When the U. S. went to war in 1917, critical citizens declined to take at face value President Wilson's pronouncements of an idealistic national purpose. Right or wrong, they insisted that the country had been driven into the fight for selfish economic reasons. Bankers who had made large military loans to the Allies were charged with seeking to protect their investment. Industrialists whose factories already hummed filling foreign munitions contracts were accused of fostering U. S. participation to increase their own profits. After the Armistice this skepticism of U. S. war motives was increased...
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