Wilson WWI-Dated TLS: "…we, like the English, are planning to dominate everything and to oust everybody we can oust"

A 2pp typed letter signed by 28th U.S. President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), as "Woodrow Wilson" at the center of the second page. [Washington, D.C.], August 29, 1918. Typed in blue ink on two watermarked sheets of stationery with "The White House / Washington" letterhead embossed on the first page. Expected wear including flattened folds, clerical pin holes along the top, and several pencil inscriptions. A minor closed tear can be found in the upper left corner of the first page. Else near fine. 6.875" x 8.875."

President Wilson wrote Edward Nash Hurley (1864-1933), Chairman of the U.S. Shipping Board, in part:

"There is a matter which has been giving me some concern…

The English, as I need not tell you, are making a great many determined efforts to see to it not only that they are not put at an economic disadvantage after the war, but that they secure now by as tight arrangements as possible every economic advantage that is within their reach. They are stimulated to do this by their consciousness that our shipbuilding programme will give us a very considerable advantage over them in the carrying trade, and therefore in world commerce, after the struggle is over. I therefore write to suggest that it is wide for us not to talk now or publicly plan now the use we shall make of our shipping after the war, because while it is true, contrary to the English impression, that we do not intend to seek any unfair advantage of any kind or to shoulder anybody out, but merely to give the widest possibly currency to our own goods, the impression made by past utterances has been that we, like the English, are planning to dominate everything and to oust everybody we can oust…"

Wilson's letter is somewhat surprising for two reasons. First, it reveals a rather cynical, though intensely practical, understanding of international politics that one might not expect of Wilson, architect of the idealistic Fourteen Points of January 1918. Second, it reveals that Wilson could hide things closer to the vest, or even outright dissimulate. There was some information that could not even be shared with Britain, America's closest ally.

Wilson acutely understood that after the war ended, national interests would trump international alliances. Wilson predicted that as soon as the Central Powers were neutralized, the former Allied countries would immediately revert to their pre-war mentalities of opportunism and exploitation, and start jockeying for the spoils. In early August 1918, the Allies had already initiated their Hundred Days Offensive, aimed at defeating the Central Powers once and for all. The Armistice was just a few months away. Wilson was carefully considering the post-war situation that might develop.

World War I had shifted the balance of international shipping, however, and America was now emerging as the leader. Prior to World War I, European shipping had been dominant, and the United States relied on foreign shipping to carry out much of its own commerce. The debate over to what extent to build up America's naval forces and merchant marine was a perennial one during the Progressive Era. Yet now at the end of the war, within a remarkably short time frame, the United States was poised to seize maritime supremacy. This was achieved by policy measures and wartime productivity. The 1916 Shipping Act, which authorized the establishment of the U.S. Shipping Board, and the green-lighting of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, which prioritized the wartime expansion of American shipping, greatly strengthened American shipping. The European powers were greatly unsettled that the United States now ruled the waves.

Edmund N. Hurley recalled in his memoir, "The Bridge to France" (Philadelphia & London: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1927), that "it was not the League of Nations, the World Court or the 'Freedom of the Seas' in which the European powers were interested primarily; but rather the recovery and enhancement of pre-war economic advantage. International commerce and ships always came to the fore…Great Britain feared the competition of our fleet…The British and French also expressed possibility of nationalizing the traffic in oil and other basic commodities, in order to control markets and prevent threatened American domination of the seas…" (Chapter XXXV, "Shipping Importance at the Peace Conference.")

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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