to pay $25,000,000 to Colombia and to include an apology
for the disagreeable events of 1904; but he could not push his
measures through the Senate, though a similar treaty, minus the
apology, was ratified by the succeeding Administration in 1921.

In regard to the Far East, Wilson had little opportunity to
develop a policy. He began by disavowing the plans made under
the advice of President Taft for a concert of American bankers
with those of other countries to lend money to China. He con-
tinued, on the same lines as the Taft Administration, to argue
with the people of California because they insisted on passing
a statute restricting alien ownership of lands by Japanese resi-
dents. The World War soon made the United States and Japan
temporary allies, and on Nov. 2 1917 the Lansing-Ishii note, on
the same plan as the Root-Takahira note of 1908, set forth that
the United States recognized Japan's " special interests in
China." In the deeper currents of East Asiatic diplomacy the
United States did not enter until after the war.

Outbreak of the World War, 1914. Long before the domestic
and foreign policies of the United States reached the results
described in the preceding sections, the United States was
brought face to face with new and vital problems arising out of
the war. That the country was peaceful in 1914, and expected
to remain indefinitely at peace, is shown by the lack of anything
that could be considered national military preparation in the
terms of modern warfare. When on Aug. 4 1914 President Wilson
issued a proclamation of neutrality as between the two groups
of European nations just engaging in a gigantic struggle, the
authorized military establishment was about 107,000 men of
whom some 87,000 were enrolled. The United States had not
one military aeroplane of approved type; had only four modern
heavy field guns and no transport for them; had not a trench
bomb nor a mine-thrower; nor considerable supplies of any weap-
ons or equipment except 800,000 excellent rifles; nor any of-
ficers experienced in the kind of warfare used in the recent South
African, Manchurian, Balkan and Tripolitan campaigns; nor
any instruction camps for officers or men. The navy included
a fleet of battleships recently built, but was weak in small and
swift vessels and particularly in submarines, though it had the
great advantage of trained crews accustomed to the strategic
units of sea warfare. For the protection of the Texas border,
and as a second line in case of an invasion of Mexico, militia was
available, but when called out later proved to be of little service.
The tradition of a hundred years led the American people to
expect no wars and in case of danger to rely on hasty volunteer
enlistments. Bryan, in many respects a far-sighted man, publicly
declared that the nation needed no preparation, for it could
raise a million men between sunrise and sunset.



The foreign policy and the diplomatic organization of the
United States were not fitted for such a crisis. Apparently not one
of the American ambassadors realized the imminence of war in
Europe or warned the Department of State of trouble; although
Theodore Roosevelt as far back as 1909 had detected the hostile
attitude of Germany toward the United States. The traditional
diplomacy of America was based on the Monroe Doctrine as a
principle that would keep European Powers out of the Americas,
and therefore out of dangerous controversies with the United
States. On the other hand, the principle of isolation forbade
the United States to take any part in European crises or wars.
Friendship with all nations had been the avowed policy of many
successive presidents. If nations fought among themselves, the
. United States expected to remain neutral. As a neutral it stood
by the principle of " freedom of the seas," by which was meant
in particular the right to carry on commerce with all belligerents,
in case of war, subject to the limitations of the then acknowl-
edged international law as to contraband and blockade. More-
over, the United States during the Civil War had laid down prin-
ciples of " continuous voyages," which it could not refuse to
accept so far as its own commerce was concerned. Yet probably
not one voter in ten had any clear notion of the external policy
and principles of his Government, or understood that such a war
as broke out in 1914 must deeply affect the United States, and
might at last draw it into the struggle.

The diplomatic activities of the United States at the beginning
of the war created no difficulties. Thousands of American tour-
ists and residents were caught in the mobilization of the great
European armies, and on Aug. 8 1914 $5,500,000 was sent over
by the Government on a U.S. steamer to aid in bringing them
home. A few weeks later relief was organized on a large scale for
the Belgian people, most of whose country was overrun and held
by the Germans. From year to year this system of relief was
enlarged, so as to include French refugees as well as those who
were still in the devastated portions of France, the unhappy
peoples of Serbia and Asia Minor and other non-combatant
sufferers, besides the sick and wounded of the contending armies.
The agents of the American Red Cross and similar organizations
were received in most parts of the war area, and privileged to
work at the front and to carry on their operations within the
warring countries. Supplies costing more than $1,500,000 were
sent to Europe by the American Red Cross before the United
States entered the war. This work of mercy put these unofficial
representatives of the United States in the position of exponents
of American neutrality.

Difficulties of Neutrality, 1914-7. From another point of view
the United States was compelled at once to take into account
the relation between the war and American industries, commerce
and finance. Very soon after hostilities began, loans were sought
by most of the belligerent Governments. Large amounts were
placed in the United States by Great Britain, France and Russia.
The German Government floated several small loans, chiefly
among their nationals and former nationals. President Wilson
for a time advised Americans against aiding either side in that
way and issued a proclamation (Aug. 18 1914) advising that
the people remain neutral " not only in act but in word and in
thought." Such neutrality was impossible, because the natural
course of neutral trade put the United States at once in the posi-
tion of a source of supplies of every kind for any belligerent that
could transport them. Probably not a dollar of the loans placed
in America ever crossed the Atlantic in cash; as fast as the
money was borrowed it was spent in the United States for the
purchase of food, clothing, animals and especially munitions.
Though the privileges of this trade were in theory equal, in
practice it was decidedly unfavourable to the Central Powers.
In the first weeks of, the war German commerce was driven from
the seas' and more than 80 German steamers took refuge in ports
of the United States. The Allied command of the sea very nearly
cut off trade of any kind between the United States and Germany
and her allies; while commerce continued in ever-increasing
volume with England and France. This disparity led to violent
protests on the part of the German Government, supported by



892



UNITED STATES



Germans and pro-Germans in the United States, and also to
lawless acts perpetrated or directed by agents dispatched by the