In November, 1918, shortly before the departure of the President for Paris, occurred the Congressional elections, which were destined to have an important effect on the immediate future. Until late October the usual display of partisan politics had been, on the surface at least, uncommonly slight. On the 25th, however, the President urged the country to elect a Democratic Congress, declaring that the Republican leaders in Washington, although favorable to the war, had been hostile to the administration, and that the election of a Republican majority would enable them to obstruct a legislative program. The Republicans asserted that the request was a challenge to the motives and fidelity of their party, and a partisan and mendacious accusation. As a result of the ensuing contest the control of both Senate and House were won by the Republicans. It is impossible to judge whether the President's appeal recoiled seriously against his own party or whether the tendency to reaction against the administration at mid-term, which has been so common since the Civil War, was the decisive force. In any case, however, Wilson was compelled to go to Paris encumbered with the handicap of political defeat at home.
Nevertheless he was received with unbounded enthusiasm by the French people and at once became one of the central figures among the leaders at Paris. Not only did the American delegates work in conjunction with the representatives of the Allies, but Wilson became a member of an inner council, the other participants in which were Premier Lloyd George of England, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France and Premier Orlando of Italy. The "Big Four," as the group was known, led the conference and made its most important decisions. The day of the aloofness of the United States from international affairs, which had been ended only temporarily by the war with Spain, was apparently brought to a final close.[9]
At length the treaty with Germany was completed, President Wilson returned to America, and on July 10, 1919, he appeared before the Senate to outline the purposes and contents of the agreement and to offer his services to that body and to its Committee on Foreign Relations in order to enable them intelligently to exercise their advisory function as part of the treaty-making power. The Treaty was seen to contain two general features: a stern reckoning with Germany which commended itself to all except a small minority of the Senate; and a plan for a League of Nations which provided for concerted action on the part of the nations of the world to reduce armaments and to minimize the danger of war. President Wilson's interest in the League was intense and of long standing. He had hoped—and in this he was supported doubtless by the entire American people—that the European conflict might be a "war to end war," and to this conclusion he believed that a world association was essential. Public interest in the project was indicated by the efforts put forth in its behalf by Ex-President Taft, George W. Wickersham, who had been Attorney-General in the Taft cabinet, President Lowell of Harvard University, and other influential citizens.
[Illustration:
The Cost of Food
Jan. 1913-Jan. 1920]
Although interest in the Treaty and the League of Nations overshadowed all other issues, nevertheless many problems relating to internal reconstruction pressed forward for settlement. It was commonly, if not universally felt that somehow the United States would be different after the war, but in what ways and to what degree remained to be determined. Reconstruction in the world of industry was complicated by the demobilization of several millions of men from the army and navy, as well as the freeing of a still larger number of both men and women from various kinds of war work.[10] When the armistice was signed, the industries of the country were under contract with the War Department to provide supplies valued at six billion dollars, and these contracts had to be terminated with as little dislocation of industrial life as might be consistent with the necessity of stopping the production of materials which the government could not use. The laboring classes had loyally supported the war and had largely relinquished the use of the strike for the time being. In the meantime the cost of living had doubled, while wages in most industries had not responded equally. After the war, therefore, it was inevitable that the laboring classes should become restive under prevailing economic conditions. No more important question faced the country, a keen observer declared, than that concerning the wages of the laboring man: "How are the masses of men and women who labor with their hands to be secured out of the products of their toil what they will feel to be and will be in fact a fair return!"
The huge purchases of war materials in the United States by European nations had transformed this country to a creditor nation to which the chief countries of the world owed large interest payments. The situation was a distinct contrast to the past, for the industrial development of the country especially since the Civil War, had been made possible in considerable measure by capital borrowed in European countries. Hitherto, therefore, the United States had been a debtor nation sending large yearly interest payments abroad. Moreover, America was being increasingly looked to for raw materials as well as manufactured articles, and was likely to become more than ever an exporting nation.
The mobilization of the large armies required for the war proved the need of energetic reforms in fields that had earlier been too much neglected. The fact that so many as twenty-nine per cent. of the young men examined for the army between the ages of twenty-one and thirty had to be rejected because of physical defects was a cause of astonishment. The need of greater efforts in behalf of education was proved by the large number of illiterates discovered, and the necessity of training immigrants in the fundamentals of American government was so clearly demonstrated as to give rise to wide-spread plans for Americanization.
More definite were the effects of the war on the prohibition movement. For many years a small but growing minority of reformers had urged the adoption of means for stopping the use of intoxicating liquors and they had been successful in procuring constitutional amendments in about half the states by the close of 1916. The war presented an opportunity for further progress. In September, 1918, they procured the passage of a resolution in Congress allowing the President to establish zones around places where war materials were manufactured; liquors were not to be sold within these areas. Soon afterward the manufacture of beer and wine was forbidden until the conclusion of the war, on the ground that the grains and fruits needed for the production of these beverages could better be used as foods. In the meantime a federal constitutional amendment establishing prohibition had been referred to the states for ratification. By January 16, 1919, it had received the necessary ratification by three-fourths of the states and took effect a year later.[11]
The railroads constituted another difficult problem. Agreement seemed to be general that they could not be relinquished by the government to private control without significant changes in existing legislation, and several forces, especially the insistence of the President and of the opponents of government ownership, combined to spur Congress to act on the matter at an early date. The Esch-Cummins law of February 28, 1920, was an important addition to the body of interstate commerce legislation. It enlarged and increased the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission; it authorized the Commission to recommend government loans to the railroads; established a Railroad Labor Board to settle disputes between the carriers and their employees; empowered the Commission to require the joint use of track and terminal facilities in emergencies; forbade the construction of new lines and the issuance of stocks and bonds without the consent of the Commission; directed the preparation and adoption of plans for the consolidation of the railway properties into a limited number of systems; permitted pooling under the authorization of the Commission; and provided for the accumulation of reserve funds and a fund for purchasing additions to railway equipment. Whether a final solution of the transportation problem or not, the new act embodied much of the experience gained since the passage of the law of 1887.
In the field of politics and government an important part of reconstruction was the readjustment of relations between the federal executive and Congress. During the war it was inevitable that the President should provide most of the initiative in legislation; but it was likewise inevitable that the legislative branch should reassert itself as soon as possible. The fact that the consideration of the Treaty of Versailles necessarily concerned the Senate rather than the House of Representatives, gave the upper chamber an opportunity to attempt the repression of executive power to the proportions which had characterized it immediately before the war. Moreover if the members of the Senate should imitate the example of their predecessors in the conflict with President Johnson in 1867, that body might attempt to regain for itself the primacy in the federal government which had been partially lost under Cleveland's regime and completely superseded through Roosevelt's development of the presidential office.