Woodrow Wilson and the World War | Page 8

the brink of momentous events. Not even when the most dire
forebodings were realized and the great powers of Europe were drawn
into the quarrel, could America appreciate its significance. Crowds
gazed upon the bulletin boards and tried to picture the steady advance
of German field-gray through the streets of Liège, asked their neighbors
what were these French 75's, and endeavored to locate Mons and
Verdun on inadequate maps. Interest could not be more intense, but it
was the interest of the moving-picture devotee. Even the romantic
voyage of the Kronprinzessin Cecilie with her cargo of gold, seeking to
elude the roving British cruisers, seemed merely theatrical. It was a
tremendous show and we were the spectators. Only the closing of the
Stock Exchange lent an air of reality to the crisis.
It was true that the Spanish War had made of the United States a world
power, but so firmly rooted in American minds was the principle of
complete political isolation from European affairs that the typical
citizen could not imagine any cataclysm on the other side of the
Atlantic so engrossing as to engage the active participation of his
country. The whole course of American history had deepened the
general feeling of aloofness from Europe and heightened the effect of
the advice given by the first President when he warned the country to
avoid entangling alliances. In the early nineteenth century the United
States was a country apart, for in the days when there was neither
steamship nor telegraph the Atlantic in truth separated the New World
from the Old. After the close of the "second war of independence," in
1815, the possibility of foreign complications seemed remote. The

attention of the young nation was directed to domestic concerns, to the
building up of manufactures, to the extension of the frontiers westward.
The American nation turned its back to the Atlantic. There was a steady
and welcome stream of immigrants from Europe, but there was little
speculation or interest as to its headwaters.
Governmental relations with European states were disturbed at times
by crises of greater or less importance. The proximity of the United
States to and interest in Cuba compelled the Government to recognize
the political existence of Spain; a French army was ordered out of
Mexico when it was felt to be a menace; the presence of immigrant
Irish in large numbers always gave a note of uncertainty to the national
attitude towards Great Britain. The export of cotton from the Southern
States created industrial relations of such importance with Great Britain
that, during the Civil War, after the establishment of the blockade on
the Confederate coast, wisdom and forbearance were needed on both
sides to prevent the breaking out of armed conflict. But during the last
third of the century, which was marked in this country by an
extraordinary industrial evolution and an increased interest in domestic
administrative issues, the attitude of the United States towards Europe,
except during the brief Venezuelan crisis and the war with Spain, was
generally characterized by the indifference which is the natural
outcome of geographical separation.
In diplomatic language American foreign policy, so far as Europe was
concerned, was based upon the principle of "non-intervention." The
right to manage their affairs in their own way without interference was
conceded to European Governments and a reciprocal attitude was
expected of them. The American Government followed strictly the
purpose of not participating in any political arrangements made
between European states regarding European issues. Early in the life of
the nation Jefferson had correlated the double aspect of this policy:
"Our first and fundamental maxim," he said, "should be never to
entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer
Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs." The influence of John
Quincy Adams crystallized this double policy in the Monroe Doctrine,
which, as compensation for denying to European states the right to

intervene in American politics, sacrificed the generous sympathies of
many Americans, among them President Monroe himself, with the
republican movements across the Atlantic. With the continued and
increasing importance of the Monroe Doctrine as a principle of national
policy, the natural and reciprocal aspect of that doctrine, implying
political isolation from Europe, became more deeply imbedded in the
national consciousness.
There was, it is true, another aspect to American foreign policy besides
the European, namely, that concerning the Pacific and the Far East,
which, as diplomatic historians have pointed out, does not seem to have
been affected by the tradition of isolation. Since the day when the
western frontier was pushed to the Golden Gate, the United States has
taken an active interest in problems of the Pacific. Alaska was
purchased from Russia. An American seaman was the first to open the
trade of Japan to the outside world and