HNRS 3500: Honors Thesis Proposal The First World War: American

Ideals and Wilsonian Idealism in

Foreign Policy

Karis Durant Mentor: Dr. Randolph “Mike” Campbell

University of North Texas, Department of History April 3, 2008

it was called

“the war to end all wars”

World War II

Korea

Vietnam

Gulf War

War on Terror (Afghanistan and Iraq)

www.archives.gov/...

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pictopia.com/perl/get_image?provider_id=226.

“He Kept Us Out of

the War”

Wilson’s 1916 campaign slogan

“The President’s [McKinley] desire is for peace. He can not look

upon the suffering and starvation in Cuba save with horror. The concentration of

men, women, and children in the fortified towns and permitting

them to starve is unbearable to a Christian nation geographically

so close as ours to Cuba”

-William Day, Secretary of State

Spanish American War - 1898

“The world must be made safe for democracy. “

President Wilson

addressing Congress,

April 2, 1917

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“…we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts – for democracy… 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. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and

everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is

privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she

can do no other.”

~ President Wilson, April 2, 1917 ~

http://www.presidentprofiles.co

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“The American people, to the entire

disbelief of contemporary foreign

observers and to the disbelief of

their own children of the next

generation, were willing to take a

stand in the world for principle”

(Ferrell).

Speeches given by Wilson

– Feb. 26, 1916 - “Valor strikes only when it is right to strike”

– April 13, 1916 – “These are days that search men’s hearts”

– September 2, 1916 – acceptance speech for Presidency

– October 26, 1916 – “The business of neutrality is over”

– November 1916 – “The day of isolation is gone”

– January 22, 1917 – “Essential terms of peace in Europe”

– April 2, 1917 – Declaration of War

The Dallas Morning News January 23, 1917

“What Mr. Wilson is sworn to do is prescribed by the Constitution. He is

sworn to execute faithfully the office of President of the United States… He is not

sworn to execute the offices of the president of humanity….”

“The task he cuts out for the American people

is a great one, worthy of our country

and its grand ideals.”

Senator Benjamin Tillman, South Carolina

“It constitutes a shining ideal, seemingly unattainable while passions rule the world, but

embodying nevertheless the hopes of the nations both large and small.”

The New York Times, January 23, 1917

“President Wilson’s address was inspired by lofty idealism and voiced the aspirations of

the whole world for a lasting peace founded on justice and liberty.”

The Atlanta Constitution, January 23, 1917

Time Magazine March 20, 2008

“But you don't hear many conservatives echoing the grand Wilsonianism of Bush's Second Inaugural, in which he

claimed that ‘America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.’ The fastest-growing species on the foreign-

policy right is what National Review editor Rich Lowry calls ‘to hell with them’ hawks: conservatives who don't care how

non-Americans run their societies as long as they don't threaten us in the process. Among Democrats, hawkishness is

out of fashion, but humanitarianism remains strong.”

“Moralism and military force are both necessary to U.S. foreign policy, but the former shouldn't ride the latter into battle.”

Americans have not, will not, and should not eliminate their idealism, but perhaps by studying the past, Americans will be able to create a better blend of idealism

and realism for the future.

Acknowledgments

Dr. Randolph “Mike” Campbell

Dr. Samuel Matteson

The Honors College

Dr. Alfred Hurley

Casey, Christine, Elizabeth, Jenny, Josh, Rafael

Sources

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Cohen, E (2001, November, 20). World war IV. Wall Street Journal, Retrieved October 30, 2007, from http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001493

Dallek, R (1969). 1898: McKinley's decision: the United States declares war on Spain. New York, NY: Chelsea House Publishers.

Ferrell, R. (1969). American diplomacy: a history. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Gould, L (1982). The Spanish-American war and President McKinley. Wichita, KS: University Press of Kansas.

Kissinger, H (1974). American foreign policy: expanded edition. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

LaForte, R (Ed.). (1989). Our national heritage: essays in American history since 1965. Dubuque, IO: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

Link, A (1954). Woodrow Wilson and the progressive era: 1910-1917. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Link, A (1968). Woodrow Wilson: a profile. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. Smith, D (1965). The great departure. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons,

Inc.