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The purpose of this study is to show the interrelationships between the pre-war conditions in partitioned Poland, the reasons for Polish immigration to the United States, and the effect of the First World War on the Poles in Europe and America. The organization of relief programs in the United States resulted in a deep concern for the plight of the Poles and was a major factor in the reopening and awareness of the Polish Question which had been dormant for more than a century. The study also places emphasis on the part played by the New York Times, whose news releases extensively covered the areas of Polish relief and self-determination.The dissertation is composed of a preface, introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction sets the basis for the reopening of the Polish Question by delving into Polish nationalism, the partition years, and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. Chapter One is devoted to the early Years of Woodrow Wilson, one of the chief actors in the final self-determination for Poland. The character and personality analysis is carried through in Chapter Two as Wilson is considered as Governor and President. In Chapter Three the pre-Great War Polish emigration is considered. Background to the Polish Question is set by presenting life in Russian, Austrian, and German Poland and the strivings of Marx, Engels and the Polish Socialists for Polish independence.Chapter Four traces Polish immigration to the United States from the early settlements in Texas to the great immigration years just before the Great War. The study traces the formation and organization of Polish-American groups which formed a so-called "Fourth Part of Poland," but, with the exception of independence-minded Polish Socialists in America, worked primarily for the bettering of the Polish lot in the United States. Chapter Five presents the devastation which befell the Poles as their land became the battleground in Eastern Europe. The Poles in America cooperated in trying to ease the suffering of their European brethren. The story of Polish relief is traced through the New York Times, State Department documents, and the indefatigable labors of Ignace Jan Paderewski, famous Polish pianist and composer, who arrived in the United States in 1915 to spur on relief for Poland. The diplomatic manuevering is presented to show that the Poles were caught in the middle of the BritishGerman views on war relief and as a consequence received no adequate aid until after the November, 1918, Armistice. Throughout this story of Polish relief President Wilson stands out as a humanitarian and champion of Polish relief.Chapter Six probes into the relationship among Paderewski, Colonel House and Wilson. This relationship proved to be a vital factor in Wilson's support of selfdetermination and independence when the time was ripe in 1918. The chapter also considers the role played by the Polish voters in the 1916 election. The study casts doubt upon the crucial part which is credited to the Polish vote in the Wilson victory.The simultaneous events which occurred in Europe and America are covered in Chapter Seven. In Europe the Russians, Austro-Hungarians and Germans had already accepted the concept of Polish autonomy. The manpower needs of the European combatants forced them to a change of attitude. With recognition by the Russian Provisional Government in March, 1917, the Allies recognized the Polish National Committee in Paris and the Polish army. The United States followed in this respect. With Polish-American solidarity pressuring for Polish independence, complemented by an Allied policy to dissolve the Austro-Hungarian Empire, independence for Poland was assured. / Department of History

The purpose of this biographical study was to determine what influence Vice President Thomas R. Marshall (1854-1925) had on the events and personalities of the Wilson era. An only child and the son of a country doctor, Marshall distinguished himself early as an exceptional student and country lawyer. His political heritage was that of the Democratic party, strong in his northeastern Indiana county but weak in the larger Congressional district. An early defeat for public office (1880) convinced Marshall that he could do more for the party as a worker on the local, district, and state levels with his oratory and his legal acumen. Despite his lack of ambition to hold public office, Marshall in 1908 found himself his party's compromise candidate for governor of Indiana. Elected essentially on a platform that supported local option at the expense of prohibition, the upstate Hoosier lawyer became the head of his state for a four-year term (1909-1913), expanding the progressive or melioristic programs of his Republican predecessors.Midway through his incumbency Thomas Marshall had achieved national reputation as one of the most popular and successful Democratic governors, and supporters began to advance his cause as a Presidential nominee at the 1912 Baltimore Convention. The more active campaigning of the Woodrow Wilson forces achieved the nomination of their candidate, and the political machinations of Indiana's Thomas Taggart succeeded in placing Marshall as a running-mate with Wilson on the Democratic ticket, eventually achieving his election as Vice President.With the frugality of a Scotsman Marshall and his wife, Lois, entered smoothly into Washington society, occasionally entertaining but more often being invited as guests to state functions and private parties. As Vice President (1913-1921) Marshall proved to be an utterly loyal supporter of the Democratic administration and a capable and well-liked presiding officer of the Senate.Correspondence between Wilson and Marshall reveals the President's use as well as his appreciation of the Vice President. More often than not Marshall was a solid party asset on the campaign trail, journeying throughout the country every two years on behalf of the Democratic Congressional candidates. During the war years he was one of the active speakers at Liberty Loan drives, stimulating a patriotic and pecuniary response from the people. He provided distinctive introductory remarks for the allied war missions when they visited the United States Senate, and on occasion represented Wilson as his official emissary before foreign diplomats and monarchs.The last two dozen months in office were the most disappointing to him and the most challenging to his reputation. He was tempted by certain men to usurp the Presidency during Wilson's incapacitating illness and by others to manipulate the Senate debating procedure during discussion of the League of Nations Covenant. He refused to be a party to the former, and though a believer in the Covenant he was powerless to prevent its defeat by the Republican majority whose rights on the Senate floor he steadfastly protected.Noteworthy about Marshall were his unpretentiousness, his natural gift of humor, his exceptional speaking ability, and his occasional self-derogation. His reputation has been overshadowed by the President's personality and by other prominent persons and events of the time. Some written criticisms by administration officials, preserved and transmitted by historians, have obscured his role and personality. Thomas R. Marshall unquestionably had superior talents and did in fact use them in meaningful but unostentatious ways as President of the Senate and as servant of the President and of his country.

Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2012

Au cœur du mouvement progressiste aux États-Unis et alors que le réformisme consolide sa place en politique nationale grâce à l'élection de Woodrow Wilson en 1912, émerge à côté du nouveau président élu la figure de Charles Richard Crane (1858-1939), auparavant quasi-inconnu sur la scène nationale. Industriel richissime, réformateur, mécène et philanthrope de Chicago, Crane avait fait sa marque dans les cercles progressistes du Midwest en plus d'avoir soigneusement cultivé des relations importantes à l'étranger. En même temps, ses intérêts et ses accointances variés le rendirent utiles aux yeux de Wilson qui l'intégra dans un cercle très sélect de conseillers intimes. Rapidement devenu ami avec le président, Crane fut tour à tour choisi pour de multiples tâches politico-diplomatiques de relative importance : contributeur majeur des élections de Wilson en 1912 et 1916, promoteur et facilitateur des réformes sociales et politiques du programme de la New Freedom, mission diplomatique en Russie révolutionnaire, soutien à la création de la Tchécoslovaquie, commission d'experts au Moyen-Orient dans le cadre de la Paix de Versailles et ambassade américaine en Chine comptent parmi ses principales tâches au sein du wilsonisme. À travers ces années avec Wilson, les plus déterminantes de sa vie à ses propres yeux, s'écrivit une carrière publique remarquable qui illustre des aspects du wilsonisme à la fois caractéristiques et inédits. Son engagement dans un réformisme assez radical, qui se manifesta autant dans la sphère nationale, avec des politiques agraires et anti-monopolistiques, qu'à l'étranger, avec l'appui à des causes révolutionnaires, anti-impérialistes et humanitaires, et la constance de son discours wilsonien et de son appui à Wilson apportent un éclairage différent à la perspective historienne du progressisme wilsonien et de l'époque qui l'a produit et façonné. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Charles Richard Crane, Woodrow Wilson, relations internationales, Première Guerre mondiale, histoire de États-Unis, ère progressiste

On May 9, 1950, President Truman declared that “all our international policies, taken together, form a program designed to strengthen and unite the free world.” My dissertation is the first history of the “free world,” a crucial concept that identified the object of U.S. leadership, drove the country to seek global preeminence, and shaped the American understanding of the Cold War. For much of the nineteenth century, American policymakers had envisioned a globe divided into a “new world” of freedom and an “old world” of tyranny. In 1917, Woodrow Wilson proposed a new global dichotomy, arguing for the creation of a trans-Atlantic coalition of democracies against aggressive autocracies whose very existence threatened the survival of freedom everywhere. A revised version of this logic prevailed during the Second World War. But it was only after the start of the Cold War in the late 1940s that American policymakers embraced the concept of an enduring and extra-hemispheric “free world.” Their efforts to lead, unite and strengthen this spatially defined “free world” prompted a massive expansion of American foreign policy and fundamentally transformed the country’s position in the international arena.

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No description available.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, many Americans quickly rallied to support the nation. Among the numerous committees, organizations, and individuals that became active in the mobilization process were the forty-eight state councils of defense. Encouraged to form by President Wilson and his administration in the days and weeks following U.S entry in the war, the state councils grew as offshoots of the Council of National Defense and assisted in bringing every section of the country into a single scheme of work. Everyone was expected to do their part in WWI, whether they were fighting overseas or helping on the home front. The state councils, broken down into various sections and county, township, and high-school level councils, made sure that this was the case by reaching down into local communities and encouraging individuals to become involved in the war effort. Their work represented the embodiment of a “total war” philosophy and, yet, studies on these organizations are surprisingly scarce, giving readers an inadequate understanding of the American home front during the conflict. This thesis therefore places the focus directly on the state councils and examines the work they undertook to make the United States ready for, and most effective in wartime service. In particular, it explores the efforts of the Educational Section of the Indiana State Council of Defense. By concentrating on this one section, readers may gain a better understanding of the lengths that the state councils went to in order to put every person – teachers and students included – on a wartime footing.