and of his unbearable insolence in his dealings with the United States, this government, along with eight Latin-American republics, decided to recognize his government. In October, 1915, diplomatic relations were resumed.

The critics of the administration could not see in what respect Carranza was superior to Huerta, and they argued that if Wilson was going to recognize an irresponsible dictator anyway, he might have recognized Huerta in 1913 and so saved himself and Mexico endless trouble.

On March 9, 1916, Villa distinguished himself by crossing the Rio Grande, and plundering Columbus, New Mexico, destroying property and killing American citizens in the course of his raid. On the next day President Wilson ordered American troops into Mexico, to “aid” the Carranza government and to capture the bandit chief. The invasion began on March 15, and the Americans penetrated Mexican territory to the extent of 400 miles.

Unable to keep order or to suppress the bandits himself, Carranza had no intention of letting the United States do the work for him. He protested against the presence of the American forces, and insisted that they be withdrawn. While Carranza was vainly gesticulating in his efforts to get the American troops out, Villa unexpectedly appeared in Texas, for a new raid. A second punitive expedition pursued him for 168 miles, without results. By that time the situation was so serious that Wilson called out the militia, and sent troops to the border. For the next six months Wilson and Carranza indulged in a game of diplomatic fencing, in which on "points" the bewhiskered Mexican had the better of the contest. In January, 1917, the American troops were withdrawn, with Villa still at large.

COLOMBIA

In addition to the Mexican tangle Wilson inherited the ill will of Colombia, due to Roosevelt's canal policy. Colombia accused the United States of depriving her of money which might have been hers, to the extent of $50,146,942, and of the province of Panama, of incalculable value. Root had vainly tried to restore cordial relations between the two governments, but Colombian bitterness was proof against his efforts. After Bryan became Secretary of State, a treaty was drawn up and signed by the two governments, with the following provisions. The United States expressed regret for anything which

had occurred to interrupt friendly relations, agreed to pay Colombia $25,000,000, and gave the Colombians preferential privileges in the use of the canal. On her part Colombia agreed to recognize the independence of Panama. This was submitted to the Senate on June 16, 1914. It was finally reported out of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1919, with Article I, the expression of regret, eliminated. At the time the Senate refused to ratify. In the Harding administration, the Senate finally ratified a Colombian treaty, providing for a payment of $25,000,000. During the debates in the Senate, much was said about the desirability of securing the good will of Colombia, in order that American petroleum interests might secure concessions there. If these discussions may be taken as a guide, the financial settlement had little relation to the Panama Canal.

CANAL TOLLS

Wilson was more successful in dealing with the issue of Panama Canal Tolls. In 1912, Congress provided for a charge of $1.25 per ton, on foreign and American vessels alike, with the exception of vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States; these were granted free use of the great waterway. The British government protested against this exception, on the ground that the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty called for uniform charges, with no discrimination in favor of any nation. Elihu Root saw the logic in the British argument, and tried, unsuccessfully, to have the offending exception removed from the law.

In an address to Congress on March 5, 1914, Wilson asked that the exemption clause be repealed, on the ground that it was "in plain contravention of the treaty with Great Britain." Congress yielded, very ungraciously, to the demand, after a contest which "thoroughly tested the President's power over his party."

During Wilson's first term the United States was very quietly but very effectively pursuing a program of expansion in the Caribbean which made that sea the private preserve of the United States. (Chapter LXX.) But public attention was inevitably drawn more and more definitely toward Europe, and in 1917, Wilson prepared to take up the heaviest set of responsibilities which any president had been called upon to bear since 1865.

CHAPTER LXVII

THE UNITED STATES AND THE GREAT WAR, 1914-1917

On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, the chief city of the Austrian province of Bosnia, some Pan-Slav enthusiasts murdered Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the Austrian Crown Prince. On July 23, the Austrian government sent an ultimatum to Serbia, the provisions of which electrified the whole world. Five days later Austria declared war on Serbia, and Russia began to mobilize. On August 1, the great German war machine was in motion, and on the 2d, German forces were marching through Belgium, on their way to France. Three days later Great Britain declared war on Germany. The unbelievable horror of a general European fight to a finish had actually come to pass.

NEUTRALITY

At first the conflict seemed far removed from the field of American concern. To be sure, newspapers in the East carried war news on the front pages, and the curious-minded got out their maps to hunt up Belgian towns the names of which they had never heard before, or had read only in fiction. But the newspapers and the people in the Middle West and on the Pacific coast were almost as much interested in the exciting race for the National League Pennant as in the fate of Europe. On August 4, President Wilson issued a proclamation of neutrality, which he followed with an address urging the American people to be neutral in thought as well as in action.

In September, 1914, ex-President Roosevelt published an article in the Outlook in keeping with Wilson's suggestion. "When a nation feels that the issue of a contest in which . . . it finds itself engaged will be national life or death, it is inevitable that it should act so as to save itself. . . . The rights and wrongs of these cases where nations violate the rules of abstract morality in order to meet their own vital needs can be precisely determined only when all the facts are known and when men's blood is cool. . . . Of course it would be folly to jump

into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her."

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But neutrality in thought was soon rendered impossible. Both sets of belligerents fed the American public with a mass of ganda, in which the Triple Entente was able to make out a better case. Evident as it was that the roots of the war went far back into European history, it was equally plain that the one government which might have prevented the contest, had it desired to do so, was Germany. It had perhaps no more positive responsibility for the forces making for trouble than the other powers, but it had the negative responsibility of letting the crash come.

These feelings that England and France were in the right were intensified when the commercial effects of the war became somewhat more apparent. At first American industrial and financial affairs were threatened with confusion, in common with those in the rest of the world, but before long the war brought about an extraordinary expansion of American economic activity. The Allies needed food and war supplies of all kinds, and for these they turned inevitably to American farms and factories. By 1915 the United States was clearly embarked on a course of remarkable business prosperity.

International law permitted neutral merchants to sell to either belligerent without any restrictions save those which the other belligerent was able to enforce. With their command of the seas the Allies could take full advantage of the American market. The Germans on the other hand saw their sea power swept away or bottled up at the very beginning of the struggle, and they complained bitterly over what they called the "unneutral" course of the United States.

Failing in their efforts to stop the sales to the Allies by means of protest and negotiation, the Germans resorted to methods which made them a nuisance and their cause hateful to the majority of Americans. In order to get war supplies for German use they falsified clearance papers. To interfere with production for the Allies they planted bombs in munitions ships, set fires in factories, and fomented strikes among workmen.

In addition to these methods they turned to others which were entirely justifiable, but not approved by the Allies. The neighboring

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countries of Holland, Denmark, and even Sweden were used as gateways through which supplies might be carried to Germany. Any extensive development of these avenues of trade would undermine the effectiveness of the British navy, so the British authorities set out to stop it. In doing so they created new problems for the United States.

In the first part of the war the Germans were accused of planting mines in the shipping lanes in the North Sea. In November by way of retaliation Great Britain declared the whole North Sea a military area. This made it possible for the British navy to regulate all shipping there, and to keep it away from the gateways into Germany. The United States registered a formal protest against this restriction on her trade with neutral ports, pointing out that Great Britain was virtually blockading neutrals. By way of reply the British foreign office gave statistics showing the extraordinary increase in American trade with these neutral countries, and suggested that the interference could not be serious. When, in February, 1915, the Germans proclaimed a war zone in the English Channel, neutral vessels were compelled to stop for examination at British ports, and goods destined for Germany were confiscated. These seized cargoes were eventually paid for, but the delay and the interference were expensive and burdensome.

After the Germans began their so-called "submarine warfare" the British government announced that for the future it would prevent all commodities from reaching or leaving Germany. Against this blockade of neutral ports the United States protested vigorously. On October 21, 1915, it denounced the methods of British prize courts, and denied the right of Great Britain to take such action. The note declared that the British orders did not "constitute a blockade in law, in practice, or in effect," and that the United States would refuse to recognize them as legal. The measure was characterized as "ineffective, illegal, and indefensible," a position from which the United States never officially withdrew.

This protest had little effect. Thenceforth until April, 1917, British practices became more restrictive, and the violations of neutral rights more extensive and varied. Mail was examined and censored, even when bound from one neutral port to another, and American merchants who traded with Germany were blacklisted. On May 24, 1916, Secretary Lansing announced that his government