HOW FOREIGN MEDDLING DROVE AMERICA INTO WAR

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]

On March 3, 1917, 162 words changed the course of World War I and the history of the 20^th Century.

Germany officially admitted to sending the “Zimmermann Telegram”, which exposed a complex web of international intrigue, to keep America out of World War I.  It was this, and not the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, that led to the U.S. entering the European war.

The Zimmermann Telegram was a message sent by Arthur Zimmermann, a senior member of the German Foreign Office in Berlin, to Ambassador Heinrich von Eckardt in the German Embassy in Mexico City.  It outlined Germany’s plans to support Mexico in a war with the United States should America enter the European War:

We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain, and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace.

The story of how this telegram became the pivotal document of World War I reads like a James Bond movie.

America was neutral during the early years of the “Great War”.  It also managed the primary Transatlantic telegraph Cable.  European governments, on both sides of the war, were allowed to use the American cable for diplomatic communications with their embassies in North and South America.  On a daily basis, messages flowed, unfettered and unread, between diplomatic outposts and European capitals.

Enter Nigel de Grey and his “Room 40” codebreakers.

British Intelligence monitored the American Atlantic cable, violating its neutrality.  On January 16, 1917, the Zimmerman Telegram was intercepted and decoded.  de Grey and his team immediately understood the explosive impact of its contents.  Such a documented threat might force the U.S. into declaring war on Germany.  At the time, the “Great War” was a bloody stalemate and unrest in Russia was tilting the outcome in favor of Germany.

de Gray’s challenge was how to orchestrate the telegram getting to American officials without exposing British espionage operations or the breaking of the German codes.  He and his team created an elaborate ruse.  They would invent a “mole” inside the German Embassy in Mexico City.  This “mole” would steal the Zimmermann Telegram and send it, still encrypted, to British intelligence.  The encryption would be an older version, which the Germans would consider a mistake and assume it was such an old code it was already broken.  American-based British spies confirmed that the older code, and its decryption, was already in the files of the American Telegraph Company.

On February 19, 1917, British Foreign Office officials shared the older encoded version of Zimmermann Telegram with U.S. Embassy officials.  After decoding it and confirming its authenticity, it was sent onto the White House Staff.

President Woodrow Wilson was enraged and shared it with American newspaper reporters on February 28.  At a March 3, 1917 news conference, Zimmermann confirmed the telegram stating, “I cannot deny it.  It is true”. German officials tried to rationalize the Telegram as only a contingency plan, legitimately protecting its interests should America enter the war against them.

On April 4, President Wilson finally went before a Joint Session of Congress requesting a Declaration of War against Germany.  The Senate approved the Declaration on April 4 and the House of April 6.  It took forty-four days for American public opinion to coalesce around declaring war.

Why the delay? 

Americans were deeply divided on intervening in the “European War”.  Republicans were solidly isolationist.  They had enough votes in the Senate to filibuster a war resolution.  They were already filibustering the “Armed Ship Bill”, which authorized the arming of American merchant ships against German submarines. German Americans, a significant voter segment in America’s rural areas and small towns, were pro-German and anti-French. Irish Americans, a significant Democratic Party constituency in urban areas, were anti-English. There was also Wilson’s concern over Mexican threats along America’s southern border.

Germany was successful in exploiting America’s division and its isolationism. At the same time, Germany masterfully turned Mexico into a credible threat to America. 

The Mexican Revolution provided the perfect environment for German mischief. Germany armed various factions and promoted the “Plan of San Diego”, which detailed Mexico’s reclaiming Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Even before the outbreak of the “Great War”, Germany orchestrated media stories and planted disinformation among Western intelligence agencies to create the impression of Mexico planning an invasion of Texas.  German actions and rumors sparked a bloody confrontation between U.S. forces and Mexican troops in Veracruz, on April 9, 1914.

After years of preparation, German agents funded and inspired Pancho Villa’s March 9, 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico. In retaliation, on March 14, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John “Black Jack” Pershing, along with 10,000 soldiers and an aviation squadron, to invade northern Mexico and hunt down Villa.  Over the next ten months, U.S. forces fought twelve battles on Mexican soil, including several with Mexican government forces. 

The costly and unsuccessful pursuit of Villa diverted America’s attention away from Europe and soured U.S.-Mexican relations.

Germany’s most creative method for keeping America out of World War I was a fifteen-part “Preparedness Serial” called “Patria”. In 1916, the German Foreign Ministry convinced William Randolph Hearst to produce this adventure story about Japan helping Mexico reclaim the American Southwest.

“Patria” was a major production. It starred Irene Castle, one of the early “mega-stars” of Hollywood and Broadway. Castle’s character uses her family fortune to thwart the Japan-Mexico plot against America. The movie played to packed houses across America and ignited paranoia about the growing menace on America’s southern border.  Concerns over Mexico, and opposition to European intervention, convinced Wilson to run for re-election on a “He kept us out of war” platform.  American voters narrowly re-elected Wilson, along with many new isolationist Congressional candidates.

“Patria”, and other German machinations, clouded the political landscape and kept America neutral until April 1917.  Foreign interference in the 1916 election, along with chasing Pancho Villa, may have kept America out of WWI completely, except that Zimmerman’s Telegram, outlining Germany’s next move, was intercepted by British Intelligence. It awakened Americans to a real threat.

Words really do matter.

CIVIL WAR's ORIGINS - REPUBLICAN PARTY

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]

In the 1850s, America’s civic culture was crumbling. Decades of political compromise and avoidance on the issue of slavery had maintained an uneasy peace. The Mexican-American War (1846-47) added over 500,000 square miles to the U.S. and rekindled sectional competition. Ralph Waldo Emerson prophesied, “The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us.” [1]

The carefully orchestrated balance between Northern/Free states and Southern/Slave states in the U.S. Senate had only been maintained by tightly controlling the admission of new states to the Union. In 1820, Missouri was ready to be admitted as a “slave” state. Their Senate votes were to be off-set by separating the northern part of Massachusetts into the new “free” state of Maine. A key part of this Missouri Compromise of 1820 was to limit expansion of “slave states” to below a line, parallel 36°30′ north. However, after the Mexican War, Texas, California, and many other potential states, clamored for admission into the Union, reawakening the slumbering sectional strife and the “free” versus “slave” state controversy.

In 1850, a new Compromise was approved. This was a package of five separate bills that maintained the North/South balance in the Senate by allowing California to join the Union as a free state, even though its southern border dipped below the 1820 slave demarcation line. This was balanced by admitting Texas as a slave state. Other provisions balanced ending the slave trade in Washington, DC with establishing the Fugitive Slave Act, which required local officials in the North to aid in the capture and return of escaped slaves..

The Compromise of 1850 was the last great moment for the Whig Party. This party rose as a counter to the Jacksonian Democrats in the late 1830s. It thrived by broadly promoting westward expansion without a conflict with Mexico, supporting transportation infrastructure projects, and protecting fledgling American businesses with tariffs. The Whigs also benefited from having stellar leaders in the U.S. Senate, like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, and attracting popular war heroes to run as their presidential candidates. The reawakening of sectional competition ended their brief moment of political ascendancy.

In 1848, the Whig Party split on slavery with pro-freedom/anti-Mexican War "Conscience Whigs" and pro-slavery "Cotton Whigs" ("lords of the lash" allied with "lords of the loom"). [2] They still stumbled across the 1848 Presidential finish line with Mexican War hero Zachery Taylor. Unfortunately, food poisoning led to Taylor’s death on July 9, 1850 ushering in the Presidency of anti-immigrant Millard Filmore and his “No-nothing” nativist movement. In 1852, the highly divided Whig Party needed 53 roll call votes to nominate another war hero, Winfield Scott, only to lose in a landslide to Pro-slavery Democrat Franklin Pierce. Rep. Alexander Stephens, a “Cotton Whig” pronounced, “the Whig Party is dead.” [3]

The implosion of the Whigs, and the new sectional rivalry, launched new parties, and factions within parties. These reflected the wide range of opinions on slavery from zealous support of slavery everywhere possible to immediate abolition everywhere possible. In the middle were factions that wanted to maintain the Union through various forms of compromise, allowing slavery some places, but not others.

This cauldron of factionalism came to a boil in 1854 with consideration of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was intended to void the carefully crafted Compromises of 1820 and 1850.

Anti-slavery “Free Soil” party activists along with anti-slavery “Conscience Whigs” and “Barn Burner” Democrats held anti-Nebraska meetings and rallies across the north. One of the organizers of these anti-Nebraska protests was Alvan E. Bovay.

Bovay (July 12, 1818 – January 13, 1903) was a successful New York lawyer and an early abolitionist.  He and his wife moved to Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1850, where he helped establish Ripon College. [7]

Bovay was an active Whig, but was disappointed in the Party’s disarray over slavery.  He felt Party leaders had lost their way.  Only a new party, uniting anti-slavery factions across the political spectrum would resolve the divisiveness facing America. In 1852, Bovay visited his friend, Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, discuss a new party.  They agreed a new party deserved a new name - Republican. [8] Launching this new party would have to wait until the Nebraska bill ignited wide-spread calls for strategic political change.

On March 1, 1854, Bovay announced an anti-Nebraska protest meeting in the local Ripon newspaper:

NEBRASKA. A meeting will be held at 6:30 o’clock this Wednesday evening at the Congregational church in the village of Ripon to remonstrate against the Nebraska swindle. [9]

After the meeting, Bovay posted in newspapers:

THE NEBRASKA BILL. A bill expressly intended to extend slavery will be the call to arms of a Great Northern Party, such as the country has not hitherto seen, composed of Whigs, Democrats, and Freesoilers; every man with a heart in him united under the single banner dry of “Repeal!” “Repeal!” [10]

Wisconsin anti-slavery activists became further inflamed when, March 9, 1854, protesters, led by abolitionist Sherman Booth, stormed a Milwaukee, Wisconsin jail to rescue Joshua Glover.  Glover was an escaped slave awaiting extradition under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.  A federal judge had refused to hear his appeal. [11]

Bovay then organized a second protest meeting:

The Nebraska bill.  A bill expressly intended to extend and strengthen the institution of slavery has passed the Senate by a very large majority, many northern Senators voting for it and many more sitting in their seats and not voting at all.  It is evidently destined to pass the House and become law, unless its progress is arrested by a general uprising of the north against it.

Therefore, We, the undersigned, believing the community to be nearly quite unanimous in opposition to the nefarious scheme, would call upon the public meeting of citizens of all parties to be held at the school house in Ripon on Monday evening, March 20, at 6:30 o’clock, to resolve, to petition, and to organize against it. [12]

Bovay and sixteen others met at the schoolhouse and decided to organize a Wisconsin state convention to endorse candidates for state and federal office.  Bovay worked with anti-slavery Democrat, Edwin Hurlbut, to develop a platform for the “Republican Party”. They organized and managed a state convention in Madison, Wisconsin on July 13, 1854. That convention nominated the first slate of Republican candidates for that fall’s local elections. [13].

The Republican Party spread across America, coalescing diverse factions into a new political movement that would dominate American politics for the next 76 years, winning 14 of the next 19 Presidential elections. It also signaled the end of 36 years of political obfuscation on the issue of slavery in America, ultimately leading to the Civil War.

REFERENCES
[1] McPherson, James, Battle Cry of Freedom (Oxford University Press, New York, 1988) page 51.

[2] Ibid., page 60.

[3] Ibid., page 118.

[4] Mayer, George H., The Republican Party 1854-1966 Second Edition (Oxford University Press, New York, 1966) page 25.

[5] Julian, George Washington, Political Recollections; Anthology - America; Great Crises in Our History Told by its Makers; Vol. VII (Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chicago, 1925) page 212.

[6] Op. Cit., McPherson, page 124.

[7] https://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/crossroads/2016/09/24/messitte-republican-return-ripon/90978702/

[8] Pedrick, Samuel M. , The life of Alvan E. Bovay, founder of the Republican Party in Ripon, Wis., March 20, 1854. (Commonwealth Partners, 1950).

[9] Unity Weekly; Unity Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois; Volume LXI, Number 16, June 18, 1908, pages 245-246.

[10] Ibid. 

[11] Legler, Henry E., Leading Events of Wisconsin History. Milwaukee: Sentinel, 1898. Pages 226-229.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Op. Cit., Mayer, page 26.

HISTORY TRUMPS HYPERBOLE

Published on Newsmax.

The outrage over foreign meddling in America’s political system is justified.

Declaring it the worst ever experienced is not.

Since its founding, America’s principles and civil culture have been a major influence across the world. Undermining or redirecting America’s influence has been a magnet for meddling.

Initially, England and France tried to manipulate America. The leaders of the French Revolution funded Philip Freneau to undermine Alexander Hamilton. Anthony Murray, British Minister to the United States, conspired with Vice President Aaron Burr to establish a rival country in parts of the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican southwest.

Several European nations were ready to intervene in America’s Civil War, until Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation morally isolated the South.

When World War I erupted, Germany’s main concern was keeping America out of the war. Their meddling in America’s politics successfully delayed U.S. involvement from August 1914 until April 1917. President Woodrow Wilson staunchly maintained American neutrality, despite German U-Boats sinking U.S. vessels. The reason was Germany’s highly successful strategic effort to turn Mexico into a credible threat. 

The Mexican Revolution provided the perfect environment for German mischief. Germany armed various factions and promoted the “Plan of San Diego”, which detailed Mexico’s reclaiming Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Even before the war, Germany promoting fears of a Mexican invasion pulled America into a bloody confrontation in Veracruz in April 1914.

There are indications that Germany funded and inspired Pancho Villa’s March 9, 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico. This led to the U.S. invading northern Mexico (March 1916 - February 1917) to hunt down Villa. The invasion further diverted America’s attention away from Europe and soured U.S.-Mexican relations.

Germany’s most creative method for keeping America out of World War I was a fifteen-part “Preparedness Serial” called “Patria”. In 1916, the German Foreign Ministry convinced William Randolph Hearst to produce this adventure story about Japan helping Mexico reclaim the American Southwest.

“Patria” was a major production. It starred Irene Castle, one of the early “mega-stars” of Hollywood and Broadway. Castle’s character uses her family fortune to thwart the Japan-Mexico plot against America. The movie played to packed houses across America and ignited paranoia about the growing menace on America’s southern border.

“Patria”, along with other German machinations, clouded the political landscape and kept America neutral until April 1917. These elaborate ruses, along with the invasion chasing Pancho Villa, may have continued to keep America out of WWI except that Germany’s next move was intercepted by British Intelligence. The infamous “Zimmermann telegram” exposed German support for Mexico invading America. The British delivered this incendiary message to President Wilson on February 24, 1917. Even then, Wilson’s obsessing over Mexican expansion delayed America’s declaration of war on Germany until April 6, 1917.

In the 1930s, the rise of Nazism in Germany led to a new round of foreign meddling in America. The German-American Bund, funded by the Nazis, established local organizations, including youth summer camps, across the U.S. Their goal was to mobilize the 25 percent of American’s with German heritage into a political counter-force. They also wanted to deflect concerns of Nazism in the hopes of delaying American involvement in the coming world war.

During the “Cold War” (1945-1989) the Soviet Union spent over $1 billion on creating and supporting political movements designed to undermine American resolve. This included various “Peace Councils” advocating for the U.S. to end its nuclear program and disarm.

Soviet meddling in U.S. politics peaked during the Vietnam War, when they launched dozens of front groups to turn American opinion against the war. Many of these group raised doubt about the legitimacy of America’s political system. John Kerry’s “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” was used to alienate Americans from veterans in order to demoralize the country.

Soviet-backed groups tried to stop President Ronald Reagan’s deployment of Pershing II Missiles in Europe in the1980s. In 1985, even Time Magazine admitted that the apocalyptic “nuclear winter” arguments were developed by the Soviets to “give antinuclear groups in the U.S. and Europe some fresh ammunition against America's arms buildup.”

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire gave America a brief respite from foreign meddling. Then the information age brought easier access to America. Today, China, Russia, Radical Islam, Iran, and an array of minor players, are using cyberwarfare to disrupt America, including efforts to “hack” our voting systems. They are becoming increasingly adept at filling social media with fake news, fake events, and fake commentary.  

Major General James Jackson, the longest serving of George Washington’s officers in the American Revolution, issued the immortal warning that should guide us today:  

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 

Let the sentinels on the watch-tower sleep not, and slumber not.”

[Scot Faulkner advises corporations and governments on how to save billions of dollars by achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served on the White House Staff, and as an Executive Branch Appointee.]

TRUMPING IMMIGRATION

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6247901002205261824/

Also published on Newsmax.    #TRUMPING

President Trump is aligning immigration policy to our national wellbeing.  His approach is comprehensive and consistent.  It is a welcome change and not a moment too soon.

Immigration is a privilege not a right. 

A nation has every right and reason to make sure those who enter are who they say they are and those who want to stay are beneficial not burdensome.  It is amazing that these fundamental sovereignty issues are debated.

A border wall with Mexico is a necessary requirement for protecting national sovereignty and blocking future illegal immigration along America’ southern border.  Hopefully, Israel will be consulted on design as their walls are the most successful of the modern era.  National Park lands along the border could effectively use razor sharp sisal and other natural barriers to mitigate visual impacts.  Instilling a culture of proactive excellence among border and customs enforcement professionals is another critical element to assure our safety.

Eliminating sanctuary cities and reinstituting the rule of law is necessary for public safety.  Punishing companies who hire illegals must show that laws matter.  President Trump’s strong stand on enforcing immigration laws has already had an effect.  Intercepts of illegal immigrants along the Mexican border plummeted 40.5% from January to February.

Trump’s temporary ban on issuing visas to people from failed states is prudent and legal.  The six targeted countries continue to be chaotic war zones where viable public records are nonexistent.  Bribes and terrorist agendas creating fake identities are a border control nightmare.  Better to pause and plan, with appropriate documented waivers, until integrity is established

Trump aligning U.S. policy with established and proven policies in effect in other countries is a strategic step in the right direction.  Many nations use economic benefit as the guiding principle of their immigration policy.  Australia and New Zealand have always filtered for needed skills and education.  Australia issues visas to skilled workers based upon a points-based system, with points allocated for certain levels of education.  Visas are often sponsored by individual Australian States, according to their specific skill needs. Australian businesses also sponsor visas for highly sought after skilled workers.  Australia and New Zealand have never been assailed for racism or nativism.

In the 19^th Century, America needed people to populate its ever expanding territories.  The federal government gave transcontinental railways vast land grants to incentivize laying rails to link the continent.  The Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads launched major advertising campaign throughout Scandinavia to attract settlers to turn their land grants into vibrant farming communities that, in turn, used the railroad to ship goods.

In 1882, U.S. policy turned away from economic development and went down the slippery slope of nationality based immigration.  Initially, California workers wanted to block Chinese immigrants to stabilize wages.  Other laws followed, which established national quotas instead of skill-based immigration.  This shift came to grief in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.  Liberals, led by Senators Ted Kennedy and Phil Hart, filled the legislation with diversity goals and codifying the concept of “anchor babies”, where a child of illegal immigrants born on U.S. soil establishes entitlement for family members to move to America. 

President Bush supported the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT90), which established flexible immigration caps and made permanent the admission of "diversity immigrants" from "underrepresented" countries. The cumulative result opened the floodgates to burdensome instead of beneficial immigrants.  Immigration policy completely changed from economic wellbeing and security to a liberal social engineering effort.

The 1965 and 1990 laws completely wrecked U.S. immigration policy.  I encountered this bizarre new regulatory world, twice.  In the 1980s, I had to personally appeal to Attorney General Ed Meese to allow the former CEO of KLM and his wife to retire in Florida.  It was amazing that U.S. immigration officials had rejected a wealthy corporate executive because there were too many Dutch immigrants.  In 2006, I had to appeal to the Bush White House to allow a Swiss Doctor, and his Nurse Practitioner wife, to join their parents in America and work for a Washington area hospital.  These happened at the same time poverty stricken immigrants from Third World countries were being welcomed on a daily basis.

Liberals, and even some Republicans, have spent decades creating damaging and surreal U.S. immigration policies.  These policies threaten national security, burden government services, and deprive America of people who can substantively contribute to the national economy. 

Thankfully, during his February 28, 2017 speech to Congress President Trump embraced a “merit based” immigration policy to benefit America’s economic revitalization.  Trump’s subsequent Executive Orders and initiatives are putting our national interest in the right place, in the right ways.