Chapter pages

Chapter 19-3

594 CHAPTER 19

Terms & NamesTerms & NamesMAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

One American’s Story

The War at Home

•War Industries
Board

•Bernard M.
Baruch

•propaganda

•George Creel
•Espionage and
Sedition Acts

•Great Migration

World War I spurred social,
political, and economic
change in the United States.

Such changes increased
government powers and
expanded economic
opportunities.

WHY IT MATTERS NOWWHY IT MATTERS NOW

The suffragist Harriot Stanton Blatch visited a munitions plant in New
Jersey during World War I and proudly described women at work.

A PERSONAL VOICE HARRIOT STANTON BLATCH
“ The day I visited the place, in one of the largest shops women had
only just been put on the work, but it was expected that in less than
a month they would be found handling all of the twelve hundred
machines under that one roof alone. The skill of the women staggers
one. After a week or two they master the operations on the ‘turret,’
gauging and routing machines. The best worker on the ‘facing’
machine is a woman. She is a piece worker, as many of the women
are. . . . This woman earned, the day I saw her, five dollars and forty
cents. She tossed about the fuse parts, and played with that
machine, as I would with a baby.”

—quoted in We, the American Women

Before World War I, women had been excluded from many jobs.
However, the wartime need for labor brought over a million more
women into the work force. For women, as for the rest of society,
World War I brought about far-reaching changes.

Congress Gives Power to Wilson
Winning the war was not a job for American soldiers alone. As Secretary of War
Newton Baker said, “War is no longer Samson with his shield and spear and
sword, and David with his sling. It is the conflict of smokestacks now, the com-
bat of the driving wheel and the engine.” Because World War I was such an
immense conflict, the entire economy had to be refocused on the war effort. The
shift from producing consumer goods to producing war supplies was too compli-
cated and important a job for private industry to handle on its own, so business
and government collaborated in the effort. In the process, the power of govern-
ment was greatly expanded. Congress gave President Wilson direct control over
much of the economy, including the power to fix prices and to
regulate—even to nationalize—certain war-related industries.

Harriot Stanton Blatch followed
in the footsteps of her famous
mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

▼

WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD The main regulatory body was the War
Industries Board (WIB). It was established in 1917 and reorganized in

1918

under the leadership of Bernard M. Baruch (bE-rLkP), a prosperous business-
man. The board encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques to
increase efficiency. It also urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing prod-
ucts—for instance, by making only 5 colors of typewriter ribbons instead of 150.
The WIB set production quotas and allocated raw materials.

Under the WIB, industrial production in the United States increased by about
20 percent. However, the WIB applied price controls only at the wholesale level.
As a result, retail prices soared, and in 1918 they were almost double what they
had been before the war. Corporate profits soared as well, especially in such indus-
tries as chemicals, meatpacking, oil, and steel.

The WIB was not the only federal agency to regulate the economy during the
war. The Railroad Administration controlled the railroads, and the Fuel
Administration monitored coal supplies and rationed gasoline and heating oil. In
addition, many people adopted “gasless Sundays” and “lightless nights” to con-
serve fuel. In March 1918, the Fuel Administration introduced another conserva-
tion measure: daylight-saving time, which had first been proposed by Benjamin
Franklin in the 1770s as a way to take advantage of the longer days of summer.

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,
for example—rose by about 20 percent. A household’s income, however, was largely
undercut by rising food prices and housing costs.

By contrast, stockholders in large corporations saw enormous profits. One indus-
trial manufacturer, the DuPont Company, saw its stock multiply in value 1,600 per-
cent between 1914 and 1918. By that time the company was earning a $68-million
yearly profit. As a result of the uneven pay between labor and management, increas-
ing work hours, child labor, and dangerously “sped-up” conditions, unions boomed.
Union membership climbed from about 2.5 million in 1916 to more than 4 million
in 1919. More than 6,000 strikes broke out during the war months.

To deal with disputes between management and labor, President Wilson estab-
lished the National War Labor Board in 1918. Workers who refused to obey board
decisions could lose their draft
exemptions. “Work or fight,” the
board told them. However, the
board also worked to improve fac-
tory conditions. It pushed for an
eight-hour workday, promoted
safety inspections, and enforced
the child labor ban.

FOOD ADMINISTRATION To
help produce and conserve food,
Wilson set up the Food Admin-
istration under Herbert Hoover.
Instead of rationing food, he
called on people to follow the
“gospel of the clean plate.” He
declared one day a week “meat-
less,” 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.

The First World War 595

Background
In 1913 Henry
Ford speeded up
factory production
with a constantly
moving assembly
line. Wartime
production spread
this technique
throughout the
country.

A

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

A

Making
Inferences

Why would
labor disputes
affect the
war effort?

Consumer Price Index*

*A measure of changes in the prices of goods and
services commonly bought by consumers; see Economics
Handbook, page R39.

1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919

1920

C
o
n
su

m
e
r

P
ri

c
e
I

n
d
e
x

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

Source: Historical Statistics
of the United States

Average Annual Income

1920

1919

1918

1917

1916

1915

1914 $627

$633

$708

$830

$1,047

$1,201

$1,407

The War Economy, 1914–1920The War Economy, 1914–1920

SKILLBUILDER Interpreting Graphs
1. How did the rise in average annual income compare with the

rise in prices from 1914 to 1920?
2. How might the combined change in wages and prices affect

a working family?

Homeowners planted “victory gardens” in their yards.
Schoolchildren spent their after-school hours growing tomatoes and
cucumbers in public parks. As a result of these and similar efforts,
American food shipments to the Allies tripled. Hoover also set a high
government price on wheat and other staples. Farmers responded by
putting an additional 40 million acres into production. In the
process, they increased their income by almost 30 percent.

Selling the War
Once the government had extended its control over the economy, it was faced
with two major tasks: raising money and convincing the public to support the war.

WAR FINANCING The United States spent about $35.5 billion on the war effort.
The government raised about one-third of this amount through taxes, including
a progressive income tax (which taxed high incomes at a higher rate than low
incomes), a war-profits tax, and higher excise taxes on tobacco, liquor, and luxury
goods. It raised the rest through public borrowing by selling “Liberty Loan” and
“Victory Loan” bonds.

The government sold bonds through tens of thousands of volunteers. Movie
stars spoke at rallies in factories, in schools, and on street corners. As Treasury
Secretary William G. McAdoo put it, only “a friend of Germany” would refuse to
buy war bonds.

COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION To popularize the war, the govern-
ment set up the nation’s first propaganda agency, the Committee on Public
Information (CPI). Propaganda is a kind of biased communication designed to
influence people’s thoughts and actions. The head of the CPI was a former muck-
raking journalist named George Creel.

Creel persuaded the nation’s artists and advertising agencies to create thou-
sands of paintings, posters, cartoons, and sculptures promoting the war. He
recruited some 75,000 men to serve as “Four-Minute Men,” who spoke about
everything relating to the war: the draft, rationing, bond drives, victory gardens,
and topics such as “Why We Are Fighting” and “The Meaning of America.”

Nor did Creel neglect the written word. He ordered a printing of almost
25 million copies of “How the War Came to America”—which included Wilson’s
war message—in English and other languages. He distributed some 75 million
pamphlets, booklets, and leaflets, many with the enthusiastic help of the Boy

596 CHAPTER 19

B

A Japanese-
American family
tends a victory
garden in New York
City in 1917.

A wartime poster encourages
Americans to conserve
resources.

▼

▼

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

B
Summarizing

How did the
government raise
money for the
war effort?

AnalyzingAnalyzing

Scouts. Creel’s propaganda campaign was highly effective. However, while the
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
Early in 1917, President Wilson expressed his fears about the consequences of
war hysteria.

A PERSONAL VOICE WOODROW WILSON
“ Once lead this people into war and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing
as tolerance. To fight you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless
brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the
courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street. Conformity would be the
only virtue, and every man who refused to conform would have to pay the penalty.”

—quoted in Cobb of “The World”

The president’s prediction came true. As soon as war was declared,
conformity indeed became the order of the day. Attacks on civil liberties, both
unofficial and official, erupted.

ANTI-IMMIGRANT HYSTERIA The main targets of these attacks were
Americans who had emigrated from other nations, especially those from
Germany and Austria-Hungary. The most bitter attacks were directed against the
nearly 2 million Americans who had been born in Germany, but other foreign-
born persons and Americans of German descent suffered as well.

Many Americans with German names lost their jobs. Orchestras refused to
play the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Some towns with
German names changed them. Schools stopped teaching the German language,
and librarians removed books by German authors from the shelves. People even
resorted to violence against German Americans, flogging them or smearing them

The First World War 597

C

THE ENEMY WITHIN
After the United States entered the war, government
propaganda helped inflame prejudice against recent
immigrants. In the suspicious atmosphere of the time,
conspiracy theories flourished, and foreign spies were
believed to be everywhere. This cartoon reveals the
hysteria that gripped the country in 1917.

SKILLBUILDER Analyzing Political Cartoons
1. What is happening in this cartoon?
2. What does the cartoonist suggest will happen

to “enemy aliens”?

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R24.

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

C

Developing
Historical
Perspective

What effect
did the war have
on the lives of
recent immigrants?

D

with tar and feathers. A mob in Collinsville, Illinois, wrapped a German flag
around a German-born miner named Robert Prager and lynched him. A jury
cleared the mob’s leader.

Finally, in a burst of anti-German fervor, Americans changed the name of
German measles to “liberty measles.” Hamburger—named after the German city
of Hamburg—became “Salisbury steak” or “liberty sandwich,” depending on
whether you were buying it in a store or eating it in a restaurant. Sauerkraut was
renamed “liberty cabbage,” and dachshunds turned into “liberty pups.”

ESPIONAGE AND SEDITION ACTS In June 1917 Congress passed the
Espionage Act, and in May 1918 it passed the Sedition Act. Under the Espionage
and Sedition Acts 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, pro-
fane, or abusive about the government or the war effort.

Like the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, these laws clearly violated the spir-
it of the First Amendment. Their passage led to over 2,000 prosecutions for
loosely defined antiwar activities; of these, over half resulted in convictions.
Newspapers and magazines that opposed the war or criticized any of the Allies
lost their mailing privileges. The House of Representatives refused to seat Victor
Berger, a socialist congressman from Wisconsin, because of his antiwar views.
Columbia University fired a distinguished psychologist because he opposed the
war. A colleague who supported the war thereupon resigned in protest, saying,
“If we have to suppress everything we don’t like to hear, this country is resting
on a pretty wobbly basis.”

The Espionage and Sedition Acts targeted socialists and labor leaders.
Eugene V. Debs was handed a ten-year prison sentence for speaking out
against the war and the draft. The anarchist Emma Goldman received a
two-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine for organizing the No
Conscription League. When she left jail, the authorities deported her to
Russia. “Big Bill” Haywood and other leaders of the Industrial Workers of
the World (IWW) were accused of sabotaging the war effort because they
urged workers to strike for better conditions and higher pay. Haywood
was sentenced to a long prison term. (He later skipped bail and fled to
Russia.) Under such federal pressure, the IWW faded away.

The War Encourages Social Change
Wars often unleash powerful social forces. The period of World War I was no
exception; important changes transformed the lives of African Americans
and women.

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE WAR Black public opinion about the war was
divided. On one side were people like W. E. B. Du Bois, who believed that blacks
should support the war effort.

A PERSONAL VOICE W. E. B. DU BOIS
“ That which the German power represents today spells
death to the aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for
equality, freedom and democracy. . . . Let us, while this war
lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks
shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow citizens
and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy.”

—“Close Ranks”

598 CHAPTER 19

Vocabulary
sedition: rebellion
against one’s
government;
treason

W. E. B. Du Bois

▼

This Industrial
Workers of the
World (IWW)
sticker encourages
workers to join
the union.

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

D

Analyzing
Effects

What impact
did the Espionage
and Sedition Acts
have on free
speech?

▼

F

However, racial prejudice against African Americans also
existed in the North. The press of new migrants to Northern
cities caused overcrowding and intensified racial tensions.

Nevertheless, between 1910 and 1930, hundreds of
thousands of African Americans migrated to such cities as
Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. Author Richard
Wright described the great exodus.

A PERSONAL VOICE RICHARD WRIGHT
“ We are bitter no more; we are leaving! We are leaving our
homes, pulling up stakes to move on. We look up at the
high southern sky and remember all the sunshine and all
the rain and we feel a sense of loss, but we are leaving.
We look out at the wide green fields which our eyes saw
when we first came into the world and we feel full of
regret, but we are leaving. We scan the kind black faces
we have looked upon since we first saw the light of day,
and, though pain is in our hearts, we are leaving. We take
one last furtive look over our shoulders to the Big House—
high upon a hill beyond the railroad tracks—where the Lord
of the Land lives, and we feel glad, for we are leaving.”

—quoted in 12 Million Black Voices

WOMEN IN THE WAR While African Americans began
new lives, women moved into jobs that had been held
exclusively by men. They became railroad workers, cooks,
dockworkers, and bricklayers. They mined coal and took

part in shipbuilding. At the same time, women continued to fill more traditional
jobs as nurses, clerks, and teachers. Many women worked as volunteers, serving at
Red Cross facilities and encouraging the sale of bonds and the planting of victory
gardens. Other women, such as Jane Addams, were active in the peace movement.
Addams helped found the Women’s Peace Party in 1915 and remained a pacifist
even after the United States entered the war.

President Wilson acknowledged, “The services of women during the
supreme crisis have been of the most signal usefulness and distinction; it is high
time that part of our debt should be acknowledged.” While acknowledgment of
that debt did not include equal pay for equal work, it did help bolster public
support for woman suffrage. In 1919, Congress finally passed the Nineteenth
Amendment, granting women the right to vote. In 1920 the amendment was
ratified by the states.

600

Women worked
in a variety of
jobs during the
war. Here, women
assemble an
aircraft wing.

SPOTLIGHTSPOTLIGHT
HISTORICALHISTORICAL

RACE RIOTS
Racial prejudice against African
Americans in the North some-
times took violent forms. In July
1917, a race riot exploded in East
St. Louis, Illinois. White workers,
furious over the hiring of African
Americans as strikebreakers at
a munitions plant, rampaged
through the streets. Forty blacks
and nine whites died.

Another riot erupted in July
1919 in Chicago when a 17-year-
old African American swam from
the water off a “black beach” to
the water off a “white beach.”
There, white bathers threw rocks
at him until he drowned.

African Americans retaliated,
and several riots broke out in the
city. Order was restored after sev-
eral days of violence that
involved about 10,000 people.

▼

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

F

Analyzing
Effects

What effect
did the war have
on women’s lives?

THE FLU EPIDEMIC In the fall of 1918, the United States suffered a home-
front crisis when an international flu epidemic affected about one-quarter of the
U.S. population. The effect of the epidemic on the economy was devastating.
Mines shut down, telephone service was cut in half, and factories and offices
staggered working hours to avoid contagion. Cities ran short of coffins, and the
corpses of poor people lay unburied for as long as a week. The mysterious illness
seemed to strike people who were otherwise in the best of health, and death
could come in a matter of days. Doctors did not know what to do, other than to
recommend cleanliness and quarantine. One epidemic survivor recalled that “so
many people died from the flu they just rang the bells; they didn’t dare take
[corpses] into the church.”

In the army, where living conditions allowed contagious illnesses to
spread rapidly, more than a quarter of the soldiers caught the disease.
In some AEF units, one-third of the troops died.

G

ermans fell victim in
even larger numbers than the Allies. Possibly spread around the
world by soldiers, the epidemic killed about 500,000 Americans
before it disappeared in 1919. Historians believe that the
influenza virus killed as many as 30 million people
worldwide.

World War I brought death and disease to
millions but, like the flu epidemic, the war also
came to a sudden end. After four years of
slaughter and destruction, the time had come
to forge a peace settlement. Americans hoped
that this “war to end all wars” would do just
that. Leaders of the victorious nations gath-
ered at Versailles outside Paris to work out the
terms of peace, and President Wilson traveled
to Europe to ensure it.

The First World War 601

•War Industries Board
•Bernard M. Baruch

•propaganda
•George Creel

•Espionage and
Sedition Acts

•Great Migration

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.

MAIN IDEA
2. TAKING NOTES

In a chart like the one shown, list
some of the changes that the war
brought about for each group.

Explain how each group benefited
from or was disadvantaged by
these changes.

CRITICAL THINKIN

G

3. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

How did the war affect government
power? Think About:

• how private business worked
with government

• how much control the president
gained over the economy

• the Espionage and Sedition Acts

4. MAKING INFERENCES
Why do you think the flu spread so
quickly among the troops?

5. EVALUATING
Do you think that the war had a
positive or a negative effect on
American society? Think About:

• how the propaganda campaign
influenced people’s behavior

• the new job opportunities for
African Americans and women

• how the government controlled
industr y

Changes Brought About
by the War

African Americans

Women

Immigrants

New York City
street cleaners
wore masks to
avoid catching
influenza.
▼

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

G

Making
Inferences

How did
wartime conditions
help spread
the flu?

G

SCHENCK v. UNITED STATES (1919)
ORIGINS OF THE CASE Charles Schenck, an official of the U.S. Socialist Party, distrib-
uted leaflets that called the draft a “deed against humanity” and compared conscription
to slavery, urging conscripts to “assert your rights.” Schenck was convicted of sedition and
sentenced to prison, but he argued that the conviction, punishment, and even the law
itself violated his right to free speech. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.

THE RULING A unanimous court upheld Schenck’s conviction, stating that under wartime
conditions, the words in the leaflets were not protected by the right to free speech.

LEGAL REASONING
The Supreme Court’s opinion in the Schenck case, written
by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., has become
famous as a guide for how the First Amendment defines
the right of free speech. Holmes wrote:

“ The question in every case is whether the words
used are used in such circumstances and are of
such a nature as to create a clear and present
danger that they will bring about the substantive
evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Justice Holmes noted that “in ordinary times” the
First Amendment might have protected Schenck, but
“[w]hen a nation is at war many things that might be
said in time of peace . . . will not be endured.”

The analogy that Holmes used to explain why
Schenck could be punished for his words has become
probably the best-known observation ever made about
free speech:

“ Protection of free speech
would not protect a man in
falsely shouting ‘Fire!’ in a
theatre and causing a panic.”

Writing for the Court, Holmes
implied that during wartime,
Schenck’s leaflet was just that
dangerous.

DEBS v. UNITED STATES
(MARCH, 1919)

The conviction against Eugene Debs for speaking
against the war and the draft is upheld.

FROHWERK v. UNITED STATES
(MARCH, 1919)

The publisher of a newspaper that had criticized the
war is sentenced with a fine and ten years in prison.

ABRAMS v. UNITED STATES
(NOV., 1919)

Leaflets criticizing the U.S. expeditionar y force in
Russia are found to be unprotected by the First
Amendment. Holmes writes a dissenting opinion

calling for the “free trade of ideas.”

RELATED CASES

U.S. CONSTITUTION, FIRST AMENDMENT (1791)
“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the free-
dom of speech, or of the press.”

THE SEDITION ACT (1918)
“(W)hoever . . . shall willfully utter, print, write or
publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive
language about the form of government, . . .
Constitution, . . . military or naval forces, . . . flag, . . .
or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United
States . . . shall be punished by a fine of not more
than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than
twenty years, or both.”

LEGISLATION

LEGAL SOURCES

602 CHAPTER 19

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
Supreme Court Justice
1902–1932 ▼

WHY IT MATTERED
During the course of World War I, the federal govern-
ment brought approximately 2,000 prosecutions for
violations of the Espionage Act of 1917 or the Sedition
Act of 1918, the same laws under which it convicted
Schenck, Debs, and Frohwerk.

By the fall of 1919, however, Holmes had changed
his mind. The case of Abrams v. United States concerned
leaflets that criticized President Wilson’s “capitalistic”
government for sending troops to put down the
Russian Revolution. Justice Holmes, joined by Justice
Louis Brandeis, dissented from the majority of the
Court, which upheld the conviction. In his dissent,
Holmes emphasized the importance of a free exchange
of ideas so that truth will win out in the intellectual
marketplace. His reasoning won him acclaim as a pro-
tector of free speech.

The belief that truth will eventually win out in the
marketplace of ideas has become important legal justi-
fication for promoting freedom of speech.

HISTORICAL IMPACT
Disagreements about what kinds of speech are “free”
under the First Amendment continue. During the 1950s,
when people were jailed for supporting Communism,
and during the Vietnam War, when war protestors sup-
ported draft resistance, these issues again reached the
Supreme Court.

The Court has also been asked to decide if young
people in schools have the same First Amendment
rights as adults. In Tinker v. Des Moines School District
(1969), the Court ordered a school to readmit students
who had been suspended for wearing black arm bands
in protest of the war in Vietnam.

This so-called symbolic speech, such as wearing an
armband or burning a draft card or a flag to express an
opinion, has sparked heated debate. In Texas v. Johnson
(1989), the Court, by a narrow five to four vote, inval-
idated a law under which a man who burned an
American flag to protest Reagan administration poli-
cies had been convicted. The decision so outraged

some people that members of
Congress considered amending
the Constitution to prohibit any
“physical desecration” of the flag.
The amendment did not pass. Our
freedoms of expression continue
to depend upon the words in the
first article of the Bill of Rights,
written more than 200 years ago.

The First World War 603

THINKING CRITICALLYTHINKING CRITICALLY

CONNECT TO HISTORY
1. Analyzing Primary Sources Read Justice Holmes’s

dissent in Abrams v. United States. Compare it with the
opinion he wrote in Schenck v. United States. Explain the
major difference or similarity in the two opinions.

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R22.

CONNECT TO TODAY
2.

Visit the links for Historic Decisions of the Supreme
Court to research articles about free speech issues.
Select several of these issues—such as whether hate
groups have a right to march—to discuss with other
students in your class. Choose one issue and, as a
group, write down as many arguments as you can on both
sides of the issue. Then present a debate to the class.

IINTERNET ACTIVITY CLASSZONE.COM

In 1965 Mary
Beth Tinker and
her brother,
John, were
suspended from
school for
wearing
armbands that
symbolically
criticized the
Vietnam War.

▼

Eugene Debs was arrested for antiwar speeches like the one he
gave at this 1916 presidential campaign stop.

▼