The Home Front Author(s): Ronald Schaffer Source: Magazine of History, Vol. 17, No. 1, World War I (Oct., 2002), pp. 20-24 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163559 Accessed: 17/04/2010 15:20
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http://www.jstor.org Ronald Schaffer
The Home Front
By the time the United States entered World War I, the Allies?were willing and perhaps even eager to fight the Central Jbelligerent powers were approaching total warfare, pitting Powers, other intellectuals and religious organizations strenuously their entire societies against one another. American leaders opposed intervention. Pacifism, isolationism, antimilitarism, and believed their country must do the same; yet the obstacles to apathy were so widespread that in the fall of 1916, President mobilizing a united American society were formidable. This essay Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection with the slogan "He Kept Us discusses the ways by which the United States government sought to Out ofWar." overcome those obstacles, particularly how it attempted to unify the To develop the support needed to mobilize America, the home front and to convert the nation's United States government followed economy for war. It considers the several approaches. It directed interaction between government and massive propaganda at the Ameri elements of the society it sought to can people and imprisoned those mobilize, examines the effectiveness who openly challenged itswar poli of mobilization, and looks at prece cies. Yet it often used a softer dents the war created for later emer method, what one of its leaders gencies. called "engines of indirection" com Unity was a crucial requirement (2),to encourage rather than for success. Yet America in 1917 pel Americans to pay for the war, was far from unified. Race riots, conserve scarce resources, and par lynchings, and increasing segrega ticipate in home front activities. It tion characterized its racial system. offered rewards to those who coop Decades of business consolidation erated and withheld benefits from and industrial violence had left the those who declined to go along. nation's middle class citizens wary The result was a wartime welfare both of radical labor organizations state that benefitted millions of and of the economic and political Albert Sterner paints the war poster "Over There," featured on page Americans, especially those with 7. Sterner was one ofthe many artists who worked for the government power of large corporations. With the power, resources, and organiza the war and war efforts. Film Service, millions of Americans connected advertising (International tion needed to induce the federal 1918. NARA NWDNS 165-WW-61 [8]) by ancestry to the warring nations, government to respond to their ethnic conflict threatened to tear needs. In the America of 1917 the United States apart once it joined the Allies. And ominous 1918 self-sacrifice, idealism and patriotism existed side by side signs were appearing that American women might divide over the with efforts to reap private gain from the war, with government war. Women had been prominent in the prewar peace movement. management of interest groups, and with efforts by those groups to The first woman elected to congress voted against entering the manipulate the government that sought to control them. was war, and militant women suffragists had begun to picket the Foremost among the wartime propaganda agencies the White House, publicizing the gaps between government slogans Committee on Public Information (CPI), headed by the journalist about making the world safe for democracy and a political system and social reformer George Creel. This committee sought to meld in which millions of women could not vote (1). all Americans into what its director called "one white-hot mass... There were other threats to unity on the eve of war. Although with fraternity, devotion, and deathless determination" to support some Americans?particularly those with ancestral ties to the an Allied victory. It deluged the country with press releases and
20 OAH Magazine of History October 2002 pamphlets, newspaper and magazine advertisements, and organized Act of 1918, it denied the mails to publications it believed would scores of pageants and parades. The CPI had educators explain to embarrass or hamper it in the prosecution of the war. It jailed students the official reasons for fighting, stimulate their patriotism, members of a radical labor organization, the Industrial Workers of and enhance their admiration for American and Allied armed theWorld, that threatened to disrupt production of war materials. forces. It told immigrants in their own languages why they owed it It imprisoned a former Socialist candidate for president, Eugene to America to assist it against its enemies. To those who could not V. Debs, and hundreds of other persons for statements that read, the committee communicated with billboards, posters, mo government prosecutors claimed would interfere with the an war tion pictures, and army of patriotic speakers. government's programs. At times, the administration also Although Creel's committee sometimes allowed its audience stifled dissent subtly and indirectly, as when the CPI urged editors to know that the government was addressing them, it frequently to censor themselves or face penalties, without specifying what followed an indirect or covert ap would cause the government to proach. It set up front organiza silence their publications. tions, such as the American In its efforts to clamp down Alliance for Labor and Democ on pacifists, radicals and persons racy, led by conservative labor too friendly to the enemy, the union leader Samuel Gompers, federal government allied itself that opposed radicalism and paci with state and private groups. It fism among workers. Its own sponsored a quarter million vol name was a euphemism, suggest unteer members of the Ameri ing that it conveyed, not propa can Protective League, who ganda, but simply information. sought to root but opponents of The head ofthe committee's film war. State governments autho division observed that one ofthe rized councils of defense that not CPI's objectives was to spread only assisted mobilization in posi "telling propaganda which at the tive ways but also attacked per same time would not be obvious sons the councils considered or propaganda, but will have the pro-German, antiwar, too fa effect we desire to create." vorable toward social reform. Among the CPI's great variety Other groups, some of them of messages, certain themes ap nameless organizations, or just peared repeatedly. One was the mobs, joined in the repression of notion that the enemies were vi alleged internal enemies. cious, subhuman monsters who While many Americans felt had committed unspeakable intense exhilaration and na atrocities and were preparing to tional pride during this war, a bring horror and devastation to large number experienced it as a America. Thus one wartime poster time of terror. People spied on showed lower Manhattan in one another; intimidated those flames, a decapitated Statue of Lib who seemed slow to purchase erty, and enemy warplanes hover government war bonds or to join ing overhead. Another depicted the military; forced suspected Germany as a spike-helmeted slob pro-Germans to kiss the Ameri bering ape-like creature standing can flag or painted them yellow; on in two the American shore. A second America's different ethnic groups were encouraged to support the threatened, tortured, and, theme was the crusade motif, that United States during World War I. (Libary of Congress, LC cases, murdered those who USZC4-9560) America was engaged in a holy seemed to oppose the war. Citi war to avenge those atrocities, safe zens and governments attacked guard democracy and assure lasting peace. Third, there was the the country's German American subculture, suppressed German theme that Americans of all classes, national origins, occupations, music, threatened German American religious sects, forbade the and genders must stand together to support that crusade. speaking and teaching of the German language, and sought to Like other warring nations, the United States used forceful remove words of German origin from American speech, turning methods, along with exhortation, to control the way its people "frankfurters" into "liberty sausages" and "dachshunds" into felt. Although President Wilson expressed concern that war "liberty dogs". would deeply curtail American freedoms, his administration rarely Some of these actions were an outgrowth ofthe patriotism that hesitated to crack down on dissenters. With the authority of led Americans to volunteer spontaneously for military service, to legislation, such as the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition enter war industries, to roll bandages or become Red Cross nurses,
OAH Magazine of History October 2002 21 to join local home defense leagues, and to buy government bonds. nesses. Its powers evolved gradually. The Wilson administration, were Some responses to government propaganda that encouraged reflecting prewar public distrust of the power of big business, or or suspicion of strangers reactions to fear of sabotage at home continued to keep those powers in check, leaving the board's legal to the loss or potential loss of loved ones overseas. Repressive authority vague and permitting the War Department to retain activities on the home front sometimes grew from long-standing substantial control over military procurement. ethnic conflicts, were ways of settling old scores, or represented The WIB typified the operations of the wartime welfare state. efforts to secure political power under the guise of patriotism or to It often used an indirect approach, inducing companies to produce use war war the to secure economic advantages. Much of the voluntarily what the government wanted them to provide. To hysteria grew from a community of interest between the United gether with cooperating businesses that supplied materials needed States Government and those who used the war for their own for production and with government agencies that regulated labor purposes. This interplay of public and supplies, fuel and transportation, it developed a priority system, private interests similarly characterized the the essential mechanism for regulating war mobilization of the economy. time businesses. If a company chose to The experience of other belligerents produce essential items it received high pri and early breakdowns in American eco orities for what it needed. If it decided to nomic systems showed that conversion make items deemed nonessential, its priori for total war would be difficult and made ties dropped to the bottom of the list. clear that there had to be some kind of Many businessmen contributed to the centralized control of economic mobili war with pride and patriotism. Also, they zation. But who would do it? The armed were offered tangible incentives for con forces lacked the capacity; yet to give verting to war work, such as the priorities them enough power to control the that enabled them to keep their companies economy would be to emulate Germany. operating. The fact that the people who People called it "Prussianization." Large negotiated with them for the government industrial and financial corporations were executives from their own industries might have the skills and organization to rather than uninformed bureaucrats was run a war economy, but many citizens bound to reassure them. And finally they thought they had too much power to had the incentive of substantial profit, par begin with. Although some government ticularly for companies that sold some regulatory agencies had developed before thing the government badly needed. In the war, there was as yet no large civil the steel industry, for instance, prices were service to and the set for inefficient to guide mobilization, Propaganda posters often depicted a brutish high enough producers a war notion of creating bureaucracy German soldier towering over ruins to convince make money. For efficient producers, the Americans their nation entered the war to save were troubled businessmen and other Ameri returns awe inspiring. An excess them from evil. The United States Food tax was to some cans who believed in limited government. profits supposed recapture Administration's Education Division produced this The which both to of these returns but were found to solution, responded poster inJanuary 1918. (NARANWDNS-4-P-200) ways fears of excessive government regulation limit its effects. and of expanded corporate influence, was For certain business leaders the war gov an improvised administrative apparatus, staffed largely by volun ernment provided special incentives. Executives of leading com on teer "dollar-a-year" persons leave from their companies, de panies were allowed to set priorities for their own industries signed to self-destruct once the war ended. When the national because only they knew enough about those industries to assess transportation system collapsed in the winter of 1917-1918 the priority requests. These corporate leaders really ran much of U.S. government created a Railroad Administration to coordi industrial mobilization in the government's name. For one group nate and manage the important lines. Actual running of the of businessmen the wartime system of business self-regulation, railroad system was assigned to former private railroad executives cooperation, and government sanctioned profitability offered a under temporary government direction. Volunteer food industry model for the future. These men wanted to replace competitive executives ran the Food Administration. Staffed with thousands capitalism with a permanent welfare state for business. of American women, the FA promoted food production and The war brought benefits to other groups that served America conservation and saw that food supplies were sent where the at home. Emerging professions gained recognition for wartime government considered them most needed. Such people were activities?psychiatrists, for example, for treating victims of unlikely to perpetuate a government food bureaucracy. battle stress, and psychologists for testing the mental capacity of The leading economic mobilization agency was the War recruits. Intellectuals, in a country that rarely paid attention to Industries Board (WIB), which arranged for American industries them and often scorned them, found opportunities to serve their to supply Allied and American armed forces and civilians with nation by writing propaganda or lecturing on the war. Wheat industrial products. Like most other economic mobilization farmers benefitted from government price supports. Conserva agencies, it was dominated by volunteers from American busi tive, pro war labor unions won government endorsement for
22 OAH Magazine of History October 2002 collective bargaining and improved wages, hours, and working conditions by arguing that these benefits would increase produc tivity at a time when labor shortages hindered mobilization. reformers model towns for workers near v Housing developed Kit1-l>wy i OAH Magazine of History October 2002 23 H. America's Great War: already fighting alongside the Allies, made an early armistice seem University Press, 1980), and Robert Zieger, World War 1 and the American Experience (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield prudent. By helping to motivate those troops to volunteer or Publishers, Inc., 2000). them once were accept conscription, by supporting morally they 2. Herbert Hoover quoted in George H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, vol. 3, in uniform, by helping to pay for them and to arm, clothe, feed and Master of Emergencies, 1917-1918 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), equip them, the home front did much to make that armistice 15. 3. For the effects of federal payments to dependents of black troops see K. Walter possible. Hickel, "War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal Aid to Servicemen' The World War I home front provided important precedents Dependents in the South, 1917-1921," Journal of American History 87 for future crises. To fight the Great Depression, the Hoover and (March 2001): 1362-91. "The of Draft Roosevelt administrations employed wartime ideas, like business 4. Jeanette Keith, Politics Southern Resistance, 1917-1918: Class, Race and Conscription in the Rural South," Journal of American History 87 self-regulation, publicity campaigns like those used in wartime, (March 2001): 1335-61. and wartime such as the National restyled agencies, Recovery 5. For the war component of GNP, see Paul A. C. Koistinen, Mobilizing for Modern Administration. Finally, the Wilson administration's efforts to War: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1865-1919 (Lawrence, KS: create unity on the home front left a problematic legacy for civil University Press of Kansas, 1997), 265. liberties in future wars, raising the question of whether the United States Government could be strong enough to defend the nation Ronald Schaffer is an emeritus professor of history at California State without destroying American freedoms. University, Northridge, where he taught from 1965 through 1999. He previously taught at Columbia University and Indiana University. His Endnotes publications includeAmerica in the Great War: The Rise ofthe War on in 1. This article is based chiefly Ronald Schaffer, America theGreat War: The Welfare State (199 J);Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in Rise War State (New York: Oxford Press, 1991). For ofthe Welfare University World War II (1989); and The United States inWorld War I:A other accounts of the home front inWorld War I see David M. Kennedy, Selected Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York: Oxford Bibliography (1978). Recognizing Excellence in Teaching Mary KLBonsteel Tachau Precollegiate Teaching Award The annualTachau Award recognizes outstandingU.S. history deadlinefor teacherswho have enhanced the intellectualdevelopment of Application students and other teachers the 2003 award is ^ by: ecem r students inhistorical researchor ^^^ Engaging writing. Developing innovativehistory criteria that foster a spiritof Formore informationon L^^^^ r inquiryand emphasize critical skills. application procedures, ^ Initiatingor participating in school, district, regional, state, or see The awardwinner receives a one-year OAH a one- membership, iI^HIkI 5I to theOAH anda $750 yearsubscription Magazine ofHistory, A^Ky^^^^J cash award. organization of AMERICANHISTORIANS 24 OAH Magazine of History October 2002