0.2 The great war (part i)  (Page 3/14)

Bullard faded into history and certainly felt the slings and arrows of racial segregation in the US during the post World War II era. In 1959 France knighted Bullard for his bravery, valor, and service to the country during World War I. White newspapers refused to cover the event. Bullard was identified by a news reporter for NBC and was given a brief appearance on the Today Show in December of 1959 to talk about his war experiences. Bullard died in New York City in 1961. Lying in New York's Metropolitan Hospital, he reportedly seized a friend's hand and gasped, "It's beautiful over there." Then he died. France was indeed a mythical place for Eugene Bullard. Unlike the United States between 1912 and 1922, France lacked the levels of racial violence, racial bias, and racially-based laws and customs. This chapter examines how we got involved in the war, why we got involved in the war, and how the war altered, seemingly temporarily, American ideas on liberty at home and our place in the world while Americans continue to wrestle with the idea that “all men are created equal.”

The World as it Should Be – Wilsonian Diplomacy

There is a tendency among historians to contrast the diplomatic philosophy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (US president during World War II) and Woodrow Wilson (US president during World War I). Roosevelt was a realist. He saw the world as it was, not as he wished it to be. He was perfectly willing to support Latin American dictators provided that those dictators also supported the United States. Wilson, however, was an idealist. He saw the world as it should be, not as it was. He believed the US had a special destiny to spread democracy, capitalism, and American religious tenets all over the globe. For Wilson, foreign policy was missionary work.

There were five essential aspects of Wilson’s foreign policy philosophy. First, Wilson generally upheld the idea that people should be ultimately responsible for creating and maintaining the governments of their choosing, or the right of every nation of self-determination as he called it. Second, Wilson believed that people’s rights, liberties, and freedoms were best guaranteed when promulgated in written constitutions. Third, Wilson was a proponent of capitalism. Fourth, Wilson believed in universal disarmament. Without a prevalence of weapons, the chance of future wars would dwindle, he believed. Finally, Wilson saw the US as a redeemer nation: the US was mandated by God to spread American blessings throughout the whole world. Initially Wilson believed this particular US role could best be accomplished by the United States remaining neutral after the war in Europe began. However, as will be seen, by the early spring of 1917, Wilson had changed his mind, believing that the US can only help fix the world’s ills by joining the crusade to make the Great War “the war to end all wars.” Interestingly, prior to the outbreak of war in Europe in the summer of 1914, Wilsonian idealism was tested repeatedly in the nation’s own backyard.