Shall It Be Again?


While we now view America’s entry into World War I as a necessary step to save Europe from German domination, it was actually one of the most controversial decisions in U.S. history. At the time, the nation was deeply divided, with huge portions of the population bitterly opposed to joining the fight.

In Shall It Be Again?, written just four years after the war ended, John Kenneth Turner contends that President Woodrow Wilson led an unwilling nation into conflict under false pretenses. Turner systematically dismantles the official justifications for the war, labeling them as either hollow or fraudulent. He exposes how Americans were herded into the conflict through government deceit and the harsh suppression of free speech.

By reviewing the methods that President Wilson and his allies throughout society and the business sector used to silence dissent and coerce public cooperation in the war effort, Turner provides a striking look at the origins of modern federal power. - Summary by Ted Lienhart

Chapters

I The Author Explains 9:00
II Did the American People Want War? 14:59
III Was America Ever in Danger? 14:19
Democracy and Getting into War - IV The Responsibility of One Man 11:32
V Presidential Usurpations to Achieve Belligerency 12:58
VI Our Stealthy Approach to War 13:42
VII The 1916 Election 15:20
Democracy and the Conduct of War - VIII Executive Duplicity in Imposing the War Policies 14:27
IX "Democratic" Czarism in War-Time 20:55
X The War Terror 34:11
Our War "Causes" - XI Motives Claimed for Belligerency 11:18
XII Protection of American Commerce 21:18
XIII Preservation of American Lives 14:21
XIV War for International Law 7:22
XV International Law — Our Reversals on the Law in 1915 and 1916 12:56
XVI International Law — British and German Violations Compared 26:34
XVII International Law — America's Offenses as Belligerent 22:36
XVIII Other "Intolerable Wrongs" 23:40
Our "Objectives" - XIX War for Democracy 6:19
XX Peace Without Victory Versus Peace From Victory 23:01
XXI The German World Peril Bugaboo 34:03
XXII Our Myth of the War's Beginning 32:45
XXIII The Noble Democracies — Scraps of Paper Atrocities 32:44
XXIV The Noble Democracies and Small Nations 18:22
XXV What Really Started It 27:34
XXVI Promise and Performance 38:39
Our War and Business - XXVII Patriotism of the Profit-Makers 31:58
XXVIII The Profits of Patriotism 27:29
XXIX Profit-Seeker and Profit-Server 52:49
XXX Secret of the War Profits 15:54
XXXI Wilson Imperialism 23:22
XXXII Mexico 25:54
XXXIII Virgin Islands, Haiti, Santo Domingo and Nicaragua 38:50
XXXIV Strictly Business 18:31
XXXV "The Enemy at Home" 33:40
XXXVI Proof of the Pudding 37:34
XXXVII "Reconstruction" 25:42