George Edward Creel to Woodrow Wilson
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You have indeed made this war a war to "make the world safe for democracy". But it was not that sort of war when it began. And it was not that sort of war when we entered it.
Before we got into it, our entrance had its chief impulsion from our most reactionary and least democratic elements. Consequently nearly all our most progressive and liberal leaders had marked themselves as opposed to it. The Republican representatives of Big Business made a clear record of patriotic support of what was then, in outward appearance, a reactionary trade-imperialistic war. Many radicals, progressives and Democrats spoke and voted against it.
When you raised it to the level of a war for democracy, you rallied, to the support of the war, all the progressive and democratic elements. The Big Business patriots went with you, ostensibly on your own terms, because they saw that only on your terms could the war be won. They came into conspicuous leadership as Red Cross executives, as heads of State Councils of Defense, as patriotic dollar-a-year men. They stood out as pure patriots like Phipps in Colorado as against Keating. They prevented men like Tynan or Lindsey from getting an opportunity to show patriotism in Red Cross campaigns and the like. And they persecuted men like Steffens and organizations like the Nonpartisan League, who tried to stand for the democratic non-imperialist objects of the war.
All the radical, or liberal friends of your anti-imperialist war policy were either silenced or intimidated. The Department of Justice and the Post Office were allowed to silence or intimidate them. There was no voice left to argue for your sort of peace. The Nation and the Public got nipped. All the radical and socialist press was dumb.
When we came to this election, the reactionary Republicans had a clean record of anti-Hun imperialistic patriotism. Their opponents, your friends, were often either besmirched or obscure. No one had been able to tell the public what was really at issue in the elections. The reactionaries knew, but they concealed it. They could appeal, to their patriotism, against what looked like a demand for a partisan verdict for the Democrats. The Democrats, afraid of raising the class issue, went on making a political campaign. Secretary Daniels and you spoke too late.
It seems to me if the defeat is to be repaired, the issue as between the imperialists and the democracy will have to be stated. The liberal, radical, progressive, labor and socialist press will have to be rallied to the President's support. You will have to give out your program for peace and reconstruction and find friends for it. Otherwise, the reactionary patrioteers will defeat the whole immediate future of reform and progress.
I feel that as soon as possible steps should be taken to demobilize the Council of National Defense so that the Chauvinistic, reactionary state organizations may be put out of business.
Respectfully,
Chairman
The President,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
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