World War I Was a Essay

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Xenophobia against people from the ethnic groups America was fighting rose in intensity. Much as French Fries became Freedom Fries for a brief period during the contemporary 'war on terror,' so frankfurters, a German dish, became the more America-sounding hot dog. More seriously the Red Scare, the Palmer Raids, anti-immigrant and anti-African-American sentiment as a result of new migrations of people within the United States created the paradox of the government engaging in censorship and civil rights violations, ostensibly to make the world 'safe' for democracy. However, given that anti-immigration sentiment had shared a less-than-noble place in the Progressive Movement, along with support for the American working man, perhaps these actions do not completely counter the idea that the movement to war was progressive, encompassing the ugly as well as the noble progressive sentiments of past eras. However, progressive intellectuals like Walter Lippmann, author of Drift and Mastery, would likely counter that such anti-immigration sentiment had nothing to do with real progressive faith in science and reason, as opposed to hatred, ignorance, and folklore.

Perhaps, even if the motivations to go to war were not entirely progressive in nature, it is fair to say that in defeat, America reverted to a resoundingly anti-Progressive stance, when the Senate refused to ratify the U.S. entry into the League of Nations. Wilson, despite being a President during wartime, hoped to become a president to usher in international peace.

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The defeat in the Senate, barring American membership in the organization, critically neutered the League's effectiveness. The failure to ratify entry into the League was called "The Defeat of Peace." Isolationists in Congress said that the treaty was unconstitutional because if the U.S. became a member of the League, the U.S. would be forced to send its troops abroad without congressional approval. Also, the punitive measures pressed against Germany after the war, and the blame of Germany as solely responsible for the complicated scenario that had given birth to World War I were largely seen as anti-progressive.

World War I was thus a paradox -- a war fought in the name of progressive ideals like internationalism, humanity, and the march forward of history, waged through unprogressive means like censorship. Progressivism was populist in its spirit yet the war generated a great deal of unpopular sentiment against fighting abroad which allowed Republicans in the Senate to commander enough support to defeat the League of Nations. It liberated women, and liberated Europeans -- yet African-Americans were barred from serving with whites. It brought America onto the world stage, yet made Americans more isolationist in temperament, because of the bloody nature of the war and the difficult negotiations after it ended.

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