Woodrow Wilson's War For Democracy

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Pages: 9

“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.” quoted by Woodrow Wilson. America is super power of the world, and it's the deciding factor of the war at this point. America is fighting both overseas and on the homefront and it the end they're both wars for democracy. Wilsons fighting against the central powers to both save democracy and to have peace without victory. Americans on the homefront are fighting for their rights such as better working conditions, women's rights, and African American rights. Wilsons war for democracy was a failure, due to the faults in the treaty of Versailles. The American people were successful, however, in the fight for workers rights, women's …show more content…
Sadly, Wilson's 14 points were not followed, but instead the treaty of Versailles was signed. In the treaty, there were the “Big 3” victors; Great Britain, France, and the U.S. The terms of the treaty were put forth to benefit the big victors who were greedy and wanted get all that they could, and to hurt Germany as much as possible. Germany lost territory, on the west side was the Alsace-Lorraine, and on the east was the Polish corridor. The Saar, an area of land on the west of Germany was a coal rich area which was taken control of by the League of Nations. Which would be used to benefit countries in Europe. Another area in the west was the Rhineland, which is a large industrial region that would be occupied by Great Britain and Italy. Because France is bordered by Germany, the French still felt threatened by Germany. The people knew they had suffered more than the Germans. Which is why the treaty also puts a heavy limit on Germany's military, which required a maximum of 100,000 soldiers, 15000 in the navy, no u-boats, and limited ships. Germany would also lose its African colonies. This treaty contradicted Wilson's 14 points in so many ways. To start, there are clear cut victors. It also gave most of the spoils to those three victors and not to the smaller nations that would have benefited from the 14 points. Germany was also given a severe conviction, …show more content…
Strikes were all too common during the time of the war. People who weren’t even part of a union, or skilled, striked because they knew they could get a pay increase or less hours a week due to the need for supplies during the war. An example of a powerful strike is the Boston police strikes, which is a large issues due to the riots going on at the time of the strike. These policemen were fired however, and were replaced with unemployed veterans. Most of these strikes did end up giving the workforce a higher standard of living and greater benefits during this time. Another failed strike was against the steel companies in Pittsburgh, the company's fired everyone who did and hired minorities and others to fill their position. Over 300,000 people were part of the steel industry strike. It halted many of the steel companies, but in the end the steel companies came out ahead. This was when strikes started to slow down due to the lack of power the unions had in fighting the businesses. Overall, these strikes really helped the working class group to gain higher overall benefits during and after the war. The people really benefited from these strikes and their effectiveness, and overall was good in terms of being successful in fighting the