United States Enters WWI: Weighing the decision to enter the war
The United States’ decision to declare war on Germany in 1917 was not
made lightly. A variety of factors were involved. While many citizens
supported the declaration of war, there were many that stood
opposed. These primary sources represent arguments made by both
sides of the issue as the nation wrestled with a decision that would
forever change the United States’ role in global affairs.
Instructions: Using the provided documents, you will use the skills
you’ve practiced in analyzing sources to answer the writing prompt
below. Your response should include details from the provided
sources. There are many sources, you must use a minimum of 5 of
them in your response. Using a source requires a quote or reference by
its name or document number. For example, you can put in a quote
from the document followed by (Document 2), or say “In document 5,
the author….”.
Writing prompt: Why did the United States enter World War I? Explain
the interventionist arguments and how Americans reacted. Why did
some Americans oppose American military involvement?
Sources
You may view the documents below or with this PDF for easier access.
You may also view the Rubric for this final in the PDF.
Document 1: Excerpt from Why America Fights Germany (1918), a
government propaganda pamphlet concerning alleged German
atrocities.
“We were horrified still more by their conduct in Belgium—by their
needless destruction of precious things, by their vile and filthy
treatment of the Belgians, by their robberies, by their numberless
murders. A German soldier fell off his bicycle and his gun went off; he
declared he had been shot at, and all the inhabitants of the village
were burned to death in their homes. Feeble old Belgian priests were
forced to walk in front of the marching German armies as screens, so
that if the Belgians fired they might kill the priests first. Babies were
stabbed with bayonets. Belgians were carried off into Germany and
forced to work for the German armies. … Whole books have been
written about these horrors, against all law and humanity, and yet half
of them have not been recorded.”
Document 2: Excerpt from Joe’s War: Memoirs of a Doughboy by
Joseph N. Rizzi.
“When we did meet she [Rizzi’s girlfriend] would show me
[news]papers carrying cruelties committed by the Huns. She called me
a coward and said that I was ungrateful by not serving for our country.
She tormented me with the fact that she would never marry me
unless I entered the army. I tried to reason with her and point out that
some of the acts were being exaggerated to incite people against the
Germans. If acts WERE committed they were by some individual and a
whole nation could not be condemned. I tried to show her that the
atrocities related by the papers were being committed by criminals in
civilian life; therefore, some unruly Germans were perpetuating those
acts, and false propaganda also was being issued. But still she refused
to listen to me and remained deaf to any of my phone calls and would
not answer my letters.”
Document 3: Excerpt from How the War Came to America (1917), a
government propaganda pamphlet.
“On the eve of the present conflict, our position toward other nations
might have been summarized under three heads:
I. The Monroe Doctrine.—We had pledged ourselves to defend the
New World from European aggression, and we had by word and deed
made it clear that we would not intervene in any European dispute.
II. The freedom of the seas.—In every naval conference our influence
had been given in support of the principle that sea law to be just and
worthy of general respect must be based on the consent of the
governed.
III. Arbitration.—As we had secured peace at home by referring
interstate disputes to a federal tribunal, we urged a similar settlement
of international controversies. Our ideal was a permanent world court.
We had made plain to the nations our purpose to forestall by every
means in our power the recurrence of wars in the world.”
Document 4: Liberty Bond poster, 1918.
Document 5: Excerpt from President Wilson’s 2 April, 1917 address
before Congress, calling for war against Germany.
“We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense
about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for
the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the
rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere
to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made
safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested
foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We
desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for
ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely
make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We
shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the
faith and the freedom of nations can make them.”
Document 6: Editorial excerpt from The Washington Post titled
“Liberty Draws the Sword”, 4 April, 1917.
“Now comes the great republic, the natural enemy and destroyer of
autocracy. With insane rage autocracy has challenged the sovereignty
of this nation. It has struck squarely at the life of democracy, and
boasts that it will overcome the United States. The spokesman of the
world’s free people has sounded the call to arms. America is called
upon to defend herself and destroy her assailant. There is not room on
earth or ocean for both autocracy and democracy. One or the other
must perish.”
Document 7: Poem, The New Crusade, by Katharine Lee Bates. From
the Committee on Public Information’s 1918 publication, The Battle
Line of Democracy: Prose and Poetry of the World War.
The New Crusade
LIFE is a trifle; Honor is all; Shoulder the rifle; Answer the call. A nation
of traders’! We’ll show what we are, Freedom’s crusaders Who war
against war.
Battle is tragic; Battle shall cease; Ours is the magic Mission of Peace.
Gladly we barter Gold of our youth For Liberty’s charter Blood-sealed in
truth. ‘A nation of traders’! We’ll show what we are, Freedom’s
crusaders Who war against war.
Sons of the granite, Strong be our stroke, Making this planet Safe for
the folk.
Life is but passion, Sunshine on dew. Forward to fashion The old world
anew! ‘A nation of traders’! We’ll show what we are, Freedom’s
crusaders Who war against war.
Document 8: A woman and her child drown after their passenger ship,
the R.M.S. Lusitania, is sunk by a German submarine. 1915 recruitment
poster by Fred Spear.
Document 9: Excerpt of speech by Sen. George Norris (R-Nebraska), 4
April 1917.
“It is now demanded that the American citizens shall be used as
insurance policies to guarantee the safe delivery of munitions of war to
belligerent nations. The enormous profits of munition [sic]
manufacturers, stockbrokers, and bond dealers must be still further
increased by our entrance into the war. This has brought us to the
present moment, when Congress, urged by the President and backed
by the artificial sentiment, is about to declare war and engulf our
country in the greatest holocaust that the world has ever known. We
are taking a step today that is fraught with untold danger. We are
going into war upon the command of gold. We are going to run the
risk of sacrificing millions of our countrymen’s lives in order that other
countrymen may coin their lifeblood into money. And even if we do
not cross the Atlantic and go into the trenches, we are going to pile up
a debt that the tolling masses that shall come many generations after
us will have to pay. Unborn millions will bend their backs in toil in order
to pay for the terrible step we are now about to take.”
Document 10: In 1917, Emma Goldman was arrested and accused of
inciting men not to register for the military draft, a federal crime. This
is an excerpt of a speech Goldman gave at her trial. She was found
guilty.
“We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for
democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else
is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is
daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies
broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free
press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged. Verily, poor
as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?”
Document 11: Excerpt of editorial from the German-language Omaha
Daily Tribune, February 1917.
“The break with our old fatherland is at hand and on account of
questions whose handling by our government sometimes seemed to
us not entirely just and in keeping with the best interests of the future
of our country. But we have duties toward our adopted country. Our
allegiance belongs to America first, last, and all the time. These duties
we must perform and will perform above all considerations regardless
of what the future may have in store for us.”
