Chapter 1
In the decades before World War I the
World War I was of immense economic benefit to the
United States. For example, the export of gasoline and other refined
fuels rose from 20 million gallons in September 1913 to 23 million gallons in
September 1914. The export of fuel oil rose dramatically from 36 million
to 58 million gallons in that same time frame.2
The export of corn rose from 41,409,000 bushels in 1914 to 50,668,000 in
1915. An even more impressive figure was the export of wheat and flour,
which rose from 104,967,000 bushels in 1914 to 332,465,000 in 1915.3 The American shipbuilding industry
also profited from the war. Although tonnage dropped from 600,000 tons in
1914 to 300,000 in 1915, it rose steadily thereafter all the way to a
staggering 3,500,000 tons in 1918.4
Closely related to shipbuilding was the rise in steel production in the United States.
Although total steel production fell from 28,329,700 tons in 1910 to 25,606,100
in 1914, it rose all the way to 49,010,100 tons in 1918, almost twice that of
1914.5 The yearly value
of American exports rose from $294,664,000 in 1914 to $353,091,000 in 1915 and
climbed to $799,098,000 in 1918.6
Figures such as these led Washington to favor increases in neutral
non-contraband trade with the belligerent nations. The main obstacle to
this was that each side would accuse the United States of favoring the
other. This could lead to attacks on American merchant shipping or at
least seizure of vessels pending prize court hearings. For Washington to
undertake such a course of action would require constant and delicate
diplomatic correspondence with both sides. It would also require
modernized shipping to increase the chances of the merchantmen arriving safely
at their ports of destination.
The United States had constructed a modern fleet in
the years leading up to 1914. This seemed to work to Great Britain's
advantage. At the time Britain had an empire 140 times its own size,
covering nearly a quarter of the earth's surface and embracing some 400 million
people in Great Britain and abroad. This empire was far too large for the
Royal Navy to control and, beginning as early as the Monroe Doctrine a century
earlier, London allowed the United States to take on more and more of the
responsibility of protecting the Western Hemisphere. The British felt
comfortable with the situation because, aside from some U.S. difficulties with
Japan, Washington's policies generally did not threaten bringing Great Britain
into war with any major power. By the same token, Washington favored this
arrangement with the United States because friendship and commerce between the
Atlantic powers seemed to involve no future military obligations outside of the
Western Hemisphere. On the surface it seemed a foundation for peace and
economic cooperation.
Unfortunately the British would sometimes take their
friendship with the United States for granted, considering the Americans as
their junior Anglo-Saxon cousins. Tending to forget that the United
States had grown from a population of 3 million at independence to nearly 100
million in 1914, London on occasion still thought of the United States as a
branch of the British Empire. Common language, economic ties, and a
common culture and history fueled this prevailing belief. Even American
innovation, while held by the British as a threat to their own well-being, was
accepted as a manifestation of Anglo-Saxon genius.7
It was true that the United States was Great Britain's
greatest trade partner. Before the war,
When the war began President Wilson quickly made an
official proclamation of neutrality. This statement outlined acts
forbidden by laws and treaties of the
International law also dictated that neutral
governments were forbidden from supplying belligerent nations with arms,
munitions, or monetary aid. This was unfortunate because enforcement of
restrictions on neutral trade of military items would be left up to the
belligerent powers. It was a recipe for an escalation of the naval war in
the
Trade with
These problems of distribution and finance began to
correct themselves a few weeks into the war, although the
The Wilson Administration refused to grant ship
subsidies, but found other ways to support American trade. A bill was
introduced in Congress in August 1917 to allow foreign-built, American-owned
merchant ships to fly the American flag. Critics of the bill attacked it
as inadequate to solve the shipping shortage and dangerous to neutrality.
They pointed out that the belligerent nations might conveniently decide to fly
the American flag aboard all of their ships. The
This new law brought only a few Standard Oil tankers
and other vessels under the American flag and hardly solved the shipping
shortage. Two subsequent and unsuccessful attempts to strengthen the
merchant marine led
The decision to arm American merchant vessels was
dangerous to
ENDNOTES
1. Thomas Frothingham, The American Reinforcement in
the World War (New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1971),
p. 22.
2. John Bach McMaster, The
3. Benjamin J. Hibbard, Effects of the Great War Upon
Agriculture in the United States and Great Britain
(New York: University Press, 1919), p. 51.
4. J. Russell Smith, The Influence of the Great War Upon
Shipping (New York: Oxford University Press, 1919), p. 265.
5. Douglas Alan Fisher, The Epic of Steel (New
York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963), p. 297.
6. Smith, Influence Upon Shipping, p. 92.
7. David R. Woodward, Trial By Friendship: Anglo-American
Relations, 1917-1918 (Louisville, Kentucky: University
Press of Kentucky, 1993), pp. 5-6.
8. Phillip C. Jessup, Neutrality: Its History, Economics,
and Law, Volume 4 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1936), pp. 54-55.
9. Frederick C. Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German-Americans
and World War I (Dekalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois
University Press, 1974), pp. 118-19.
10. Alice M. Morrissey, The American Defense of Neutral Rights,
1914-1917 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1939), p. 6.
11. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
12. Ibid., pp. 11-12.