On The Edge, p. 86-103

On The Edge, 86-103

Neutrality & The European Crisis

• a. 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Hapsburg prince was assassinated by Slavic nationalists
• b. the Allies: Britain, France, Russia
• c. the Central Powers: Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire
• d. Wilson proclaimed a policy of neutrality
• e. 1890s, US foreign policy leaders saw Germany, not Britain as the greatest potential threat to national security because of commercial competition in Latin America & Asia
• f. the US & Britain were linked with strong cultural ties, the Anglo-Protestant officials of the State departments got along
• g. Wilson admired the British people & their institutions
• h. the Japanese had thwarted US efforts to invest private capital in major railroad projects in China & Manchuria
• i. US financiers offered huge loans to Britain & France
• j. 1917, 2.5B in loans to Britain & France
• k. Republican leaders warned Wilson to develop the US military
• l. US would need to provide leadership in forging a peace settlement based on international cooperation & free trade
• m. Britain & Germany tried to impose blockades on one another
• n. Washington did not challenge the British blockade of the North Sea, curbing neutral trade with Germany
• o. the British blockade, conventional naval warfare, few civilian casualties
• p. Germans used U-boats/submarines, weapon of stealth, great loss of US property, numerous civilian casualties
• q. Britain controlled the only transatlantic cable, the Allies determined war news to USA
• s. Germany was portrayed as an “outlaw nation,”, Germans were depicted as “Huns,” savages who severed the hands of Belgian babies & raped women
• t. Wilson believed merchants had the right to profit in war zones
• u. the Lusitania, a British passenger liner was sunk by a German submarine
• v. Sec. of State Bryan resigned from office,
• w. the McLemore Resolution, warned US citizens not to travel to Europe
• y. Wilson would not limit the rights of neutral nations
• z. 1915, Germans promised not to attack passenger ships but attacked armed British merchant vessels
• 1. a submarine sent a torpedo into the Sussex, an unarmed French passenger ship

The Coming of War, p. 90

• a. Wilson mobilized the armed forces
• b. 1903, state militias were placed under federal control
• c. 1916, the ROTC Reserve Of Officer’s Training Corps were placed on the nation’s college campuses
• d. the Revenue Act of 1916, major income & inheritance tax was imposed
• e. 1916, most US citizens wanted to remain at peace
• f. Jane Addams, against intervention, didn’t want to divert funds from domestic reform
• g. the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace successfully urged Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson to sign arbitration treaties with the major powers, agreements with all except Germany
• h. midwestern & western farmers & business interests: preached nonintervention
• i. the Nonpartisan League, 220,000 members
• j. Wilson sent Col. Edward House to negotiate between the two sides
• k. 1915, neither side would negotiate a peace
• l. 1916, Wilson invited the countries to negotiate a peace
• m. Germany wanted Lithuania, Poland, Belgium, and the Belgian Congo
• n. the Allies wanted Germany to withdraw from Belgium, to return Alsace-Lorraine to France & substantial monetary compensation
• o. Wilson wanted freedom of the seas, military disarmament, and international cooperation
• p. Germans decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare
• q. Wilson severed diplomatic relations with Germany
• r. the Armed Ship bill, authorized the arming of merchant ships
• s. released the Zimmerman note, a secret German message intercepted by the British
• t. Mexico was encouraged to attack north of the border if the US entered the war
• u. Germany offered to help Mexico recover Texas, New Mexico & Arizona
• v. March 1917, the czar was overthrown in Russia, a constitutional government was installed
• w. April, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war, 3 more US merchant ships had been sunk
• y. antimilitarists in the South + noninterventionists in the West opposed the war
• z. La Follette believed the war would only benefit bankers & arms manufacturers

The Doughboys & Military Victory

• a. frustrating stalemate, enormous casualties
• b. Russia couldn’t hold the eastern front
• c. German submarines were disrupting British supplies
• d. Wilson wanted a selective service act
• e. 3M soldiers were drafted
• f. women served in the Army Nursing Corp
• g. Gen. John Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
• h. the AEF was supposed to be independent of British & French command to preserve US bargaining power in postwar negotiations
• i. only 40% of the AEF’s supplies came from the US
• j. Germany mounted a spring offensive in 1918
• k. French Gen. Ferdinand Foch was appointed
• l. US troops arrived at Chateau-Thierry & Belleau Wood in time to engage in trench warfare
• m. 1918, the Allies mounted a counteroffensive, US troops pushed the Germans out of the St. Mihiel salient
• n. 1M doughboys participated in the Allied drive along a 200mi front through the Argonne Forest
• o. 47 days, Germans were forced to seek a ceasefire, the imperial government dissolved
• p. Nov, 11, 1918: end of war, 1.8M Germans dead, 1.7M Russians dead (Allies), 1.4M French dead, 947,000 British dead
• q. 20M Europeans were wounded, US fatalities: 112,432
• r. the US helped secure the North Atlantic sea lanes against the submarine and allowed men and supplies to be shipped to the front
• s. AEF soldiers sustained Allied morale & tipped the balance of power
• t. Pres. Wilson was positioned to influence a lasting European settlement

George Creel

• a. chaired the Committee on Public Information (CPI)
• b. 1st government propaganda firm in US history, “advertising,” “public relations,”
• c. wanted to 1) improve public services, 2) protect workers, 3) make the political process more responsive to middle class interests
• d. organized public rallies & parades to support the military effort & the sale of government war bonds
• e. 75,000 speakers & millions of pamphlets were distributed
• f. The Prussian Czar & The Kaiser: The Beast Of Berlin, portrayed Germans as villains and Americans as virtuous
• g. persuaded the press to engage in voluntary censorship
• h. Wilson was portrayed as a hero
• i. wanted cultural conformity & political unity
• j. hated cultural pluralism of immigrants
• k. other languages besides English were “unpatriotic,”
• l. 1920 How We Advertised America, memoir, celebrated advertising and public relations to create a mass society with a uniform set of values
• m. class, sectional, and selfish interests had to be homogenized

1. 96

Organizing For Victory

• a. immense mobilization of economic & human resources
• b. $32B war
• c. $23B from bonds, new taxes on “excess profits,” high incomes, and luxuries
• d. the War Industries Board set production goals for corporations in war industries
• e. financier Bernard Baruch, led WIB, promoted 1) price fixing, 2) collusive bidding, 3) guaranteed profits,
• f. 1917 law, corporate advertising became a tax-deductible expense, a public subsidy that endures
• g. Herbert Hoover: mining engineer > public servant
• h. the Food Administration oversaw agricultural production & distribution
• i. agricultural income, up 30%
• j. domestic, military, and foreign consumers were supplied
• k. the Fuel Administration distributed coal to citizens & defense plants
• l. the Railroad Administration provided central management of a private system owned by several companies
• m. 1918, the Webb-Pomerene Act of 1918, authorized corporations to coordinate price & marketing policies in overseas trade
• n. 1919, the Edge Act allowed bankers to cooperate to control investments abroad
• o. the reduction of immigrants > higher wages & collective bargaining
• p. the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organized workers in mining, logging, agriculture
• q. Samuel Gompers saw an opportunity to calm labor wars, worked with the War Labor Board (WLB) to obtain labor’s goals of 1) better wages, 2) shorter hours, 3) increased union membership, 4) an a voice in shaping government policy
• r. Wilson created the US Employment service: placed 4 M workers in war-related jobs
• s. union membership doubled to 5M
• t. the cost of living doubled, ate up increases in wages
• u. proposals for federal pensions and unemployment did not occur because they were considered socialist
• v. the IWW Wobblies faced prison for opposing the war
• w. AFl made no attempt to recruit black labor or protect temporary worker’s rights
• y. unions didn’t welcome women workers
• z. unions wanted women to give up their jobs in factories after the war

Gender & Race In Wartime, p. 98

• a. more opportunities for both women & racial minorities
• b. women helped in the Army Nurse’s Corp, the Red Cross or as civilian employees overseas
• c. some middle class women helped with the Food Administration
• d. Carrie Chapman Catt & Anna Howard Shaw joined the Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense
• e. anarchist Emma Goldman & socialists Kate Richards O’Hare & Rose Pastor Stokes went to jail for political dissent
• f. Jane Addams, pacifist, founded the Woman’s Peace Party in 1915 was effectively silenced
• g. needed a sober workforce
• h. 1917, the 18th amendment, ended the sale of alcoholic beverages
• i. the government provided troops with regular medical exams and venereal disease info
• j. 35,000 women were put in detention centers on prostitution charges
• k. Alice Paul, women should have the right to vote, force-fed in jail because of hunger strikes
• l. 1919, the 19th amendment, women gained the right to vote, 2x the citizens eligible to vote
• m. 400,000 blacks joined the army
• n. blacks mostly received noncombat assignments like stevedores & road builders-strenuous labor
• o. officers were mostly white
• p. the NAACP promoted black combat units & created a black officer’s training camp
• q. blacks fought as part of the French army
• r. steel production, meatpacking: new opportunities in northern centers
• s. half of blacks from southern farms moved to northern and western cities
• t. W. E. B. Dubois supported the war in an effort to improve the position of blacks
• u. 1915, the Supreme Court agreed to overturn the grandfather clause in southern voting laws
• v. blacks were accepted as social & sexual equals in France
• w. 1919, race riots in 25 US cities, southerners lynched blacks in uniforms
• y. riots: whites felt blacks were taking their jobs & ruining their neighborhoods

The War Against Dissent,

• a. George Creel headed the Committee on Public Information (CPI), the 1st government propaganda agency
• b. employed 150,000 people
• c. distributed 75M pieces of literature & appointed 75,000 “Four Minute Men” to give patriotic speeches @ public gatherings
• d. Charles Chaplan, Douglas Fairbanks & Mary Pickford were chosen to sell war bonds @ public rallies
• e. the National Security League, drew its members from the academic community
• f. Randolph Bourne wrote “war is the health of the state”
• g. Eugene Debs believed the war was a defense of transatlantic capitalism & condemned Wilson’s attack on civil liberties
• h. socialists labeled the war a “crime against humanity,” won 30% of the vote in 1917 municipal elections in Chicago, Dayton, Toledo & Buffalo
• i. Oklahoma: sharecroppers & tenant farmers refused to be drafted
• j. 1918, Debb’s antiwar speech @ the Socialist Party convention brought him a 10 year prison sentence
• k. antiwar sentiment was strong in the Midwest: 1) resistance of bond drives, 2) food pledge campaigns were ignored, 3) many evaded conscription
• l. Robert La Follette, William Borah (ID), and S. representatives opposed compulsory military service, Follette wasn’t dismissed from the Senate after a vote, the faculty of U. Wisconsin condemned his behavior
• m. pressure for conformity
• n. 1917, Congress added a literacy test for new immigrants, overrode the presidential veto
• o. Wilson signed immigration laws that permitted authorities to deport aliens who belonged to revolutionary organizations
• p. the Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited any action that might be construed as aiding the enemy or discouraging military service
• q. the postmaster general could exclude “treasonable” publications from the mail
• r. Debbs was imprisoned, the government banned the mailing of Socialist periodicals
• s. Robert Goldstein received a 10 year sentence for showing British soldiers attacking US civilians during the Revolutionary War
• t. radicals & pacifists were persecuted by the government
• u. p. 102
• v. troops broke IWW strikes in Washington & Montana, 165 IWW leaders were arrested for organizing workers in lumber, mining, and farm industries
• w. 1919, Schenck case, the Supreme Court ruled that the protection of free speech did not apply during wartime
• y. the Court could deny free speech when a “clear and present danger” existed to public safety and national security
• z. the Espionage Act: Eugene Debs jailed for saying a “master” class made wars while the “subject class fought them.”

• a. a man in Indiana was shot for saying “To hell with the US.”
• b. 1917, IWW copper miners went on strike in Bisbee, Arizona, a local sheriff treated the 1,200 Mexican Americans as subversives & used vigilantes to deport them to the desert south of the border
• c. the American Protective League (APL) federal agents could spy on neighbors & monitor nonconformists
• d. German Americans faced special harassment
• e. German language publications, German language couldn’t be taught, German speakers were attacked
• f. German Americans were denounced as “Huns”

The League Of Nations & A New World Order, p. 103

• a. US involvement in WWI, a step toward a stable international order
• b. a new Soviet Union was formed after the 2nd Russian Revolution in 1917: the Communist/Bolshevik Party came to power
• c. Bolsheviks called for peace through international socialist revolution
• d. 14 Points: disarmament, freedom of the seas, open diplomacy, self-determination for colonized nations, a League of Nations to enforce the new world order
• e. 1919, Versailles Peace Conference
• f. Prime Minister David Lloyd George & French Premier Georges Clemenceau were reluctant to abandon their demands for national security & economic compensation
• g. Bolshevik leader V. I. Lenin declared “the future of the industrial world belonged to socialism,”: capitalists would continue to fight wars among themselves as they competed for overseas markets & raw materials until the working class took control & instituted a cooperative global system
• h. a communist world order: inconsistent with Wilson’s ideal of an international market economy built on democratic freedoms
• i. the president sought to contain revolution in Russia
• j. 1918, the President ordered US troops to Russia to join military attachments from France, Britain & Japan, foreign forces occupied N. Russia & Siberia until June 1919 and occupied Manchuria until April 1920