Chapter 30

1. Chapter 30 The War to End War (1917-1918)

2. War by Act of Germany • Zimmermann note was intercepted and published on Mar.1,1917 infuriating Americans • German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann had secretly proposed a German-Mexican alliance tempting anti-Yankee Mexico with recovering Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

3. Zimmermann note

4. War by Act of Germany • Over this provocation German U-boats sank four unarmed American merchant vessels • Wilson asked for a declaration of war on Apr.2 1917 • Four days later Congress obliged the President

5. Wilsonian Idealism Enthroned • Six senators and fifty representatives had voted against the war resolution • Republic sought only to shape an international order in which democracy could flourish without fear of power-crazed autocrats and militarists

6. Wilson’s Fourteen Potent Points • On January 8, 1918 Wilson delivered his Fourteen Point Address • The first five were broad in scope 1)A proposal to abolish secret treaties pleased liberals of all countries. 2)Freedom of the seas appealed to the Germans, as well as to Americans who distrusted British sea power.

7. Wilson’s Fourteen Potent Points 3)A removal of economic barriers among nations had long been the goal of liberal internationalists. 4)Reduction of armament burdens was gratifying to taxpayers in all countries. 5)An adjustment of colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and the colonizers.

8. Wilson’s Fourteen Points • Helped to delegitimize the old empires and opened the road to eventual national independence for millions of “subject peoples”

9. Creel Manipulates Minds • Committee on Public Information was created because of the war • Headed by journalist, George Creel, his job was to sell America on the war and sell the world on Wilsonian war aims • Creel organization employed 150,000 workers

10. Creel Manipulates Minds • Sent an army of 75,000 “four-minute men” to deliver speeches containing “patriotic pep” • Types of propaganda: posters, leaflets and pamphlets • Creel typified American war mobilization which relied more on aroused passion and voluntary compliance than on formal laws

11. George Creel

12. Enforcing Loyalty and Stifling Dissent • 8 million German Americans proved to be loyal to the US out of a total population of 100 million • Few German Americans were tarred, feathered, and beaten • Hatred of Germans swept the nation • German-composed music was unsafe to be present, German books were removed from libraries, and German classes were canceled from high schools and colleges

13. Enforcing Loyalty and Stifling Dissent • Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 reflected current fears about Germans and anti-war Americans • Socialist Eugene V. Debs was convicted under the Espionage Act in 1918 and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leader William D. Haywood and ninety-nine associates were similarly convicted

14. Eugene V. Debs

15. Enforcing Loyalty and Stifling Dissent • Some critics claimed the new laws were bending if not breaking the First Amendment • In Schenck v. United States (1919) the Supreme Court affirmed their legality.

16. Workers in Wartime • American workers were driven by the War Department’s “work or fight” rule of 1918(threatened any unemployed male with being immediately drafted) • The National War Labor Board exerted itself to head off labor disputes that might hamper the war effort • Samuel Gompers and his American Federation of Labor (AF of L) loyally supported the war but some did not including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) known as the “Wobblies” • The Wobblies were victims of some of the shabbiest working conditions

17. Samuel Gompers

18. Workers in Wartime • At war’s end, the American Federation of Labor (AF of L) had more than doubled its membership to over 3 million • Coal mining, manufacturing, and transportation wages had risen more than 20 percent • Six thousand strikes broke out during the war years • In 1919 more than a quarter million steelworkers walked off their jobs in a bid to force employers to recognize their right to organize and bargain collectively • Steel companies refused to negotiate and brought in 30,000 African American strikebreakers

19. Suffering Until Suffrage • Thousands of female workers took up jobs vacated by men who left the assembly line for the frontline • National Woman’s Party led by Quaker activist Alice Paul was against the war • National American Woman Suffrage Association supported Wilson’s War • Wilson endorsed woman suffrage as “a vitally necessary measure” • In 1920 the nineteenth amendment was ratified giving all American women the right to vote

20. Alice Paul/ Nineteenth Amendment

21. Forging a War Economy • Chosen to head the Food Administration was the Quaker-humanitarian Herbert C. Hoover • Already considered a hero because he had successfully led a massive charitable drive to feed the starving people of war-racked Belgium • Hoover preferred to rely on voluntary compliance rather than on compulsory edicts • Hoover proclaimed wheatless Wednesdays and meatless Tuesdays • The country soon broke out in a rash of vegetable “victory gardens”

22. Herbert C. Hoover

23. Forging a War Economy • Congress restricted the use of foodstuffs for manufacturing alcoholic beverages • Many brewers were German-descended, made the drive against alcohol more popular. In 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, prohibiting all alcoholic drinks.

24. Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol

25. Eighteenth Amendment

26. Forging a War Economy • Farm production increased by one-fourth and food exports to the Allies tripled in volume • Fuel Administration exhorted Americans to save fuel with “heatless Mondays”, “lightless nights”, and “gasless Sundays”

27. Forging a War Economy • Invoked slogans like “Halt the Hun” to promote four great Liberty Loan drives • Together all efforts made about $21 million or two-thirds of the current cost of the war to the US • Remainder was raised by increased taxes

28. Making Plowboys into Doughboys • In April and May of 1917 European associates confessed that they were scraping the bottom not only of their money chest but or their manpower barrels • Conscription was the only answer to the need for raising an immense army • Wilson eventually accepted and supported conscription , the bill immediately ran into a barrage of criticism in Congress • Six weeks after declaring war Congress passed the conscription

29. Making Plowboys into Doughboys • Draft required the registration of all males between the ages of 18 and 45 • Registration day proved to be a day of patriotic pilgrimages • 337,000 “slackers” escaped the draft and about 4,000 were excused

30. Making Plowboys into Doughboys • Within a few months the army grew to over 4 million men • For the first time women were admitted to the armed forces. African Americans also served in the armed forces • Recruits were supposed to receive 6 months of training in America and 2 overseas but many doughboys were swept into battle hardly knowing how to handle a rifle.

31. America Helps Hammer the “Hun” • May 1918 German juggernaut threatened to knock out France • Newly arrived American troops were thrown into the breach at Chateau-Thierry, into the teeth of German advance (the first significant engagement of American Troops in a European war) • In September 1918 nine American divisions joined four French divisions to push the Germans from the St. Mihiel salient, a German dagger in France’s flank. • Americans dissatisfied with merely bolstering the British and French had been demanding a separate army

32. America Helps Hammer the “Hun” • General John J. Pershing was assigned a front of eighty-five miles stretching northwestward from the Swiss border to meet the French lines • One objective was to cut the German railroad lines feeding the western front • Pershing’s army undertook Meuse-Argonne offensive from Sept.26 to Nov. 11,1918. • Lasted 47 days and engaged 1.2 million American troops • The most massive battle in American history

33. Military leader Became the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe General John J. Pershing

34. The Fourteen Points Disarm Germany • The exhausted Germans were through they laid down their arms at 11o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 • The war to end wars had ended • US main contributions to the ultimate victory had been foodstuffs, munitions, credits, oil, and manpower

35. An Idealist Battles the Imperialists in Paris • The Paris Conference was made up of Wilson, Premier Vittorio Orlando of Italy, prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain, and Premier Georges Clemenceau of France • The conference opened on Jan. 1918 • Wilson’s ultimate goal was a world parliament to be known as the League of Nations • Gained a signal victory over the Old World diplomats in Feb. 1918 when they agreed to make the League Covenant

36. The Big Four