December 1, 2008  How were civil liberties attacked & what social changes emerged out of war? – Attacks on Civil Liberties – Great Migration  Homework: Section 4 Notes and Section 3 Quiz

Attacks on Civil Liberties Increase  Wilson expressed fears about war hysteria  As soon as war was declared, attacks on civil liberties, both official and unofficial, erupted

Anti-Immigrant Hysteria  Main targets had emigrated from other nations  Most bitter attacks were against those of German decent  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 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

More Examples of Anti-German Sentiment  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