Presidency of Woodrow Wilson

Tariff legislation

Democrats had long opposed high tariff rates, as an unfair tax on consumers. Tariff reduction was President Wilson's first priority. Even though his own party was united behind a decrease in tariff rates, most Republicans continued adhering to the party's traditional position of using high tariff rates to protect domestic manufacturing and factory workers against foreign competition. President William Howard Taft had sought to reduce rates during his presidency, but business interests had ensured that the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909 kept high duties in place.^[35] By late May 1913, House Majority Leader Oscar Underwood had passed a bill in the House that cut the average tariff rate by 10%. To cover the lost revueue, it instituted a tax on personal income above $4,000.^[36] Democrats had a narrower majority in the Senate, and some Southern and Western Democrats favored the protection of the wool and sugar industries.^[37] Wilson met extensively with Democratic Senators hoping marshal support for the Underwood Tariff. He also appealed directly to the people through the press. After weeks of hearings and debate, Wilson and Secretary of State Bryan managed to unite Senate Democrats behind the bill.^[36] The Senate voted 44 to 37 favoring the bill, with only one Democrat voting against it and only one Republican, progressive leader Robert M. La Follette Sr., voting for it. Wilson signed the Revenue Act of 1913 (also known as the Underwood Tariff) into law on October 3, 1913.^[36]

The Underwood Tariff reduced the average import tariff rates from approximately 40-26%, and it also instituted a progressive income tax with a top marginal rate of 7%.^[38] Wilson later signed the Revenue Act of 1916, which further raised taxes on high earners and implemented a federal estate tax. That same year, Wilson signed a law that established the Tariff Commission, which was charged with providing expert advice on tariff rates.^[39] In the 1920s, Republicans raised tariffs and lowered the income tax. Nonetheless, the policies of the Wilson administration had a durable impact on the composition of government revenue, which shifted from the tariff to the income tax.^[40]

Federal Reserve System

Map of Federal Reserve Districts–black circles, Federal Reserve Banks–black squares, District branches–red circles and Washington HQ–star/black circle

Wilson did not wait to complete the tariff legislation to proceed with his next item of reform—banking. Countries like Britain and Germany had government-run central banks, but the United States had not had a central bank since the Bank War of the 1830s.^[41] In the aftermath of the Panic of 1907, there was general agreement among leaders in both parties of the necessity to create some sort of central banking system to provide coordination during financial emergencies. Most leaders also sought currency reform, as they believed that the roughly $3.8 in coins and banknotes did not provide an adequate money supply during financial panics. Under conservative Republican Senator Nelson Aldrich's leadership, the National Monetary Commission in 1911 planned to establish a central banking system that could issue currency and would provide oversight and loans to the nation's banks. However, many progressives distrusted any plan that gave private bankers so much control over the central banking system. Relying heavily on the advice of Louis Brandeis, Wilson sought a middle ground between progressives such as Bryan and conservative Republicans like Aldrich.^[42] He declared that the banking system must be "public not private, [and] must be vested in the government itself so that the banks must be the instruments, not the masters, of business."^[43]

Democratic Congressmen Carter Glass and Robert L. Owen made a compromise plane on allowing the private banks to control 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, but appeased progressives by placing controlling interest in the system in a central board that the president had appointed. Moreover, Wilson convinced Bryan's supporters thatthe plan met their demands for an elastic currency because Federal Reserve notes were obligations of the government. Having 12 regional banks, with designated geographic districts, was intended to weaken Wall Street's influence.^[44] The bill passed the House in September 1913, but it faced stronger opposition in the Senate. After Wilson convinced just enough Democrats to defeat an amendment put forth by bank president Frank A. Vanderlip that would have given private banks greater control over the central banking system, the Senate voted 54–34 to approve the Federal Reserve Act. Wilson signed the bill into law in December 1913.^[45]

Wilson appointed Paul Warburg and other prominent bankers to direct the new system. While power was supposed to be decentralized, the New York branch dominated the Federal Reserve as the "first among equals."^[46] The new system began operations in 1915, and it played an important role in financing the Allied and American war effort in World War I.^[47]

Antitrust legislation

In a 1913 cartoon, Wilson primes the economic pump with tariff, currency and anti-trust laws

Having passed major legislation lowering the tariff and reforming the banking structure, Wilson next sought anti-trust legislation to supplant the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.^[48] The Sherman Antitrust Act had barred any "contract, combination...or conspiracy, in restraint of trade," but had proved ineffective in preventing the rise of large business combinations known as Trusts. Roosevelt and Taft had both escalated antitrust prosecution by the Justice Department, although many progressives desired legislative reforms that would do more to prevent trusts from dominating the economy. While Roosevelt believed that trusts could be separated into "good trusts" and "bad trusts" based on their effects on the broader economy, Wilson had argued for breaking up all trusts during his 1912 presidential campaign. In December 1913, Wilson asked Congress to pass an anti-trust law that would ban many anti-competitive practices. A month later, in January 1914, he also asked for the creation of an interstate trade commission, eventually known as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), that would preside over the dissolution of trusts but would play absolutely no role in anti-trust prosecution itself.^[49]

Congressman Henry Clayton, Jr. introduced a bill that would ban several anti-competitive practices such discriminatory pricing, tying, exclusive dealing, and interlocking directorates. The bill also allowed individuals to launch anti-trust suits, and it limited the applicability of anti-trust laws on unions.^[50] As the difficulty of banning all anti-competitive practices via legislation became clear, Wilson came to favor legislation granting the FTC greater discretion to investigate anti-trust violations and enforce anti-trust laws independently of the Justice Department. The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, which incorporated Wilson's ideas regarding the FTC, passed Congress with bipartisan support, and Wilson signed the bill into law in September 1914.^[51] One month later, Wilson signed the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, which defined several anti-competitive practices.^[52]

Labor issues

President Taft had won the creation of the Commission on Industrial Relations to study labor issues, but the Senate had rejected all of his nominees to the commission. Upon taking office, Wilson nominated a mix of conservatives and progressive reformers, with commission chairman Frank P. Walsh falling into the latter group. The commission helped expose numerous labor abuses throughout the nation, and Walsh proposed reforms designed to empower unions.^[53] Prior to his first presidential inauguration, Wilson had had an uneasy relationship with union leaders scu has Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, and he generally believed that workers were best protected through laws rather than unions.^[54] He and Secretary of Labor William Bauchop Wilson rejected Walsh's far-reaching reforms, and instead focused on using the Labor Department to mediate conflicts between labor and ownership.^[55] The labor policies of Wilson's administration were tested by a strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company between late 1913 and early 1914. The company rejected the Labor Department's attempts to mediate, and a militia controlled by the company attacked a miner's camp in what became known as the Ludlow Massacre. At the Governor of Colorado's request, the Wilson administration sent in troops to end the dispute, but mediation efforts failed after the union called off the strike after a lack of funds.^[56]

In mid-1916, a major railroad strike endangered the nation's economy. The president called the parties to a White House summit in August — after two days and no results, Wilson proceeded to settle the issue, using the maximum eight-hour work day as its linchpin. Congress passed the Adamson Act, which incorporating the president's proposed eight-hour work day. As a result, the strike was then cancelled. Wilson was praised for averting a national economic disaster, even though the law was received with howls from conservatives, who denounced it as a sellout to the unions and a surrender by Congress to an imperious president.^[57] The Adamson Act was the first federal law that regulated hours worked by private employees.^[58]

Agricultural issues

In forming his policies in agricultural, President Wilson was heavily influenced by Walter Hines Page, who favored a reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While that department had focused on scientific research under the long tenure of James Wilson, Page favored using the department to provide education and other services directly to farmers.^[59] Secretary of Agriculture David F. Houston, who presided over implementing many of Page's proposed reforms, worked with Congressman Asbury Francis Lever on introducing a bill that became known upon passage as the Smith–Lever Act of 1914. This act established government subsidies for a demonstration farming program allowing farmers to voluntarily experiment with farming techniques agricultural experts had favored. Proponents of the Smith–Lever Act overcame many conservatives' objections by adding a provisions designed to bolster local control. Local agricultural colleges supervised agricultural extension agents charged with providing technical advice. Those agents were barred from operating without county governments' approval, which were also required to supply matching funds for the program. By 1924, three-quarters of the agriculture-oriented counties in the United States took part in the agricultural extension program.^[60] Wilson also helped ensure passage of the Federal Farm Loan Act, which created twelve regional banks empowered to provide low-interest loans to farmers.^[61]

The Philippines and Puerto Rico

Wilson supported the long-standing Democratic policy against owning colonies, and he worked for gradual autonomy and ultimate independence of the Philippines. Filipinos gained greater control over the Philippine Legislature. The House also passed a measure to grant the Philippines full independence, but Republicans strongly opposed this act and the Senate then blocked it. The Jones Act of 1916 committed the United States to the eventual independence of the Philippines; independence took place in 1946.^[62] The Jones Act of 1917 upgraded the status of Puerto Rico. It created the Senate of Puerto Rico, established a bill of rights, and authorized the election of a Resident Commissioner (who the President had previously appointed) to a four-year term. The Resident Commissioner serves as a non-voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The act also granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship and exempted Puerto Rican bonds from federal, state, and local taxes.^[63]

Immigration policy

Immigration was a high priority topic in American politics during Wilson's presidency, but he paid very little attention to all that.^[64] He opposed the restrictive immigration policies that many members of both parties favored. Wilson's progressivism encouraged his belief that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, though poor and illiterate, could assimilate into a homogeneous white middle class. He rejected discrimination against him. However, the so-called "hyphenated" Irish and German elements repulsed him because they were motivated to help the wartime needs of Ireland and Germany, not to the needs and values of the United States.^[65] Very high rates of immigration suddenly ended in 1914, as European nations closed their borders. Emigration back to Europe also virtually ended.

Wilson vetoed the Immigration Act of 1917, but Congress overrode the veto. Its goal was to reduce immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, by requiring literacy tests. It was the first U.S. law to restrict immigration from Europe, and it foreshadowed the more restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s.^[66]

Mexican Revolution

Wilson took office during the Mexican Revolution, which had begun in 1911 after liberals overthrew the military dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Shortly before Wilson took office, conservatives retook power through a coup led by Victoriano Huerta.^[120] Wilson rejected the legitimacy of Huerta's "government of butchers" and demanded Mexico hold democratic elections. Wilson's unprecedented approach meant no recognition and doomed Huerta's prospects for establishing a stable government.^[121] After Huerta arrested U.S. Navy personnel who had accidentally landed in a restricted zone near the northern port town of Tampico, Wilson dispatched the Navy to occupy the Mexican city of Veracruz. A strong backlash against the American intervention among Mexicans of all political affiliations convinced Wilson to abandon his plans to expand the U.S. military intervention, but the intervention nonetheless helped convince Huerta to flee from the country.^[122] A group led by Venustiano Carranza established control over a significant proportion of Mexico, and Wilson recognized Carranza's government in October 1915.^[123]

Carranza continued to face various opponents within Mexico, including Pancho Villa, whom Wilson had earlier described as "a sort of Robin Hood."^[123] In early 1916, Pancho Villa raided an American town in New Mexico, killing or wounding dozens of Americans and causing an enormous nationwide American demand for his punishment. Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing and 4000 troops across the border to capture Villa. By April, Pershing's forces had broken up and dispersed Villas bands, but Villa remained on the loose and Pershing continued his pursuit deep into Mexico. Carranza then pivoted against the Americans and accused them of a punitive invasion; a confrontation with a mob in Parral on April 12 resulted in two dead Americans and six wounded, plus hundreds of Mexican casualties. Further incidents led to the brink of war by late June, when Wilson demanded an immediate release of American soldiers held prisoner. The prisoners were released, tensions subsided, and bilateral negotiations began under the auspices of the Mexican-American Joint High Commission. Eager to withdraw from Mexico due to World War I, Wilson ordered Pershing to withdraw, and the last American soldiers left in February 1917. Biographer According to historian Arthur Link, Carranza's successful handling of the American intervention in Mexico left the country free to develop its revolution without American pressure.^[124] The incident also made Pershing a national figure and led to Wilson choosing him to command the American forces in Europe in 1918. It also gave the American army some needed experience in dealing with training, planning and logistics.^[125]

Growing tensions

In response to the British blockade of the Central Powers, the Germans launched a submarine campaign against merchant vessels in the seas surrounding the British Isles. Wilson strongly protested the policy, which had a much stronger affect on American trade than the British blockade.^[134] In the March 1915, Thrasher Incident, the commercial British steamship Falaba was sunk by a German submarine with the loss of 111 lives, including one American.^[135] In the spring of 1915 a German bomb struck an American ship, the Cushing and a German submarine torpedoed an American tanker, the Gulflight. Wilson took the view, based on some reasonable evidence, that both incidents were accidental, and that a settlement of claims could be postponed to the end of the war.^[136] A German submarine torpedoed and sank the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania in May 1915; over a thousand perished, including many Americans.^[137] Wilson did not call for war; instead he said, "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right". He realized he had chosen the wrong words when critics lashed out at his rhetoric.^[138] Wilson sent a protest to Germany which demanded that the German government "take immediate steps to prevent the recurrence" of incidents like the sinking of the Lusitania. In response, Bryan, who believed that Wilson had placed the defense of American trade rights above neutrality, resigned from the cabinet.^[139]

The White Star liner the SS Arabic was torpedoed in August 1915, with two American casualties. The U.S. threatened a diplomatic break unless Germany repudiated the action. The Germans agreed to warn unarmed merchant ships before attacking them.^[140] In March 1916, the SS Sussex, an unarmed ferry under the French flag, was torpedoed in the English Channel and four Americans were counted among the dead; the Germans had flouted the post-Lusitania exchanges. The president demanded the Germans reject their submarine tactics. Wilson drew praise when he succeeded in wringing from Germany a pledge to constrain submarine warfare to the rules of cruiser warfare. This was a clear departure from existing practices—a diplomatic concession from which Germany could only more brazenly withdraw.^[141] In January 1917, the Germans initiated a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against ships in the seas around the British Isles. German leaders knew that the policy would likely provoke U.S. entrance into the war, but they hoped to defeat the Allied Powers before the U.S. could fully mobilize.^[142]

Preparedness

Military "preparedness," or building up the small army and navy—became a major dynamic of public opinion.^[143][144] Theodore Roosevelt and General Leonard Wood took the lead, attacking Wilson for reliance on weakness instead of strength in dealing with the World War. New, well-funded organizations sprang up to appeal to the grassroots, including the American Defense Society (ADS) and the National Security League, both of which favored entering the war on the side of the Allies.^[145][146] Interventionists, led by Theodore Roosevelt, wanted war with Germany and attacked Wilson's refusal to build up the U.S. Army in anticipation of war.^[147] Wilson resistance to preparedness was partly due to the powerful anti-war element of the Democratic Party, which was led by Bryan. Anti-war sentiment was strong among many groups inside and outside of the party, including women,^[148] Protestant churches,^[149] labor unions,^[150] and Southern Democrats like Claude Kitchin, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Biographer John Morton Blum says:

Wilson's long silence about preparedness had permitted such a spread and such a hardening of antipreparedness attitudes within his party and across the nation that when he came in at late last to his task, neither Congress to the country was amenable to much persuasion.^[151]

After the sinking of the Lusitania and the resignation of Bryan, Wilson publicly committed himself to preparedness and began to build up the army and the navy.^[133] Wilson was constrained by America's traditional commitment to military nonintervention. Wilson believed that a massive military mobilization could only take place after a declaration of war, even though that meant a long delay in sending troops to Europe. Many Democrats felt that no American soldiers would be needed, only American money and munitions.^[152] Wilson had more success in his request for a dramatic expansion of the Navy. Congress passed a Naval Expansion Act in 1916 that encapsulated the planning by the Navy's professional officers to build a fleet of top-rank status, but it would take several years to become operational.^[153]

Entering the war

In early 1917, German ambassador Johann von Bernstorf informed Secretary of State Lansing of Germany's commitment to unrestricted submarine warfare.^[154] In late February, the U.S. public learned of the Zimmermann Telegram, a secret diplomatic communication in which Germany sought to convince Mexico to join it in a war against the United States.^[155] Wilson's reaction after consulting the cabinet and the Congress was a minimal one—that diplomatic relations with the Germans be brought to a halt. The president said, "We are the sincere friends of the German people and earnestly desire to remain at peace with them. We shall not believe they are hostile to us unless or until we are obliged to believe it".^[156] After a series of attacks on American ships, Wilson held a cabinet meeting on March 20; all cabinet members agreed that the time had come for the United States to enter the war. Wilson called Congress into a special session, which would begin on April 2.^[157]

March 1917 also brought the first of two revolutions in Russia, which impacted the strategic role of the U.S. in the war. The overthrow of the imperial government removed a serious barrier to America's entry into the European conflict, while the second revolution in November relieved the Germans of a major threat on their eastern front, and allowed them to dedicate more troops to the Western front, thus making U.S. forces central to Allied success in battles of 1918. Wilson initially rebuffed pleas from the Allies to dedicate military resources to an intervention in Russia against the Bolsheviks, based partially on his experience from attempted intervention in Mexico; nevertheless he ultimately was convinced of the potential benefit and agreed to dispatch a limited force to assist the Allies on the eastern front.^[158]

Wilson addressed Congress on April 2, calling for a declaration of war against Germany. He argued that the Germans were engaged in "nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States." He asked for a military draft to raise the army, increased taxes to pay for military expenses, loans to Allied governments, and increased industrial and agricultural production.^[159] The declaration of war by the United States against Germany passed Congress by strong bipartisan majorities on April 4, 1917, with opposition from ethnic German strongholds and remote rural areas in the South. The United States would also later declare war against Austria-Hungary in December 1917. The U.S. did not sign a formal alliance with Britain or France but operated as an "associated" power—an informal ally with military cooperation through the Supreme War Council in London.^[160]

The U.S. raised a massive army through conscription and Wilson gave command to General John J. Pershing. Pershing would have complete authority as to tactics, strategy, and some diplomacy.^[161] Edward House became the president's main channel of communication with the British government, and William Wiseman, a British naval attaché, was House's principal contact in England. Their personal relationship succeeded in serving the powers well, by overcoming strained relations in order to achieve essential understandings between the two governments. House also became the U.S. representative on the Allies' Supreme War Council.^[162]

The Fourteen Points

Wilson sought the establishment of "an organized common peace" that would help prevent future conflicts. In this goal, he was opposed not just by the Central Powers, but also the other Allied Powers, who, to various degrees, sought to win concessions and oppose a punitive peace agreement on the Central Powers.^[163] He initiated a secret series of studies named The Inquiry, primarily focused on Europe, and carried out by a group in New York which included geographers, historians and political scientists; the group was directed by Col. House.^[164] The studies culminated in a speech by Wilson to Congress on January 8, 1918, wherein he articulated America's long term war objectives. It was the clearest expression of intention made by any of the belligerent nations. The speech, known as the Fourteen Points, was authored mainly by Walter Lippmann and projected Wilson's progressive domestic policies into the international arena. The first six dealt with diplomacy, freedom of the seas and settlement of colonial claims. Then territorial issues were addressed and the final point, the establishment of an association of nations to guarantee the independence and territorial integrity of all nations—a League of Nations. The address was translated into many languages for global dissemination.^[165]

Aside from post-war considerations, Wilson's Fourteen Points were motivated by several factors. Unlike some of the other Allied leaders, Wilson did not call for a break-up of the Ottoman Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, nor did he call for self-determination throughout Europe. In offering a non-punitive peace to these nations as well as Germany, Wilson hoped to quickly began negotiations to end the war. Wilson's liberal pronouncements were also targeted at pacifistic and war-weary elements within the Allied countries, including the United States. Additionally, Wilson hoped to woo the Russians back into the war, although he failed in this goal.^[166]

Course of the war

With the U.S. entrance into the war, Wilson and Secretary of War Baker launched an expansion of the army, with the goal of creating a 300,000-member Regular Army, a 440,000-member National Guard, and a 500,000-member conscripted force known as the "National Army." Despite some resistance to conscription and the commitment of American soldiers abroad, large majorities of both houses of Congress voted in favor of the Selective Service Act of 1917. Seeking to avoid the draft riots of the Civil War, the bill established local draft boards that were charged with determining who should be drafted. By the end of the war, nearly 3 million men would be drafted.^[167] The Navy also saw tremendous expansion, and, at the urging of Admiral William Sims, focused on building anti-submarine vessels. Allied shipping losses dropped substantially due to U.S. contributions and a new emphasis on the convoy system.^[168]

The American Expeditionary Forces first arrived in France in mid-1917.^[169] Wilson and Pershing rejected the British and French proposal that American soldiers integrate into existing Allied units, giving the United States more freedom of action but requiring for the creation of new organizations and supply chains.^[170] There were only 175,000 American soldiers in Europe at the end of 1917, but by mid-1918 10,000 Americans arrived in Europe per day. Russia exited the war after the March 1918 signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, allowing Germany to shift soldiers from the Eastern Front of the war. The Germans launched a Spring Offensive against the Allies that inflicted heavy casualties but failed to break the Allied line. Beginning in August, the Allies launched the Hundred Days Offensive that pushed back the exhausted German army.^[171]

By the end of September, the German leadership no longer believed it could win the war. Recognizing that Wilson would be more likely to accept a peace deal from a democratic government, Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed a new government led by Prince Maximilian of Baden; Baden immediately sought an armistice with Wilson.^[172] In the exchange of notes, German and American leaders agreed to incorporate the Fourteen Points in the armistice; House then procured agreement from France and Britain, but only after threatening to conclude a unilateral armistice without them. Wilson ignored Pershing's plea to drop the armistice and instead demand an unconditional surrender by Germany.^[173] The Germans signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918, bringing an end to the fighting. Austria-Hungary had signed the Armistice of Villa Giusti eight days earlier, while the Ottoman Empire had signed the Armistice of Mudros in October.

Paris Peace Conference

The "Big Four" at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, following the end of World War I. Wilson is standing next to Georges Clemenceau at right.

After the signing of the armistice, Wilson traveled to Europe to attend the Paris Peace Conference, thereby becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.^[174] Save for a two-week return to the United States, Wilson remained in Europe for six months, where he focused on a peace treaty to formally end the war. The defeated Central Powers had not been invited to the conference, and anxiously awaited their fate. Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando made up the "Big Four," the Allied leaders with the most influence at the Paris Peace Conference. Though Wilson continued to advocate his idealistic Fourteen Points, many of the other allies desired revenge. Clemenceau especially sought onerous terms for Germany, while Lloyd George supported some of Wilson's ideas but feared public backlash if the treaty proved too favorable to the Central Powers.^[175]

Several new European states were established at the Paris Peace Conference

In pursuit of his League of Nations, Wilson conceded several points to the other powers present at the conference. France pressed for the dismemberment of Germany and the payment of a huge sum in war reparations. Wilson resisted these ideas, but Germany was still required to pay war reparations and subjected to military occupation in the Rhineland, and a clause in the treaty specifically named Germany as responsible for the war. Wilson also agreed to the creation of mandates in former German and Ottoman territories, allowing the European powers and Japan to establish de facto colonies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The Japanese acquisition of German interests in the Shandong Peninsula of China proved especially unpopular, as it undercut Wilson's promise of self-government. However, Wilson won the creation of several new states in Central Europe and the Balkans, including Poland, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were partitioned.^[176] Wilson refused to concede to Italy's demands for territory on the Adriatic coast, and a dispute between Yugoslavia and Italy would not be settled until the signing of the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo.^[177] Japan proposed that the conference endorse a racial equality clause. Wilson was indifferent to the issue, but acceded to strong opposition from Australia and Britain.^[178]

The Covenant of the League of Nations was incorporated into the conference's Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war with Germany.^[179] Wilson himself presided over the committee that drafted the covenant, which bound members to oppose "external aggression" and to agree to peacefully settle disputes through organizations like the Permanent Court of International Justice.^[180] During the conference, Taft cabled to Wilson three proposed amendments to the League covenant which he thought would considerably increase its acceptability to the Europeans—the right of withdrawal from the League, the exemption of domestic issues from thet League, and the inviolability of the Monroe Doctrine. Wilson very reluctantly accepted these amendments. In addition to the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies also wrote treaties with Austria (the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye), Hungary (the Treaty of Trianon), the Ottoman Empire (the Treaty of Sèvres), and Bulgaria (the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine), all of which incorporated the League of Nations charter.^[181]

The conference finished negotiations in May 1919, at which point German leaders viewed the treaty for the first time. Some German leaders favored repudiating the treaty, but Germany signed the treaty on June 28, 1919.^[182] For his peace-making efforts, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize.^[183] However, the defeated Central Powers protested the harsh terms of the treaty, while several colonial representatives pointed out the hypocrisy of a treaty that established new nations in Europe but allowed continued colonialism in Asia and Africa. Wilson also faced an uncertain domestic battle to ratify the treaty, as Republicans largely opposed it.^[184]

Treaty ratification debate

Wilson returning from the Versailles Peace Conference, 1919.

The chances were less than favorable for ratification of the treaty by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, in which Republicans held a narrow majority.^[185] Public opinion was mixed, with intense opposition from most Republicans, Germans, and Irish Catholic Democrats. In numerous meetings with Senators, Wilson discovered opposition had hardened. Despite his weakened physical condition following the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson decided to barnstorm the Western states, scheduling 29 major speeches and many short ones to rally support.^[186] Wilson suffered a series of debilitating strokes and had to cut short his trip on in September 1919. He became an invalid in the White House, closely monitored by his wife, who insulated him from negative news and downplayed for him the gravity of his condition.^[187]

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge led the opposition to the treaty; he despised Wilson and hoped to humiliate him in the ratification battle. Republicans were outraged by Wilson's failure to discuss the war or its aftermath with them. An intensely partisan battle developed in the Senate, as Republicans opposed the treaty and Democrats largely supported it. The debate over the treaty centered around a debate over the American role in the world community in the post-war era, and Senators fell into three main groups. Most Democrats favored the treaty.^[185] Fourteen Senators, mostly Republicans, become known as the "irreconcilables," as they completely opposed U.S. entrance into the League of Nations. Some of these irreconcilables, such as George W. Norris, opposed the treaty for its failure to support decolonization and disarmament. Other irreconcilables, such as Hiram Johnson, feared surrendering American freedom of action to an international organization. Most sought the removal of Article X the League covenant, which purported to bind nations to defend each other against aggression.^[188] The remaining group of Senators, known as "reservationists," accepted the idea of the league, but sought varying degrees of change to the League to ensure the protection of U.S. sovereignty.^[188] Former President Taft and former Secretary of State Elihu Root both favored ratification of the treaty with some modifications, and their public support for the treaty gave Wilson some chance of winning significant Republican support for ratification.^[185]

Despite the difficulty of winning ratification, Wilson consistently refused to accede to reservations, partly due to concerns about having to re-open negotiations with the other powers if reservations were added.^[189] In mid-November 1919, Lodge and his Republicans formed a coalition with the pro-treaty Democrats, and were close to a two-thirds majority for a treaty with reservations, but the seriously indisposed Wilson rejected this compromise and enough Democrats followed his lead to defeat ratification. Cooper and Bailey suggest that Wilson's stroke in September had debilitated him from negotiating effectively with Lodge.^[190] U.S. involvement in World War I would not formally end until the passage of the Knox–Porter Resolution in 1921.

Intervention in Russia

After Russia left World War I following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Allies sent troops there to prevent a German or Bolshevik takeover of allied-provided weapons, munitions and other supplies previously shipped as aid to the pre-revolutionary government.^[191] Wilson loathed the Bolsheviks, who he believed did not represent the Russian people, but he feared that foreign intervention would only strengthen Bolshevik rule. Britain and France pressured him to intervene in order to potentially re-open a second front against Germany, and Wilson acceded to this pressure in the hope that it would help him in post-war negotiations and check Japanese influence in Siberia.^[192] The U.S. sent armed forces to assist the withdrawal of Czechoslovak Legions along the Trans-Siberian Railway, and to hold key port cities at Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok. Though specifically instructed not to engage the Bolsheviks, the U.S. forces engaged in several armed conflicts against forces of the new Russian government. Revolutionaries in Russia resented the United States intrusion. Robert Maddox wrote, "The immediate effect of the intervention was to prolong a bloody civil war, thereby costing thousands of additional lives and wreaking enormous destruction on an already battered society."^[193]

Other issues

In 1919, Wilson guided American foreign policy to "acquiesce" in the Balfour Declaration without supporting Zionism in an official way. Wilson expressed sympathy for the plight of Jews, especially in Poland and France.^[194]

In May 1920, Wilson sent a long-deferred proposal to Congress to have the U.S. accept a mandate from the League of Nations to take over Armenia.^[195] Bailey notes this was opposed by American public opinion,^[196] while Richard G. Hovannisian states that Wilson "made all the wrong arguments" for the mandate and focused less on the immediate policy than on how history would judge his actions: "[he] wished to place it clearly on the record that the abandonment of Armenia was not his doing."^[197] The resolution won the votes of only 23 senators.