![]() ![]() Some had hoped that Wilson’s early rhetoric of diplomacy and mediation between belligerents would succeed, but after these efforts failed and the war entered its second year, many feared that the horrors of the battlefield would come to America. As he stated in a speech in late 1915, “.we are asking for a trained citizenry which will act in the spirit of citizenship and not in the spirit of military establishments.” The government maintained this anti-involvement course throughout the years of official neutrality, and businesses flourished from their sales to the warring parties. Instead of building a conscripted army, Wilson looked to the public for their strength as democratic citizens to counter the belligerency overseas. ![]() President Wilson’s party, the liberal internationalists, expressed fear that adopting an offensive stance in the conflict would militarize the nation and threaten the cherished American values of liberty and democracy. ![]() we have every reason to be happy that we are able to preserve strict neutrality in respect to it.” In the following three years, deep divisions over American neutrality versus military involvement occupied the discourse of the country. As former President Taft wrote of the European chaos, “It is a cataclysm. Soon after hostilities began in Europe in August 1914, the American government proclaimed their neutrality in the conflict. ![]()
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