Chapter 24:
The Nation at War, 1900-1920 #4
Over Here
• victory at the front
depended on economic
and emotional
mobilization at home
• Wilson – moved quickly
in 1917 and 1918 to
organize war
production and
distribution
• also recognized the
need to enlist American
emotions
– the war for people’s
minds, the “conquest of
their convictions” was
as vital as events on the
battlefield
• “I hate war, because war is
murder, desolation and
destruction. If one-tenth of
what has been spent on
preparedness for war had
been spent on the prevention
of war the world would
always have been at peace.”
– Henry Ford: August 12, 1915
• Ford vowed that he would
burn down his factories
before allowing them to
make goods for the war in
Europe
– two years later, Ford was
building tanks, tractors, and
anti-submarine ships for the
war effort
• The Conquest of Convictions
– to enforce loyalty, the government challenged
media influences that threatened the war effort
• Committee on Public Information
– created to rally popular support for the war
– recruited thousands of people in the arts, advertising, and
film industries to publicize the war
– news and information came under federal control
» system of voluntary censorship of the press, plastered
walls with colorful posters, and issued more than 75
million pamphlets
• 75,000 “four-minute
men” – gave quick
speeches at public
gatherings and places
of entertainment on
“Why We Are Fighting”
and “The Meaning of
America”
– Germans were to be
depicted as bloodthirsty Huns bent on
world conquest
• CPI Films like – The
Prussian Cur and The
Kaiser, the Beast of
Berlin
• CPI also created a
Division of Industrial
Relations – to rally
labor to the war
• “Hate the Hun!”
– helped along by the propaganda
campaign, anti-German
sentiment and general hostility
toward Germans spread rapidly
• “liberty cabbage” – sauerkraut
• “liberty measles” – instead of
German measles
• Salisbury steak – instead of
hamburger
• “police dogs” – instead of German
shepherd
• orchestral works by German
composers were no longer played
– many schools stopped offering
instruction in the German
language
– German Americans and antiwar
figures were badgered, beaten,
and in some cases killed
• Fear of Foreigners
Mata Hari
– fear of espionage
(spying)
• believed there were
plans for turning
Americans against the
Allies and disrupting
the American
economy
A homing pigeon
outfitted for World
War I espionage.
– National Security
League – preached
“100 Percent
Americanism” and
pushed for literacy
tests for immigrants
• Repression of Civil Liberties
– Espionage Act of 1917 – made
it illegal to interfere with the
draft
• imposed sentences of up to
twenty years in prison for
persons found guilty of aiding
the enemy, obstructing
recruitment of soldiers, or
encouraging disloyalty
– allowed the postmaster general to
remove from the mail materials
that incited treason or insurrection
– Trading-with-the-Enemy Act
of 1917 – authorized the
government to censor the
foreign language press
• Sedition Act (sedition –
any speech or action that
encourages rebellion)
• made it illegal to obstruct the
sale of Liberty Bonds or
discuss anything “disloyal,
profane, scurrilous, or
abusive” about the American
form of government, flag, the
Constitution, or the army and
navy
–
actually violated the First
Amendment
• sedition laws clearly
went beyond any clear or
present danger
– government wanted to
promote unity – by force,
if necessary – to convince
Germany that the nation
was united behind the
war
• conservatives tried to stamp out American
socialists
– harried the Socialist party and the Wobblies
• Industrial Workers of the World – would win new
supporters from western miners, migrant farm
workers, and unskilled laborers
– goal of overthrowing capitalism and tried to interfere with
copper mining during the war
• Wilson’s postmaster
general banned from the
mail more than a dozen
socialist publications,
including the Appeal to
Reason (a weekly socialist
newsletter)
• Eugene V. Debs – would
be convicted for violation
of the Espionage Act and
spent the war in a
penitentiary in Atlanta
– would be nominated for
president in 1920 and as
prisoner 9563 won nearly a
million votes
• war also gave rise to the
great “Red Scare” that
began in 1919
– Americans feared
Lenin’s anti-capitalist
program and were
against his decision in
early 1918 to make
peace with Germany,
because it freed German
troops to fight in France
• Wilson would help in
some anti-Bolshevik
activities
– he and others hoped to
bring down the
fledgling Bolshevik
government
• were afraid that it would
spread revolution around
the world
• Wilson – after sending
troops to the Soviet
Union would also join in
an economic blockade of
Russia, send weapons to
anti-Bolshevik insurgents,
and refuse to recognize
Lenin’s government
– blocked Russian
participation in the peace
conference that ended the
war
• American willingness to
interfere soured RussianAmerican relations for
decades to come
• A Bureaucratic
War
– Wilson and
Congress set up
an array of new
federal agencies
– agencies drew on
funds and
powers of a then
unknown scope
• Financing the War
• to raise money the
administration sold
Liberty Bonds – special
war bonds to support
the Allied cause
– could later be redeemed
for the original value of
the bonds plus interest
• sold about $23 billion
– “Every Scout to Save a
Soldier”
• Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
set up booths on street
corners and sold bonds
What country represented the ‘Menace of
the Seas’?
What was their weapon of choice?
• also used the new 16th
Amendment to raise
taxes on corporations
and personal incomes
– taxes would bring in
about $10 billion more
to help pay for the war
• ways that civilians
could support
Americans at the front
and demonstrate their
patriotism
Managing the Economy
• government called on industry to switch from
producing commercial goods to war goods
• Wilson created new agencies to manage the
change
• Wilson moved to create a series of highly
centralized planning boards, each with broad
authority over a specific area of the economy
– were boards to control virtually every aspect of
transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing
– would coordinate the war effort to some degree
• New Agencies
– War Industries Board
• oversaw the nation’s warrelated production in all
American factories
• was led by Bernard M.
Baruch
• determined priorities,
allocated raw materials, and
fixed prices
• told manufacturers what
they could and could not
make
– War Trade Board
• oversaw foreign trade by
licensing trade and
punished firms suspected of
dealing with the enemy
• Regulating Food and
Fuel Consumption
– Lever Food and Fuel
Control Act – gave
the President power
to manage the
production and
distribution of foods
and fuels vital to the
war effort
– Herbert Hoover –
head of the Food
Administration to
supply food to the
armies overseas
• promoted the “spirit of
self-sacrifice” – convinced
people to save food by
observing “meatless” and
“wheatless” days
• fixed prices to boost
production, bought, and
distributed wheat, and
encouraged people to plant
“victory gardens” behind
homes, churches, and
schools
• price controls – system of
pricing determined by the
government, on the sale of food
• sent campaigners to get
housewives to sign cards
pledging their
cooperation
– rationing – distributing
goods to consumers in
fixed amounts
• voluntary restraint and
increased efficiency
• women played a key role
in the Gospel of the Clean
Plate
– “Stop, before throwing any
food away, and ask ‘Can it
be used?’ … Stop catering
to different appetites. No
second helpings. Stop all
eating between meals …
One meatless day a week.
One wheatless meal a day.
… No butter in cooking: use
substitutes.”
» Herbert Hoover
– Fuel Administration – sponsored gasless days
(when motorists could not drive) to save fuel,
created daylight saving time, rationed coal and
oil
• daylight saving time – turning clocks ahead one
hour for the summer
– increased working daylight hours
– reduced the need for artificial light
– lowered fuel consumption
• shut down nonessential factories one
day a week to save
coal
• Railroad
Administration –
dictated rail traffic
over nearly 400,000
square miles of track
– standardizing rates,
limiting passenger
travel, and speeding
arms shipments
• War Shipping Board –
coordinated shipping
• Emergency Fleet
Corporation –
supervised
shipbuilding
• government was intervening in American life
like they never had before
• those who gave their service for a token
salary, were called “dollar-a-year” men and
women
– businessmen were paid a nominal dollar a year
• flocked to Washington to run the new agencies
• partnership between government and
business grew closer
• Labor in the War
– war also brought organized
labor into partnership with
the government
– Samuel Gompers – served
on the Council of National
Defense – an advisory
group formed to unify
business, labor, and
government
• Gompers a leading labor
leader had promised that
unions would work with the
war effort
• formed a War Committee on
Labor to enlist workers’
support for the war
• hoping to encourage
production and avoid
strikes, Wilson adopted
many of the objectives of the
social-justice reformers
– supported an 8-hour day in
war-related industries
– improved wages and
working conditions
• National War Labor Board
(WLB) - worked to settle any
labor disputes that might
disrupt the war effort
– protected the right of labor
to organize and bargain
collectively
– did not forbid strikes, it
used various tactics to
discourage them
• War Labor Policies Board set standards for wages,
hours, and working
conditions in the war
industries
• WLB also ordered
that women be
paid equal wages
for equal work
• after the draft,
there was a labor
shortage, filled by
women, African
Americans, and
Mexican
Americans
• as wages increased, so did expectations
– some became more militant, and conflict grew
between women and male coworkers
• a Women’s Bureau was established in the
Department of Labor – but government
influence varied
• corporations found a major source of labor
in southern blacks
– northern labor agents traveled across the
South – promising jobs, high wages, and free
transportation
• the movement northward became a flood
• men found jobs in factories, railroad yards,
steel mills, packinghouses, and coal mines
• black women worked in textile factories,
department stores, and restaurants
– found greater racial freedom but also different
living conditions
• blacks were also more
and more inclined to
fight back
– returning home, they
expected better
treatment
• “Lift Ev’ry Voice and
Sing” – became the
“Negro National
Anthem”
• W.E.B. DuBois – spoke
of a “New Negro,”
proud and more
militant
• in the Southwest, eager for cheap labor –
farmers and ranchers persuaded the
federal government to relax immigration
restrictions
– more than 100,000 Mexicans migrated and
created urban barrios similar to the
Chinatowns and Little Italy’s around them
• business profits grew,
factories expanded, and
industries turned out
huge amounts of war
goods
• government authority
swelled and people began
to expect different things
from their government
• US – emerged from the
war the strongest
economic power in the
world
– 1914 – it was a debtor
nation
– 1919 – had became a
creditor nation
• war marked a shift in
economic power rarely
equaled in history
Changing People’s Lives
• American patriotism and war fever made military
styles and activities more acceptable at home
– military drill was put in place at many schools and
universities
– children joined scouting programs that featured
military-style uniforms, marching, and patriotic
exercises
• Social Mobility for
Minorities and Women
– war virtually stopped the
flow of immigrants
– armed forces had taken
many young men out of
the labor pool
– Great Migration – African
Americans moving out of
the South
– created new opportunities
for women
• Women’s Land Army
– 400,000 women joined the
industrial workforce