The construction of the Panama Canal was emblematic of the rise of American power—power that had become increasingly nationalistic and interventionist and now spanned two oceans with an eye toward Europe and Asia. By the early twentieth century, expansionist diplomats in the United States and Europe had convinced themselves that they could maintain global order by dividing the world into spheres of influence and joining themselves in a series of political alliances. Ultimately this system failed, and in 1914 the old world order collapsed in a terrible war.

Progressive Diplomacy

Progressive diplomacy, like progressive politics, stressed moralism and order, and stretched executive power to its limits. It emphasized a sense of global destiny, a commitment to civilizing the "lesser breeds," and an aggressive economic expansionism. In the Caribbean, Theodore Roosevelt attempted to encourage stable governments abroad that would practice fiscal responsibility and open themselves to American investment. His "Roosevelt Corollary" (1905) to the Monroe Doctrine proclaimed the right of the United States to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries in order to keep financial order and forestall European intervention.

Under these auspices, Roosevelt regularly wielded his "big stick," intervening in the affairs of Latin American countries and transforming the Caribbean into an American-dominated lake. In distant Asia he exercised tact rather than force, seeking to counterbalance Russian and Japanese ambitions in the Far East while recognizing their dominant positions in the region. His actions reflected two of his central beliefs: the global nature of American interests and the avoidance of armed conflict between great powers.

Recognizing the reality of American economic expansion, President Taft and his secretary of state, Philander Knox, attempted to substitute "dollars for bullets" by undertaking "dollar diplomacy." In the end, however, Taft relied on both investment and intervention. Unsuccessful in China, the Taft-Knox policies did help American capital to penetrate Latin America more deeply. However, dollar diplomacy became so closely associated with unpopular regimes, corporations, and banks that Woodrow Wilson felt bound to disassociate himself from it as soon as he took office.

Woodrow Wilson and Moral Diplomacy

To the diplomacy of order, force, and finances, Woodrow Wilson brought a sincere commitment to justice, democracy, Christian values, and international harmony. He believed in a missionary diplomacy that preached the value of exporting democracy and capitalism (and American goods) to promote stability and progress (and American markets) in the world. His secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, negotiated arbitration agreements with some 30 nations to keep peace. His administration opposed Japan's "Twenty-one Demands" to control China, and gave the Philippines limited independence.

Yet like Roosevelt and Taft, Wilson failed to appreciate the near impossibility of trying to graft American-style democracy and capitalism onto foreign countries with their own traditions. Soon Wilson, like his predecessors, intervened in Central America and—with disastrous consequences—in Mexico. Wilson's missionary diplomacy, like Roosevelt's big stick diplomacy and Taft's dollar diplomacy before it, received a hostile reception from other nations.

The Road to War

The outbreak of war in Europe took Wilson and the American people by surprise. Wilson condemned both sides and proclaimed a policy of neutrality. By standing above the fray, he believed the United States could lead the world to a higher peace of international cooperation and collective security that would replace the discredited old order of balanced powers and spheres of influence. But his natural sympathies, like those of most Americans, lay with the British. Their command of the high seas soon made a mockery of American neutrality, which in practice favored Britain and the rest of the Allied Powers. In desperation, Germany (leader of the opposing Central Powers) launched a vicious submarine assault on Allied and neutral shipping that brought the United States into the war in 1917.

War and Society

American society organized for war in a peculiarly progressive manner. Fielding an army by democratic conscription, mobilizing the economy with centralized, executive agencies, propagandizing the war by using modern techniques of advertising—in all these ways progressive faith in planning, efficiency, patriotism, and publicity guided the war effort on the home front. The result was a deepening partnership between government and business in which regulation would increasingly give way to a business-dominated economy. Meanwhile, demographic changes, including a massive migration of Latinos and African Americans, reshaped the nation's cities and deepened tensions.

The darker side of progressivism also flourished. Its impulses toward social control turned into new drives for prohibition, and its penchant for assimilation fueled a postwar frenzy for loyalty and conformity, leading to wholesale violations of civil liberties.

Overseas, the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force helped to break the European stalemate. Allied victory, negotiated on the basis of Wilson's fourteen-point peace plan, gave him the opportunity to put his progressive ideals into practice.

The Lost Peace

At the Paris peace conference, Wilson fought for a new world order based on harmony, cooperation, democracy, self-determination, and rational dialogue. Softening some Allied demands for retribution, he achieved his greatest success in winning acceptance of the League of Nations, a new international organization. He perceived this body as the most important element of the treaty because it could correct mistakes made at the conference and ensure future peace.

Returning home, he found his hopes and his treaty dashed in the Senate, where his own refusal to compromise combined with Republican hostility to ensure defeat. Meanwhile, riots, strikes, and a "Red scare" left the country reeling, sick of idealistic crusades and craving a return to "normalcy."