The Presidential Election of 1916, Part III, The Origins of "He Has Kept Us Out of War"

As the election approached, President Wilson understood that if might be impossible to avoid going to war and that some of the strong diplomatic positions he had taken might backfire or be challenged at sea, forcing his hand. Not all of his party, however, had his grasp of the ongoing crisis. The authors of the Democratic platform included a boast that the president had kept the nation out of war in their original draft. When Wilson reviewed it, he struck out the sentence. This did not, however, inhibit the convention speakers or delegates a bit. Historian Douglas Schmidt describes the genesis of the slogan:

Martin Glynn, the keynote speaker, had the crowd on its feet as he recounted incidents in American history when presidents had refused to engage in military actions. Citing an incident when President Grant refused to take the country to war with Spain over Cuba, Glynn shouted, "But he didn't go to war," and the crowd roared. Citing similar experiences [with a series of presidents] . . . the crowd was hysterical. Warming to the task, Glynn turned to earlier Chiefs, and for each the chant. "He didn't go to war."

. . . The leader of the peace movement, William Jennings Bryan. . . succumbed to the oratorical theatrics of the convention. The "Boy Orator" proclaimed to the enthralled delegates: "My friends, I have differed with our President on some of the methods employed, but I join with the American people in thanking God that we have a President who does not want this nation plunged into this war."

The party's approved platform was modified to include the statement: "In particular, we commend to the American people the splendid diplomatic victories of our great President, who has preserved the vital interests of our Government and its citizens, and kept us out of war."

A Pro-Peace Cartoon Sympathetic to the President

Wilson, though, was still uncomfortable running as the "Peace Candidate," so "He Has Kept Us Out of War" lay dormant, mostly unused, for over two months. On 30 September, from the front porch of his vacation house in Long Branch, New Jersey, Wilson finally played the peace card.

Am I not right that we must draw the conclusion that, if the Republican Party is put into power at the next election, our foreign policy will be radically changed? . . . There is only one choice as against peace, and that is war. 

While Wilson was still reluctant to claim he had kept the nation from war, he had signaled his supporters they were free to use the slogan, which they did in unrestrained fashion for the final five weeks of the campaign.

Wilson biographer John Milton Cooper points out something forgotten about the slogan's efficacy. It did not prove as effective in the eastern states, where sympathy for the Allied cause was at a maximum, as in the west. However, the potential war the westerners were most concerned about was with Mexico. Professor Cooper points out that in Wilson's campaign speeches, when discussing national security he spent significantly more time discussing the southern border than Europe. 

Wilson carried all the states west of the Rockies, except Oregon, all the states bordering Mexico, and of course, the Solid [for the Democrats] South. During election season, fortune favored Wilson, as well, with a five-month hiatus in major diplomatic crises with either Mexico or the belligerents in the European war. 

The Former President Saw Through the Phrase

The Hughes camp responded that the president's diplomacy had sacrificed national honor and surrendered some of its own sovereignty and that of other neutrals. The ever quotable T.R. said that "He Has Kept Us Out of War" was an "Utterly misleading phrase, the phrase of a coward and distorted into a promise that under no circumstances could we go to war." Nevertheless, it turned out to be one of the most successful and memorable campaign slogans in American history. Of course, in hindsight we can see that those who voted for Wilson and Peace instead got Wilson and War. 

Next Friday:  Part IV, Why Was the Election So Close?

Sources: We adapted this series from several sources we should credit here—the Miller Center of the University of Virginia,  the American Presidency Project of the University of California at Santa Barbara, 270 To Win,  OurCampaigns.com,  and Gallup.com.