Chapter 14 War Is The Health of The State -Sharon Friedman

Chapter 14War Is The Health of The State

-Sharon Friedman

“On May 7, 1915, during World War 1, almost 1,200 people were killed when the British passenger ship RMS

Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland. - The United States now had its pretense to enter the war in 1917. The attack resulted in widespread

support for the United States' entry into WW1. “

Woodrow Wilson, the President of the

United States during and three years after the First World War. Wilson called WW1, “The war to end all

wars.” He stated that our entrance into the

war was, “to make the war safe for

democracy.”

“George Creel was the United States government’s official propagandist. He headed the committee on public information whose purpose was to persuade

Americans that the war was right. “

“A conscientious objector is "a

person who, on the grounds of

conscience, resists the authority of the

state to compel military service"

65,000 men during World War 1,

refused to fight on the grounds of

freedom of thought,

conscience, and/or religious beliefs.”

“Financier Bernard Baruch headed the War Industries Board, the most powerful of the wartime government

agencies. Bankers, railroad men, and industrialists dominated these agencies.”

 Espionage Act of 1917: “A Unites States federal law having harsh

penalties for anyone engaged in disloyal or treasonable Activities. Banned “rebellious”

newspapers, magazines, and other printed

materials from the mail. It was intended to

prohibit interference with military operations or

recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the

military, and to prevent the support of U.S.

enemies during wartime.”

Sacco & Vanzetti- Anarchist movement“Both adhered to a strain of anarchism that advocated

relentless warfare against a violent and oppressive government. They were Italian-born anarchists who were convicted of

murdering two men during the armed robbery of a shoe factory in South Braintree Massachusetts, United States in 1920.”

“By 1925, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti

became the center of one of the largest Cause célèbres in modern history.”

 Image 6: “The American Protective League was a World War I-era private organization that along with federal police like the Bureau of Investigation worked in support of the anti German

Empire movement and against anti-war citizens and organizations. This represents a very sad part of American history. This is about as close as the US government ever came to sanctioning vigilantism. Formed by A.M. Briggs, a

wealthy Chicago businessman, at its height of power the APL had 250,000 members in 600 cities.”

“These two books are fictionalized accounts of the horrors of World War 1. Each are anti-war novels. Johnny Got His Gun is an anti-war novel written in 1938 by American novelist and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. All Quiet

on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme

physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the

front.”

“In 1914, a serious recession had begun in the United States. The war opened during a period of hard times, businesses throughout the country were depressed and unemployment was serious. By 1915, war orders for the allies, had stimulated the economy. By

April 1917, more than 2 billion dollars worth of goods had been sold to the allies. America became bound up with the allies in a faithful

union of war and prosperity.”

“In the summer of 1916, during a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco, a suitcase bomb exploded killing ten and wounding forty more. Two labor leaders, Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, were

convicted in separate trials and sentenced to be hanged.”

“Throughout the war millions of

soldiers experienced and

endured the horrors of trench

warfare. The trenches were always full of

stagnant water and mud.

Sometimes they would collapse

burying the soldiers inside alive. Tens of

thousands of rats swarmed through

the trench systems, biting

sleepers, attacking the wounded, and

gnawing on the dead. Corpses of men and horses

often laid for days before they could be buried adding to the stench and

flies.”

Reference Page

Zinn, Howard. A people's history of the United States. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classic, 2005. Print.