Unit II U.S. Foreign Policy History

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Unit II- U.S. Foreign Policy History

• Chapter 21 Section 3
• The Home Front

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10th American HistoryUnit II- U.S. Foreign
AffairsReading Quiz for Chapter 21 Sect. 3

• 1. What is mobilization?
• 2.What was the Selective Service Act 1917?
• 3. What was a convoy in WWI?
• 4. How was money raised for the war effort in
  WWI?
• 5. Herbert Hoover, as the head of the Food
  Administration, called for what kind of days to
  save food for the war effort?
• 6. What was the job of War Industries Board?
• 7. Who helped fill the labor gap made by 4
  million men enlisting in WWI?
• 8. What was the job of Creel Committee?

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Mobilization of Men and Women

• Nation needs an army
• May 28, 1917- Selective Service Act (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  placed in a fishbowl and withdrawn enough for
  687,000 men into the army.
• 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.

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Mobilization

• Army needed to be fed, clothed, equipped and
  armed
• Shortages at first
• American factories were supplying pistols,
  rifles, machine guns, shells and bullets.
• Heavy equipment- artillery, tanks and airplanes
  were provided by British and French.

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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.

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Mobilization of Money

• Military Expenses
• Expenses for army, navy, credit and materials for
  allies ran into billions.
• 23 billion for the U.S. war effort and 10
  billion for war loans to Allies.
• Taxes and Loans to pay the expenses.
• Increased taxes brought in 10.5 billion
• The rest came from loans from the people through
  sale of Liberty Loans and a Victory Loan.

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Government takes control

• 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.
• Council of Defense
• National Food-control program- Herbert Hoover
• 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)
• Rationed coal

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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.
• During the war production went up, waste went
  down and criticism lessened.

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Government takes control- The Labor Force

• 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.
• Blacks- moved north to get jobs.
• Shortage of labor sent wages up. Real income
  went up 20
• United States Employment Service created to fill
  jobs in vital industries.
• A National War Labor Board- created to arbitrate
  labor disputes.- 8 hour workday and government
  support of unions.

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Government takes control- Mobilizing Minds

• 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.

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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.
• 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.
• Strange way to fight a war- Eugene Debs socialist
  candidate for President went to jail. How can
  the nation improve its war effort if citizens are
  not allowed to criticize the govt or armed
  forces? Actual opposition was light and did
  little to hamper the war effort.

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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. Others claimed that the disease
  started in the Middle Eastern battlefields,
  whereas others blamed it on China and India.
• 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.

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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.