Throughout his career, President Woodrow Wilson advocated progressive reform. The era's personification of political idealism, Wilson strove to promote democracy abroad. The President's quest for worldwide peace and order culminated in his Fourteen Points. This agenda addressed the causes of World War I, and it aimed to prevent the horrifying consequences of such warfare in the future. A premiere doctrine of the Wilson administration, the Fourteen Points called for the international League of Nations, which aspired to prevent warfare and turbulence in geopolitical affairs. World War I was the undoubted catalyst that sparked Wilson's drive. Simultaneously, the war inhibited the president's domestic ambitions to reform social ills. The United States would never join the League of Nations, showcasing the disillusionment associated with Wilson idealism following the First World War. World War I, the morbid conclusion of the Progressive Era, exposed the limitations of the progressive movement; the war stalled Wilson's campaign for domestic reform, revealed the hopelessness of attaining international order, and ultimately fractured American idealism. The following article, written by Allen F. Davis, addresses the war's effect on President Wilson's political ideology.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711070
Allen F. Davis. "Welfare, Reform, and World War I." American Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Autumn, 1967), pp. 516-533. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967.
Allen Davis's article "Welfare, Reform and World War I" provides an intereseting exploration into the demise of progressivism in conjunction with the effect World War I had on President Wilson. The Progressives simply could not withstand the split that occured within the movement as a result of United States Entry into the War. Progresive thinkers such as Dewey felt that entry into the War would have positive implications such as government involvement to promote reform Darwinism;Wartime mobilization of the economy and government intervention leading to a global government such as Wilson's League of Nations;Social and progressive reforms could happen including those in the arenas of african-american and womens rights;finally, Wilson claimed the United States would be spreading democracy globally. Randolph Bourne, Jane Addams Lester Ward and others say World War I as a negative thing, and they turned out to be right. The Fourteen Points and International Government would be shot down by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,Social reforms that were predicted by Dewey to occur domestically backfired instead leading to more restrictions of civil liberties such as the alien and sedition and espionage acts, censorship, anti-liberal laws. Finally, while the economy was boosted by the War, the stock market crashed within the next several years. World War I and the failire of the League of Nations truly destroyed the Progressive Movement leaving President Wilson ineffective for the rest of his Presidency.
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