World War I

When war erupted in Europe in 1914, the United States took an official position of neutrality. But the brutality of the German invasion of neutral Belgium convinced many Americans to support the Allied cause. The U.S. government provided loans to Allied nations and sold Allied nations American goods to help the cause. These measures were inconsistent with official neutrality, and provoked confrontation with Germany.

The Sinking of the Lusitania

The invention of submarines introduced new horrors to warfare. Submarines could travel unseen and strike civilian vessels indiscriminately, inflicting mass casualties in violation of existing laws of war. The sinking of the British passenger liner Lusitania sent a wave of revulsion through the United States. More than a thousand were killed, many of them Americans. While American sympathies were with the Allies, the nation was not yet willing to enter the war. In 1916 President Wilson secured a promise from Germany that it would abandon unrestricted submarine warfare. This agreement won him the election that year on the slogan, “He kept us out of war.”

Mobilizing for Total War

In January, the German government informed President Wilson that it was returning to its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. The sinking of several American ships in the following months brought America to war. On April 2, 1917, he called upon Congress to declare war on Germany. On April 6, Congress obliged.

Mobilizing for Total War

World War I required that the United States coordinate all its resources in the war effort. Congress enacted the Selective Service Act in 1917 to ensure that there were enough men to fight. It also began conscripting the nation’s economic resources into the war effort through such administrative measures as the War Industries Board, the Fuel Administration, the War Labor Conference Board, and the Food Administration.

Wartime Thought Control

In order to promote support for the war, the Wilson administration launched a coordinated propaganda campaign through the Committee on Public Information. Under the leadership of George Creel, the committee inundated the nation with images, pamphlets, speeches, cartoons, and movies.

Suppressing Dissent

The Espionage and Sedition Acts provided the federal government with a legal basis for the suppression of dissent. The laws were so sweeping that virtually any speech could be construed as antiwar speech. Books about Germany were excluded from the mail, financial advisors could be investigated for steering clients away from war bonds, and vigilance committees reported private conversations to the authorities.

War Powers Cases

The Supreme Court was remarkably quiescent in the Wilson administration’s wartime measures. It upheld the draft as constitutional, along with price controls, rent controls, and railroad seizures. All were construed as valid exercises of the war powers.

First Amendment Rights

The fate of First Amendment rights is one of the most troubling chapters in the history of World War I. In Schenck v. United States, Justice Holmes formulated the “clear and present danger” test of speech: “The question in every case is whether the words 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.” Far more insidious was the “bad tendency” test adopted by the Court in Abrams v. United States. Under it, speech that simply contained a “bad tendency” warranted a conviction.

Rejection of the League of Nations

The war ended on a note of frustration for the Wilson administration, which failed to secure the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty was viewed in the United States as punitive and vindictive. But rather than seeking out compromise on points of the treaty with domestic opponents, Wilson took a hardline stance that cost him his most cherished goal: U.S. membership in the League of Nations, an organization constituted under the treaty for the purpose of securing peace.