w aging w ar to t ransform the w orld 119Vietnam and Iraq. Certainly, the Wilson administration had grounds
for concern, given the evidence of war weariness on the home front in
other countries that had been beset by war for several years. Notwith-
standing Wilson’s paeans to the democratic aspirations of the Russian
people, he knew full well that the revolution against the old regime in
February 1917 expressed widespread discontent with the war.
Proactive measures to encourage popular enthusiasm and engage cit-
izens in war-related voluntary activities, then, made a good deal of
sense. (Or, to put it another way, no responsible government will trust
to chance the willingness of its citizenry to make sacrifi ces for abstrac-
tions such as national honor or making the world safe for democracy.)
Th e administration also demonstrated a capacity for innovation in its
use of emerging advertising techniques as propaganda tools. On the
other hand, administration propaganda infl ated expectations about
what the war would accomplish, making subsequent disillusionment
more likely and undercutting support for Wilson’s postwar peace-
building project. Worse still, the Creel Committee contributed greatly
to an atmosphere of heightened nationalism and chauvinism that even
the most pro-Wilson historians describe as “a mob spirit.” Wilson
paid lip service to the right to dissent, but he presided over a broad-
scale assault on civil liberties without equal in the generally abysmal
record of American leaders faced with signifi cant domestic opposition
to their wars.
Wilson Tries to Build His Peace
On one point about Woodrow Wilson as a war leader historians agree:
he did not achieve the kind of peace he had promised when asking
Congress to declare war on Germany. They differ, though, on two
counts. To begin with, whether Wilson was right to aim as high as he
did has long divided those who have examined his leadership. Some
dismiss his vision as hopelessly and dangerously utopian, while others
counter that he understood the vital importance of collective security
arrangements for preserving peace but was too far ahead of his more
narrow-minded contemporaries.
Moreover, there has long been debate about how much of the
responsibility for Wilson’s failure rests on his shoulders. One camp