World War I on the home front

1. World War I on the home front Mr. Goddard | PLUSH | February 2009

2. America enters the war • When America entered the war it needed to figure out how it was going to handle several things: • How it was going to pay for the war • How it was going to mobilize troops for the war • How it was going to manufacture for the war • How it was going to control the minds of its people during the war

3. How to pay for the war • Typically a government can pay for things in three main ways • It can raise taxes • PROs – Communicates true cost to people • CONs – People hate it and rich people have political power to fight it • It can issue loans • PROs – Second best alternative if it can pay them back and people will buy them • CONs – Government has to pay money back • It can print more money • PROs – Easiest method • CONs – Really bad for economy because it leads to inflation

4. How did Wilson Do it? • A combination of all three raising taxes, selling bonds and printing money. • A Bond is simply an 'IOU' in which an investor agrees to loan money to a company or government in exchange for a predetermined interest rate. • This was an improvement because in the civil war the government basically relied on printing more money. • The war cost $23 billion for the U.S. war effort and $10 billion for war loans to Allies.

5. Part I - Taxes • In October 1917 Congress responded to the call for higher taxes with the War Revenue Act. • This act increased the personal and corporate income tax rates and established new excise, excess-profit, and luxury taxes. The tax rate for an income of $10,000 with four exemptions (about $140,000 in 2003 dollars) went from 1.2 percent in 1916 to 7.8 percent. For incomes of $1,000,000 the rate went from 10.3 percent in 1916 to 70.3 percent in 1918. • These increase in taxes and the increase in nominal income raised revenues from $930 million in 1916 to $4,388 million in 1918. Federal expenditures, however, increased from $1,333 million in 1916 to $15,585 million in 1918. • A huge gap had opened up that would have to be closed by borrowing.

6. Part II – Bonds • Treasury created the famous Liberty Bonds. The first issue was a thirty-year bond bearing a 3.5% coupon callable after fifteen years. • There were three subsequent issues of Liberty Bonds, and one of shorter-term Victory Bonds after the Armistice. • In all, the sale of these bonds raised over $20 billion dollars for the war effort.

7. Part II – Selling Bonds • In order to strengthen the market for Liberty Bonds, Secretary McAdoo launched a series of nationwide campaigns. • Huge rallies were held in which famous actors, such as Charlie Chaplin, urged the crowds to buy Liberty Bonds. • The government also enlisted famous artists to draw posters urging people to purchase the bonds.

8. Mobilizing America’s Men • Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. • America needed to grow its army as quickly as possible • In peacetime, the American army only numbered 190,000 and they were spread across America. • Now with the declaration of war, these men had to be found and trained. • Then they have to be moved to the eastern seaboard where many camps had to be built to accommodate them before they sailed across the Atlantic. • French ports had to be greatly expanded to handle the influx of men and the French rail network in the region had to be expanded. • Often when they arrived in Europe they used French or English weapons.

9. Selective Service Act • Selective Service Act (1917) – required all men from the age of 21 to 30 to register for the military draft: institutes nationwide conscription/draft. • All men between 21 and 31 had to register • No buying ones way out- 10 million were listed. • Lottery was the fairest way to choose. Everyone got a number between 1 and 10,500. Numbers placed in a fishbowl and withdrawn. • 24 million men between 18-45 entered selective service. 3 million called into service. • 1918- 4.8 million- enlistee, draftees, and national guard in armed service.

10. Mobilizing America’s Industry • Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. • America needed to shift its production in an organized manner. Army needed to be fed, clothed, equipped and armed • Shortages at first • American factories were supplying pistols, rifles, machine guns, shells and bullets. • Transportation like ships needed to be built. • It also needed to find workers to replace the 5 million men that were joining the Army.

11. How the industry shifted • In the Civil War the government had issued contracts to businesses to have the desired output produced. • This lead to enormous problems with: • War Profiteering • Bad equipment for the army • Political Graft or Pay offs for contracts. • For a number of reasons, however, the government attempted to manage the allocation of resources from Washington. • For one thing, the Wilson administration, reflecting the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, was suspicious of the market, and doubted its ability to work quickly and efficiently, and to protect the average person against profiteering. • Another factor was simply that the European belligerents had adopted wide-ranging economic controls and it made sense for the United States, a latecomer, to follow suit.

12. How Wilson Allocated resources • A wide variety of agencies were created to control the economy during the mobilization. • (1) the Food Administration, • (2) the Fuel Administration, • (3) the Railroad Administration, • (4) the War Industries Board • (5) the War Shipping Board, which built noncombatant ships • (6) the War Labor Board, which attempted to settle labor disputes • The point – Wilson and the United States turned away from its traditional reliance on the market during WWI.

13. Government takes control- War Industries Board • The Overman Act of 1918 helped create the War Industries Board- Bernard M. Baruch in charge. • Job- decide what goods should be produced and set prices for government purchases or supplies. • The War Industries Board told factories what to produce and the War Labor Board settled labor disputes. • During the war production went up, waste went down and criticism lessened. • Some Private Businesses were taken over. • Some railroads and railway express companies, and inland waterway systems. Then telephone, telegraph and cable. • 1/2 billion was invested in improvements and equipment. • Urged companies to use mass production and standardizing products. • Many companies saw huge profits.

14. Government takes control of stomachs • Food Administration • Headed by Herbert Hoover; advised Americans to save certain foods for export to supply the Allied war effort. • Broad powers over production and distribution of food, fuel, fertilizer, and farm machinery. • Voluntary wheatless, meatless, and heatless’ days. • War gardens • Set Prices for crops to help farmers and encourage production. Farmers paid off mortgages, new machinery, etc. Price of land went up. (Farmers would pay a peacetime price for wartime prosperity) • Americans learned to conserve food for the soldiers.

15. Food Board propaganda

16. Food Board propaganda

17. Victory gardens · In order to support the troops “victory gardens”were grown by people throughout the nation.

18. Mobilization • War at Sea • Convoy to move troops and supplies to Europe. To provide a bridge of ships • Organized group of merchant and passenger ships surrounded and protected by naval vessels to ward off submarine attacks. • US ship building- a mammoth program. • US also seized German vessels in American waters and impressing US vessels the ship gap was filled.

19. Government takes control- The Labor Force • United States Employment Service created to fill jobs in vital industries. • A million women helped fill the gap in the labor force left by men. • Mills and factories • Acts of Patriotism by women, but yet after the war they were asked to leave their jobs for men returning. • Shortage of labor sent wages up. Real income went up 20% • A National War Labor Board- created to arbitrate labor disputes.- 8 hour workday and government support of unions.

20. Females in the labor pool 'Women working in larger munitions factories were known as Canaries because they dealt with TNT which caused their skin to turn yellow. Around 400 women died from overexposure to TNT during World War One. Other hazards were more obvious and minor problems were common.'

21. Women at work

22. Women Working in Factories A million women entered the American workforce during World War I. In this factory, women of all ages are packing hand grenade parts to be shipped overseas.

23. Race Relations as the great migration accelerates · Accelerated the Great Migration that had begun before the turn of the century. African-Americans faced prejudice and racial violence as they left the South for the North. The states in blue had the ten largest net gains of African-Americans during the Great Migration, while the states in red had the ten largest net losses.

24. Committee on public information Mobilizing American Minds • During World War I, the United States fought a war of ideas with unprecedented ingenuity and organization. • President Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to manage news and solicit widespread support for the war at home and abroad. • Under the energetic direction of Mississippi newspaper editor George Creel, the CPI churned out national propaganda through diverse media • Films • Cartoons • speeches.

25. Why the CPI was necessary • Millions opposed to war- German Americans, Irish Americans, Socialists, Progressives, Pacifists, • Committee on Public Information- The Creel Committee • Assigned to “sell the war to America” • Propaganda- depict the Germans as hateful beasts, barbarous Huns bent on world domination. • Whip up enthusiasm, sell war bonds, hate our enemy, keep people working hard. • Stirred up spy scares, traitor hunts, slackers, etc. • German language studies dropped, German words changed, Anti- German madness was really Anti-American.

26. “The 4 Minute Men” • Volunteer Army of 75,000, organized by the Creel’s CPI, these men gave patriotic, pro-war speeches before stages and movie shows nationwide.

27. 4 Minute man Speech Script Ladies and Gentlemen: I have just received the information that there is a German spy among us— a German spy watching us. He is around, here somewhere, reporting upon you and me—sending reports about us to Berlin and telling the Germans just what we are doing with the Liberty Loan. From every section of the country these spies have been getting reports over to Potsdam—not general reports but details—where the loan is going well and where its success seems weak, and what people are saying in each community. For the German Government is worried about our great loan. Those Junkers fear its effect upon the German morale. They’re raising a loan this month, too… For broken faith and promise to murder more Americans—billions and billions more. And then we will add: In the world fight for Liberty, our share—billions and billions and billions and endless billions. Do not let the German spy hear and report that you are a slacker. Committee on Public Information, Four Minute Man Bulletin, No. 17 (October 8, 1917).

28. 4 Minute man Speech Script For broken faith and promise to murder more Americans—billions and billions more. And then we will add: In the world fight for Liberty, our share—billions and billions and billions and endless billions. Do not let the German spy hear and report that you are a slacker. Committee on Public Information, Four Minute Man Bulletin, No. 17 (October 8, 1917).

29. Government takes control- Attacking Civil Liberties • Espionage Act of 1917 • Censorship • Penalties against anyone who handed out information about anything connected with national defense. • Penalties to anyone urging resistance to military duty or draft. • It was punishable by a maximum $10,000 fine (almost $170,000 in today's dollars) and 20 years in prison. • Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 • Any newspaper printed in a foreign language in the U.S. must furnish an English translation to the Postmaster general • Sedition Act of 1918- went further that the 1798 version. • Penalties on anyone who used “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the U.S. government, flag or uniform.

30. Government takes control- Attacking Civil Liberties • · Many Progressives opposed the war. In response, the U.S. made it illegal to criticize the government or to interfere with the war. • Nearly 1,600 people were arrested for breaking these laws. • Eugene Debs, Socialist candidate for President, was arrested for protesting the draft.

31. Government takes control- Attacking Civil Liberties

32. Debbs and the espionage act • After giving an anti-war speech, Debs is arrested for “obstructing the recruiting or enlistment service,” under the Espionage Act. • Sentenced to 10 years in prison (serves almost 3). • About 900 people went to prison under the Espionage Act.

33. ANTI-German Hysteria

34. The Great Influenza- Spanish Flu Pandemic • In the spring of 1918 large numbers of soldiers in the trenches in France became ill. The soldiers complained of a sore throat, headaches and a loss of appetite. Although it appeared to be highly infectious, recovery was rapid and doctors gave it the name of 'three-day fever'. At first doctors were unable to identify the illness but eventually they decided it was a new strain of influenza. • The soldiers gave it the name Spanish Flu but there is no evidence that it really did originate from that country. In fact, in Spain they called it French Flu. • Other notions of this strain of influenza's origin contained less-politically charged, but equally specious logic. According to one theory, poison gases used in the war, air charged with carbon dioxide from the trenches, and gases formed from decomposing bodies and exploding munitions had all fused to form a highly toxic vapor that flu victims had inhaled. Among the other causes advanced were: air stagnation, coal dust, fleas, the distemper of cats and dogs, and dirty dishwater. • A recent study argued that the disease was brought to the Western Front by a group of USA soldiers from Kansas. It originally most likely came from animals.

35. The Great Influenza- Spanish Flu Pandemic • The USA was also very badly affected by the virus. By September a particularly virulent strain began to sweep through the country. By early December about 450,000 Americans had died of the disease. • The country that suffered most was India. The first cases appeared in Bombay in June 1918. The following month deaths were being reported in Karachi and Madras. With large numbers of India's doctors serving with the British Army the country was unable to cope with the epidemic. Some historians claim that between June 1918 and July 1919 over 16,000,000 people in India died of the virus. • It has been estimated that throughout the world over 70 million people died of the influenza pandemic. In India alone, more people died of influenza than were killed all over the world during the entire 1st World War.

36. America enters the war • When America entered the war it needed to figure out how it was going to handle several things: • How it was going to pay for the war • How it was going to mobilize troops for the war • How it was going to manufacture for the war • How it was going to control the minds of its people during the war