http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/1288962488165750.jpg (p. 1)

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/1288962496681375.jpg (p. 2)

I found my article in Vol. 11, No. 5 of The Crisis, which was published in March 1916.  The author of "Preparedness" is by no means shy about his opinion on President Wilson's foreign policy during the war.  The Crisis repeatedly surprises me with the extreme positions it managed to take on every issue, apparently without too much consequence judging by its continued existence.  The argument, however, is a sound one that is relevant even today: how can we be so caught up in foreign policy and foreign wars when we can't even solve problems on the home front?  The article complains about Wilson's apparent lack of concern about the problem of lynching in the States with a stinging implication that he is not living up to his responsibility as an educated man, let alone as a president. By quoting a letter sent to college men, appealing to their "sufficient legal intelligence and machinery" which ought to be enough to end unrest at home, he suggests that the president, who ought to be one of the very best minds, is failing at his duties.

Not only this, but Wilson is even portrayed in what could arguably seen as a childish light—he is depicted as a warmongering youth demanding more ships, rather than as a competent politician with his peoples' best interests at heart.  There is something distinctly puerile about the image, and the freedom of the magazine to portray the country's leader in such a light contrasts starkly with other works I have been reading in the London 1713 class, which deals with a society in which defaming a monarch was tantamount to treason.  Considering that wartimes traditionally tend to produce hair triggers on implications of treason, it's really quite remarkable that the editors of The Crisis, lacking even the social protection of whiteness in a topic pertaining to race, would have felt safe enough to raise such a controversial image of the president in the middle of World War I.