Crimson Banners Fly: The Rise of the American Left Revisited

[DKrol]

One of my favorites - great work!

[Pyro]

One of my favorites - great work!

Thank you! Glad you're enjoying it

[Pyro]

Senator Thomas Watson Speaking from his Front Porch in 1914 - Source: Leo Frank

Chapter XXII: The Election of 1916: Should We Stay or Should We Go?

As shrapnel coated the fields of France and young men fell by the thousands in the Ontario trenches, the United States braced for its quadrennial electoral festivities. Four long years had come and gone under President Roosevelt, and it was undoubtedly one rollercoaster presidency for the ages. Now, with the incumbent unhesitatingly declaring his ambition to stay in power, news of the upcoming election surged to the headlines - and for the first time since 1915 tales of combat were slung to the sidelines. Some Americans indubitably trusted in the president and would never allow themselves to be moved on that point. Others, like those more critical of the air-sucking war machine counted the days to the election. Very soon, the voting populace of the U.S. would greet a presidential race perhaps more consequential than any in decades. Whomever shall win the crown in November, that individual would either steer the ship of state away from the storm or proceed full throttle into the chaotic world stage.

Political analysts in 1915 and 1916 pondered potential outcomes of the vote and how Roosevelt's foreign policy could change the makeup of the Fourth Party System. The Progressive Party base was, since its 1904 inception, composed mainly of social activists, middle- and upper-class women, and small business owners. This composition, notably its reform-minded petite bourgeoise persona, solidified support among aspiring merchants and suffragettes alike. Its place in American political culture, one tucked in next to the old Republican Party on one hand and the radical Socialists on the other, also allowed the Columbians to attract industrial workers in the Midwest and thereby lock down essential swing states come election season. With the war in progress and domestic issues now pushed to the background, it was not yet clear if this diverse coalition would hold.

The Democratic Party stood alone as the sole capitalistic political party willing to challenge the incumbent on foreign affairs. Congressional Republicans may have had sharp disagreements with the president on matters of business and finance, but few could honestly claim to oppose Roosevelt's war strategy. Democrats were not so kind. Domestic reform under Roosevelt, insofar as the objectives of the Square Deal were to tackle labor reform, was appreciated by the left-leaning portion of the Party of Jefferson. Former President William Jennings Bryan apparently changed his tone again on the Roosevelt agenda, remarking that the creation of the Labor Department was "the most sensible act of an elected official this century. Federal arbitration may be labor's strongest weapon." After Ferdinand, the Yellow Rose, and the passage of the war declaration, no love remained betwixt the Democrats and the incumbent. Bryan's kudos turned to daggers as he took to the stump in the days preceding June 28th, 1915.

Bryan rallied hard against entering the conflict. Aside from submitting scathing reviews of the administration's foreign policy in The Commoner, the Nebraskan, as if by default, brought the argument to the people themselves. "I have always been desirous of reaching a peaceful solution of the problems arising out of the use of force against merchantmen," he asserted in a St. Louis lecture hall. "The people are naturally wary of extremism. Eastern financiers who pound the drum of war do not represent the people's interests. We ought to have had a national referendum on the question of war. I daresay we may have had peace." It was quite controversial at the time to speak so openly against accession, particularly after Congress passed its declaration. Some branded the firebrand an unpatriotic traitor, though the active speaker insisted that his position on war versus peace was one of morality. When reports of anguish on the front lines and failure in the Pacific flooded news stands across the country, much of the Democratic rank-and-file cast their eyes to the crestfallen Great Commoner. Even though it had been 16 years since he last presided in the White House, Bryan stayed just as relevant as ever.

Not yet knowing Bryan's electoral ambitions, or lack thereof, other Democrats dipped their toes into the water. Freshman Senator Charles Thomas of Colorado cited an interest in the presidency as early as December 1915, and Congressman John E. Raker (D-CA) was not far behind. Both exclaimed aversion to President Roosevelt's carrying out of the war. Thomas especially picked up early momentum for speaking out loudly against conscription. He took part in Senator Owen's brief summer filibuster and remained one of the fiercest critics of the invasion of Canada out of any sitting office holder. Yet, when push came to shove, neither man could elucidate quite how their techniques would differ from the president if designated Commander-in-Chief. Their reluctance to enter the war was duly noted, and that played well with a Democratic electorate weary of the conflict, but if a presidential candidate was unable to sufficiently articulate his exit plan, they had zero hope of taking down the Roosevelt operation. Neither Thomas nor Raker ended up tossing their hat into the ring.

In the realm of properly expressing one's political perspectives and prospective agenda, few were as crystal clear as Senator Thomas E. Watson (D-GA). Once a Populist and now an untethered populistic Democrat, Watson made no secret where he stood on the issues. To describe those positions as controversial may be a bit of an understatement. He was elected in 1908 on a viciously anti-Catholic, white supremacist program, and throughout his years in Congress fought to draft and advance segregationist bills at the federal level. Watson promoted in his 1914 senatorial re-election campaign a resolution to enshrine racial and religious segregation into the Constitution, and on this platform he won 67% of the vote - though, thankfully, that proposal failed to gain any traction in the legislature. The Georgian politician announced in mid-February, "a campaign for the presidency [...] that shall oppose this war, a greedy pursuit by the Jewish aristocracy to sacrifice our fine boys to a hapless cause. From the foundation of this government to this very moment, the South has never had justice in history or in legislation. She has never got it, and now the proposition is that this government of one hundred millions of men, with criminals every which way going unwhipped, this great government, will pick out one southern man and use the powers of the Government to grind him to powder."

Watson grabbed plenty of headlines, but the first to officially join the primary contest was the sitting Governor of Arizona, George W.P. Hunt (D-AZ). Hunt represented an entirely different type of Democrat. He did not fit in with the Bryanite segment of the party, nor was he a conservative fixture like former presidential candidate Richard Olney. The Arizonan supported the framework of the Populist program like the institution of Free Silver and the establishment of the income tax, and he soon came to applaud the bulwark of Hearst's agenda. He also governed on the side of organized labor more so than any other state executive and was frequently lambasted in the Republican press for supposed ties to the IWW. What far removed Hunt from the pack was his out-of-step stance on the war. Unlike any other Democrat in the running, Hunt applauded intervention. In his words, it would be "un-American" to speak out against the U.S. military in times of war. "If we nominate a pacifist, we will lose. Victory in November may very well slip through our fingers if we allow Colonel Roosevelt to consolidate a monopoly on patriotism." Like-minded individuals like former Governor Simeon E. Baldwin (D-CT) and Representative Eugene N. Foss (D-MA) agreed with the contender, and swiftly endorsed his presidential campaign.

Political historians tend to acknowledge that the various candidates' position on domestic issues did not matter nearly as much as their position on the war in 1916. For this reason, Bryan kept surpassing the pack as the preferred candidate in intra-party discussions. The Nebraskan retained a reputation for opposing the war and delivering an exit plan, and his proven ability to shake the electoral landscape (as well as possibly readmitting Western farmers into the Democratic Party) kept the party leader on the minds of many Americans. Foresight, electability, and cross-demographic appeal: Seemingly the perfect blend for a successful candidacy. This sentiment regarding the favoring of Bryan above the field, it ought to be noted, was not at all universal within the party. Bryan was not viewed quite so warmly by conservatives, which as a faction never fancied the Nebraskan's sermons and oft deemed him an outright pest. Establishment Southerners again appealed to Minority Leader Oscar Underwood and the Midwestern leadership petitioned Governor Thomas Marshall to give it another go. If this had been four years earlier, the pool of candidates would have ballooned with potential frontrunners sparring for the top spot. In 1916, however, unity was paramount in the fight against Roosevelt. As thus, the above candidates waited for the final word from Bryan. Marshall, Underwood, and other mainstream heavyweights like Champ Clark received their answer on March 1st in a short-form letter. "I will campaign if Hearst does not."

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Mayor Emil Seidel, c. 1915 - Source: Wiki Commons

In the wake of failed peace demonstrations and wary of potential prosecution from city governments over their objection to the war, the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party voted against holding a traditional nominating event. Originally, the leadership planned to rent out a standard-sized venue for convention purposes, likely Madison Square Garden in New York, but for a multitude of concerns the NEC decided to try an alternate method. The SP, as always, finalized its platform only after a majority confirmation vote by the members themselves. In 1916, the same would be true for its nation-wide nominees. The NEC permitted its rank-and-file membership to have the final say on the composition of the presidential ticket, not the delegates. Their nominees were chosen through a national, mail-in primary conducted in mid-January, right around the time when the war first appeared to be going south.

Membership growth within the anti-capitalist movement seemed to stagnate in the period following Roosevelt's election, despite Eugene Debs' historic performance that year. SP-labeled congressmen held onto their seats in 1912 and 1914, but five mayoral incumbents, ten state representatives, and some two dozen city officials lost their re-election bids in that span. Membership largely flattened at the pinnacle of the pre-war Progressive period, plateauing at about 245,000. Its most populous constituencies stemmed from workers affiliated with the IWW, and a discernable segment of this group was made up of immigrants (to the chagrin of the more conservative and xenophobic wing of the party). Non-English speaking federations within the larger organization surfaced in "Second Wave" immigrant communities, as was the case for Finns in New England, Germans in Milwaukee, and Yiddish-speaking Jewish New Yorkers and Philadelphians. Committee members planned on discussing membership drives as a chief component of their 1916 convention, but the war, as one may imagine, skewed their plans.

With the outbreak of war, enthusiasm for the Socialist program rebounded. A series of strikes in New England munitions factories kicked off a year of heightened labor activity. Over 4,000 lockouts and strikes took place over the course of 1916, most involving the IWW in some capacity and nearly all correlating with the fall in unemployment. War orders increased the need for new workers and substantially lessened the likelihood of mass firings as a punishment for workplace organizing. Workers across the U.S. won on signature issues like the eight-hour day and union recognition because of their active labor disputes, and this phenomenon understandably coincided with a bump in IWW membership. AFL-affiliated unions shrunk dramatically in size and scope during the Great War, due in part to Gompers' insistence that their workers refrain from walkouts out of respect for war production, but workers in those industries nonetheless engaged in "wildcat" strikes and crafted their own independent unions (many of these impromptu micro unions were later absorbed into the IWW.)

IWW leaders in the mold of Bill Haywood regularly advised their card-carrying members to consider joining with the Socialist Party to promote political safeguards and build toward a cooperative commonwealth. Newly unionized workers brought into the fold by the IWW-led strikes, men and women unfazed and uninterested in the Socialist Old Guard and petty intra-party battles, opposed the war to the nth degree, but not every Socialist opposed it. The leadership of the SP was very much so divided on the subject. Some defended the Roosevelt Administration and the president's call for war, even if engaging in pro-war sentiment arbitrarily partitioned the working class into factions based on national origin. In the terms of former Party Chairman Morris Hillquit, a defender of the German war mission, "National feeling stands for existence primarily, for the chance to earn a livelihood. The working man has a country as well as class. Even before he has a class." Other prominent activists and officials who felt concurred on Hillquit's terms included Charles Russel, Walter Lippmann, and Algie Simons. This type of nationalist sentiment spread war and wide among the European Socialists to the extreme detriment of the Second International, and now it loomed over the American Party.

An overpowering majority of the Socialist Party, however, managed to recognize the fallacies of Hillquit's arguments and coined it as such, referring to their fellow comrade as a "German Imperialist" and requesting his expulsion. Rank-and-file members spared no mind for patriotism. Death totals in Ontario rose ever-higher by each passing day. National identity, they determined, did not merit the loss of life on this grand a scale. This majority cemented their position into the national program by 1916 with the passage of a "World Peace" manifesto that stridently reprimanded the needless march to the trenches. "Nobody wins if we all lose," one activist recalled. This core of the left-wing organization stayed bitterly opposed to entry into the war, and in that respect did share much of the same perspective as William J. Bryan, but the Socialists took an extra step in their assessment of the situation. They recognized that long-term peace could not be attained by merely exiting the war, or even through mediation in Europe. True peace necessitated an end to capitalist exploitation at home and abroad.

The present world war is, then, the result of jealousies engendered by the recent rise of armed national associations of labor and capital whose aim is the exploitation of the wealth of the world mainly outside the European circle of nations. These associations, grown jealous and suspicious at the division of the spoils of trade-empire, are fighting to enlarge their respective shares; they look for expansion, not in Europe but in Asia, and particularly in Africa. ‘We want no inch of French territory,’ said Germany to England, but Germany was ‘unable to give’ similar assurances as to France in Africa. [...] We, then, who want peace, must remove the real causes of war. We have extended gradually our conception of democracy beyond our social class to all social classes in our nation; we have gone further and extended our democratic ideals not simply to all classes of our nation, but to those of other nations of our blood and lineage—to what we call ‘European’ civilization. If we want real peace and lasting culture, however, we must go further. We must extend the democratic ideal to the yellow, brown, and black peoples.

        W.E.B. Du Bois, "The African Roots of War," The Crisis, May 1915

Party favorite Eugene Debs was, in 1916, in no condition to run a new national campaign. He suffered a collapse in 1915 and stayed bedridden for over a month due to torn muscles and general exhaustion. He retook the speaking circuit in a reduced capacity by autumn, but his health would not be strong enough to embark on an all-new Red Express. Like Bryan, Debs spoke out against the growing war fever in the lead-up and aftermath of the Yellow Rose disaster, and his lobbying efforts ensured that every Socialist incumbent in the U.S. House would vote against the declaration of war against the United Kingdom. He did, after a tsunami of convincing, acquiesce to consistent pleas to run for Indiana's 5th Congressional seat, believing he could possibly unite the varied constituency of UMW coal miners, factory workers and farmers.

Stepping aside allowed for a new face to take the lead as the head of the Socialist Party ticket. Therefore, the candidate which won was a vocal opponent to the war games and fervently detested the national trend toward intoxicating patriotism. The nomination fell to the three-term Mayor of Milwaukee, Emil Seidel (S-WI). Like many of his contemporaries on the side of Debs, Seidel stated extreme uneasiness with the march to war and consistently urged neutrality for the benefit of the global working class. As mayor, he vetoed city council measures to purchase liberty bonds and criminalize peace demonstrations, instead pressuring municipal officials to regulate the presence of police at both pacifist and Preparedness marches. Seidel was a sitting politician, not so much a labor activist or a outside agitator (to the displeasure of the new class of members). He was therefore thrilled with the selection of a less-known entity for vice president.

James Maurer (S-PA), an incumbent representative in Congress, was nominated to a place on the ticket alongside Seidel. Maurer joined the party at the dawn of its founding in 1901, and as a trade unionist brought along a key labor perspective. He had close ties with steel workers and coal miners in Pennsylvania, as well as their affixed IWW locals, and was commonly viewed as the friendliest public official to the goals of the Wobblies. Maurer was too a fierce critic to the war effort and a long-standing advocate of peace, personally appealing to the president at the height of tensions with the U.K. to remain a conscientious, neutral mediator. Like the rest of the Socialist delegation in Congress, Maurer stalled the passage of the war declaration and ultimately cast his vote against the resolution. Seidel and Maurer, with Debs' blessing, took to the road in the spring of 1916.

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The Republican Convention at the Chicago Coliseum, June 1916 - Source: Wiki Commons

During the Presidential Contingent Election in 1913, Senate Republicans set a new and unorthodox tone by casting their votes for the Progressive vice-presidential nominee, Hiram Johnson. Press guesswork regarding cooperation between the Columbian and GOP managers was in no short supply since the initial rise of Theodore Roosevelt as a prospective contender on the national stage, but nothing definitively materialized until the Cullom-La Follette compromise. The two political parties disagreed vehemently over implementation of the Square Deal and the constitutionality of each individual policy therein, yet President Roosevelt achieved a greater share of cross-over, bipartisan support for his legislation than any elected leader in recent memory. The incumbent strode that political tightrope well and indeed secured some degree of respect among even the toughest partisans lining the aisles of Congress.

A varied assortment of Republican bigwigs gradually arrived at a novel idea, a shot in the dark, to name Roosevelt president on the Republican ticket. These "fusionists", named so by historians after the Democratic/Populist phenomenon of the 1890s, supported the president's war effort in an absolute fashion. Henry Cabot Lodge, for example, sharply disapproved of intrusive regulation into private enterprise, but he and the executive lined up on foreign affairs like peas in a pod. Lodge feared that a presidential swap in this historic moment risked an uncertain outcome in the war. In this the senator was not alone. Seeking a temporary truce for the purpose of settling international scores, some Republicans kickstarted a genuine movement for the nomination of Roosevelt in the lead-up to their convention, and for a time their path seemed tangible.

The rightmost section of the Republicans never let their anger and frustration over the contingent election results fade from memory. Figures like Representative William S. Greene (R-MA), who failed thrice to be elected GOP House minority leader, let bitterness block pragmatism from view. Refusing to allow Roosevelt to characterize them as foolish or subservient, they openly disapproved of his nomination and sought after it themselves. Curiously, historical accounts do not name conservatism as the dominant thread running through the Republicans' 1916 anti-Roosevelt current. Although it is fair to assume that staunch conservatives preferred a White House occupant more attentive to financial "soundness" and raising tariffs, the tide of war, as insinuated above, overwrote that inclination. Whether liberal or conservative, the politicians most displeased with Roosevelt were agitated exclusively over the war issue. These were no pacifists. On the contrary, they wholeheartedly supported Preparedness. The matter of contention squared down to which side the U.S. was on.

A steady stream of Northeastern Republicans, namely attorneys, bankers, and academics, belonged to a foreign policy school of thought dubbed "Atlanticism". This cadre, albeit a somewhat contrarian and out-of-place philosophy in the 1910s to the average American, strongly believed in cooperative internationalism with the United Kingdom and European democracies. Some trusted in this brand of fetishistic Anglophilia over concerns of how a post-war Europe could operate under the thumb of the German Empire and earnestly feared for the future of Europe. Others had a vested, monetary interest in the success and profitability of the Entente and simply wagered on the wrong horse. Manhattan lawyer Paul Drennan Cravath was particularly influential in this field of thought and had been a guiding figure of Atlanticism within the Republican Party. Cravath detested Roosevelt not for military engagement, as he desired U.S. entry just as fervently as the president, but for performing the heathenish act of joining with the Central Powers. Atlanticists bristled at the mere thought of a third term Roosevelt presidency.

These disparate factions settled in at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. The scene was lighthearted enough to distract from the tumultuous state of the world, though somber in recognition of the lives lost thus far in the war. Attendance had also fallen from its 1912 height, probably due to a combination of lacking interest in Republican politics at the peak of the Progressive Era and a sharp reduction in donor expenditures. High-dollar donors were a mainstay of the Republican Party, and they always sent out commissaries for the conventions at the state and national level, but as a consequence of the unstable economy and in the knowledge that their wealth hinged on success in Europe and Canada, financial investment in the party was low.

Platform debates were tempered. Atlanticists did not stress the inclusion of a pro-Entente sentiment, obviously fearing that doing so would jeopardize their electoral chances come November, and instead voted approvingly on a more neutral and concealed foreign relations plank. The section read, "We believe that the dignity and influence of the United States cannot be preserved by shifty expedients, by phrase-making, by performances in language, or by attitudes ever changing in an effort to secure votes or voters. The present Administration has destroyed our influence abroad and humiliated us in our own eyes." Elsewise, the Republicans supported peacemaking missions in Mexico, a rigid defense of hegemony in the Pacific, a heightened tariff, a lowered income tax, a federal child labor law, and women's suffrage. This middle-of-the-road, even reformist, platform reflected the changing landscape of the country and the shifting of acceptable political philosophy ever slightly to the left.

Sparks finally flew on the third day of the convention as mixed reactions to the nominating speeches quickly produced a spotlight on factional division.

Seeds planted from the Roosevelt-Fairbanks Bargain sprouted at last at the national convention. J.P. Morgan partner and an on-again, off-again ally to the Progressives, George W. Perkins, organized divergent tendencies of the party into a single, loud advocacy for fusion. Campaigns running counter to the fusionist strategy struggled at first to match the energy and momentum of the Perkins' and Fairbanks' of the time, but by June they did stand on equal footing. [...] Senator Root nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president. "The first duty of the Republican Party in the coming campaign," he explained, "is to retain the material prosperity of the Republic, which has been built up during the last half century. Prosperity cannot exist without exerting our influence and position beyond our own borders. To do this we must have a candidate who will command support beyond the strict limits of the party..." At Root's conclusion, half of the convention cheered, and half hissed. Senators Lodge, Fairbanks, and Hale, Minority Leader James Mann, Governor Charles Evans Hughes, and former Vice President William Howard Taft were among those who applauded the speech.

Of the four Republicans industriously competing for the nomination, only one carried substantive delegate support and shone above the field: Senator (John W.) Weeks of Massachusetts. His colleague, Representative Frederick Gillett, presented the nominating speech. "Not long ago, our party was still the majority party," Gillett said. "In numerical strength, in mental and moral force, and in adaptability to and in experience with the affairs of government, it was by far the superior party, and it ought to have won in that election. By unfortunately bitter antagonisms and an underhanded ploy thrust defeat upon us. We are now assembled to formulate an alternative for a madness that has taken hold of the government. It is a grave responsibility that rests upon us. The time is a serious one. Almost the entire world is ablaze with the fires of war, and the continent on which we stand is not exempt. We must make the world safe for democracy." Now it was the other half of the room that rose and delivered a standing ovation. Weeks, they assumed, wielded the political chops necessary to challenge an incumbent and win.

         Jay R. Morgan, The American Elephant: A Study of the Republican Party, 1980

Conservatives and Atlanticists alike held Weeks in high regard. Opposing candidates simply did not carry the same appeal with state delegates and thereby fell to the wayside. Former Speaker Thomas Butler, the Republican presidential nominee four years earlier, was on the fence on fusion tactics and reportedly spoke at length with George Perkins on the subject. Gillett's remarks seemed to change his mind, however, and Butler thenceforth quietly supported Weeks for president. Each of the supposed rising stars in the party did the same, like Senator Warren G. Harding and Congressman James Wolcott Wadsworth (R-NY). Former President Depew, now aged 82 yet still beloved in Republican circles, also emerged opposed to a unity plea with the Progressives. He drove home support for the Weeks Campaign during a brief in-person appearance and professed admiration for Gillett's exuberant words on the convention floor. Perkins, meanwhile, struggled to preserve his movement's own momentum, but he was not blind to the writing on the wall. The financier ceded the win to the senator as the first roll call finalized the nomination, but fusionists nonetheless maintained their reservations.

SIXTEENTH REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

THE BALLOT: PRES		1st Call		1080 DELEGATES
John W. Weeks ☑		562
Theodore Roosevelt		440
Jacob Edwin Meeker		33
LeBaron B. Colt		28
George T. Oliver		11
OTHERS/BLANK		6

SIXTEENTH REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

THE BALLOT: VICE PRES		1st Call		1080 DELEGATES
James P. Goodrich ☑		622
Martin G. Brumbaugh		237
William G. Webster		119
Hiram W. Johnson		44
Paul D. Cravath		40
Reed Smoot		9
Hempstead Washburne		4
OTHERS/BLANK		5

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The National Democratic Convention In Session at St. Louis, June 1916 - Source: wiki Commons

Former President William R. Hearst spent the second Roosevelt presidency in political exile at his New York City abode: A five-story penthouse on Riverside Drive. His ongoing political investment, the Civic League of America, held just six seats in Congress and a smattering of statewide offices elsewhere. That delegation was run by CL House Minority Leader Daniel Driscoll, a shrewd, anti-machine politician. Driscoll, who was facing his own tough re-election battle at home, held the fledgling, six-person group together as a statement of opposition to the present Democratic leadership. Driscoll and Hearst knew that if the Civic League fielded a presidential candidate that would virtually assure Democratic defeat and lock-in a third term for the incumbent. Alternatively, Hearst running as a Democratic primary contender could, with adequate financial support, siphon enough Bryan voters and state delegate commitments to transform the summer nominating convention into a shot at retribution. That being said, the exiled leader and his closest allies were unable to picture a viable endgame that accounted for an actual Hearst victory. If the media magnate wished to keep his new political project relevant, his own likeness must first be removed center stage. Hearst therefore announced to a curious gaggle of journalists in spring of 1916, "my time in government is behind me. I have no plans to run."

Political historians typically have not judged its conclusively as either truth or fiction, but speculation popped up concerning an under-the-table deal involving leading Democrats and the Hearst men. The House investigation into the Manhattan Scandal continued in the mid-1910s supplementary to slackened investigatory procedures by New York State. These were quite plainly relegated to the backburner with Hearst no longer in the public eye (then furthermore pushed aside with the outbreak of world war), but such simultaneous examinations had not yet officially ended. It may have simply been a mere coincidence, or perhaps something a bit more nefarious, but both investigations wrapped up in March 1916. No additional wrongdoing of the Hearst Campaign was unearthed by either the New York Justice Department or the House. Conspiracies surrounding the ceased inquiries were, and are, aplenty, as the timeline may suggest a quid pro quo, but nothing had been provable.

19 states held presidential primary contests from March through June. Results did not bind delegates for the convention, but it did certainly indicate which direction Democratic voters were headed. Governor Hunt nabbed Arizona by over 90% of the vote and Senator Watson easily outperformed the field in Georgia. Inactive favorite son candidates succeeded in South Dakota, Ohio, and Vermont, but voters in the remaining 14 states chose former President Bryan in a walloping for the ages. Reconfiguring a long-since abandoned base, the Nebraskan toured the countryside in search of support among those who shared in his point of view. These events were packed, regardless of location, and wherever the candidate traveled a crop of patrons arose from thin air to see the Great Commoner in person. Albeit balding, a bit heavier, and with a touch less boom to his oratory, the now-56-year-old populist champion retained his celebrity status.

Curiously, the fiery Nebraskan partially reformed his tone upon officially entering the battle for the presidential nomination. Bryan was never one to hold back in speaking his mind, especially if he felt assured that the American people were on his side. He had no scruples in defending the cause of peace and mutual cooperation when Roosevelt shouted from the rooftops for militarism, but he sensed the need to tread carefully as to not appear overly unpatriotic. He no longer brought forward the suggestion that the question for intervention be brought to a national referendum. Likewise, the famed orator now refused to explicitly denounce the war itself as a natural pursuit of corporations. He still insisted that an upper-class of businessmen milking the conflict for profits was morally repugnant, but Bryan never again took that additional step into pacifism. Americanism was the new reality, he believed, and it would do his campaign a disservice to insinuate fault in national loyalty.

Bryan professed a moralist worldview in all things. He saw war as an unjust creature unless designed to liberate, supported women's suffrage in the belief that all mothers were inherently trustworthy, and pledged to enact a national ban on alcohol as a way to preserve social order. Regarding the latter proposal, the former president unhesitatingly doubled down on his endorsement of temperance laws in 1916. Over 25 states had thus far passed some form or another of a "dry" ordinance and Bryan took this as a sign. He maintained that the banning of saloons would prompt the birth of a fruitful and devout United States. Social Gospelers, Anti-Saloon League, and the Federal Council of Churches loved the candidate for it. As later noted in a biographical interview, Bryan confessed that prohibition was a policy "nearer his heart," than the quest for peace, although both achievements slotted into his vision of a purer world.

By the time DNC Chair Judson Harmon's gavel struck the podium's sound block and brought the St. Louis Coliseum to silent order, few doubted the final outcome of the gathering. The Democratic National Convention, which began on June 14th, featured representatives of the varied and growing Democratic constituency all eager to spell the end for President Roosevelt. It was jubilant, optimistic, and housed a massive crowd. All in all, it exemplified the party's more promising optics than the rather pitiful Chicago convention one week beforehand. However, a quiet unease and sense of urgency shadowed over the festivities. For the first time in decades, the Democratic Party did not control a single branch of the federal government. Progressives controlled both the presidency and the House of Representatives, and in 1914 Senator Owen lost his majority leader status to Charles Fairbanks. 1916 was their definitive moment of truth, and many in the party's upper echelon signaled potential retirements if the Democrats failed to gain back a foothold in Washington.

The platform of the Democrats, one that dedicated just half of its total text to international relations and the ongoing global catastrophe (and loosely implied that the Central Powers were not reliable allies), passed without a hitch. Then, the nominating speeches commenced with the powerful, pro-peace address by Congressman George Huddleston (D-AL). "In a time like this," he contended, "it takes a lion-hearted courage for a man to stand up on his feet and dare to speak for peace." He gave a heartfelt plea for Bryan's nomination, followed by Claude Kitchin (D-NC) and his assertion that, "This nation is civilization's last hope, and the only remaining star of hope for Christendom." In stark contrast, Clifford Walker's (D-GA) remarks in favor of Watson stressed ire at "Bankers in the East" for pushing the country into war and a short digression aimed ending the enlistment of black Americans - a common talking point of white supremacists during the conscription debate. In one of his final public appearances prior to his death in 1917, former Senator Richard Olney presented a short commemoration of past achievements by the party and paid tribute to the late Grover Cleveland.

In examining the sole delegate vote for the presidential nomination, one may observe Watson's startling overperformance. In spite (or perhaps because) of his demagoguery, outwardly racist views and religious bigotry, the Georgian senator placed an uncomfortably close second to Bryan. For the convention-goers, this was not particularly surprising. Segments of the Democratic and Civic League parties, at least since Hearst's rise, began dipping their toes into overt nativism. In conjunction with flourishing Southern Populism had been the amplification and greater acceptance of conspiratorial anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiment alongside undisguised white supremacy. Self-described "Native Americans" were a minority in Democratic circles, but Watson's second-place finish symbolized just how far of range their influence spread. Watson-ites hoped to lengthen the balloting process, but due to the ear-tugging persuasion of giants like Champ Clark, the Midwest went conclusively for Bryan and ended any discussion of a potential second ballot. Fellow peace advocate Woodrow Wilson was selected as vice president thereafter.

TWENTY-SECOND DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

THE BALLOT:PRES		1st Call		Unanimous		1059 DELEGATES
William J. Bryan ☑		714		1059
Thomas E. Watson		305		0
George W.P. Hunt		33		0
Lawrence Tyson		3		0
William R. Hearst		2		0
Thomas R. Marshall		1		0
OTHERS/BLANK		1		0

TWENTY-SECOND DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

THE BALLOT:VICE PRES		1st Call		Unanimous		1059 DELEGATES
Woodrow Wilson ☑		720		1059
Oscar Underwood		195		0
Coleman L. Blease		101		0
Ollie M. James		25		0
Charles S. Thomas		8		0
E. H. Moore		8		0
OTHERS/BLANK		2		0

The Nebraskan smiled, rose to his feet, trekked to the stage, and delivered a remarkably confident, in-person acceptance speech.

It was twenty years ago that I became acquainted with a notable victory. (Applause.) Our party became responsible for national affairs. It was in sole control of all the departments of the Federal Government. It took away the power of the court system to criminalize work stoppages. It took away the power of trusts to exploit the American people. It took that first step into the wilderness and stood up to the unholy combination of the powers of high finance. In these great measures constitute achievements which that the Republican party dare not attack and the Columbians adopt as their own. They have not the courage to either admit their value or to condemn them. They cowardly evade the issue. Did they condemn the income tax at Chicago? No; and they will have the people to settle with, if they dare to go before them and propose to undo what has been done.

Your great Chairman today pointed out that our foreign policy had been successful. Republican politicians would have us invade and annex Mexico, then Central America. Their demands would have us conquering nations and destroying all the advantage we have gained in half a century in our efforts to cultivate the confidence of Latin America in Central and South America. The President would do the same, and then claim the inevitability of annexation. (Laughter and Applause.) And what of Canada? And what of the Philippines? We accepted the throngs of responsibility when tyranny crashed down upon the people of Cuba, and our engagement was conducted with a single objective. We did not seek subjugation, nor did our government then seek empire. Now, we mourn the loss of a colonial possession that was never ours to colonize. [...] My friends, we do not know when it will be possible to bring this war to a close, but we do know that ours, the greatest nation, is the one to which the world must look to to act as a mediator when the time for mediation comes.

But, my countrymen, we have a record that we can go to the country on, without fear and without blush. And I believe the American people will not be unmindful of the fact that it was a Democratic President that once brought us peace and prosperity, and a Columbian-Republican President that has bound us to war. If the nations now at war had spent one-tenth as much trying to cultivate friendship as they spent cultivating hatred, there would be no war today. (Applause.) If I understand this nation's opportunity and this nation's task, it is to lead the world away from its false philosophy and help it to build its hope of peace on the enduring foundation of love and brotherhood and cooperation. (Applause.)

         William Jennings Bryan, Democratic Convention Acceptance Speech, Excerpt, June 16th, 1916

[Pyro]

Independence Day Parade Coinciding with Progressive National Convention, July 4th, 1916 - Source: U.S. Archives

Theodore Roosevelt's national image was of paramount importance for his fate in the presidential election. The dominant perception of the president shifted from a hero among heroes, ablaze in a rush atop San Juan Hill, to a sober yet eccentric war organizer. In essence, this was everything Roosevelt searched for and aspired to achieve in regaining the power of the Executive Branch. During the greatest global crisis of his lifetime, he was in a position of leadership and guidance. Much like Abraham Lincoln, of whom he admired profoundly, the president desired above all else to be a guiding light in otherwise dismal times. His status as a war leader inspirited the public at the start of the war, but an increasingly war weary populace swung this advantage into a disadvantage. The elected leader took to heart each and every report detailing a loss in public faith in government and of the U.S. war effort. To win, he believed, that trend necessitated a reversal.

As if the logical answer to Roosevelt's prayers, the National Progressive Convention of 1916 was designed to thrust the country into "a heroic mood," per the president's own words. Its organizers sought to aggressively outsize, outmatch, and out-Americanize the competition. Patriotism was at the forefront of this agenda, and as such the political party set the start date of the convention for the Fourth of July. Taking place at Madison Square Garden in New York, the somewhat ironically nicknamed "Empire Convention" excessively capitalized on planned Independence Day theming for their own political profits. A July 4th march planned for the seasonal festivities incorporated elements of the Preparedness parades and other garnishes courtesy of the White House, and that event in and of itself captured national headlines. It was a clever use of tradition to advance the president's patriotic campaign, and it perfectly exemplified the well-developed political astuteness of the incumbent.

The entire methodology of implanting patriotism and Americanism as a primary focal point of the Progressive Party, a continued trend from 1912, straightforwardly presented the president as a fitting chief executive for the moment. "Roosevelt and Victory!" read hundreds of leaflets and posters pasted throughout the convention halls. Others copied USIC anti-British sloganeering to illicit anger at the nation's enemy and provoke nationalist sentiment. "Stay the Course," another poster plead, donning an illustration of a ship captained by Uncle Sam, a murky ocean below tinted with the Union Jack, and a bright, yellowish horizon labeled "Prosperity". "Remember the Yellow Rose, Enlist and Fight On!" read other pamphlets littered throughout Manhattan. These messages did occasionally note the tribulations at the front, but always to merit a patriotic response, never to grieve.

Progressives on the national committee became more rigid and disciplined than in years prior. Now it barred, as a written prerequisite, anyone who spoke out against the war. It would not risk the slightest diversion from the course, even if that track sacrificed a bit of ceremonial unity. Similarly, the final party platform discernably downsized its once-profuse descriptions of domestic reform and allotted that space for foreign affairs and the importance of patriotism and respect for one's country. It passed out one or two sentence responses to questions of suffrage, taxation, and the tariff, but otherwise insisted upon the war as the main focal point - win or lose. These alterations were despised by Senate Conference Chairman La Follette and the bulk of the Progressives' left wing, and they certainly opposed the changes on the floor of the convention, but an unmoving two-thirds of the delegates shot them down. "If an expulsion proposal had managed to reach the floor," pondered Ackerman, "it would almost certainly have passed."

Convention speeches arranged intermittently throughout the event gave some insight into internal strife at the PNC. Remarks by House Speaker Wesley Jones and Louisiana gubernatorial candidate John M. Parker threaded the needle betwixt the divisions, noting little of the platform and instead praising the president and reprimanding their Democratic foe. In their respective addresses, Senator Joseph Dixon of Montana complimented the administration's reform initiatives as they related to his constituency, Representative Ira C. Copley (P-IL) lauded the economic recovery, and Frank Munsey, Chairman of the Equitable Trust Company, expressed a hopeful view on the future of a Progressive-led U.S. Congress. For their loyalty in siding with the administration on the war resolution, several invited Republicans were also granted speaking time (incidentally validating Hearst's argument on double-dealing by the political establishment).

Without a doubt, the most remarkable feature about much of the convention rhetoric was how negatively it painted the anti-war movement in conjunction with the labor movement. Some of these speakers did not hold back an ounce of pure acrimony, and that was too true of figures who once posed as friends of labor. Governor William Stephens (P-CA) is perhaps the finest example. Stephens ran for a seat in the House of Representatives in 1910 and won based on a pro-reform and pro-union moniker, and in that time voiced favor of federal arbitration and the Square Deal. He was also a full-fledged supporter of the Roosevelt-sponsored drive to war and articulated tremendous outrage at the idea of pacifist interference. He served as Hiram Johnson's lieutenant governor, and, on the former's ascension to the vice presidency, Stephens became the new governor of California. The two saw eye-to-eye on the issues, including of the need to quell peace rallies, so the changeover was rather unmemorable to most Californians. In his convention speech, Stephens stirred the delegation by firmly denouncing, "Radicals in our midst," who opposed the war. "The chaos of that vile demonstration last June has been replicated in cities all across this country. At the same time, we have endured threats of violence. In my city of San Francisco, we have uncovered reports of an alleged anarchist bomb threat as a deformed and detestable method of protesting patriotism." Stephens went on, citing the IWW as a plausible source of the threat per police documentation of the foiled plot.

Stephens' mentor, Hiram Johnson, was in 1916 the sitting vice president. Johnson instilled in his prodigy many of the same values that characterized the former's time in Sacramento, including pragmatic progressivism and an efficient, secure state government. "Hiram Warren Johnson underwent a transition that reflected the gradual transformation of the Progressive Party," wrote Ackerman. "In 1912 he took the place of former Vice President Taft as Roosevelt's first mate. His role in the Cabinet did not exceed any predecessor apart from his maintaining a tight-knit relationship with the president and encouraging bipartisanship and coalition-building in the Senate. Adopting a wary yet supportive posture on the war, he bridged the gap between Peace Progressives like La Follette and Addams and the internationalist faithful. Johnson originally had reservations against entry into the war but quietly evolved that position in time. He was uneasy at the thought of mass bloodshed as a cost of war yet emphatically supported the president's decision to join the conflict. In 1915 he may have urged caution, but one year later he was pushing for total conscription like the rest."

Vice President Johnson ardently defended the cause for war and held contempt for vocal opponents of it, a facet of the Senate President made evident through his striking convention speech.

This war is our defense of liberty and of civilization against the attack of militarism. We fight not only to protect American's interests, influence, and her commerce, but to safeguard justice and freedom. We are fighting for the rights of traders, workers, and of all citizens, that never shall the civilized world see another Yellow Rose crucifixion. [...] We opened our eyes to the reddening horizon about us and we realize that civilization hangs in the balance. We must not indulge any faction that seeks surrender on that front. Those factions threaten the development of progress and, in doing so, they disrupt national security. Subversives who have conspired to devastate our industries or defy enlistment procedures risk endangering American service to mankind.

         Hiram W. Johnson, Progressive Convention Speech, July 6th, 1916

The vice president's address did not sit at all well with the Peace Progressives and the so-called "Radical" Columbians, but there was no remote chance of mounting a last-ditch challenge to the incumbent second-in-command. The speech, from its insinuation that the IWW was un-American to the assertion that war critics bared the responsibility of a potential U.S. defeat, seemed to indicate that the party was moving away from what it was meant to embody: a genuine alternative to the status quo. None of these statements would feel out-of-place at the Republican convention, but in some regards the internationalists, imperialists and jingoists in the Progressive ranks went even further than their GOP colleagues. Once Roosevelt and Johnson were each unanimously re-nominated on the first call and the universally respected incumbent delivered his brief acceptance message (one more in line with the party mainstream), the convention seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "I only wish we saw then the writing on the wall," recounted Progressive activist and future Socialist official Harold L. Ickes. "By God, we should have seen it. What fools we were."

FOURTH PROGRESSIVE NATIONAL CONVENTION

THE BALLOT: PRES		1st Call		2009 DELEGATES
Theodore Roosevelt ☑		Unanimous
OTHERS/BLANK		0

FOURTH PROGRESSIVE NATIONAL CONVENTION

THE BALLOT: VICE PRES		1st Call		2009 DELEGATES
Hiram Johnson ☑		Unanimous
OTHERS/BLANK		0

[Pyro]

"The Reports of His Political Death Seem to Have Been Exaggerated," June 1916 - Source: NebraskaDotGov

As the general election kicked off, the prime domestic contention dominating headlines was that of permitting Roosevelt a third term. Much of America flatly disapproved of handing any president time in office beyond the traditional eight-year limit. That precedent was set by President George Washington over a hundred years ago with the fateful decision to restrict his reign, and every leader since abided by that unwritten rule. Undaunted Progressives deemed it the incumbent's duty to continue leading the country through the nation's greatest war in a generation, where perceived belligerence from the Entente alliance required a worthy figure to fit the moment. The president's supporters championed this breaking of the two-term tradition as a sign of progress, though others feared it demonstrated the incumbent's kingly ambitions.

The presidential campaigns of John Weeks and William J. Bryan noted the third term issue as part of their respective stump speeches, especially the former. Weeks commonly dug into the president for his refusal to step aside and exclaimed horror at the precedent being set. Referencing the matter, he stated, "The United States is to represent democracy at home and defend it abroad. How are we meant to combat the old kings and queens of Europe if we ourselves condone imperial rule?" The included quote as derived from the Bay Stater was roughly as far as the Republican was willing to go, vaguely insinuating that Roosevelt sought royalty (indeed his closest campaign advisor, Frederick Gillett, once named the president "King Theodore the First" at the 1908 national convention). Both within and beyond the Republican Party proper, concerned political obsessives sympathized with Weeks' argument.

One such obsessive was Bavarian-born saloonkeeper John Flammang Schrank. According to his journals, Schrank believed himself haunted, controlled by an other-worldly force to prevent a power-hungry administration from clenching onto Executive Branch. Theodore Roosevelt personified unmitigated tyranny in his disoriented mind. The saloonkeeper’s writings detailed a vivid dream in which the ghost of Albert Beveridge appeared and demanded Roosevelt be put to death as punishment for soiling his legacy and shattering his party. Schrank apparently internalized that dream as well as the notion of Roosevelt as an endlessly ambitious Napoleonic figure. On July 30th he tracked the president down at an Annapolis campaign stop, approached him, aimed, and fired off a shot. The bullet struck. It lodged itself in the leader's left shoulder and, as if fate itself intervened, its path did not penetrate any vital organs.

Schrank was immediately captured and arrested, while Roosevelt shockingly returned to his feet. Determining that the attack was non-lethal, the president initially rejected medical assistance, but soon surrendered to the wishes of the secret service. Thereafter, doctors confirmed Roosevelt's suspicions that the wound would not kill him, and that leaving the bullet in place posed less of a threat to the president's life than a removal attempt. That notwithstanding, the Rough Rider was forcibly taken away from his national tour: A detrimental prospect for any presidential campaign. Out of respect for the incumbent, Bryan and Weeks temporarily suspended their campaigning until the incumbent was fit to return to the trail.

For Bryan, the shared decision to depart from the speaking circuit did not dampen his presidential hopes. It is true to assert that both the Democratic and Progressive nominees performed best before large crowds, but the former had already accumulated an astounding degree of momentum. His trailblazing from state to state drove up interest in the Democratic platform and ignited a newfound sense of fondness for the former president. Nostalgia for Bryan's classic, nineteenth-century morals and vision for an enlightened tomorrow went hand-in-hand with a collective desire to return to brighter days. Sorrowful war news underscored the Nebraskan's pledge to revert the damage done to the American way of life, and fear of an imminent attack by the Japanese Navy made scores of otherwise fervently patriotic citizens give Bryan a second glance. The only demographics firmly opposed to the Democratic challenger by July were Socialist-leaning industrial workers, the ultra-wealthy, and immigrant communities which remained determined to defeat the Entente: German-Americans, Austro-Hungarians, those of the Jewish faith, and, perhaps most of all, the Irish.

Thousands of Irish enlisted in the British war effort and paid the ultimate price for it. "Defend Belgium from Subjugation," they were told, with ne'er a thought spared for the subjugation in their own backyard. Surely the British Administration ought to hold up its end of the bargain, surviving Irish volunteers thought, but two years now passed since the dawn of the Great War and Home Rule was nowhere to be found. Audacious rebels under the authority of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and its commanding activists, Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, aimed at the heart of the Empire and set their sights for independence that April.

"Starting thus," said Connolly, "Ireland may yet set the torch to a European conflagration that will not burn out until the last throne and the last capitalist bond and debenture will be shriveled on the funeral pyre of the last warlord." Smuggled weaponry and war materiel from Germany and the United States assisted in the mobilization but the response was far quicker and deadlier than any dared to guess. Britain reacted with such ire it was as if Pearse and Connolly threatened King George himself. Dublin was razed and civilians and freedom fighters alike were massacred. Suspected rebels were indefinitely detained without trail. Martial law thenceforth reigned across the country. That is the story of the Easter Rising.

         Benjamin McIntyre, "The Long Death of Imperialism," The Resistance, 2013

Americans of Irish descent were in 1916 likely more loyal to the Progressive Party and President Roosevelt than any other ethnic group. Irish Americans generally voiced favor for the Democratic candidate in federal elections, as was traditionally the case in cities with large Irish populations like New York and Boston. With this election, however, due to Bryan's implied support of an armistice, they turned almost uniformly away from the alleged "British sympathizing" Democrats. The Easter Rising validated many of Roosevelt's arguments which suggested an inherent evil in the British Empire (a concept he first coined at the sinking of the Yellow Rose), and it too confirmed his theory that Britain would defend its holdings to the very last man. If he meant to win this war, the Commander-in-Chief needed an evolution in strategy. From the time of the Progressive Party nominating convention, the Roosevelt administration openly admitted its monumentally consequential shift in naval priorities.

The defeat of the Pacific Fleet in the South China Sea drove the president somewhat mad. He read over engagement documents incessantly in the aftermath of the Allied assault but could not conceive of any other outcome than the one which was carried out. While winning that battle may have been impossible, it was not too late to react accordingly. The Royal Navy, now more than ever, intently focused on pure dominance and might over speed, agility, and strength of numbers. Lloyd George sponsored the creation of dozens more battleships and battlecruisers upon taking over from Asquith (sharply reducing production of most other ship types), meaning their cards were all on the table. Several coal-burning and oil-burning battleships did indeed join the Atlantic Fleet and were of notable consequence in some mid-war naval battles, but these factors were not destined to be a catalyst in the greater tide of war.

President Roosevelt, Admirals Sims and Knight, and other high-ranking U.S. military strategists, knowing full well the impossibility of outmatching the Entente in terms of raw power, put their resources into modern destroyers. Prevailing in the seas counted on defeating not just the dreadnaughts, but the submarines. Therefore, the U.S. directed a large portion of naval construction funds into long-endurance warships: Building and completing hundreds instead of prioritizing a mere half dozen or so dreadnaughts (Although, as a side note, the U.S. did introduce a handful of new battlecruisers in 1916). These destroyers, traveling in a newly instituted convoy system, effectively challenged the British submarine assaults as well as some of their mightier ships. With depth charges, U.S. destroyers - affectionately dubbed the "Sub Hunters" in contemporaneous war serials and American popular culture - forced undersea vessels to the surface. From that point, an all-out gunfight would end it. Dozens of British submarines encircling the Caribbean thereby faced certain doom as a consequence for their merchant hunting endeavors.

This sneaky tactic was formed in coordination with German High Command who simultaneously fostered a reorganization of their own. Mutual planning immeasurably assisted the two de facto military allies, so much so that each side sunk finances into developing a communication link that totally sidestepped standard Atlantic cables. Generals Pershing and Erich von Falkenhayn lettered one another on numerous occasions and openly discussed workable scenarios and construction schedules. This solidified relations and unified trust to the point that the Kaiser wrote Roosevelt the 1910s equivalent to a "Get Well Soon" letter upon learning of the attempt on his life. Military historians have since credited this development for Falkenhayn's decision to fake-out French forces at the Fort de Souville during the Battle of Verdun. Believing the Germans on their doorstep, French machine-gunners exited the fortification and prepared to counter-attack. Instead of German platoons, the infantry was greeted with an explosive barrage of artillery. Falkenhayn's men took Souville on July 15th with minor (comparative) losses and pressed onward ever closer to Verdun.

[Pyro]

The Friedrichshafen G.II, the Inspiration for the U.S. Curtiss B1-Eagle Aircraft - Source: Wiki Commons

September saw the unfolding of an entirely redesigned, twisted chapter in the war. Amid the election, President Roosevelt put into action the North American Autumnal Offensive. Residual pain from Schrank's bullet largely restrained the Progressive hero to the White House for the duration of August, but in that time he oversaw the completion of all preparations needed to embark on the next evolution of "lightning war." Modeled after the successful initial push into Canada though transformed with the latest technological advancements and military intelligence, the Autumnal Offensive incorporated Atlantic Sub Hunters, the often-undercounted Great Lakes fleet, modified tractors for use as prototypical armored vehicles, and, most significantly, air power.

The U.S. previously invested the lion's share of its military funding into munitions, artillery, and naval projects, thus playing the Entente's game by their rules whilst not recognizing the innate advantage of open skies. Fighter-class air units were present to a meager extent on either side of the Northern Front, but the British were not keen on shipping additional planes to North America with calamity shadowing over a battered Europe. Upon witnessing the course of modern warfare in the European theater, particularly the effectiveness of German zeppelin raids, U.S. observers in 1915 reported to their superiors the pivotal importance of air superiority. If implemented correctly, the United States military could possess an unmitigated advantage in the air, both in terms of raw numbers and technical supremacy. Secretary Meyer oversaw the aviation transition team (including the pilot training program) and signed off on federally mandated orders to U.S. automobile and airplane manufacturers for an expeditious adjustment in mass production. Congress readily appropriated over half a billion to war-related manufacturing at the start of their December 1915 session, and an appreciable chunk of those funds carried over to aviation. By October, the United States flew over 2,200 planes and planned a minimum reinforcement rate of 1,750 per month by 1917 - easily outpacing operational British air units in Canada.

Roosevelt's assailment initiated with the launch of an aviation-centric bombing wave on British-Canadian lines on September 23rd. The scourge was relentless. Wave upon wave of twin-engine bombers descended on the Northern Front and ramped up the bloodshed to amounts unseen since the shock strike on the U.S.-Canada border. Pilots under the command of Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske struck hard and fast, never discriminating soldier versus civilian. These heavier-than-air vehicles were equipped with state-of-the-art gun and bombsights to allow for better aim, in addition to radio communication devices and synchronization gear. Some fell in due course from anti-air artillery, but an overwhelming majority survived, nailed their intended targets, and blew apart Entente trench fortifications. Aircraft was no longer limited to serving as observational tools, now they outshined even the most hardened infantrymen. During breaks in-between raids, named "Eclipse" periods, American divisions as accompanied by crude armored tractors and naval support were given the green-light to advance, and miles of land was won at a time. The pure numerical difference of division width was essential, but the advance may have been constrained if not for each cog of the offensive turning in efficient succession.

Gains made by the United States at the Northern Front in the mere three-week span of the Autumnal Offensive far excelled any other that year. Literally blasted apart like dynamite, Canadian field soldiers fell back to Ottawa on October 20th, all but abandoning the Ontario bank of the St. Lawrence River apart from easternmost towns bordering Quebec. Morale plummeted to its lowest yet in Canada, as the stoppage of British imports and endless U.S. raids chipped away at civilian willpower to hold out through the storm. The severing of trade routes earlier that year meant utter catastrophe for average working people in non-Quebecois provinces. Statistics show a similar scene to that of 1914-1915 Germany with childhood hunger on the rise and an increasingly rapid spread of disease in heavily populated cities. Toronto and Winnipeg lied firmly in the grip of the United States, the Vancouver suburbs struggled to hold off endlessly-replenishable offensive armies, and now it appeared Ottawa would fall. U.S. leadership viewed this scene play out through the narrow scope of war games, paying no mind to the suffering of Canadians. This perspective was perfectly encapsulated by the words of General Pershing when he wrote to Roosevelt, "Montréal will soon fly the stars and stripes. Freedom is on the march."

Rumors stirred by late October that the British High Command was seriously considering downsizing its participation on the Northern Front in order to triage a teetering landscape much closer to home. Lloyd George said nothing aloud and wrote nothing concrete, thus thwarting the risk of disintegration on the Western Front, but even national militarists like himself could not deny reality. He exhausted British manpower and locked Australian and New Zealander armies in the European trenches. His nation's singular best asset in times of overseas conflict, the Royal Navy, was plainly not enough to win the battle for North America. Salvaging Europe looked to be the safest option for long-term British economic and imperial longevity. Furthermore, the Autumnal Offensive and subsequent whispers of a British retreat made the all-too bullish Japanese military think twice about embarking on an invasion of Western North America. If the British were not present to provide extensive assistance, the game was over before it had started. Japanese forces, thereafter, would proceed no further than the Hawaiian Islands, where a rebuffed U.S. Pacific Fleet stuck a cork in their plans to overwhelm the territory. As one may imagine, this dramatically alleviated American fears.

This most recent fundamental change in the dynamic of the armed conflict equally altered the shape of the election. Electoral forecasts to this point predicted an easy win, bordering a thoroughbred landslide, for former President Bryan. The Democratic nominee was set up to receive an electoral majority on a silver platter. The Progressive-affiliated press dove at Bryan with the same strategy used against Hearst, that of comparing domestic achievements and warning the public of vitriolic demagoguery, and in that realm occasionally printing the cautionary words of patriotic and duty-bound conservatives like New York Supreme Court Justice Alton Parker to prove their point, but the polls had not budged. Now the situation seemed pliable. In examining political polling from July versus October, it is readily apparent that the Bryan Campaign lost substantial ground among middle-class voters and easily impressionable swing demographics. The Nebraskan's incessant preaching of an alternate war tactic failed to impress in conjunction with the undisputed victories taking place as the front. Roosevelt was naturally trusted on this issue, and Bryan was not.
    

Literary Digest Poll
July 1916

William J. Bryan		41% Pop., 289 Electoral Votes, 29 States
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.		29% Pop., 131 Electoral Votes, 10 States
John W. Weeks		16% Pop., 100 Electoral Votes, 07 States
Emil Seidel		13% Pop., 000 Electoral Votes, 00 States
Other		01% Pop., 000 Electoral Votes, 00 States

    

Literary Digest Poll
October 1916

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.		36% Pop., 270 Electoral Votes, 19 States
William J. Bryan		36% Pop., 245 Electoral Votes, 26 States
John W. Weeks		13% Pop., 016 Electoral Votes, 03 States
Emil Seidel		15% Pop., 000 Electoral Votes, 00 States
Other		00% Pop., 000 Electoral Votes, 00 States

Roosevelt's support strengthened considerably at the expense of Weeks and Bryan, and the same was true for Seidel of the Socialist Party. The Milwaukee mayor retained not only Debs' 1912 foundation of radicalized industrial workers and members of the Industrial Workers of the World, but spectacularly merged components of the anti-war movement left high and dry by Bryan. The Seidel Campaign and the leadership of the SP performed such an unprecedented stunt over the course of the election season, and it all happened to piece together before November. Signaling the wider affiliation of Socialism and opposition to the war, critique typically reserved for the Democratic Party was now laid at the doorstep of Seidel and the Socialists. Spanish-American War veteran and Congressman Sydney Anderson (P-MN) went on the record lambasting Seidel ahead of the election and called for his imprisonment for hindering the U.S. war effort. "Peace can only be achieved with victory," he announced, "...even a god-forsaken Democrat like Bryan knows it."

Prideful (Progressive politicians), once claiming to represent of a future free from capitalist consolidation and oligarchic government, emerged as the greatest political threat to the homegrown working class in a generation. Theodore Roosevelt, the living titanic spirit of patriotism, saluted departing soldiers as they marched off to the trenches of Canada. Defending the Columbian Beacon for Progress in one voice whilst denouncing freedom of expression and calling for its suspension in another, the administration never disguised its bloodlust nor limitless disdain for criticism. Roosevelt was for war and Bryan was for a softer, kindler war. Neither opposed it. Seidel did.

American Socialists were in 1916 hardwired to oppose the systematic and outright criminal slaughter of the World War on humanitarian grounds and in recognition of the class dimension of capitalist war. Seidel's presidential campaign joined with the League of Conscientious Objectors in condemning the Conscription Law as the ultimate, reactionary degradation of human civilization, and together provided the backbone for the protests to come. Seidel manufactured his base among all men and women desirous of a people's peace, and in that cultivated a barrier-shattering buildup of the Socialist Movement.

        Louis Waldman, "What I Saw At Dawn: A Eulogy for Emil Seidel," New York Worker's Journal, 1947

[Pyro]

Bryan and Wilson on the Campaign Trail, November 1916 - Source: LoC

Time was running out for the candidates to issue their final pleas to the public. Polling looked bleaker by the day for non-Progressive contenders, though Bryan ignored that shift and chose to stay on-message. He nipped at the heels of the incumbent in a last-second blitz of the Industrial Midwest alongside Democratic officeholders in those states. From his perspective, the party must win united in the pursuit of ridding the country of its Rough Rider warlord and his foul jingoism, or else defeat was guaranteed. Bryan was therefore pleased with his cross-endorsement by the Prohibition Party earlier that summer, proof that the Democratic tent was capable of an outward expansion. This also awarded the Democratic contender a monumental ally in former Governor Frank Hanley (Pro-IN), a mainstay in Hoosier politics. Bryan shared a stage with men like Hanly in addition to prominent Democrats, and that won him substantial respect in socially conservative circles. John Weeks, on the other end of the traditional party dichotomy, allowed his surrogates to speak on his behalf. Weeks' alleged sympathies for the Atlanticists made him a popular option with the Eastern establishment, but he secured virtually no support elsewhere. Those who opposed his nomination now refused to work to see him elected, including Lodge and Fairbanks who quietly lent use of their office staff to the Roosevelt Campaign.

President Roosevelt significantly limited his time on the campaign trail despite the apparent closeness of the race. His campaign operation may have treated the contest as if their nominee was still ten points behind the Democrat, but the incumbent halted personalized canvassing in the final stretch, citing undeviating oversight of the war as an excuse. This may have been a ploy to make the war leader appear more presidential, however the truth of the matter was that he remained in a state of cascading residual pain from the assassination attempt in August. In the president's stead, Vice President Johnson toured much of the country and espoused the promise of a future prosperity. Following the Independence Day Convention in New York, the Progressives neglected domestic issues in favor of showy Americanism, and their attacks on Bryan and Weeks preached supremely important foreign policy differences. "Bryan Trumpeted Peace from his Golden Cross. Roosevelt Fought and Bled for Peace at San Juan Hill," read a pro-Columbian advertisement referring to the Spanish-American War. To some effect, the Roosevelt Campaign tackled its Democratic opposition from a strikingly similar angle as Beveridge in 1900. Back then, debate revolved around imperialism vs. anti-imperialism, or, in the terms of Bryan, "plutocracy and democracy." Patriotism, economic opportunity, and empire were in 1916 once again dominant issues in the political zeitgeist.

The Socialist nominee concluded his campaign in his home town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to an adoring crowd awaiting his arrival. Seidel knew that like Haywood and Debs before him, a genuine majority vote victory was highly unlikely. Yet a newfound spirit was in the air, a feeling that the anti-war movement had synthesized  disparate forces that otherwise would never have voted his way. Former Progressive lobbyist and attorney Amos Pinchot, brother to the reformist Pennsylvanian senator Gifford Pinchot, famously broke with the Columbians and expressed support for the Seidel Campaign. "I am wary of Socialism," he stated, "but the Milwaukeean is an honest man, has a progressive mayoral record, will defend the rights of workers, and opposes the carrying out of this war." Men like Pinchot who were active in the creation of the Progressive Party in 1904 lost their love for the organization they now viewed as feckless and mindlessly infatuated with empire building. The Socialists and their credibility on the war issue had finally led to mainstream respectability unlike ever before. Whether this was enough to propel the workers' party to a position of power was not yet determined.

This election, aside from the third term issue and the varied economic and social perspectives offered by the assorted aspirants, squarely narrowed down to the question of active participation in the Great War. A rejection of the titan of American political culture meant a fundamental change in the United States' foreign affairs, whether it be Bryan's alternative strategy, Weeks' proposed distancing from the Central Powers, or Seidel's call for an immediate peace at any price. Each represented a defining and unique pathway branched off of the status quo, yet these substitute courses were equal parts mysterious and thrilling. The stakes were high, and arguably higher than any balloting since 1900. The people of the United States would once more cast their judgement on the direction of the country, but now that decision could potentially affect the national makeup of the entire planet. European powers glanced Westward and held their collective breath on November 7th.

When the results began pouring in on Election Day, Literary Digest editors were relieved to find that their latest model appeared more accurate than any of their competitors'. In other words, Roosevelt and Bryan were sparring on a leveled playing field. The Literary Digest won a reputation by this point of providing the most precise gauge of public opinion out of any pollster, and in 1916 that held true just the same. Its October poll found Weeks with a distant third place electoral finish. That finding suggested a nightmare scenario for the Republican Party: A replication of the 1904 Chauncey Depew campaign. This election's final product, however, presented the GOP with an outcome that made the party long for the days of Depew and Knox. Weeks' favorability was proven to be all but nonexistent outside of the strongest of strongholds for his aging party. He carried Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island for a grand total of 16 Electoral Votes. Rhode Island was the closest of the three, won by Weeks by 45% of the vote. The 1916 Republican Party performance would go down as the worst ever for a mainline presidential candidate.

New England's shift from unquestioned Republican dominance mainly pertained to the war. Atlanticists in these areas voted Weeks, but the middle-class pro-intervention vote (a demographic that voted overwhelmingly for Albert Beveridge in 1900) was picked up decisively by President Roosevelt. The incumbent did best in five key categories: Interventionists/Preparedness advocates, men over the age of 45, non-unionized workers, Western European immigrants, and women. That last constituency was not able to vote in all 48 states per the lack of universal suffrage, but 18 states allowed women voting rights through state law. As such, raw ballot totals in suffrage states like Illinois and Nevada far exceeded previous figures, and in 1916 women favored Roosevelt over the field. Seidel was up to par in this demographic as well, but a majority of voting women, particularly in the middle and upper classes, believed the Progressive Party spoke to women's issues more so than other factions. Indeed, despite Democrats, Republicans, and Progressives all expressing support for suffrage in their national platforms, only the latter forced the 1913 Constitutional amendment resolution in Congress.

Accompanied by these advantages, Roosevelt discovered unexpected triumphs in New Hampshire and Massachusetts (Weeks' home state). Maine confidently navigated itself to the Columbian column with a commanding 47% of the vote. This breakthrough was momentous for the Progressives, a party that several months ago some analysts considered at death's door, but it would not be the last this cycle. "Election data in New York County," wrote author Gene Sharov in "Election Analysis Series: 1916", "tells us that turnout was higher in precincts that leaned Progressive in 1912 and 1908. Democratic turnout was up from its woeful 1912 low. Republican districts voted overwhelmingly Progressive on the federal level. Bryan won the county by roughly 40-45%, in addition to Queens County, Kings County, and several others upstate. Weeks won four border counties with higher Canadian-American populations. Seidel did not win any counties, though he finished in second place in Bronx and Schenectady counties, and third place in twenty-six other counties. Roosevelt won the remaining counties as well as the state. Roosevelt 40%, Bryan 33%, Seidel 17%, Weeks 10%."

[Pyro]

President Roosevelt Casting His Ballot, November 7th, 1916 - Source: Wiki Commons

The victory of the Roosevelt Campaign in locking down New York State on Election Day set the novel tone that Bryan would, in fact, be the candidate playing 'catch-up' moving forward: A complete reversal of what most contemporary analysts predicted on the eve of the vote. Some hypothesized that either the Autumn Offensive would flood new, pro-Roosevelt voters to the polls or Bryan would sail to the White House on an antiwar wave, a backlash of the administration's foreign policies. In either case, prominent journals and newsprints like the New York Times considered Bryan the frontrunner, and wrote that a Roosevelt win would manifest only through a gradual, come-from-behind effort. Thus far, the exact opposite scenario was unfolding.

Progressives prevailed in areas that had grown accustomed to voting for the Columbian standard-bearer, including the densely populated cities of Newark and Jersey City, but it was not until the Democratic-tilted rural counties ticked in with their reported ballots that Bryan appeared on the metaphorical radar. Roosevelt was certified as the clear winner regardless of agrarian Democratic votes evening the score to some extent. Rural portions of the Garden State opting for the Democratic nominee was nothing new, though this trend was now exacerbated as never before. Agricultural workers and populistic tenant farmers returned to the Jeffersonian fold in droves, doubtlessly due to Bryan's unique appeal to these types of voters. President Roosevelt retained a modicum of support among this group for his conservation agenda and anti-trust reputation, but this was an absolute core of Bryan's base. One of Thomas Marshall's greatest flaws as a presidential candidate was his flagrant inability to captivate this exact crowd as excellently as Bryan did. Now Bryan was back on the trail, and it certainly paid off.

Four years earlier, Roosevelt conquered the West. He once nabbed the Great Plains with ease, wiped the floor with Governor Marshall in the Mountain states, and reigned supreme on the West Coast. Due to the mass exodus of farmers and other rural workers from the Progressive camp (and the distinct absence of Hearst splitting the Democratic vote) the American West was hotly contested. Bryan confidently regained Nebraska for the Democrats and did the same in the border states of West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Likewise, the depreciation of non-Democratic voters returned Wyoming and Colorado to Bryan - with the latter state's turnaround accredited to a November rally featuring Bryan with Senator Charles Thomas. Utah, thrice a Republican state on the federal level, shifted to the Bryan Column just as it did in 1896 and 1900. The Nebraskan may not have won over the Northeastern U.S. with his promise of a more moralistic nation, and Wilson's presence on the ticket may not have swayed the voters of New Jersey, but the nominee reawakened a dozing Bryanite crowd and effortlessly tapped into that often underrepresented electorate.

Democratic margins in the South were astronomical. Southerners despised Roosevelt, hated him for dragging the country to war, and deeply distrusted his expansion and perceived overreach of the federal government. Democrats did not quarrel with the president on the prosecution of trusts or other matters that contested the rule of consolidated industries, but they vastly disapproved the breaking of the Washington doctrine (i.e., "no entangling alliances") and the ongoing push for mandatory service in the armed forces. Senator Watson's sentiments on this front were felt by Americans below the Mason-Dixon line, and they universally voted to elect Bryan president and Wilson vice-president. The Great Commoner outperformed his Democratic predecessors in the Solid South, scoring upwards of 90% of the vote in states like South Carolina and Louisiana. Remarkably, Seidel captured decent enough margins in Florida and Texas to land in third place over the totally absent and now thoroughly humiliated John Weeks.

Indeed, it was Emil Seidel, not Theodore Roosevelt, that attracted the scorn of William J. Bryan in the days preceding November 7th. The Socialist Party won favor by tens of thousands of disaffected Progressive voters, and it too fared splendidly with white, working-class voters. Bryan desperately needed a minimum plurality support by this voting bloc in order to stay afloat in the Midwest. Reports of Seidel's surge disrupted that quest. The Democratic nominee was uninterested in polling, a project he called "political gamesmanship," but the likelihood is high that he fretted over an overperformance by the left-wing political party, and much to his chagrin, the industrial Midwestern states were precisely where the Socialists did their best in this election.

Seidel won over 10% of the vote in unlikely SP havens like Florida and Oklahoma, but in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the Socialist mayor shocked the system. He surpassed the total GOP vote in these four states, equaled the Democrats' in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and managed to outshine Bryan in the latter two. Wisconsin was, by far, the Socialists' strongest showing in 1916. The Badger State, where the mayor barnstormed at the start and end of his national campaign, delivered to the Socialist Movement an encouraging sign in the makeup of its ballot count. It resulted in Seidel's 31% of the vote to Roosevelt's 33%, Bryan's 26%, and Weeks' 10%. Debs took roughly 17% of the Wisconsin vote in 1912, Haywood managed 12% in 1908, but in no state had a Socialist succeeded in breaking the upper 20 percentile. It was astounding, and a discernable wake-up call to the powers that be.

Needless to say, Roosevelt carried pluralities in the Midwest with Indiana as the sole exclusion (To note, historians point to high numbers of German-Americans voting Progressive, not Socialists winning over Democratic voters, as the tipping point in the Midwest). Progressives' prosperous roundup of the industrial Midwest granted them a moment to breathe, but winning the election still necessitated commanding finishes in as many of the remaining states as possible. As such, Roosevelt grabbed Kansas, Washington, and the Dakotas as expected, succeeding in each with about the same percentages as 1912. The American Southwest, namely New Mexico and Arizona, was eventually called for Bryan with margins around 5-8% apiece. Bryan too won a plurality in Montana, Idaho, and Nevada - all states won by the Columbians four years ago and the former two since the inception of the Progressive Party. Oregon was called for Roosevelt on the evening of Election Day, and on the morning of November 8th the Californian Secretary of State confirmed the incumbent as the winner of the state's thirteen Electoral Votes - a win Roosevelt affably credited to Vice President Johnson, Governor Stephens, and Speaker Jones to the day he died.

Thereby, thankfully without the need of a contingent election, Theodore Roosevelt was elected to a third term as president of the United States. He thereafter received 275 Electoral Votes to Bryan's 239.

[Pyro]

The Election of 1916: Final Results

[Elcaspar]

Oof to the Republicans they got less votes than the Socialists.

[YPestis25]

Without American capital and especially an American exit from the war, I don't really see how the Entente can win the war. I'll be curious how post-war Europe shakes out.

Great work as always Pyro. This is by far my favorite timeline at the moment.

[Pyro]

Without American capital and especially an American exit from the war, I don't really see how the Entente can win the war. I'll be curious how post-war Europe shakes out.

Great work as always Pyro. This is by far my favorite timeline at the moment.

Thank you so much!

[Pyro]

1916 Congressional Elections      

Senate
Democratic: 37 (+7)
Progressive: 32 (+1)
Republican: 26 (-8)
Socialist: 1 (0)

House
Progressive: 156 (-2)
Democratic: 126 (+9)
Republican: 115 (-20)
Socialist: 31 (+13)
Civic League: 6 (0)
Independent: 1 (0)

  Senate Leadership

Senate President Hiram W. Johnson (P-CA)
President pro tempore John H. Bankhead (D-AL)
Caucus Chairman Robert L. Owen (D-OK)
Conference Chairman Robert La Follette (P-WI)
Conference Chairman Warren G. Harding (R-OH)

  House of Representatives Leadership

Speaker Wesley L. Jones (P-CA)
Minority Leader Champ Clark (D-MO)
Minority Leader James R. Mann (R-IL)
Minority Leader Meyer London (S-NY)
Minority Leader Daniel A. Driscoll (CL-NY)

On the presidential stage, Theodore Roosevelt vanquished William Jennings Bryan and attained slim yet definitive Popular and Electoral Vote pluralities. Progressives succeeded and outmaneuvered the polls, though their failure to blow the Democratic candidate out of the water appeared to exemplify the lack of a coherent mandate. Congressional, gubernatorial, and municipal elections played out much the same, with no overall impression of victory for any one domestic or foreign policy proposal over another. The war had drawn new lines in the sand and tug once-allied demographics apart from one another, leading to an indeterminate conclusion. Hearty results for congressional Columbians preserved their standing in the House of Representatives and allowed for a Senate pickup, Democratic candidates excelled spectacularly in statewide Senate races whilst failing to bump off Progressive House incumbents, and Socialists made substantive gains on all levels apart from the upper chamber.

The Republican National Committee in 1916 looked to the congressional races to salvage an otherwise disappointing year. John Weeks, within committee ranks, was never viewed as a figure capable of surpassing some of his less controversial predecessors in the presidential contest. It was thought that the nominee would run about even with Knox, thereby adequately meeting subpar expectations and kicking the can down the road for a post-Roosevelt political comeback. News of Emil Seidel garnering more support than Weeks in the October polls crumbled RNC morale as they began to realize the upcoming electoral abyss. Coming to terms with an all but certain presidential defeat prior to Election Day, the RNC expended all available inertia on conserving its three-seat Senate majority and somehow dispelling reports of a party in absolute disarray. Relevance in and of itself superseded tangible Election Day gains. The prime issue with that concept was its near impossibility.

For over twelve years, Senator Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana was in a position of leadership atop Senate Republicans. He famously (or, infamously) pulled Roosevelt to the right during the 1906 Grand Bargain, initiated the upper chamber's investigation into President Hearst's alleged corruption, received over two-hundred delegate votes for president at the 1912 Republican National Convention, and, as conference chairman, became the most powerful ranking Republican in the Senate. The mustachioed Hoosier waddled slightly leftward in his tenure to accommodate for the natural shift of the political tide, and frequently uplifted bipartisanship (particularly with moderate Progressives) as a sign of a functioning government. In 1916 he announced an intent to retire from Congress, joining prospective retirees Thomas B. Caltron (R-NM), Eugene Hale (R-ME), and William J. Browning (R-NJ). Fairbanks' departure from the Senate most consequentially opened the door to a new leadership slate.

Maine Senator Eugene Hale's retirement likewise blew wide open the opportunity for a Progressive senatorial pickup. He was urged at length by GOP colleagues and allies to reconsider the decision, but at 80-years old he considered his time in government at an end. Republicans fell into despair, figuring their loss in Maine all but inevitable. Virtually every forecast as early as July suggested Roosevelt as the winner of the state's six Electoral Votes. Senator E.M. Thompson (P-ME) won his seat with 42% of the vote in 1912 against an 'Eastern Establishment' Republican, even though Hale himself managed 74% in 1910 and 72% in 1904. Waterville Mayor and State Representative Charles F. Johnson, a Democrat who recently changed affiliation to the Columbians, declared his candidacy for Hale's seat and was considered an early frontrunner. Four respected state polling agencies found Johnson with an averaged 5-point advantage over any challenger. Then, in a stunning turnaround which defied expectations, the Republican candidate took control of the situation. To the immense fortune of the Maine Republican Party, Eugene Hale's son, Frederick Hale, agreed to take up the family mantle. He was perhaps the only member of the GOP fit to win this election, and he did just that: 46% to 39%.

Republicans would hardly be as lucky in dozens of other races as they struggled to escape Weeks' shadow. Nine senatorial candidates running on their respective GOP tickets lost to either Democratic or Progressive challengers. Senator Du Pont (R-DE) lost by four points to neutrality proponent John Bassett Moore (P-DE), a former Republican and Secretary of State under President Depew. Senator Moses Clapp (R-MN) was defeated in a close re-election fight against Progressive internationalist and federal prosecutor Frank B. Kellogg. Peace Democrat James A. Reed (D-MO) prevailed in his race versus incumbent Senator John McKinley (R-MO), industrialist Walter S. Dickey (P-MO), and anti-militarist Kate Richards O'Hare of the Socialist Party. Democratic state party chair Andrieus Jones ousted Senator Thomas B. Catron (R-MN), citing his vote on the war resolution as reason enough to force the sitting congressman to a timely retirement. Democrat John Burke, the former North Dakotan senator who had narrowly lost in 1914 against Progressive James H. Sinclair, returned to bring down three-term incumbent Porter J. McCumber (R-ND). In the special election to fill Fairbanks' seat, perhaps the most symbolic of any race of this caliber, Indiana RNC Chairman Harry S. New (R-IN) was defeated by Governor Thomas Marshall (D-IN) in a landslide.

Fairbanks notwithstanding, the most well-known and respected figure of Republican politics was undoubtedly Henry Cabot Lodge. Serving the public since the 1880s, the Massachusetts politician pioneered the familiar imperialist practices of the United States alongside Roosevelt and Beveridge, remaining friendly with both presidents despite any differences in procedure and demeaner. He was known as the quintessential Man of the Senate and a power-broker unmatched by his contemporaries. Few in government possessed the same degree of influence as Lodge, and that paradigm held true regardless of the party's slow-motion collapse from 1904 to 1916. His home state awarded the senator a 73% majority in 1910, but six protracted years had since elapsed. Lodge's passionate insistence that Roosevelt advance Preparedness and subsequently enter the Great War was not greeted kindly by the Massachusetts Progressive Party: An organization that once endorsed the incumbent for re-election but increasingly drifted away from the senator as the war dredged on. Massachusetts Progressives supported President Roosevelt as a superior option to Weeks and likewise desired a senatorial candidate superior to Lodge. Their nomination eventually fell to Representative Alvan T. Fuller (P-MA).

Sensing a rare opening in their state's political sphere, the Democratic Party of Massachusetts went all-in on the Senate race and opted to field their best bet against Lodge. Boston Mayor and former 9th District Representative John Francis Fitzgerald (D-MA) threw his hat into the ring to topple an incumbent he deemed, "Morally and ethically unsound." Fitzgerald, the son of Irish immigrants, rose to the forefront of Boston politics starting in 1891, and gradually worked his way to Boston City Hall. He wrestled with Democratic city bosses for control over the government, mounting a campaign that ended in the passage of a $9 million investment act for Boston Harbor. In 1916, upon his nomination by the state party (likely a Platt-like move to expunge Fitzgerald from the city), the Bostonian embarked on the electoral campaign of a lifetime. He rallied hard against Lodge from day one, coining the senator a fossil of a bygone age. With Fuller criticizing Lodge's foreign policy from a pacifistic point of view, Fitzgerald tied the incumbent to the Atlanticism movement, denouncing "forces that would see our government allied with colonists and oppressors. The interests of America are one with Ireland, not the boot under which she suffocates." Captivating Irish Progressives and Massachusetts Democrats, Fitzgerald secured 35% of the vote to Lodge's 34% and Fuller's 24%, thus delivering a shockwave across the entire political spectrum.

Judging from this phenomenon, the nationwide rejection of the rump, out-of-step Republican Party, the country was steadily reverting to its traditional two-party system. GOP officeholders and voters primarily directed their outrage not at John Weeks and his lackluster campaign, nor at Roosevelt, but at the national leadership for its inability to stave off repetitious calamity. Remnants of the long-discarded McKinley and Reid-era policies of abject and unthinking congressional obstruction failed. Fairbanks and Butler's strategy to cooperate with moderates in opposing parties went nowhere. Now, Committee Chairman Joseph Burnquist (R-MN) was proven to be precisely as inept as the previous chairs. Survival required something untried. Knox, not unbeknownst of resentment facing his class of party leaders, bowed out of consideration for Senate conference chair. That title was therefore won by Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, a thoroughbred business conservative. "We Republicans," he declared, "mean to hold the heritage of American nationality unimpaired and unsurrendered. We are united in our resolve to safeguard America and preserve our independence. We were resolved then, even as we are today, and will be tomorrow, to preserve this free and independent Republic against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Senators Elected in 1916 (Class 1)

Henry F. Ashurst (D-AZ): Democratic Hold, 54%
*William F. Kirby (D-AR): Democratic Hold, 67%
John D. Works (P-CA): Progressive Hold, 60%
George P. McLean (R-CT): Republican Hold, 50%
John B. Moore (P-DE): Progressive Gain, 41%
James Taliaferro (D-FL): Democratic Hold, 76%
*Thomas W. Hardwick (D-GA): Democratic Hold, 91%
Gilbert N. Haugen (P-IA): Progressive Hold, 44%
James A. Hemenway (R-IN): Republican Hold, 43%
*Thomas R. Marshall (D-IN): Democratic Gain, 46%
Frederick Hale (R-ME): Republican Hold, 46%
Charles J. Bonaparte (P-MD): Progressive Hold, 44%
John F. Fitzgerald (D-MA): Democratic Gain, 35%
Roy O. Woodruff (P-MI): Progressive Hold, 40%
Frank B. Kellogg (P-MN): Progressive Gain, 40%
James K. Vardaman (D-MS): Democratic Hold, Unopposed
James A. Reed (D-MO): Democratic Gain, 50%
Charles N. Pray (R-MT): Republican Hold, 33%
Gilbert M. Hitchcock (D-NE): Democratic Gain, 44%
Key D. Pittman (D-NV): Democratic Gain, 39%
Mahlon R. Pitney (P-NJ): Progressive Hold, 45%
Andrieus A. Jones (D-NM): Democratic Gain, 45%
George B. McClellan, Jr. (D-NY): Democratic Hold, 40%
John Burke (D-ND): Democratic Gain, 36%
Myron T. Herrick (R-OH): Republican Hold, 42%
Philander C. Knox (R-PA): Republican Hold, 50%
Henry F. Lippitt (R-RI): Republican Hold, 51%
Kenneth McKellar (D-TN): Democratic Hold, 56%
Charles Allen Culberson (D-TX): Democratic Hold, 82%
George Sutherland (R-UT): Republican Hold, 51%
Carroll S. Page (R-VT): Republican Hold, 64%
Claude A. Swanson (D-VA): Democratic Hold, Unopposed
Miles Poindexter (P-WA): Progressive Hold, 55%
Nathan B. Scott (R-WV): Republican Hold, 44%
Robert M. La Follette (P-WI): Progressive Hold, 63%
Robert D. Carey (P-WY): Progressive Gain, 40%

* Special Election

[Pyro]

Theodore Roosevelt, 28th and 30th President of the United States - Source: Wiki Commons

Part 7: Come Rally

Chapter XXIII: Strengthened Resolve: C'mon Johnny Get Your Gun, the War Has Only Just Begun

President Theodore Roosevelt's November triumph categorically ended any leftover rumination on the subject of the United States' role in the war. American intervention was now a static fixture of the national consciousness, at least under its present governance. Roosevelt's vision for America's foreign policy, one centered on the protection of commerce, the freedom of the seas, and an active presence on the world stage, was fully legitimized as the law of the land. Once the president met and exceeded the vote threshold required for re-election, all mainstream publications ceased speculation of alternate military tactics and furthermore forbade the printing of war-skeptic editorials. These papers flatly deemed it inappropriate to comment negatively on the president's plan of attack with the election ended, thenceforth leaving Socialist newsletters like Appeal to Reason and American Socialist as the only nationally circulated publications wholly opposed to the global conflict.

The Democratic Party and former President Bryan admitted immense sorrow at the election results. Bryan typed up a short concession which briefly relayed his domestic concerns. Aside from a generic prayer for U.S. soldiers at the front, the Nebraskan keenly submitted no mention of foreign policy. Party leaders presumed that 1916 would turn on the page on a nearly two-decade march to empire and promptly usher in a new period of American politics, but alas that had not come to pass. Unlike in the aftermath of the 1900 presidential race, Democratic officeholders did not blame Bryan for the loss, frankly recognizing the fruitlessness of asserting any other candidate could have outperformed their nominee. There was no major conservative overreaction to Bryan's defeat and no signature move to reevaluate national marketing and outreach tactics. Even Southern Democrats who voraciously opposed the Great Commoner's nomination commended their colleague for a well-run campaign, offering commiserations for the loss whilst highlighting the success of Senate Democrats in regaining control of the legislature. That sentiment notwithstanding, the Democratic National Committee was now forced to reckon with a continuation of the Roosevelt presidency. Committee members quietly contemplated their next steps and, noting how Bryan represented the purest of the Old Guard, started searching out new blood to inject some adrenaline into the party.

Below the obvious "Roosevelt Re-Elected" headlines, dozens of newsprints remarked on the curious nature of the ascent of Socialist Party politicians. Polls predicted as much, but observing the vote play out was another experience entirely. Emil Seidel overtaking John Weeks in the Popular Vote was not thought as a reasonable outcome some months beforehand, yet with every vote counted that indeed turned out to be the case. Seidel's exceptional nationwide performance juxtaposed with down-ballot Socialist gains obligated impartial journalists to ponder the effectiveness of left-wing policy proposals and coordination with the IWW in driving voters to the polls. The SP, after all, owed tremendous thanks to the assistance offered by the radical labor union. Some articles also thoughtfully mentioned the historical nature of Socialist Representatives-elect Rose Schneiderman and Pauline Newman in becoming the first women to hold federal office in the United States and state office in New York, respectively. Both were active feminists, union organizers, surrogates for the Seidel Campaign, and well-known faces in their respective communities. Newman won a seat in the New York State Assembly and Schneiderman was elected to Congress from the Empire State's 14th District.

Just South of Newman's Manhattan-based district, an incumbent Progressive state senator succeeded in overtaking a Socialist challenger to assume his third term. That officeholder was none other than 34 year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Not entirely dissimilar to his distant relative in the White House, the younger Roosevelt believed wholeheartedly in progressive politics. He thoroughly championed the ABCs of Progressivism during his service in the New York State Senate, including instituting an active government that fought on behalf of the public and sought to serve working people above corporate interests. The state senator was strongly influenced by his political cousin, so much so that he rejected a recruitment opportunity by the New York Democratic Party in favor of remaining in the same lineage as his respected hero. That decision initially placed Franklin Roosevelt in a minority faction of the state government, but following the statewide Progressive upsurge in 1912, the Columbians nabbed a slim majority. President Roosevelt, in a show of appreciation for his cousin's promising career, made it a point to invite him to the official inaugural in March. The two Roosevelts appeared together at that event on March 5th, 1917.

The Inaugural itself was less of a spectacle than either of the president's first two wins. Theodore Roosevelt himself was indeed personally less animated by the festivities and opted to restrain the more flamboyant aspects of the commencement ceremony, thus reserving time and money better spent on the war. He celebrated with the crowd, nonetheless, yet mostly wished for the pomp and circumstance to be over and done with to proceed with governing. Looking a tad grayer and walking a bit slower than four years prior, Roosevelt took the Oath of Office and delivered to the crowd a characteristically forceful address.

An intense Americanism is the prerequisite to good citizenship in this country; and when I speak of the work of citizenship, I mean not only doing one's political and public duty, but also every form of activity which is predominately for the public good, from writing a book or painting a picture to building a railway station or founding a museum. The only way to be a really useful citizen of the world is first to be a good citizen of your own country. I care not a rap where a man was born or where his parents were born so long as he is a good American; but if he tries to be half American and half something else, he isn't an American at all. At this moment, the great majority of the Americans of Saxon stock offer the finest example of straightout Americanism whereas the citizens of this country who have been the most insidious foes of true Americanism and the most efficient allies of Great Britain are the men who have followed or have worked with and under such native Americans as Hearst or expunge citizenship altogether as is with Debs.

We are at war with the greatest militaristic and capitalistic nations on the earth. Over a year has passed since we were brought into the war and, thanks to our program of Preparedness, we were equipped with the trained soldiers and artillery and other instruments of war necessary in order to face any hostile army. Thanks to the efficiency of Preparedness, the production of these instruments are months ahead of schedule. Yet we owe our safely to the American soldier, the American sailor, and the American pilot. These men understand Americanism, and they know that if we don't insist upon thoroughgoing Americanism we won't be a nation. The next stage of Preparedness must proceed, based on universal obligatory military training, else we won't remain a nation. If we are not utterly blinded by folly the events of the last two and half years must teach us that the professional pacifists and all who follow them and pander to them are mischievous foes not only of this nation but of all liberty loving mankind. Above all they are the foes of every well-behaved nation and the allies and tools of every brutal and remorseless big colonial despotism.

Foolish or disloyal creatures tell us not to agitate at this time the question of permanent preparedness, because even the sane pacifists are now backing the war, we ought to think of nothing but winning it. I not merely agree but insist, and have always insisted, that our first object should be at all costs to win the war and that it would be infamous to accept any peace except the peace of overwhelming victory. But to introduce universal military training for our young men under twenty-one and service for all men above eighteen now and will be a most efficient step for winning the war; and if we wait until peace comes all the professional pacifists, being gentry of inconceivably short memories, will at once raise their old-time shrill clamor against preparedness. In the end pacifists generally fight, but as they never begin to prepare until the end has come, they never fight effectively. Pacifists don't avert war. They merely avert preparedness for war - or rather preparedness against war, for while preparedness does not make peace certain it is the one method of making it probable.

Woe to those who invite a sterile death; a death not for them only, but for the race; the death which is ensured by a life of sterile selfishness. But honor, highest honor, to those who fearlessly face death for a good cause; no life is so honorable or so fruitful as such a death. Unless men are willing to fight and die for great ideals, including love of country, ideals will vanish, and the world will become one huge sty of materialism. In America to-day all our people are summoned to service and sacrifice. Pride is the portion only of those who know bitter sorrow or the foreboding of bitter sorrow. But all of us who give service, and stand ready for sacrifice, are the torchbearers. We run with the torches until we fall, content if we can then pass them to the hands of other runners. The torches whose flame is brightest are borne by the gallant men at the front, and by the gallant women whose husbands and lovers, whose sons and brothers, are at the front. These are the torchbearers; these are they who have dared the Great Adventure.

          Theodore Roosevelt, Inaugural Address Excerpt, March 4th, 1917

[Pyro]

Sheet Music for the Pro-War "America Here's My Boy," c. 1916 - Source: Wiki Commons

The Roosevelt Administration, its hands tied by the larger-than-life world war, spared little time and effort on reforming the presidential Cabinet. Roosevelt himself was pleased with the present makeup of the Executive Branch and in his third term hardly cared to switch out any of the department heads with new faces. The most essential pieces to the administrative puzzle, namely the Departments of State, War, and the Navy, were, in the president's eyes, orchestrated by top-notch conductors. Of these three, the Commander-in-Chief outright forbade retirements. Secretaries Garfield, Crowell, and Meyer represented the organization of the United States military domestically in the same manner Pershing and Knight did at the front. Apart from Leonard Wood commanding operations from within the U.S. Army and ousted Senator Henry Cabot Lodge accepting the position of Assistant State Secretary, the third Roosevelt Cabinet mirrored the second.

The Roosevelt Cabinet III

Office		Name
President		Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
Vice President		Hiram W. Johnson
Sec. of State		James R. Garfield
Sec. of Treasury		George B. Cortelyou
Sec. of War		Benedict Crowell
Attorney General		Joseph McKenna
Postmaster General		James J. Britt
Sec. of the Navy		George von Lengerke Meyer
Sec. of Interior		Henry W. Temple
Sec. of Agriculture		Henry C. Wallace
Sec. of Commerce		Nelson B. Clark
Sec. of Labor		Raymond Robins
Sec. of Social Welfare		William B. Wilson

Vice President Johnson, a significant part of the administration's amiable association with Congress, was tasked with securing the president's legislative agenda. That process was thus far relatively simple due to the Progressive House plurality and a soothingly receptive Republican leadership in the Senate. However, Democratic gains in the congressional elections amounted to a trickier challenge for the new 65th Congress. Democrats led by Caucus Chairman Robert Owen snagged the mantle of power from the GOP in the upper chamber, and that contingent swore to fight more aggressively on reigning in the Executive Branch and tackling "limitless federal expenditures." Owen's alluring demand for fiscal responsibility and an 'elastic currency' made him a much tougher nut to crack than Fairbanks, but the de facto Senate leader was far from Johnson's only hurdle.

The Progressives too had to fend with a reinvigorated Champ Clark in the House. Risen like a phoenix, the newly re-ascended Democratic leader immediately rescinded policies promoted and upheld by former Minority Leader Oscar Underwood - Including the scheduling of regular meetings with leaders of the other four House delegations. Clark expressed dissatisfaction with the coalition-style system normalized in Congress, and as such supported internal reforms to the leadership system and derided 'bandages' like Underwood's leader conferences. It is no wonder he despised the status quo, considering it led to Speaker Wesley Jones' retention of the speakership. Jones accumulated enough Republican votes and peeled away a handful of Democrats, further angering Clark, yet the speaker's workable coalition was clearly built on an unsound foundation.

Hiram Johnson often communicated with members of the legislature to unearth common ground in the early days of the first session. He forged a cooperative committee with James Mann (R-IL) in the House, completely sidestepping the need to temper Clark's antagonism, and in doing so laid down some support beams for Jones' majority. Conference Chairman Robert La Follette worked to engineer a similar measure to slightly calm Owen's anti-administration antipathy. Albeit modestly successful in their joint task, Johnson and La Follette nonetheless struggled in the Senate against the stonewall-like Warren Harding: A figure that attracted fierce, enthusiastic loyalty from the Republican Party. Harding voted with Senate Progressives on matters of foreign policy, specifically the war resolution and subsequent funding initiatives, but he sharply disapproved of the president's domestic reforms. Therefore, all 25 sitting Republican senators from thence on followed the example of their leader. They fortuitously blocked an anemic attempt to reintroduce a suffrage amendment to the floor but voted in unison to approve an extension of the 1915 War Appropriations Act and its signature income tax hike.

Dozens of various war-related bills passed through the April session of the 65th Congress, among them a dramatic rebalancing of the 1915 Liberty Bond Act, the anti-immigration Passport Act, and the Appropriations Act extension. Although, beneath this tidy list, one monumental point of debate captivated national attention. Upon their prompt passage of the Nelson Service Reform Act, a measure that placed the Secret Service under the maintenance of the U.S. Army, the new class of congressmen discussed the contentious matter of conscription. President Roosevelt frequently demanded of Congress the implementation of the draft, citing reduced enlistment figures as reason enough to pass it, but the onset of the election kept staunch Democratic opposition and some moderate Republican skepticism unmoving. Now, with Harding assuring absolute allegiance to the "resolve to safeguard America," the president was guaranteed every last Republican vote plus the 16 so-called 'War Progressives' (opponents of the La Follette wing). Pressure mounted on the Democrats and Peace Progressives to supply the final seven votes needed, as each day of prolonged debate maddened Roosevelt voters. The Selective Service bill had already passed narrowly through the House, so all that stood between the president and his law was a small sect of circumspect senators. "Abide the Results of the Election," read a Washington Post editorial headline. "Cowards and foes of democracy must surrender to the will of the people. Enough debate! Vote!"

Southern Democrats wary of the war voiced plans to vote down the measure, as did Senator La Follette. During these proceedings, Ashley Grant Miller of Nevada, the lone Socialist senator, gave an impassioned speech objecting to conscription. He forecasted, "If we plunge the young men and boys of America to the trenches, half will perish and half will return revolutionists. The working class will not tolerate an expansion of the bloodiest conflict the world has ever known. Mr. Roosevelt must withdraw, not escalate." Echoing the president, Senator Philo Hall (P-SD) answered Miller with the standard counter argument. "These disloyal creatures, your foes of patriotism, do not represent the interests of American workers. [...] We exist in a state of war. If we do not allocate the manpower, we may be overrun." This type of back-and-forth debate lasted to April 10th. On that day, the floor opened at last for a final vote.

The Selective Service Act passed 58 to 36, with two not present. Over a dozen Democrats cast their votes in favor of conscription, including all seven of the freshmen class. This act authorized the federal government to enact a system of mandated registration for all men aged 18 to 45 for potential military service selection. No substitutes were allowed, and no exceptions were made for dependent spouses or children. Likewise, War Secretary Crowell announced that the draft would not exclude Black Americans, a facet of conscription detested by Southern segregationists like Ben Tillman and Coleman Blease. The only men exempt from the pool were present or former officeholders, licensed pilots, members of the clergy, the medically or physically handicapped, non-citizens, and felons. Everyone else was fair game starting in May 1917. This, the passage of the Selective Service Act, unleashed an alarming phase in the Great War. The death toll was on the precipice of skyrocketing to unforeseen heights.

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Destruction at Verdun, c. 1917 - Source: UMass Library

The Great War stayed as hot as ever when 1917 rang in. Its tide adjusted to a discernable extent in North America, but in the murky trenches of Western Europe that was not the case. Authorities on either side of the conflict were capable of pointing to certain strategic advantages and military achievements which throughout 1916 kept the match a dead heat. In the Battle of Verdun, for example, German divisions managed to capture and reinforce Fort Souville, but General Falkenhayn's men failed to break through Frenches lines dug-in roughly three miles from that position. Verdun itself and nearby depots were routinely bombarded by German artillery hidden beyond the sight of observation, but Commander Pétain was ready with artillery barrages of his own. Looking to bolster fledgling French morale, Pétain lettered a career-defining call to officers at the front. "The furious attacks of soldiers of the crown prince have broken down everywhere. Honor to all." This memo wished into existence a synopsis that had not yet been exhibited. Falkenhayn's forces were not breaking down, and as a matter of fact were consistently reinforced. Pétain issued that decree in the summer of 1916. The fires at Verdun raged unceasing six months later.

The American Autumnal Offensive, as ought to be noted, reverberated far and wide. German High Command was splendidly impressed with Roosevelt's plan, and unspeakably grateful that a world power essentially belonging to the Central Powers struck so efficiently against Great Britain. This act was tremendously inspiring to an increasingly war-weary citizenry in Germany, and it too ballooned newfound hope of victory in the hearts and minds of beaten-down German soldiers (and, on the flipside, it was innately detrimental to the morale of the Entente). "Verdun, the Somme, and Pozières were unmitigated slaughterhouses, explained George Smith. "There is no inspiration to be found in the trenches. Patriotism and nationalism drowned away in those vile pits of mud and blood, leaving only survival as the lasting motivator. British-Canadian defeat in Ottawa signaled to German troops the first true sign of light at the end of the tunnel. Its influence certainly may have changed the course of the war."

As U.S. destroyer convoys battled with British and Canadian vessels along the Eastern Seaboard, German Admiral Reinhard Scheer planned to enact his latest defensive maneuvers against the ever-depleting British blockade. Scheer, in coordination with fellow Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, dispatched repeated waves of U-boats interspaced with unstoppable zeppelin bombing raids during much of 1915 and all of 1916. German sweeps cast a surefire blow, just as the U.S. Navy did to enemy dreadnaughts in North America. Despite concentrated efforts to retool the Royal Navy auxiliary patrols to secure the three seas of Northern Europe whilst maintaining a toughened defense in North America, British naval superiority was being steadily pieced apart. The blockade never truly stood down, but it may as well have. Prime Minister Lloyd George insisted as late as January 1917 that ongoing deterrence efforts prevented 90% of imports from reaching the German Empire, although historical evidence does not back up that claim. George's mobilization of naval resources to prepare for a decisive sea battle that never arrived occurred at the expense of cruiser reinforcements. Its Grand Fleet divided and technologically outmatched, like a knife in a gun fight, Britain incidentally allowed themselves to be outwitted.

Starting July 1st, 1916, the British and French unleashed a cataclysmic assault on the German Army occupying northern France. This, the Battle of the Somme, would emerge as a defining struggle in the war and a testament to the sad reality of modern warfare. The Entente's desperate push at the early part of the battle cost more lives than weeks of fighting elsewhere on the front. Tens of thousands of British soldiers were killed on the first day of the offensive, trapped by stronger-than-anticipated German defenses. Infantry, bogged down by heavy equipment and barbed wire, walked into machine gun fire like herded cattle. 200,000 Entente-allied enlistees were dead by July 31st. 130,000 on the German side. General Falkenhayn trusted in German perseverance and employed the use of an elastic defense, a doctrine he and Pershing modernized (According to hearsay, the Americans most likely caught wind of the Entente offensive, leading to Pershing's discussions with Falkenhayn on the topic of a more developed defensive operation. Some war historians like to imagine that the Revolutionary War's Battle of Cowpens and Brigadier General Daniel Morgan's 1781 defensive arose as a topic betwixt the two commanders, but that is unsubstantiated).

In spite of poor coordination by British command and the forced downsizing of French reinforcement to compensate for losses at Verdun, the Entente gained territory that stretched on for several miles. Those gains were achieved at a deadly cost, a price they paid in full. Great War offensives, like the U.S. Autumnal Offensive, necessitated profound sacrifice, yet the number of American troops who fell at the Battle of Ottawa were viewed as proportional to the number of British-Canadian casualties. At the Somme, Franco-British losses far outnumbered that of their German counterparts as the fighting endured through October. German-built heavy artillery fired upon waves of advancing divisions, poison gas shrouded the air, and machine-guns shredded to pieces any lonely survivors. One soldier wrote, "It is absolutely impossible to describe what losses the French and British must suffer in these attacks. Nothing can give an idea of it. Under the storm of machine gun, rifle, and artillery fire, the columns were plowed into furrows of death."

         Brian Steel, Foreign Relations: A Summary of War, Peace, and Everything In-Between, 2015

The German lines at the Somme never did break. Forces commanding the Entente infantry drove hundreds of thousands of their men into a caked-in meatgrinder as the Germans meticulously fell back. It was not until November that the offensive operations finally stalled upon days of pouring rain and intolerable fog. British Field Marshal Douglas Haig referred to the Somme as a strategic victory. He proudly claimed that the overall goal to push back the Germans succeeded, and never uttered a word for the disproportionate death count nor the costly war of attrition. The Somme epitomized to the world, as if there was any remaining doubt, the endless determination of sparring nations to conquer with no regard to human life. Land mattered more to the British and French high command than the men spilling blood for the acquiring of said land, and surviving soldiers finally started to come to terms with that.

Soldiers serving at Verdun in October and November of 1916 learned the fate of their friends and comrades-in-arms just northwest of their position. Streams of French infantrymen received word not only of the death spiral in front of them on the frontlines, but the frivolousness to which the officers directed men at the Somme to suffer for measly territorial gains. Stories also emerged toward the end of 1916 of forced French-Canadian conscription and the similar doomsday facing those soldiers at the Northern Front. With the British blockade falling to bits and German imports sufficient in keeping their war effort going strong, all while the Entente's food rations and munitions started to run thin, discontent brewed within the core of the French Army. Exhaustion and depleted morale indicated trouble on the horizon for France, but a stunning new transpiration in Russia rattled the cage first.

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Protests in the Streets of Petrograd, March 1917 - Source: Wiki Commons

In the pre-war period, the vast majority of Europeans were ruled by aristocratic ruling classes and some form of monarchical regime. Politics in Europe centered on the maintenance of empires, imperialist pursuits, capitalistic profit-making, and the repression of downtrodden populations troubled with the present state of affairs. War exacerbates the worst of any government, and of this the Russian Empire was no exception. A worsening casualty count in the war aroused an outpouring of discontent and hostility from every domestic socio-economic class. Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia, a blindly conservative and superstitious ruler, was targeted as the source of the nation's woes. The conflict commanded the national economy and had sucked material resources dry, leaving behind mere crumbs for the Russian population to live off of. Detrimental economic conditions, as well as unbelievable bureaucratic incompetence and disastrous military setbacks, left the autocratic government an empty vessel of its former self.

As had been the case for all nations involved in the Great War, Russia was forced to reason with the mass slaughter of its people. The Imperial Russian Army lost hundreds of thousands of lives in the 3 month-long Brusilov Offensive along the Eastern Front: An effort that only succeeded in forcing Germany to dedicate a greater share of its manpower to the East. Russian workers were the first to earnestly unify against the prevailing global narratives of patriotism and national loyalty and seek dramatic, immediate reform. Peasants began refusing work. Eaves of strikes broke out in major metropolitan centers. On International Women's Day in 1917, women waiting in frigid temperatures on endlessly long bread lines sparked a demonstration in opposition to ongoing food rationing. Textile workers initiated a work stoppage soon joined by scores of sympathy strikers across industries, culminating in a general strike. Petrograd protesters held signs aloft reading "We Want Bread," and, before long, "Down with the Tsar." Nicholas unsuccessfully attempted to implement martial law, then panicked. Faced with reports of military obedience breaking down, the autocrat promptly fled. He abdicated soon after.

This, the February Revolution, embodied the first true blowback of the Great War. Russia had crowned princes, tsars and emperors for over 1,000 years. Its sudden end stunned the world. Other heads of state looked on with trepidation as the Russian Empire collapsed in on itself, logically fearing for their own futures. This was especially true of the Entente, an alliance in dire straits battling bitter fights in multiple hemispheres. Britain and France presumed the loss of Russia would all but end the war. Fortunately for the oceanic powers, the newly installed Provisional Government had no intention of exiting. Russia's premier political apparatus appeared modeled after the bourgeois constitutional-style system, complete with upper-class representatives and political servants of the military industries. Well-respected aristocratic leader Prince Georgy Lvov ascended to the position of Prime Minister. He was joined by fellow Kadet-affiliated ministers, a majority faction of the Duma (an elected legislature, albeit one that excluded most of the population from voting).

The U.S. press, then optimistic that the Lvov Government would remove Russia from the war, complimented the revolution and its leading faces at length. "Nowhere in the country could the Russian people have found better men to lead them out of the darkness of tyranny," one March New York Times article fawned. It was the closest any mainstream publication came to commending an Entente power since the war began. President Roosevelt recognized the new leadership as the official government of Russia hours after news broke that Nicholas had resigned, breaking off relations with tsarist diplomats in turn. He welcomed to the forefront men he believed were not beclouded by false illusions of innate godliness. To his colleagues in the Cabinet, Roosevelt spoke affectionately of Aleksandr Konovalov, a member of the Provisional Committee and a representative of the moderate Russian Progressive Party, and by historical accounts claimed interest in coaxing him to push for an armistice on the Eastern Front. No public effort was made by the president to actively coerce Konovalov, it should be noted.

As any student of history knows, the provisional Russian state did not make good on the promises of the revolution. Conditions indeed decayed under the managerial eye of Lvov and his associates. Food shortages resumed as normal, fuel stayed in short supply, a lack of raw materials provoked mass layoffs, and the price of everyday goods rose exponentially. The Provisional Government expressed an alliance with the call for patriotism and military preparedness and flagrantly ignored the desperate plea by its people to focus funding on domestic matters. This sense gave rise to an alternate model of government taking shape simultaneously during the spring of 1917: The Petrograd Soviets (or, Council) of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The soviets, direct representative bodies made up of the working-class themselves, took on the task of food distribution and operated as makeshift state banks. They popped up in districts all throughout Petrograd, and thereafter spread to towns and cities all throughout Russia. In contrast with the uncaring and pro-war provisional assembly, the soviets were genuinely democratic in nature and were furthermore aligned with the popular desire to make peace.

The American Socialist Party obsessed over the February Revolution, its outcome, and its lessons as juxtaposed with the ramping up of the U.S. war effort in the spring of 1917. Well-known activist and orator Leon Trotsky had just arrived in the United States upon his politically driven deportation from France and Spain. He arrived in New York City, a place he later deemed a wonderous "haven of capitalistic automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar," and as an idealistic and young revolutionary quickly familiarized himself with the thriving Movement for Socialism taking root in the Manhattan tenements. The outcast spoke to and rallied unorganized Russian immigrants to join in that fight wherever he could. He assisted in the founding of The Class Struggle, a Marxist magazine voicing the opinions of radicals like Ludwig Lore, joining other left-wing theorists and radicals based in New York at that time. Trotsky, inspired by the progress of the American labor movement and the recent success of Debs' wing of the Socialist Party, opted to meet with Eugene Debs during his stay.

The two gathered for only a short time, but the Russian émigré confided in Debs many of his concerns of the current party makeup, leadership, and design - presumably the very same criticisms relayed in his speeches. Trotsky warned that Socialist leaders like Hillquit presented a grave danger to the party and its purpose, referring to the former SP chairman as, "the ideal Socialist leader for successful dentists," and Berger conservatives as "salesmen." The party's deeply entrenched connection to the working class was its greatest asset, however, Trotsky identified, and honing and guiding workers' movements (not simply limiting oneself to voting within the bourgeois system) was key to accumulating the energy needed for an actual transition to socialism. A healthy start would be to infuse existing labor struggles with the vibrant IWW and collectively rally for an end to the war. Once the February Revolution erupted and Trotsky departed for home, the American Left was left astounded. Was revolution truly waiting just beyond the horizon?

[YPestis25]

Revolution in Russia followed by revolution in France?

I'm waiting excitedly for the conclusion of the Great War.

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Revolution in Russia followed by revolution in France?

I'm waiting excitedly for the conclusion of the Great War.

We'll see what happens in France very soon!

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Poster for a Charity Bazaar Raising Funds for the Central Powers, March 1916 - Source: Wiki Commons

The Northern Front morphed to a state of flux following the Autumnal Offensive. Rampant destruction from all angles terrorized the local population and reverberated their calls for a ceasefire, but the Canadian military and governmental leadership did not imply any willingness to surrender. Commander Currie and Prime Minister Robert Borden gave not an inch to the pacifists, utterly tossing aside increasingly desperate pleas to consider an armistice proposal. Divisiveness was prevalent in the Canadian Parliament as anti-Unionists/Oppositionists admonished Great Britain for forcing the present predicament. Borden, after the conquest of Ottawa by the U.S. Armed Forces, was confronted with an increasingly antagonistic House of Commons and a startling loss of confidence by his own ministry. "They are demanding his head," wrote American journalist Albert Grey. "Faith in the Prime Minister is slinking away. Members of Parliament, relocated in Montréal last summer, support the war but are doubting close association with London." Disregarding blame and finger-pointing, Bordon property articulated Canada's troubling state of affairs. Their rescue depended entirely on the late-war decision-making of the United Kingdom and fellow international allies.

Rumors of British backpedaling in North America turned out to be half-true. Lloyd George identified the urgent need to bolster his army's presence in Europe after the tumultuous Battle of the Somme, downsizing earlier commitments reinforce North American fleets and carry massive waves of troops to Western shores. He dodged questions of a potential Northern Front abandonment with slick answers that instead emphasized the Entente's duty to annihilate the German Army in Europe. Lloyd George exclaimed that the British government's sights were set primarily on coordinating the mightiest possible military operation on the Western Front, though "foreign belligerence will be met with justice," in all corners of the world. Meanwhile, in late-January, diminished British-Canadian divisions wholly retreated to the north bank of the Ottawa River. The First Canadian Army struggled to hold their defensive lines in Gatineau as day-to-day resources drained out. In U.S.-captured townships and cities, including on the explosive Vancouver Pacific Front, some militaristic Canadian citizens began fighting back in a crude form of unconventional, urban guerilla warfare. These disorganized and sporadic squads fired rifles from storefront windows and threw bricks from rooftops on U.S. patrols, though in doing so often gave away positions and were therefore counterproductive to the Currie's tactics. American generals viewed this development as a surefire sign of an approaching collapse of the Canadian war effort.

That notwithstanding, Pershing, Carter, and Wood were firm in the belief that conscription was the only measure that could definitively alter the course of the war in their favor. Their colleagues relentlessly lobbied Congress for approval, accumulating enough support for its eventual passage in the 65th Congress, and were ecstatic once the measure became law. General John Pershing hammered into the president's brain the significance of this measure, and afterward its perceived triumph. War Secretary Crowell was first to suggest the idea, but Pershing and his loyalists turned that idea into legislation. The senior U.S. Army commander, corresponding with Roosevelt from his managerial base in Toronto, stated, "(Selective Service) is our ace in the hole, the deadliest weapon at our disposal. [...] (It will) hasten the end. Stand firm."

Proponents of patriotism lavished the Selective Service Act, and as with the Preparedness Movement, championed the Roosevelt Administration as the sole body sufficiently robust to strong-arm Congress. These men and women who upheld conscription as a reasonable mandate were some of the most jingoistic and nationalistic Americans on the scene. They promoted paradigm-shifting propaganda as fact, like famed Director Frank Montgomery's The Spirit of '76, a federally sponsored project depicting real and fictional British atrocities against the colonists, and Cecil DeMille's romantic drama The Little American. Both early films were viciously anti-Entente, and the two furthermore incorporated opening messages advertising the purchase of liberty bonds and growth of victory gardens. War Progressives and Republicans viewed the draft a rightful and honorable law designed to preserve the totally justified American war position. Peace advocates saw it as a betrayal.

With report after report detailing the extreme loss of life in the Autumnal Offensive and in the Battle of the Somme, antiwar sentiment became far more commonplace than the president would have preferred. He wagered that the public would somberly accept its patriotic duty and enlist for the good of the country, never considering the strength of American unrest bubbling just beneath the surface. Any guise of war as a grandiose heroic venture fought by freedom-driven crusaders and charging cavalry was over. All the characteristics of modern warfare, machine guns and poison gas, air bombers and shrapnel shells, were nothing like the old stories of San Juan Hill. Americans were aware of how heavy-handed military enrollment efforts in Europe directly led to appalling casualty figures in Verdun and the Somme. Individual uneasiness over the draft proposal galvanized more collective movement as congressional procedure played out, but it was not until the final bill was signed by President Roosevelt did realization set in.

Segments of all three of the major, capitalist political parties voluntarily signed on to the institution of the draft. Apart from the La Follettes and Ashley Millers of Congress, opponents of war were left with no allies in government. From the perspective of Amos Pinchot, the draft was intended to "mold the US into an efficient, orderly nation, economically and politically controlled by those who know what is good for the people." This faction, with support ranging from Southerners to Western liberals, was more in line with the mainstream than Roosevelt, to his chagrin, cared to anticipate. On Registration Day, May 10th, over eight million complied with the government mandate and registered. Upwards of four million, however, did not, thereby opening themselves up to scrutiny by their places of business and prosecution by the Justice Department.

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Arkansas Gazette Headline Noting Troubling Anti-Draft Activity, May 25th, 1917 - Source: NWA Online

The Socialist Party of America served as the vanguard. It directed critical protests since the 1915 Women's March and tailored the perspective of antiwar movement from its inception. Their most recent presidential nominee, Emil Seidel, was instrumental in cultivating these collective actions, but the face of the protest movement was 'Appeal to Reason' editor Allen Benson. His editorials were widely known among the entire readership of the left-wing press, and the New Yorker's firm rejection of Preparedness in August 1914 may have preceded even William Jennings Bryan's. Benson was a fierce critic to the war effort. Specifically, the writer detested the idea of abetting "expansionist imperialism" in Europe. He loudly called on all pro-war congresspersons to personally enlist in the armed forces, recommending this as a precondition to the passage of a war declaration. This demand elicited roars of approval from his audiences. [...] The Movement for Peace reunited components of the American Left that may have been opposed to Electoralism or disfavored the SP's alliance with the IWW. They shared one common goal: The Demand for Armistice.

         Thomas O'Conner, A Radical History of American Politics: Vol. 5, 2016

Socialist and pacifist organizing antiwar activities culminated in the first truly revolutionary uprising on American soil in a generation. Impoverished tenant farmers in Seminole County, Oklahoma, encouraged by the Socialist demand for a prompt peace, planned a massive march on Washington to end the war. The farmers were joined by local IWW-affiliated unions and socialist clubs, in addition to veteran Populists and labor activists out of Oklahoma City, thereby bolstering their numbers to over 20,000. "Now is the time to rebel against this war with England," their manifesto read. "Boys, get together and don't go. Rich man's war. Poor man's fight." Two weeks after Registration Day, on May 24th, this diverse, class conscious group conducted their march and headed east. They paraded unarmed (a contentious condition of the IWW) through the town of Sasakwa, then Stuart and McAlester. Fellow opponents of the war ceremoniously welcomed the marchers and celebrated their cause, while local sheriffs, not yet tempted to cause a civil conflict, stood by and observed. Named for the food these rebels claimed to consume on their way to Washington, this burgeoning rally was known as the Green Corn Rebellion.

The greater Movement for Peace burst into a nationwide endeavor in the last week of May. Peace parades trumpeted down the streets of Boston and New York City, outright defying city ordinances against 'un-American' public gatherings. Leaders of Socialist Party chapters in Milwaukee and Sacramento marched alongside pacifists and wounded war veterans in a plea to their state and local governments to emerge in favor of an armistice. Agricultural workers in Northern Florida stormed the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee with similar demands. End the war, they implied, or civil unrest will engulf the land. It appeared the military draft tipped the scales, drifting the country down an untrodden path.

Tens of thousands took part in the May Rallies, and their organizers were chiefly women activists. Women were more vocal than any other demographic in voicing disapproval with conscription. They were denied the right to vote when the suffrage amendment failed, meaning millions felt disconnected from the disappointing election results. Now, governed by an administration unable to grant them a basic, fundamental right, they were expected to gleefully send their sons of to fight in a so-called Rich Man's War. This was simply a step too far. In the words of suffragette and social activist Jeanette Rankin, "How long must women wait for liberty? How can we stand by our country when it will not stand by us?"

President Roosevelt, his administration, and the functioning majorities in Congress were not compelled to respond. The Roosevelt Administration was not about to let an unruly bunch of radicals sway the national war effort. The president did not release a statement on the matter, nor did he comment when Governors William Stephens (P-CA) and Joseph A. A. Burnquist (P-MN) brutally repressed May Rallies in their respective states. Administration officials did not come together on a solution. Vice President Johnson implored Roosevelt seek the use of the National Guard, while Secretaries Temple and McKenna explored wartime domestic surveillance, particularly on the IWW.

Congress took up several proposals on the latter suggestion, with Senator Bill Hanley's (P-OR) Security and Loyalty bills, joint propositions that planned to criminalize dissent on a national scale and induce heavy penalties on recruitment interference, gaining notable steam. These initiatives were met with widespread support by Progressives and Republicans in the Senate and House upon reaching the floor. Once the Green Corn Rebellion broke out, even Democrats implied reluctant acceptance of Hanley's legislation. Therefore, the votes were ready in the halls of Congress. All that remained was Roosevelt's approval for the federal government's answer to the May Rallies to be cemented into law.

After days of contemplation and careful consideration, President Roosevelt revealed a stunning intent to veto the Hanley bills if brought to his desk. The war, he presumed, could not be productively waged on two fronts. He despised domestic fightback to the conscription program, but he felt assured that  the federally guided narrative and a sense of patriotic duty would inevitably overwhelm the radicals. More so, he trusted the gubernatorial opposition to the IWW and believed pioneers like Stephens were setting the standards as needed. According to Ackerman, "(Roosevelt) was virtually alone in that assessment. [...] He and (Social Welfare Secretary) Wilson were of a minority opinion, and were the sole voices advocating against passage. He favored propagandizing like no other, was wild for mandatory national military service, and saw in Eugene Debs a true threat to Americanism. But his nineteenth-century sensibilities and values disallowed the undertaking of that extra descent into the wilderness. Victory lied ahead. Afterwards, the "Socialism Problem" would be addressed." Lacking presidential approval, the Senate quietly shoved aside the Hanley bills and refocused its attention on an unrelated infrastructure measure.

On June 5th, at a moment when state militias were regularly ordered to restrain residual May Rallies and Green Corn copycats were being arrested in Atlanta, the nation was rattled with news of an explosion at Toronto's St. Lawrence Hall: Headquarters of the U.S. stratocracy in Ontario.

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General of the Armies John J. Pershing, June 1916 - Source: Wiki Commons

Chapter XXIV: The Kraken Stirs: How Respect Made the Empires Fall

St. Lawrence Hall, a public meeting place established in the 1850s, was maintained as the nucleus for the governing branch of the Toronto-based U.S. armed forces. American occupiers decided to organize their military government from this location less than a week after the 1915 Battle of Toronto concluded in a decisive U.S. victory. Roosevelt authorized the move and welcomed the installation of Brigadier General Isaac Littell as acting mayor. Americans considered the triumphant urban siege an efficient and orderly endeavor, a logical consequence of the initial Canadian Offensive, but Canadian residents were immeasurably displeased. For them, St. Lawrence Hall metamorphosed into a symbol of tyrannical military rule and the authority of trigger-happy constables. When suspected direct actionists planted the bomb at the city landmark, the ensuing explosion was meant to incite revolt from the Torontonians and spread fear among the invaders. Due to some unforeseen complications, its effect varied.

Five were killed by the bombing. Their bodies were not instantly identifiable because of excessive burns and disfiguration, but forensic specialists quickly confirmed the hunch of witnesses who suspected the identify of one particular victim. It was none other than General John Pershing. Simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, the American commander met with an untimely fate that June morning. He had overseen operations in Ontario and, with the president and Secretary Crowell, formulated the basis of the Northern Front offensives. From that point on, he was stationed in Toronto with routine trips back to Washington. Pershing was scheduled to depart that afternoon back to the states, but upon his exit of the building two hours early, the explosive ruptured less than a foot away. The general died almost instantly, and in that tragedy four other bureaucratic U.S. Army workers suffered fatal wounds. Three others were non-fatally wounded, including one Canadian citizen. U.S. authorities were unable to find any admitted perpetrators. As such, they jailed 'suspicious' anarchists en masse and held down Marshal Law.

President Roosevelt reacted with shock. Pershing was a close friend to the Commander-in-Chief and an essential player in the Armed Forces. The incumbent was appalled by the news, though gathered his senses well enough to release a thoughtful statement on the bombing. The president phrased the attack as an, "act of supreme cowardice," making no buts about his condemnation. He cast blame on the rise of "radicalism" both within the beyond American shores, but more sharply criticized the Borden Government, "the true bomb-thrower," for failing to abide by the standards of war and coddling Anglophile extremists. Borden's refusal to admit defeat and his insistence that the war be endlessly dragged on were highlighted by Roosevelt as the leading causes for rebellious activity. He honored Pershing and the other victims at length, recollecting their service and dedication to the United States, and ended his remarks with a call for unity against the common enemy (a subtle jab at the antiwar advocates).

Roosevelt's statement was a signature, completely intentional, blow to the Peace Movement. His underlined suggestion that pacifists were burdensome to the war effort and, along with Borden and Lloyd George, were prolonging the war struck deep at the heart of the antiwar cause. In the direct aftermath of the Toronto Bombing, enlistment rates rose in the U.S. exponentially, and the number of registrars ticked up in turn. Draft-dodging stayed a lingering threat to conscription and stunted the federal mandate, but by July the overall number of enlistees creeped closer to expectations. Those refusing to fight, at least the men who did not declare themselves consciousness objectors, struggled to evade the sights of state agents. Thousands fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution, but the lion's share of draft-dodgers stayed in the United States, committed to ending the war through activism. Scattered rallies remained a surefire sight in metropolitan centers over the course of the summer with the resilient Movement for Peace standing firm, though its potential to garner sweeping support in a contrarily polarized U.S. was null. Perhaps most significantly, however, was the degree to which Roosevelt's response acted as a dog whistle to frustrated hawks and newfound, ultrapatriotic Loyalty Leagues.

Albeit dejected by the president's flat rejection of the Hanley security bills, hawks and self-described nationalists accepted Roosevelt's Pershing Address as a green light to crush "disloyalty." The Society for Americanism, an organization formed explicitly to promote war with the Entente, declared in mid-June, "Seditious activity is infecting the soil of North America. Radicals have fired the first shot. A new war has begun, the war for Americanism." Society members, up to this point, relegated their efforts at lobbying Congress and the White House to accept legislation and federal policies aimed at confronting and dispelling vaguely defined espionage. They applauded conscription, Preparedness, and the Hanley bills, but members believed Pershing's death presented a more urgent call. As such, to "put an end to seditious street oratory," and, "purge our land of radicalism," the SA began coordinating vigilante groups with receptive state governments. Roosevelt may have been opposed to it, but state governors were most certainly not.

In a range of states, stretching from coast to coast, governors happily accepted the assistance of the SA in their own war on dissent. Sedition laws in California and New York set boundaries forbidding participation in any pro-peace event, but police and state militias were only able to go so far in shutting down rallies and jailing participators. The SA granted these governments the ability to take an extra step in conducting increased surveillance, uprooting alleged disloyalty, and shutting down rallies before they even occurred. War Progressives were especially keen on the utilization of this now state-affiliated group in blocking and suppressing antidraft sentiment, epitomized by Governor William Stephens' meeting with SA President Richard Merrill Whitney on July 2nd. The very next day, Stephens' authorized the raiding of sixteen suspected IWW meeting places by state police. Twelve activists were arrested on the charge of fomenting anti-American dissent.

Raids on IWW offices became increasingly commonplace as the Peace Movement stumbled. Upwards of 600 cities passed similar measures criminalizing vocal antiwar sentiment, and in this, SA members were thrilled to offer their services. Dozens of IWW locals were forced to go underground, several elected Socialists faced demands for recall elections, and thousands of newsstands refused to carry radical publications like Appeal to Reason. Even with this in mind, antiwar sentiment was overtly prevalent and from June to September of 1917 IWW membership rose by 15%. Beyond the accusations of disloyalty and threats of imprisonment for dissent, thousands and thousands were being slaughtered at the front. Boys were being ripped from their homes and were given the barest of training sessions before being rushed off to die in the trenches. The only long-term effect of the Toronto Bombing was a marked leap in guerilla action in U.S.-occupied towns and cities. Much to the disappointment of the SA and authoritarian leaders like Governor Stephens, their efforts could not dissipate nor deter the better judgement of the American people.