I'm always fascinated by pictures of people taken just before a war. The top photo is dated 1914, and the second two are dated 1915, and in those years many, perhaps even most, Americans viewed the war in Europe as being an imperial struggle, a battle for power and colonies. (For the record, I agree.) President Woodrow Wilson promised to keep us out of war, but between the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and the Zimmerman telegram of 1917, that promise wouldn't be kept. In 1917, the United States declared war on the central powers. The man in the picture looks like he was in the right age range for service. Who knows if he survived. But in 1914 and perhaps even in 1915, he was probably blind to the future.
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