Abstract
The Sussex pledge was followed by a period which saw few diplomatic crises and which was dominated by the quadrennial presidential campaign. To a large extent the European war faded from the headlines and editorial columns. Yet the domestic election of 1916 should not be ignored in a discussion of the press during the neutrality period. By the end of the campaign Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policies were to constitute the most important issues of contention. On these issues, in the opinion of most observers, the election turned.
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The Progressives nominated Theodore Roosevelt for President with John M. Parker of Louisiana as the vice-presidential candidate. Roosevelt sent a telegram to the Progressive convention informing the delegates of his decision to support the Republican candidate. John M. Parker reassembled in Indianapolis with a small group of former Progressives including Bainbridge Colby who would later become Wilson’s third and last secretary of state. This convention endorsed Woodrow Wilson for re-election.
The complete text of the platform is in K. H. Porter and D. B. Johnson, eds., National Party Platforms 1840–1956 (Urbana, 1956), 204–7.
Ibid., 194–200.
The World,June 13, 1916.
New York Tribune, June 6, 1916.
New York Press, June 17, 1916. This paper ceased publication at the end of June. The owner, Frank A. Munsey, purchased the Sun and Evening Sun. Effective July 1, 1916, the Press was consolidated into the morning Sun.
The Sun, June 16, 1916.
The New York Times, June 16, 1916.
The Journal of Commerce, June 18, 1916.
New York American, June 15, 1916.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 7, 1916.
The Evening Post, May 8, 1916. Arthur Link, in his biography of Wilson, refers to Howells as an “extremist” in his pro-Allied writings. Arthur Link, Wilson(5 vols., Princeton, 1956–1965), III, 12.
The World, August 3, 1916.
The Evening Post,June 29, 1916.
The New York Herald, August 4, 1916.
The New York Times, August 9, 1916.
New York Tribune, August 4, 1916.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 27, 1916.
The Evening Post, May 27, 1916.
The World, May 28, 1916.
For. Rel., 1916, 613–14.
A useful discussion of the blacklist is T. A. Bailey, “The United States and the Blacklist During the Great War,” Journal of Modern History, VI (1934), 14–35.
New York Tribune, July 21, 1916.
The World, July 21, 1916.
The Journal of Commerce, July 20, 1916.
The Evening Mail, July 20, 1916.
The World, July 21, 1916.
Great Britain, Foreign Office, American Press Resume, Supplement, August 5, 1916.
The Wilson administration nevertheless demanded retaliatory legislation. In September, Congress provided the President with authorization to use the armed forces to deny port clearance and facilities to ships of any nation that discriminated against the commerce of American citizens.
The World, May 14, 1916; The Sun, May 14, 1916.
The Evening Post, May 13, 1916.
Ibid., May 23, 1916.
The Globe and Commercial Advertiser, August 16, 1916. u The New York Times, August 17, 1916.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 16, 1916.
The New York Times, August 1, September 3, 1916.
The Evening World, August 1, 1916; The Sun, August 1, 1916.
New York Tribune, August 1, 1916.
The Evening Post, August 1, 1916.
The World, October 1, 1916.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 2, 1916.
The World, September 30, 1916.
The Sun, October 5, 3, 1916.
Wilson’s first public pronouncement on this subject was similarly treated. Addressing the League to Enforce Peace on May 27, 1916, he spoke of a post-war organization to preserve or enforce peace. Few papers commented and those that did were negative. “The American people want no entangling foreign alliances,” insisted the Sun (May 29). The New York Tribune interpreted the speech as meaning that Wilson desired to be a mediator at the end of the war. Wilson was warned not to overestimate his own leadership as well as the political and moral influence of the United States in a world that would surely resent any American attempt to dictate the terms of peace. (May 29).
The World, October 10, 1916.
Ibid., October 11, 1916.
The Evening World, October 12, 1916.
The World, October 11, 1916.
In one paper this advertisement was accompanied by a cartoon showing the probable Republican Cabinet with Theodore Roosevelt holding all the positions. The World, November 4, 1916.
The Evening World, November 6, 1916.
The Evening Telegram, September 27, 1916.
The Evening Sun, November 3, 1916.
When the Mexican leader Venustiano Carranza agreed in the fall to negotiate an end to the Mexican-American conflict, this Republican argument lost much of its impact.
New York Tribune, October 3, 1916.
Ibid.
The Sun, October 25, 3, 1916.
The Evening Sun, October 27, 1916.
The Evening Mail, October 30, 1916.
Carl Wittke, German-Americans and the War (Columbus, Ohio, 1936), 91–96.
As reported in The World, October 13, 1916.
The Evening Post, October 13, 1916.
New York Tribune, October 14, 1916; The World, October 14, 1916.
The Evening Sun, October 27, 1916.
The Evening Sun, October 30, 1916.
The Sun, November 1, 1916.
The World, November 5, 1916.
The World, October 10, 6, September 3, 7, 21, 1916; The Evening World, October 21, September 13, 1916.
The World, October 5, 1916.
The World, October 10, 1916.
This quote from Roosevelt’s address at Lewiston, Maine, is from The New York Times, September 5, 1916.
The World, September 7, 1916.
The Evening Post, September 7, 1916.
The Evening Post, October 2, 1916. J. A. O’Leary was a little known journalist who headed the American Truth Society. During the campaign, he sent a telegram to President Wilson sharply criticizing the administration’s “truckling to the British Empire.” The President’s reply, published in the New York press on September 30, was widely publicized: “Your telegram received. I would feel deeply mortified to have you or anybody like you vote for me. Since you have access to many disloyal Americans and I have not, I will ask you to convey this message to them.”
The Sun, October 26, 1916.
The Evening Mail, October 4, 1916.
The Evening Sun, October 25, 1916.
The Evening Sun, November 7, 1916.
The Evening Mail, November 7, 1916.
The World, November 8, 1916. Despite the enigmatic question mark, a large photograph of Charles Evans Hughes on the first page of this paper was captioned “The President-Elect.”
The Evening Sun, November 7, 1916 (final edition).
The Sun, November 8, 1916.
The New York Herald, November 8, 1916.
The Journal of Commerce, November 8, 1916.
New York Tribune, November 8, 1916.
New York American, November 8, 1916.
The Sun, November 8, 1916.
New York Tribune, November 8, 1916.
The New York Herald, November 8, 1916.
The World, November 8, 1916.
The Globe and Commercial Advertiser, November 8, 1916.
New York American, November 8, 1916.
Ibid., November 10, 1916. A political cartoon in this paper on November 11, 1916 depicted the “Golden Gate” preventing an elephant’s access to the White House.
The World, November 10, 1916.
New York American, November 14, 1916.
New York Tribune, November 11, 1916.
The Globe and Commercial Advertiser, November 10, 1916.
The World, November 10, 1916. Although the hyphenate issue was pronounced “dead” by the World on this date, it should be noted that during the campaign this journal had insured that this issue was alive and well.
The Evening Mail, November 10, 1916.
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© 1972 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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O’Keefe, K.J. (1972). The Press and the Politics of Neutrality May 1916–November 1916. In: A Thousand Deadlines. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7608-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7608-6_7
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