Nobel Peace Prize Laureates

"The great malady of public life is cowardice. Most men are not untrue, but they are afraid. Most of the errors of public life, if my observation is to be trusted, come not because men are morally bad, but because they are afraid of somebody. God knows why they should be: it is generally shadows they are afraid of."

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world: no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

"Reconstruction was detestable] not because the Republican Party was dreaded but because the dominance of an ignorant and inferior race was justly dreaded."

"It will take one hundred years to eradicate this prejudice, and we must deal with it as practical men. Segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen."

"The highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooperation of a free people."

"My dear Swope, Your letter of yesterday interests me very deeply, I need hardly say, and furnishes much material for constructive thinking, but my present judgment is that this is not the time for formulation. If we were dealing with only one class, a statement could be made which I think would guide and stimulate rather than disturb, but just so certainly as such a statement was attempted at this time, there would spring up a grand controversy in which the selfish and exclusive interests of the country would speak loudest because through the largest number of the journals and magazines. I am afraid that, while we could easily hold our own in such a debate, this is not the wise time to start a debate which would distract attention from the matters immediately in hand and pressing for the right solution. Don’t you think there is something in that? Cordially and sincerely yours, Woodrow Wilson."

"Do not think of this treaty of peace as merely a settlement with Germany. It is that. It is a very severe settlement with Germany, but there is not anything in it that she did not earn. Indeed, she earned more than she can ever be able to pay for, and the punishment exacted of her is not a punishment greater than she can bear, and it is absolutely necessary in order that no other nation may ever plot such a thing against humanity and civilization. But the treaty is so much more than that. It is not merely a settlement with Germany; it is a readjustment of those great injustices which underlie the whole structure of European and Asiatic society. This is only the first of several treaties. They are all constructed upon the same plan. The Austrian treaty follows the same lines. The treaty with Hungary follows the same lines. The treaty with Bulgaria follows the same lines. The treaty with Turkey, when it is formulated, will follow the same lines. What are those lines? They are based upon the purpose to see that every government dealt with in this great settlement is put in the hands of the people and taken out of the hands of coteries and of sovereigns who had no right to rule over the people. It is a people's treaty, that accomplishes by a great sweep of practical justice the liberation of men who never could have liberated themselves, and the power of the most powerful nations has been devoted not to their aggrandizement but to the liberation of people whom they could have put under their control if they had chosen to do so. Not one foot of territory is demanded by the conquerors, not one single item of submission to their authority is demanded by them. The men who sat around that table in Paris knew that the time had come when the people were no longer going to consent to live under masters, but were going to live the lives that they chose themselves, to live under such governments as they chose themselves to erect. That is the fundamental principle of this great settlement. And we did not stop with that. We added a great international charter for the rights of labor. Reject this treaty, impair it, and this is the consequence to the laboring men of the world, that there is no international tribunal which can bring the moral judgments of the world to bear upon the great labor questions of the day. What we need to do with regard to the labor questions of the day, my fellow countrymen, is to lift them into the light, is to lift them out of the haze and distraction of passion, of hostility, not into the calm spaces where men look at things without passion. The more men you get into a great discussion the more you exclude passion. Just so soon as the calm judgment of the world is directed upon the question of justice to labor, labor is going to have a forum such as it never was supplied with before, and men everywhere are going to see that the problem of labor is nothing more nor less than the problem of the elevation of humanity. We must see that all the questions which have disturbed the world, all the questions which have eaten into the confidence of men toward their governments, all the questions which have disturbed the processes of industry, shall be brought out where men of all points of view, men of all attitudes of mind, men of all kinds of experience, may contribute their part to the settlement of the great questions which we must settle and can not ignore."

"Of course, like every other man of intelligence and education I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised."

"Those who know you, know what a passion you have always felt for the many as against the few. Your life has been marked by real devotion to the cause of the people. Would it not be wise now to make a reaffirmation of this faith; to visualize for those who see in your [you] their friend and leader those conditions of life that the new order is to create? In such an exposition there could be included such points as: Living wage; hours of labor; representation of labor in the direct[or]ate of the undertaking in which it is engaged; profit-sharing; pension system; old age; health and employment insurance; national labor exchanges; housing; welfare conditions; the right to change employment without sacrifice of pension interest (with which goes the connotation of reward for continuous and efficient service); plans for the transitional period of demobilization; greater ease of land purchases; elasticity in loaning operations; readjustments of taxation; the development of a deeper national and community interest. This is but a rough outline of the points that might be encompassed in such an address as I have in mind. Some of them, perhaps, are visionary and impractical, but I am including them because even if they are not susceptible of immediate achievement they belong, properly, in such a vision of the future as you, best of all, could paint. You have done it for the world. Why not draw in the details for America?"

"After all, the test of whether it is possible for either government to go any further in this comparison of views is simple and obvious. The principles to be applied are these: First, that each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent; second, that peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that third, every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival states; and fourth, that all well defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to breaks the peace of Europe and consequently of the world. A general peace erected upon such foundations can be discussed. Until such a peace can be secured we have no choice but to go on."

"Our whole strength will be put into this war of emancipation, — emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers, — whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of independent action and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back."

"This war had its roots in the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities which lacked the union and the force to make good their claim to determine their own allegiances and their own forms of political life. Covenants must now be entered into which will render such things impossible for the future; and those covenants must be backed by the united force of all the nations that love justice and are willing to maintain it at any cost."

"The peace of the world depends upon the just settlement of each of the several problems to which I adverted in my recent address to the Congress. I, of course, do not mean that the peace of the world depends upon the acceptance of any particular set of suggestions as to the way in which those problems are to be dealt with. I mean only that those problems each and all affect the whole world; that unless they are dealt with in a spirit of unselfish and unbiased justice, with a view to the wishes, the natural connections, the racial aspirations, the security, and the peace of mind of the peoples involved, no permanent peace will have been attained. They cannot be discussed separately or in corners. None of them constitutes a private or separate interest from which the opinion of the world may be shut out. Whatever affects the peace affects mankind, and nothing settled by military force, if settled wrong, is settled at all. It will presently have to be reopened."

"Perhaps it was providential that I was stricken down when I was. Had I kept my health I should have carried the League. Events have shown that the world was not ready for it. It would have been a failure. Countries like France and Italy are unsympathetic with such an organisation. Time and sinister happenings may eventually convince them that some such scheme is required. It may not be my scheme. It may be some other. I see now, however, that my plan was premature. The world was not ripe for it."

"There shall be no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damage. Peoples are not to be handed about from one sovereignty to another by an international conference or an understanding between rivals and antagonists. National aspirations must be respected; peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. "Self-determination" is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of actions which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. We cannot have general peace for the asking, or by the mere arrangements of a peace conference. It cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between powerful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlement of every issue anywhere involved in it; because what we are seeking is a peace that we can all unite to guarantee and maintain and every item of it must be submitted to the common judgment whether it be right and fair, an act of justice, rather than a bargain between sovereigns."

"I have spoken thus only that the whole world may know the true spirit of America — that men everywhere may know that our passion for justice and for self-government is no mere passion of words but a passion which, once set in action, must be satisfied. The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in aggression or for the aggrandisement of any selfish interest of our own. It springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom."

"2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war."

"5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims."

"1. Open covenants of peace must be arrived at."

"It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other."

"All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us."

"14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."

"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty."

"They will not forget him in the future. He is the first leader in the history of society who has treated the ancient dream of a peaceful world as something more than wishful thinking, the first who was willing to stake all in drawing the nations of the world together in an effort to make that "just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations" for which Abraham Lincoln pleaded. In Paris in 1919 Woodrow Wilson actually persuaded the leaders of the majority of the earth's nations to help him build and set up a machine for such a peace…The world will not forget the man who led in this effort to achieve enduring peace. That is what I was saying in those bitter days and have been saying in all the melancholy ones since."

"Wilson was as much a Utopian as Lenin. He, too, planned to end the Balance of Power in Europe, not to restore it. As well, he was in idealistic competition with the Bolsheviks. He wished to show that America's war-aims were, like theirs, 'anti-imperialistic', and so to persuade them to continue in the war. The Fourteen Points laid down on 8 January 1918 were the outcome. Self-determination was to supersede the historic states of Europe. Belgium, of course, was to recover her independence; Alsace and Lorraine were to return to France, and all Russian territory was to be evacuated. But, as well, Poland was to be restored; the peoples of Austria-Hungary and the Balkans freed. Secret diplomacy was to be ended, and a League of Nations to take the place of the Balance of Power. The defeat of Germany was for Wilson merely a preliminary, whereas to Great Britain and France it was the essential aim. Yet they did not acquiesce in the Fourteen Points solely in order to commit the United States. They, too, had a public opinion which thought of 'a war to end war' and demanded a permanent peace, secured by some other means than the Balance of Power."

"Where Coolidge stood on the race issue is clear, but he did not take any concrete steps to ease the burden of discrimination. Nevertheless, the conservative Coolidge has had a far better press on the race issue than the progressive Woodrow Wilson, who was one of the most bigoted persons ever to hold the nation's highest office."

"The Democrat Wilson was a dyed-in-the-wool bigot who as president tried to rid the national government of its few black employees, save, of course, those who could be cooks, waiters, drivers, or fill other kinds of menial jobs. Wilson was, indeed, as great a bigot toward blacks, as today's Democratic president is."

"Wilson's parents were not Virginians. His father was born in Ohio, and his mother was born on the border between England and Scotland. Like many people from the Valley of Virginia, both of his parents sprang from Scottish stock. The older Wilsons learned to love Virginia and taught their son to love it too. In later years a newspaper writer said Wilson was a member of an old Virginia family. Wilson commented, "Of course, this is not true, but I wish I could say it were true." He felt that way because he was a Virginian in habits and thoughts. He said that he could speak out among Virginians because they were men of his "own race and breeding." Nowhere else, he believed, have the American traditions and ideals been kept so unbroken as they have in Virginia."

"There were ideas of balance in the governments of his time which Newton felt, and political thought is bound to Newtonian science in the work of Newton himself. Politics, said Woodrow Wilson, is turned into mechanics under the touch of Montesquieu. The principle of unity depended, for each system, upon some single law. The law of gravitation swung the worlds, keeping the free bodies in their places, reined to their courses with order and precision. The poise and balance of forces gave the universe its unity, one of symmetry and perfect adjustment. Wilson says, "The government of the United States was constructed upon the Whig theory of political dynamics, which was a sort of unconscious copy of the Newtonian theory of the universe." And, again, "The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life." Having described one fallacy, Wilson goes on toward another: he would hope that we would substitute the science of Darwin for the science of Newton."

"Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that this country entered World War I “to make the world safe for democracy.” This was the very same President who issued executive orders segregating most of the eating and rest-room facilities for federal employees. [...] Obviously, black people were not included in Woodrow Wilson’s defense perimeter. Whatever the life of blacks might have been under German rule, this country clearly did not fight Germany for the improvement of the status of black people—under the saved democracy—in this land."

"President Woodrow Wilson, pacifist, changes his mind under pressure. War is declared."

"I was not alone. The atmosphere, after the joys of the armistice, was strange and foreboding for those of us who sought a world of peace and international comity. Woodrow Wilson had, as Martin Luther King had, a dream, and I shared that dream—all fourteen points of it—and watched it come to nothing. (I was in the press gallery of the House of Representatives when President Woodrow Wilson returned from Europe and addressed Congress. I saw Senator Henry Cabot Lodge avoiding him. I heard Wilson's muted passion, and I cried.) What a splendid vision the League of Nations was; how sickening to watch it scuttled."

"when President Wilson went to Paris for the peace conference, he was always issuing some wonderful, idealistic statement that was impossible to reconcile with what he was doing at home. And we had an enormous bell—I don’t recall how we ever got such an enormous bell—and every time Wilson would make one of these speeches, we would toll this great bell, and then somebody would go outside with the President’s speech and, with great dignity, burn it in our little caldron."

"HAD WOODROW WILSON been a man to look back upon his eight years in the White House, he might well have regarded his achievements with some complacency. Entering the Presidency with the same mental vigor that he had applied to the problems of Princeton and the state of New Jersey, he had pioneered a path around the pitfalls of plutocracy and mob rule and had effectively led a groping people toward political salvation. He had laid down a basic pattern for solving, without violence, those social and economic problems of the age that grew out of new ways of life. He had honoured the principle that men’s labor was not to be regarded as a commodity, had given impetus to collective bargaining, and had established the supremacy of the public interest above the advantage of any special combination of labor or capital or industrial management. His Federal Reserve policy gave promise of meeting the danger of recurring panic, and his tariff measures had helped to wean the nation from the pap of privilege. His administration had laid a foundation for a “welfare state” by providing for the matching of federal funds with those of the states to equalize certain facilities through the nation; new taxes had been levied to make this possible."

"A few weeks after Mr. Wilson became President, four of us went to see him. And the President, of course, was polite and as much of a gentleman as he always was. He told of his own support, when he had been governor of New Jersey, of a state referendum on suffrage, which had failed. He said that he thought this was the way suffrage should come, through state referendums, not through Congress. That’s all we accomplished. We said we were going to try and get it through Congress, that we would like to have his help and needed his support very much. And then we sent him another delegation and another and another and another and another and another and another—every type of women’s group we could get. We did this until 1917, when the war started and the President said he couldn’t see any more delegations. (So you began picketing the White House?) We said we would have a perpetual delegation right in front of the White House, so he wouldn’t forget. (this perpetual delegation, or picketing, continued until the President changed his position?) Yes. Since the President had made it clear that he wouldn’t see any more delegations in his office, we felt that pickets outside the White House would be the best way to remind him of our cause. Every day when he went out for his daily ride, as he drove through our picket line he always took off his hat and bowed to us. We respected him very much. I always thought he was a great President. Years later, when I was in Geneva [Switzerland] working with the World Woman’s Party, I was always so moved when I would walk down to the League of Nations and see the little tribute to Woodrow Wilson"

"Wilson was a virulent racist who imposed white supremacist policies while serving as president of the United States."

"Wilson was to an extraordinary degree a man to be admired and hated. In his own country the fiercest feelings were aroused by him... Wilson was Ulster-Scottish-American, Presbyterian, Liberal-Democrat, academic professor and jurist, all these words being to some people terms of abuse. Ignorant or disdainful of the arts of acquiring easy popularity with the multitude, he was content to instruct, enlighten and exhort, to serve and, to the full stretch of his constitutional power, to govern them. He did not fear, indeed, he seems almost to have relished making enemies... He was an idealist in the sense that he aimed at great but distant objectives and demanded much of the intelligence and virtue of citizens... "Gladstone with an American accent" was one journalist's description of him."

"That Woodrow Wilson was so keen an advocate of [the League of Nations] is explained by many factors. For one thing he was a jurist and an historian and therefore trained to look at historical fact and political possibilities with a sense of intellectual responsibility. For another he was a very European and, it may even be said, an English personality as opposed to the middle western neo-American type... He was learned not only in the political thought of the Fathers of the American constitution, but also in the great English masters... If ever a man was formed to be link between what was best in the political traditions of our two nations it was Woodrow Wilson. But he was recognizably a Liberal, and therefore viewed with suspicion by the Tories. Moreover, he was hated by the majority of the wealthy in the Eastern States, and upper-class Englishmen, meeting similar persons in America, were not likely to hear much good of him."

"When we had finished this we discussed the English Labor program recently announced at Nottingham. Much to my surprise, he said he did not disagree with it further than the minimum wage which he confessed to know little about and he had not thought of any visible way by which it could be maintained. We discussed the trend of liberal opinion in the world and came to the conclusion that the wise thing to do was to lead the movement intelligently and sympathetically and not allow the ignoble element to run away with the situation as they had done in Russia. He spoke of the necessity of forming a new political party in order to achieve these ends. He did not believe the Democratic Party could be used as an instrument to go as far as it would be needful to go and largely because of the reactionary element in the South. I disagreed with him. I thought it would be unwise to attempt the building of a new party without first seeing whether the Democratic Party could be forced into the direction we thought advisable. I did not believe the people of the South would sustain the reactionary element provided the President came out strongly enough against them. I do not know whether I convinced him but at least he stopped arguing against my opinion. Again let me say that the President has started so actively on the liberal road that I find myself, instead of leading as I always did at first, rather in the rear and holding him back. He turned to me and said almost pathetically, “that is a big program for a tired old man to think of undertaking.”"

"[David Lloyd George] said he thought him more sincere than he had done at first. He talks a lot of sentimental platitudes, but he believes them. He is not a hypocrite nor a humbug. He is sincere. The difference between his point of view and that of old Clemenceau is marked. The old boy believes in none of Wilson's gods and does not understand them."

"[David Lloyd George] said he felt sure Wilson would occupy a great place in history. Neither he (LG) nor Clemenceau in connection with the Peace Conference had done any special thing which could be ear-marked as his work, whereas, for better or worse, Wilson had advocated an idea which had been embodied in the League of Nations. The League might fail, but it would be an historic fact."

"I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon."

"Wilson's principles survived the eclipse of the Versailles system and that they still guide European politics today: self-determination, democratic government, collective security, international law, and a league of nations. Wilson may not have gotten everything he wanted at Versailles, and his treaty was never ratified by the Senate, but his vision and his diplomacy, for better or worse, set the tone for the twentieth century. France, Germany, Italy, and Britain may have sneered at Wilson, but every one of these powers today conducts its European policy along Wilsonian lines. What was once dismissed as visionary is now accepted as fundamental. This was no mean achievement, and no European statesman of the twentieth century has had as lasting, as benign, or as widespread an influence."

"To see the British Prime Minister watching the company, with six or seven senses not available to ordinary men, judging character, motive, and subconscious impulse, perceiving what each was thinking and even what each was going to say next, and compounding with telepathic instinct the argument or appeal best suited to the vanity, weakness, or self-interest of his immediate auditor, was to realize that the poor President would be playing blind man's buff in that party."

"From Ulysses Grant to William McKinley, the prevailing conservative doctrine was a severe and self defeating laissez faire that left the big fish to eat the little fish while preaching the merits of social Darwinism and the survival of the fittest. Good presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were those who dared risk the power of government to challenge this."

"As a college undergraduate some decades ago, I was assigned an essay on the three most evil men of the 20th century. Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong were obvious choices, and most of my fellow students chose from that group. I agreed on Hitler and Lenin, but felt that Stalin and Mao were just additional manifestations of the evil Lenin embodied. My third choice was Woodrow Wilson, which upset my professor at the time, but which I stand by today. The Nazis and the Soviet Empire are gone and while meager bands of the admirers of both survive to inhabit steamy corners of various ideological swamps, the evil for which Hitler and Mao were responsible died with the last century. Woodrow Wilson’s legacy, however, simply won’t go away. Schools and think tanks are named for the man and various polls continue to rate him as a great or near-great president. The “progressive” politics of today’s Democrats are part of his legacy, as is the instability of much of the world in which we live. Wilson, the first college president to occupy the White House, banned blacks from government restrooms, was the first president to openly attack the U.S. Constitution and eagerly support laws to prosecute and imprison those who disagreed with his policies. His hostility to black Americans was matched only by his antipathy toward Italian, German and Irish Americans and his desire to rid the nation of those he referred to dismissively as “hyphenated Americans” and against who he railed incessantly."

"The President has received me twice with very great kindness. He is a man who does not resemble his photographs at all. A determined-looking gentleman with whom one would not care to be in antagonism, he is about as tall as I am, more slightly built, very quiet in his manner, compresses more meaning into a few words than any other American I have met, uses more American in his speech than I had expected, is, I believe, with his family quite a hermit, is always surrounded with a bodyguard of detectives, does not entertain privately, bears his worries remarkably well, is quite humorous and amusing and, incidentally, the most powerful individual in the world. I should say that his fault is lack of power of delegation. He called himself to me "the clearing house of the Government". Everything has to be "put up" to him. I like him thoroughly and believe that I shall get on with him."

"As I have intimated, the Commission has recommended that legislation for local credit associations, to be formed by groups of small farmers, be left to the States. This seems to me to be a wise suggestion. Such associations are not needed in many of the States. They are most needed in the southern States where there are a great many poor farmers owning or renting small farms. It is highly desirable that they be released from their dependence on merchants. The formation among them of credit associations with unlimited liability of members might result in a credit foundation on which loans could be made. The unlimited liability feature would not be so distasteful here, perhaps, as elsewhere, since their liability is already unlimited. Cooperation is the essence of these enterprises. Its growth will probably be slow and it will be retarded by the fact that two races are living in the South side by side. Public opinion will have to be educated. Pains should be taken to place before the people the best forms and methods of organization, and the States should be induced if possible to consider and take up necessary legislative action prerequisite to the formation of these associations."

"Even more dramatic was the eagerness, five months later, with which the Wilson administration launched the United States into war corporatism. The pointers had, indeed, been there before. In 1909, Herbert Croly in The Promise of American Life had predicted it could only be fulfilled by the state deliberately intervening to promote 'a more highly socialized democracy'. Three years later, Charles Van Hise's Concentration and Control: a Solution of the Trust Problem in the United States presented the case for corporatism. These ideas were behind Theodore Roosevelt's 'New Nationalism', which Wilson appropriated and enlarged to win the war. There was a Fuel Administration, which enforced 'gasless Sundays,' a War Labor Policies Board, intervening in industrial disputes, a Food Administration under Herbert Hoover, fixing prices for commodities, and a Shipping Board which launched 100 new vessels on 4 July 1918 (it had already taken over 9 million tons into its operating control). The central organ was the War Industries Board, whose first achievement was the scrapping of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, a sure index of corporatism, and whose members (Bernard Baruch, Hugh Johnson, Gerard Swope and others) ran a kindergarten for 1920s interventionism and the New Deal, which in turn inspired the New Frontier and the Great Society. The war corporatism of 1917 began one of the great continuities of modern American history, sometimes underground, sometimes on the surface, which culminated in the vast welfare state which Lyndon Johnson brought into being in the late 1960s. John Dewey noted at the time that the war had undermined the hitherto irresistible claims of private property: 'No matter how many among the special agencies for public control decay with the disappearance of war stress, the movement will never go backward.' This proved an accurate prediction. At the same time, restrictive new laws, such as the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918), were often savagely enforced: the socialist Eugene Debs got ten years for an anti-war speech, and one man who obstructed the draft received a forty-year sentence. In all the belligerents, and not just in Russia, the climactic year 1917 demonstrated that private liberty and private property tended to stand or fall together."

"Woodrow Wilson dreamed a dream of a League of Nations, but he died before the promise was delivered."