7.6: WWI: On the Homefront

Question 1

TOTAL WAR

Answer 1

• Total mobilization of US economic, industrial and social resources for victory
• Wilson established wartime agencies: War Industries Board and Food Administration [ensure food = sufficient for troops and home]
• Migration from rural to urban for work
• Selective Service Act: draft by lottery

Question 2

BACKLASH

Answer 2

• Anger over use of US assets in European war
• Federal gov restricted civil liberties to silence dissenting speech
• 1917: Espionage Act
• 1918: Sedition Act
• Crime to oppose war or interfere w/ draft
• Schenck V. US
• Socialist Schenck wrote anti-draft pamphlets
• Arrested for Espionage Act violation
• Supreme Court argued Freedom of Speech wasn’t absolute and that speech couldn’t constitue ‘clear and present danger’
• Gov sought to ban publications about devastating Spanish Flu [500,000 deaths]

Question 3

RED SCARE

Answer 3

• Post successful Russian Revolution, US feared communism
• Led to xenophobia and immigration restrictions [e.g. 1917 Immigration Act and literacy tests for immigrants 16+]
• Attorney General Palmer tasked Hoover w/ secret information. gathering on radicals
• 6000+ arrests of socialists, radicals and union leaders and 500+ deportations
• Above = PALMER RAIDS