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Back home the armistice was celebrated with parades and prayers. In Germany, revolutionaries took power and in eastern Europe revolutions broke out. From Flanders to the Sea of Japan, not a single government remained intact. In the United States, Americans experienced the first outbreak of a "Red Scare," a conviction that communist-inspired revolution was imminent in the United States. Wilson in Paris: Woodrow Wilson was exhausted when the war in Europe ended and perhaps his exhaustion caused him to misplay his role in the victory. He tried to turn the victory to political advantage by encouraging American voters to vote Republican Congressmen out of office. Secondly he went to Paris to lead the American peace delegation. The delegation was composed solely of Democrats even though Republican-controlled Senate would have to ratify any treaty. Perhaps President Wilson believed his popularity with American voters and French and English citizens would help him in the peace talks. But neither Wilson's idealism or popularity could battle the victors' greed and self-interest and their desire to make Germany pay for causing the war. Wilson saw his Fourteen Points dismantled and disregarded as the victorious nations expanded their imperial empires. This disheartened, exhausted president returned home with a treaty that resembled those of the past that had brought more bloodshed. The Senate Rejects the League: The Republican-controlled Senate received the Treaty of Versailles with closed arms. They had had no hand in drafting the treaty or battling to preserve its integrity and they were unwilling to embrace it on the president's word. Wilson argued that the League of Nations would prevent future conflict; the Senate believed otherwise and went on record opposing it. Wilson believed the Senate would eventually come around to his side and to hasten and encourage that day he hit the campaign trail hoping to garner public support for the treaty. A debilitating stroke silenced Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive president was powerless to lead the Senate were it refused to go. One year and eight days following the armistice, the United States Senate voted to refuse ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. Red Scare: The horrors of World War I, the revolution in Russia, and post-war political unrest in Europe caused Americans to be scared about the causes of social and political changes occurring at home. Many were convinced that revolution was sweeping the nation and their concerns swept others. Soon the nation was in the grip of full-blown paranoia. They saw the American way of life threatened from those outside-and inside-the nation. Immigrants, unionized workers were lumped together with socialists, anarchists, communists, and labor unionists. They were all dangerous. The "Red Scare" had begun and it was in that atmosphere that Americans dealt with labor strikes, lunatic bombings, and simple robberies. Democratic freedoms, which had seemed so important as to be worth dieing for in Europe, had taken leave of the United States. The Progressive idealism was replaced with rhetoric about stamping out communist revolution in the United States. Think About This
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