The Road to War 619under 16 from interstate commerce, and a workers’
compensation act for federal employees. He per-
suaded Congress to pass the Adamson Act, estab-
lishing an eight-hour day for railroad workers, and
he modified his position on the tariff by approving
the creation of a tariff commission.
Each of these actions represented a sharp rever-
sal. In 1913 Wilson had considered Brandeis too
radical even for a Cabinet post. The new farm,
labor, and tariff laws were all examples of the kind of
“class legislation” he had refused to countenance in
1913 and 1914. Wilson was putting into effect
much of the progressive platform of 1912.
Although the progressive convention came out for
the Republican nominee, Associate Justice Charles
Evans Hughes, who had compiled a record as a pro-
gressive governor of New York, many other pro-
gressives supported Wilson.
The key issue in the campaign was American pol-
icy toward the warring powers. Wilson intended to
stress preparedness, which he was now wholeheart-
edly supporting. However, during the Democratic
convention, the delegates shook the hall with cheers
whenever orators referred to the president’s success in
keeping the country out of the war. One spellbinder,
referring to the Sussexpledge, announced that the
president had “wrung from the most militant spirit
that ever brooded above a battlefield an acknowl-
edgement of American rights and an agreement to
American demands,” and the convention erupted in a
demonstration that lasted more than twenty minutes.
Thus “He Kept Us Out of War” became the
Democratic slogan.
To his credit, Wilson made no promises. “I can’t
keep the country out of war,” he told one member of
his Cabinet. “Any little German lieutenant can put us
into the war at any time by some calculated outrage.”
His attitude undoubtedly cost him the votes of
extremists on both sides, but it won the backing of
thousands of moderates.
The combination of progressivism and the peace
issue placed the Democrats on substantially equal
terms with the Republicans. In the end, personal fac-
tors probably tipped the balance. Hughes was very
stiff (Theodore Roosevelt called him a bearded
Woodrow Wilson) and an ineffective speaker; he
offended a number of important politicians, espe-
cially in crucial California, where he inadvertently
snubbed the popular progressive governor, Hiram
Johnson; and he equivocated on a number of issues.
Nevertheless, on election night he appeared to have
won, having carried nearly all the East and Midwest.
Late returns gave Wilson California, however, and
with it victory by the narrow margin of 277 to 254 in
the Electoral College. He led Hughes in the popular
vote, 9.1 million to 8.5 million.The Road to War
Encouraged by his triumph, appalled by the continu-
ing slaughter on the battlefields, fearful that the
United States would be dragged into the conflagra-
tion, Wilson made one last effort to end the war by
negotiation. In 1915 and again in 1916 he had sent
his friend Colonel Edward House on secret missions
to London, Paris, and Berlin to try to mediate among
the belligerents. Each had proved fruitless, but after
another long season of bloodshed, perhaps the pow-
ers would listen to reason.
Wilson’s own feelings were more genuinely neu-
tral than at any other time during the war, for the
Germans had stopped sinking merchant ships without
warning and the British had irritated him repeatedly
by their arbitrary restrictions on neutral trade. He
drafted a note to the belligerents asking them to state
the terms on which they would agree to lay down
their arms. Unless the fighting ended soon, he
warned, neutrals and belligerents alike would be so
ruined that peace would be meaningless.
When neither side responded encouragingly,
Wilson, on January 22, 1917, delivered a moving
speech aimed at “the people of the countries now
at war” more than at their governments. Any settle-
ment imposed by a victor, he declared, would
breed hatred and more wars. There must be “peace
without victory,” based on the principles that all
nations were equal and that every nationality
should determine its own form of government. He
mentioned, albeit vaguely, disarmament and free-
dom of the seas, and he suggested the creation of
some kind of international organization to preserve
world peace. “There must be not a balance of
power, but a community of power,” he said, and he
added, “I am speaking for the silent mass of
mankind everywhere.”
This noble appeal met a tragic fate. The Germans
had already decided to renounce the Sussexpledge
and unleash their submarines against all vessels
headed for Allied ports. After February 1, any ship in
the war zone would be attacked without warning.
Possessed now of more than 100 U-boats, the
German military leaders had convinced themselves
that they could starve the British people into submis-
sion and reduce the Allied armies to impotence by
cutting off the flow of American supplies. The United
States would probably declare war, but the Germans
believed that they could overwhelm the Allies
before the Americans could get to the battlefields in