The Wilsonian dilemma: America's role in the world

One hundred years ago this summer, America was enthralled and embattled, having embarked on a crusade to transform the world proclaimed by a president who had earlier rejected any such mission for his nation.

In Minnesota, some doubted this was the proper role for America. And in July 1917, that kind of dissent was silenced in the state's most notorious demonstration of strong-arm government.

A century later, tension and confusion remain about America's place and purpose in the world. Is America a missionary nation, even a redeemer nation? Or should it be content to reform itself and be at best an example to the rest of the world — the "city on a hill" that Puritan leader John Winthrop dubbed it?

Woodrow Wilson, president from 1913 to 1921, vividly enacted within his own term in office America's historical oscillation between two poles — being sometimes inspired by a kind of calling to be active missionaries, but at other times quite content to stand back as a passive example.

Though he's the clearest embodiment of this tension, Wilson was hardly the only president to experience a change of heart about American involvement in war and nation building projects. Others include John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush.

And Wilson might soon be joined by another oscillator-in-chief.

A century after Wilson's decision to lead the United States into the "Great War" against Germany, we find ourselves wondering what to do about rivals and enemies from China, to Russia, to Iran, to North Korea, to nonstate terrorist groups. And chief among the wonderers is President Donald Trump.

Wilson's 1917 turn toward war truly was a watershed moment in American history. It marked the country's emergence as a great power and international debut as a redeemer nation. After all, Wilson's goal was not simply to defeat Germany, but to "make the world safe for democracy" and to create a League of Nations that he believed could ensure that would be the "war to end all wars."

This was a far cry from Wilson's stance when war had erupted in Europe in 1914. Then, he had publicly called for Americans to be neutral in "thought, word, and deed." Three years later he had changed his mind.

And while the war would ultimately be won, the Wilsonian crusade failed.

Midwesterners, including Minnesotans, were skeptical from the beginning. In all, there were 56 votes against the war in Congress. Four of the 50 "no" votes in the House came from Minnesota's 10-member House delegation. And of six "no" votes in the Senate, three were Midwesterners — Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, George Norris of Nebraska and Asle Gronna of North Dakota (Minnesota's senators voted "aye").

Charles Lindbergh Sr. would have been another Minnesota "no" vote had he not surrendered his House seat in a losing bid to advance to the Senate in 1916. A left-leaning populist, Lindbergh opposed this war because he saw it as a scheme to rescue Wall Street's moneyed interests.

He had run for re-election in 1916 as the candidate who had "kept us out of war." Narrowly victorious, he urged the warring Europeans to end the struggle in his "peace without victory" speech on Jan. 23, 1917. French novelist Anatole France captured the European reaction when he said: "Peace without victory is like a camel without humps, a town without a brothel … ."

The German Kaiser responded by resuming unrestricted submarine warfare. And still Wilson hesitated. In his mind, America was a teacher nation, not a warrior nation. Composed of immigrants, it should remain at peace, instructing the rest of the world by its example of how people of different backgrounds could live and work together.

Besides, Wilson, ever the politician, knew America's immigrant populations surely felt that way. Sensing the deep opposition that would arise to American entry into war, he knew that if he chose to fight he would also have to crush that dissent.

But in the end Wilson was convinced that he had to join the war if he wanted a significant role in the peace settlement. Wilson's war message to Congress remains one of the most revealing documents in all of American history, an eloquent declaration of America's missionary calling.

Wilson's case for war skirted the matter of national interests, and dwelt instead on his vision of an American crusade to spread democracy. At the end, this Presbyterian preacher's child echoed the defiant Reformation tone of Martin Luther: "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."

The commission exercised almost unlimited power to suppress wartime dissent. Not only did it suspend many civil liberties, but it expelled from office the mayor and city attorney of New Ulm, a German-American enclave, for their "treasonous" opposition to the draft in speeches at a parade rally on July 25, 1917.

Courtesy of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act, the Wilson administration cracked down across the country against what it took to be treasonous behavior. One result was the conviction and jailing of Eugene Debs, a kind of Bernie Sanders of his era. Socialist leader and serial presidential candidate, Debs was prosecuted for his opposition to the draft.

With so much wrong at home coming from a "progressive" administration's crusade to do right in the world, it's small wonder that there was a retreat from the world and from progressivism following the Great War. A consensus quickly emerged that America's crusading mission had been a mistake that needed to be corrected — or at least forgotten about.

Americans did their best to do just that during the interwar period. Arms manufacturers were blamed and excoriated. In the mid-1920s, a treaty to outlaw war was negotiated by Secretary of State (and former Minnesota Sen.) Frank Kellogg. Then came the neutrality laws of the 1930s. All of this was done in the name of assuring that there would be no new wars for Americans.

In that spirit Americans proceeded to ignore the looming threat from Nazi Germany, and there arose a very un-Wilsonian crusade called "America First." Among its celebrity leaders was another Minnesota Lindbergh — famed aviator Charles Lindbergh Jr.

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh and most other America Firsters — including Ambassador to England Joseph Kennedy and his son John, the future president — supported the war effort. Sometimes circumstances clarify national purposes and eliminate all confusion.

But here in 2017 we are a century removed from 1917. And we've been through a few more wars and a few more crusades since the clarifying experience of World War II. Having elected Donald Trump, we seem to be in another "America First" mood. At least that was the thrust of his successful campaign. Trump wasn't exactly touting America as a city on a hill. But he also wasn't calling for new military missions abroad.

Trump, who sometimes fancies himself to be a historian of sorts, has expressed an affinity for Andrew Jackson, America's first populist, anti-elite president. But might he turn out to be another Woodrow Wilson instead? There were certainly Wilsonian tinges to speeches he's given on overseas trips in his first months.

To be sure, in Saudi Arabia in May, Trump promised "not to impose our way of life on others" or "to tell other people how to live." A Wilsonian missionary wouldn't hold back.

On the other hand, Trump declared that the struggle against "Islamist extremism" was a struggle between "good and evil." He called upon the Arab world to take the lead in that struggle. But he concluded that the "world is waiting for us" (not just you) "to act on the great question of our time." After all, the "birth place of civilization is waiting to begin a new renaissance."

Can tests such as these be met without an American-led crusade involving "everything that we are and everything that we have"?

We'd all like to believe that peace and prosperity are givens. Progressives in particular like to believe that something called the "arc of history" exists — and assures us that progress, even peaceful progress, is inevitable.

But we need to remind ourselves that history always has a different story to tell — different, at least, from what each generation expects.

Trump does not claim to be a progressive. But it's possible to imagine that a president elected on an "America First" platform might well find himself taking some very Wilsonian steps on the basis of some very Wilsonian arguments as he deals with some very real enemies of the United States.

All we can know for sure is that stranger things have happened in our never-distant past — a past forever filled with tension and confusion and disagreement over America's proper role in the world.