"The War to End War"

"The War to End War". - President Woodrow Wilson. , U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had lofty goals for World War I, including his hope that the war would create a set of conditions that made future wars impossible. Along with his plea that the war should be fought "to make the world safe for democracy,” the quote above is probably Wilson's most famous statement during America's involvement in the war. Ironically, though, Wilson did not use the most famous phrase first, and he only said it once. The first man to use it was H.G. Wells, the English author, most famous for his science fiction work such as The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds. An outspoken critic of the Germans, Wells began writing a series of articles in 1914, arguing that the defeat of Germany would put an end to all war. The articles were later published in a book called The War That Will End War.

Wilson's prediction, based on Wells's phrase, clearly turned out to be wrong. As a result, people eventually began to use the phrase to mock Wilson's idealism and anyone who believed in the concept that war could ever prevent war. Even future presidents like Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Richard M. Nixon publicly criticized the premise. Wilson's idealism had galvanized and united the nation so well behind the war effort during World War I. However, after the war, because those lofty goals and ideals had not been met, a new atmosphere of skepticism and disillusionment emerged among the American people. In many ways, those uneasy feelings remain to this day.