Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements

by Frank B. Lord; James William Bryan

Mr. Bryan had of necessity been made Secretary of State, and it may be supposed that there was equal necessity for opening up the diplomatic service as a happy hunting ground for the Bryan men—"deserving Democrats," as Mr. Bryan called them in a famous letter. The chief European posts, to which the Taft Administration had not begun to apply the merit system, were filled chiefly by Mr. Wilson's own nominees. These included several well-known men of letters, and with one or two exceptions the amateur diplomats serving as the heads of the missions in Europe did satisfactory and even brilliant service under the unprecedented strain which the war brought on them. The service in Latin America, however, which Knox had almost entirely professionalized, was given over bodily to personal followers of Bryan. In what was in 1913 perhaps the most important of our diplomatic posts, the embassy to Mexico, Mr. Wilson was compelled to rely provisionally on Henry Lane Wilson, a holdover appointee from the previous Administration.

It was soon made clear that there was to be no more dollar diplomacy. The Knox policies in Central America were dropped—although American troops continued to dominate Nicaragua—and in 1914 the Administration successfully discouraged American participation in a six-power loan to China. The Russo-Japanese absorption of Manchuria was to be treated as the accomplished fact that it was; and in general the policy of the new Administration was anything but aggressive. It would not use diplomacy to advance American commercial interests, nor was it prepared to accept the assistance of American financiers in promoting the policies of diplomacy.

But it was evident from the outset that the most quiescent foreign policy could not prevent foreign complications. Growing anti-Japanese sentiment in California led to the passage of a State law against Japanese land holdings. There was much resentment in Japan, and protest was made to the Federal Government. Mr. Bryan, as Secretary of State, had to make a personal trip to Sacramento to intercede with the Californians; and at one time (May, 1913) military men appeared to feel that the situation was extremely delicate. But the crisis passed over, the Californians modified the law, and though in its amended form it suited neither the Californians nor the Japanese, the issue remained in the background during the more urgent years of the war. Toward the very end of the Wilson Administration it was to come back into prominence.

Another question which caused much disturbance to the new Administration was the question of Panama Canal tolls. An act passed in 1912 had exempted American coastwise shipping passing through the canal from the tolls assessed on other vessels, and the British Government had protested against this on the ground that it violated the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901, which had stipulated that the canal should be open to the vessels of all nations "on terms of entire equality." Other nations than England had an interest in this question, and there was a suspicion that some of them were even more keenly if not more heavily interested; but England took the initiative and the struggle to save the exemption was turned, in the United States, into a demonstration by the Irish, Germans and other anti-British elements. Innate hostility to England, the coastwise shipping interests, formed the backbone of the opposition to any repeal of this exemption, but the Taft Administration had held that the exemption did not conflict with the treaty (on the ground that the words "all nations" meant all nations except the United States), and British opposition to the fortification of the canal, as well as the attitude of a section of the British press during the Canadian elections of 1911, had created a distrust of British motives which was heightened by the conviction of many that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty had been a bad bargain.

It was understood early in President Wilson's Administration that he believed the exemption was in violation of the treaty, but not until October did he make formal announcement that he intended to ask Congress to repeal it. The question did not come into the foreground, however, until March 5, 1914, when the President addressed this request to Congress in ominous language, which to this day remains unexplained. "No communication I addressed to Congress," he said, "has carried with it more grave and far-reaching implications to the interests of the country." After expressing his belief that the law as it stood violated the treaty and should be repealed as a point of honor, he continued: "I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the Administration. I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure."

It has been most plausibly suggested that this obscure language had reference to the Mexican situation, which a few weeks later was to lead to the occupation of Vera Cruz. The European powers were known to be much displeased at the continuing disturbances in Mexico and the American policy of "watchful waiting," and the belief has been expressed that repeal of the exemption was a step to get British support for continued forbearance with Mexico. Other critics have seen a reference to the unsettled issues with Japan and a fear that England might give more aggressive support to her ally if the tolls question were left unsettled. The attempt of a writer of biography to maintain that even in March, 1914, the President and Colonel House foresaw the European war and wanted to arrange our own international relations by way of precaution has been generally received with polite skepticism.

At any rate, the President's intervention in the question, against the advice of his most trusted political counselors, brought down on him a shower of personal abuse from Irish organs and from the group of newspapers which presently were to appear as the chief supporters of Germany. The arguments against the repeal were unusually bitter, and even though Elihu Root took his stand beside the President and against the recent Republican Administration, partisan criticism seized upon the opening. Nevertheless the tolls exemption was repealed in June, and events of July and August gave a certain satisfaction to those who had stood for the sanctity of treaties.

As a part of what might be called the general deflation of overseas entanglements, the new Administration brought about a material change in the treatment of the Philippines. From the beginning great changes were made in the personnel of the Philippines Commission and of the Administration of the country. Many American officials were replaced by Filipinos, but the separatist agitation in the islands was not much allayed by the extension of self-government. In October, 1914, the Jones Bill, which practically promised independence "as soon as a stable government shall have been established," was passed by the House of Representatives, but Republican opposition was strengthened by those who remembered Bryan's anti-imperialism in 1900 and by the supporters of a strong policy in the Pacific. This issue, like others of the early period, came back into greater prominence in the last years of the second Wilson Administration, when war issues were temporarily disposed of.

A specially conciliatory policy toward Latin America was one of the chief characteristics of the early period of the Administration. At the Southern Commercial Congress in Mobile, on October 27, 1913, the President declared that "the United States will never seek one additional foot of territory by conquest;" a statement which was understood in direct relation to the demand for intervention in Mexico, and which had a very considerable effect on public sentiment in Central and South America. The passing of "dollar diplomacy," too, was generally satisfactory to Latin America, and, though Mr. Bryan's inexperienced diplomats made a good many blunders and could not help, as a rule, being compared unfavorably with the professionals who had held the Latin-American posts in the previous Administration, the general policy of Wilson created much more confidence in the other two Americas than did the spasmodic aggressiveness of Roosevelt or the commercialized diplomacy of Taft.

One specific attempt was made to heal a sore spot left by Roosevelt in relations with Latin America by the new Administration. Negotiations with Colombia to clear up the strained situation left by the revolution in Panama had been under way in the Taft Administration, but had come to nothing. Under Wilson they were resumed, and on April 7, 1914, a treaty was signed by which the United States was to pay to Colombia a compensation of $25,000,000 for Colombian interests in the Isthmus. The treaty further contained a declaration that the Government of the United States expressed its "sincere regret for anything that may have happened to disturb the relations" between the two countries, and this suggestion of an apology for Roosevelt's action in 1903 roused the violent hostility of Republicans and Progressives. The opposition was so strong that in spite of repeated efforts the Administration could never get the treaty ratified by the Senate; but the undoubtedly sincere efforts of the Executive had of themselves a considerable effect in mollifying the suspicions of Latin America.