November 20, 2007  How did the U.S. promote war and attack civil liberties? What social changes were made? – Quiz on Section 2 – War Organizations and Selling the War  Homework: “In Another Country” & “Returning Soldiers”

Congress Gives Power to Wilson  Winning war was not a job for American soldiers alone

 Secretary of War: Newton Baker  The entire country had to refocus on the war effort.

 Shift from consumer goods to producing war supplies too complicated private industry to handle – so business and government collaborated in the effort.

 Government power greatly expanded  Congress gave Wilson direct control over the economy – the power to fix prices – to regulate (even to nationalize) certain war-related industries

War Industries Board (WIB)  Established 1917 and reorganized 1918 under Bernard M. Baruch (prosperous businessman)

What Baruch and WIB did:  Encouraged mass-production techniques to increase efficiency  Urged elimination of waste by standardizing products – by making only 5 colors of typewriter ribbons instead of 150

 The WIB – industrial production in the U.S. increased by about 20%  WIB applied price controls only at the wholesale level

 Retail prices soared – in 1918 they were almost double what they had been before the war  Corporate profits soared – especially in such industries as chemicals, meatpacking, oil, and steel

Other Federal Agencies  The Railroad Administration controlled the railroads

 The Fuel Administration monitored coal supplies and rationed gasoline and heating oil  “Gasless Sundays” and “Lightless nights” to conserve fuel

 March the Fuel Administration introduced another conservation measure: daylight saving time – first proposed by Ben Franklin in 1770’s as way to take advantage of longer days

Do We Need Daylight Savings Today?

War Economy  wages in most industries rose during the war years  hourly wages for blue-collar workers (those in the metal trades, shipbuilding, and meatpacking) rose by 20%

 Household’s income undercut by rising food prices and housing costs  Large corporations saw huge profits  DuPont Company saw its stock multiply in value 1,600 percent between 1914 and 1918  The company was earning a $68 million yearly profit

 Uneven pay between labor and management caused: – increasing work hours – child labor – dangerously “sped-up” conditions

Unions Boomed  Union membership climbed from about 2.5 million in 1916 to ore than 4 million in 1919  More than 6,000 strikes broke out during the war months.

 To deal with disputes between management & labor, President Wilson established the National War Labor Board

 Workers who refused to obey board decisions could lose their draft exemptions  “Work or Fight”

Food Administration  Wilson set up the Food Administration under Herbert Hoover

 Instead of rationing food, he called on people to follow the “gospel of the clean plate”

 Declared one day a week “meatless,” another “sweetless,” two days “wheatless,” and two other days “porkless”  Restaurants removed sugar bowls from the table and served bread only after the first course

 Homeowners planted “victory gardens” in their yards

 Schoolchildren spent their after- school hours growing tomatoes and cucumbers in public parks  As a result, American food shipments to the Allies tripled

 Hoover also set up high government price on wheat and other staples  Farmers responded by putting an additional 40 million acres into production  They increased their income by almost 30%

Selling the War  War Financing and the Committee on Public Information

War Financing  $35.5 billion on the war effort  Raised 1/3 of amount through taxes – progressive income tax (tax high incomes higher rates than low incomes) – war-profits tax – higher excise taxes on tobacco, liquor, and luxury goods

 Raised the rest through tens of thousands of volunteers – Movie stars spoke at rallies in factories, in schools, and on street corners – Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo: “a friend of Germany” would refuse to buy war bonds

Committee on Public Information  Popularized the war by setting up the first propaganda agency: the Committee on Public Information (CPI) – Propaganda - biased form of communication designed to influence people’s thoughts and actions

 Head of the CPI was a former muckraking journalist named George Creel

 Creel persuaded nation’s artists & advertising agencies to create paintings, posters, cartoons, & sculptures promoting the war

– recruited 75,000 men to serve as “four-minute men” who spoke about everything relating to the war: the draft rationing bond drives victory gardens “why we are fighting” or “the meaning of America”

– ordered a printing of almost 25 million copies of “how the war came to America”

– distributed some 75 million pamphlets, booklets, and leaflets, many with the enthusiastic help of the Boy Scouts

 His propaganda campaign promoted patriotism; it also inflamed hatred and violations of the civil liberties of certain ethnic groups and opponents of the war.

Attacks on Civil Liberties Increase  Wilson expressed fears about war hysteria  As soon as war was declared, conformity indeed became the order of the day  Attacks on civil liberties, both official and unofficial, erupted

Anti-Immigrant Hysteria  Main targets of this Americans who had emigrated from other nations  Most bitter attacks were against those born in Germany, but those who were of German descent also suffered  Many with German names lost their jobs

 Orchestras refused to play music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms

 Some towns renamed themselves (if they had German names)  Schools stopped teaching the German language  Librarians removed books by German authors from the shelves

 People even resorted to violence (flogging, smearing with tar, and feathers)  A German was lynched while wrapped in his flag and the mob was cleared by a jury

 German measles to “liberty measles”  Hamburger named after the German city Hamburg became “Salisbury steak” or “liberty sandwich”  Sauerkraut was renamed “liberty cabbage”  Dachshunds named “liberty pups

Espionage and Sedition Acts  June 1917 – passed the Espionage Act  May 1918 – passed the Sedition Act  A person could be fined up to $10,000 and sentenced to 20 years in jail for interfering with the war effort or for saying anything disloyal, profane, or abusive about the government or the war effort

 Laws violated the 1 st Amendment  Led to over 2,000 persecutions for loosely defined antiwar activities (over half resulted in convictions)  Newspapers & magazines that opposed the war or criticized any of the Allies lost their mailing privileges

 House of Representatives refused to seat Victor Berger (socialist congressman from Wisconsin) b/c of his antiwar views

 The Acts targeted socialist and labor leaders  Eugene V. Debs was handed a 10- year prison sentence for speaking out against the war and the draft

Eugene V. Debs

 Anarchist Emma Goldman received 2-year prison sentence & $10,000 fine for organizing the No Conscription League  When she left jail, the authorities deported her to Russian

Emma Goldman

 “Big Bill” Haywood & other leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) accused of sabotaging war effort b/c they urged workers to strike for better conditions & higher pay

 He was sentenced prison term, later skipped bail, and fled to Russia  under federal pressure, the IWW faded away

The War Encourages Social Change  African Americans and the War  The Great Migration  Women in the War  The Flu Epidemic

African Americans and the War  Black public opinion of war was divided  WEB DuBois – should support war effort b/c it would strengthen calls for racial justice

 William Trotter – victims of racism shouldn’t support racist government  Favored protest & condemned accommodation approach

 Despite the grievances over racial inequality, most African Americans backed the war.

The Great Migration  Greatest effect of WWI on African Americans’ lives was that it accelerated the Great Migration  The large-scale movement of hundreds of thousands of Southern blacks to the cities in the North

 Began before the war when African Americans trickled northward to escape the Jim Crow South – but after the turn of the century, the trickle became a tidal wave.

 Several factors contributed to the increase of black migration – Escape racial discrimination in the South – Boll weevil infestation, floods and droughts ruined much of the South’s cotton fields – More job opportunities (Henry opened his assembly line to black workers)

– WWI & drop in European immigration led to more jobs in steel mills, munitions plants, & stockyards – Recruiting agents sent to distribute free railroad passes – Black owned newspaper bombarded Southern blacks with articles contrasting Dixieland lynchings with the prosperity of African Americans in the North

Same Old Problems  Racial prejudice existed in the North  The press of new migrants to Northern cities caused overcrowding and intensified racial tensions  Between 1910 and 1930, hundreds or thousands of African Americans migrated to such cities as NY, Chicago, and Philadelphia

Women in the War  Women moved into jobs that had been held exclusively by men  Railroad workers, cooks, dockworkers, and bricklayers  Mined coal and took part in shipbuilding

 Filled traditional jobs  Worked as volunteers  Encouraged sale of bonds and the planting of victory gardens

 Active in the peace movement – Jane Addams who founded the Women’s Peace Party in 1915 (she remained a pacifist even after the U.S. entered the war)

 Wilson acknowledge the services of women during the war but did not find that they were owed equal pay to man  War helped bolster support for women’s suffrage  In 1919, Congress finally passed the 19th amendment

The Flu Epidemic  Fall of 1918, the U.S. suffered a home front crisis when an international flu epidemic affected about one-quarter of the population

The effect of the epidemic on the economy was devastating – Mines shut down – telephone service was cut in half – factories and offices staggered working hours to avoid contagion – Cities ran short of coffins – the corpses of poor lay unburied for as long as a week

 Hit the healthy & death could come in a matter of days  Doctors didn’t know what to do – cleanliness and quarantine

 More than a quarter of the troops caught the disease  In some AEF units, one-third died  Germans fell victim in even larger numbers

 Possibly spread around the world by soldiers, the epidemic killed about 500,000 Americans before it disappeared in 1919  Historians believed that the virus killed as many as 30 million people worldwide  Epidemic like the war ended suddenly