Multiple Choice
Identify the
choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
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Congress Gives Power to
Wilson
The war economy
likewise caused far-reaching changes in American lives. Many people moved from one region to another,
lured by promises of higher wages . And women, who usually had limited roles in the nation's
industrial economy, filled many positions left open by men who had joined the armed forces, providing
the hardware those men needed to fight. Many African Americans moved from the South to the North to
fill important jobs in American industry.
Winning the war was not a job for American soldiers
alone. It was necessary to mobilize the entire economy, to shift from producing consumer goods to
producing weapons, ammunition, and other war supplies . This was too complicated and important a job
for private industry to handle on its own, so business and government cooperated in the effort .
Congress gave President Wilson direct control over the economy, including the power to fix prices and
to regulate-even to nationalize-certain war-related industries.
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1.
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President Wilson said that the
war
a. | was going to be won or lost by the
soldiers in the field | c. | must involve the
civilian population as well as the military forces | b. | was going to be won or lost by the
navy | d. | was most likely not going to be
won |
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2.
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The Congress
a. | gave Wilson vast new powers over the
country to help win the war | c. | gave Wilson power over everything except the
economy | b. | put restrictions on Wilson regarding civil
rights | d. | did not help Wilson at
all |
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WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD
The main regulatory body
was the War Industries Board (WIB) . It was established in 1917 and reorganized in 1918 under the
leadership of Bernard M. Baruch. The board encouraged companies to use mass-production
techniques to increase efficiency and urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing
products-for instance, by making only 5 colors of typewriter ribbons instead of 150. The WIB set
production (Quotas and allocated raw materials. It also conducted psychological testing to help
people find the right jobs
Under the WIB, industrial production in the United States
increased by about 20 percent. However, the WI13 applied price controls only at the wholesale level.
As a result, retail prices soared, and in 1918 they were almost double what they lead been before the
war. Corporate profits soared as well, especially in such industries as chemicals, copper, lumber,
meat packing, oil, and steel.
The activities of' the WIB had several side effects,
including changes in women's clothing . For example, Banrch pointed out that corsets required
8,000 tons of steel a year, which could be better employed in building two battleships . Accordingly,
women stopped wearing corsets with steel ribs. Tall leather shoes, which were fashionable but not
functional, disappeared, and the extra leather went into soldiers' hoots . Hemlines rose, and
the fabric that had formerly gone into long skirts went into military uniforms instead.
The
WI B was not the only federal agency to regulate the economy in the interests of the war effort . The
Railroad Administration controlled the nations railroads, and the Fuel Administration monitored coal
supplies and rationed gasoline and heating oil . In addition, mares people voluntarily adopted
"gasless Sundays" and -liglitless nights" to Help conserve fuel . In March 1918, the
Fuel Administration introduced another conservation measure: daylight-saving time, which lead first
been proposed by Benjamin Franklin in the 1770s as a way to take advantage of the longer days of
sunlight..
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3.
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What was the purpose of the War
Industries Board
a. | plan strategy for the ground war in
France | c. | put a plan for the draft in
action | b. | mobilize industry and plan strategy for getting the most out of our
resources. | d. | help Wilson find personnel for
planning the war strategy |
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4.
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The WIB had very little impact
on the civilian population. It only effected industrial workers.
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WAR ECONOMY
Wages in some
industries-especially the metal trades, shipbuilding, and meat packing-rose during the war years by
as much as 20 percent. By contrast, white-collar workers, like clerks, managers, and lawyers, lost
about 35 percent of their purchasing power because of inflation . As a result of the uneven treatment
of workers, union membership climbed from about 2 .5 million in 1916 to more than 4 million in 1919,
and more than 6,000 strikes broke out during the war months in protest against stagnant wages at a
time of rising prices .
In 1918, President Wilson established the National War Labor
Board to deal with disputes between management and labor. Employers warned workers who were
reluctant to go along with board decisions that they would lose their exemption from the draft.
"Work or fight," they were told. However, the War Labor Board did try to improve working
conditions . It pushed for the eight- hour day and urged~factory owners to allow safety inspections .
It also pressured all manufacturers- to observe the federal ban on child labor.
To help
produce and conserve food, President Wilson set up the Food Administration and placed Herbert
Hoover in charge . Hoover's entire staff except for clerks, consisted of volunteers . Instead of
rationing food, he organized a tremendous publicity campaign that called on people to follow the
"gospel of the clean plate." He declared one day a week "meatless," another
"sweetless," "wheatless," and two other days "porkless ."
Restaurants removed sugar bowls from the table and served bread only after the first course . Since
Europeans were accustomed to eating wheat, Hoover urged Americans to eat corn so that they could send
their wheat abroad
Homeowners planted "victory gardens" in their yards. There was
even a victory garden in one corner of the White House lawn . Schoolchildren joined the United States
School Garden Army and spent their after-school hours growing tomatoes and cucumbers in public
parks.
As a result of these and similar efforts, American food shipments to the Allies
increased. Farmers responded by putting an additional 40 million acres into production. In the
process, they increased their income by almost 30 percent.
The wartime need for labor brought
over a million more women into the work force. The suffragette Harriet Stanton Klatch visited a
munitions plant in New Jersey
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5.
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Who did President Wilson
appoint to head the Food Administration?
a. | Tom
Clark | c. | Herbert
Hoover | b. | Blackjack Pershing | d. | General House |
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6.
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What was the purpose of the
Food Administration?
a. | Make industries more
profitable | c. | Help the United
Nations Food Project | b. | Make farming more profitable | d. | Conserve food for the war effort |
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7.
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What was the purpose of the
National War Labor Board?
a. | recruit more farm
workers | c. | keep peace between
labor and management | b. | recruit more factory workers | d. | insure adequate wages for the
workers |
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Selling the
War
"It is not an army
we must shape and train for war," argued President Wilson ; "it is a nation ." Not
only did soldiers need to learn to fight, but civilians needed to learn how to sacrifice for the war
effort . Since the war was not universally popular, the government embarked on a massive propaganda
campaign to justify civilian sacrifices and sell the war to the public . The campaign had two
aspects. On one hand, it promoted patriotism. On the other hand, it manufactured hate
WAR
FINANCING
The United States spent about $33 billion directly on the war effort . The
government raised about one-third of this amount through taxes, including a steeper income tax (which
taxed high incomes at a higher rate than low incomes), a war-profits tax, and higher excise taxes on
tobacco, liquor, and luxury goods. It raised the rest through public borrowing by selling war bonds.
The government sold bonds through tens of thousands of volunteers who never received any
sales commission . Movie stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin spoke at
rallies in factories, in schools, and on street corners. Newspapers and billboards carried
advertisements for bonds free of charge . Salesmen delivered speeches between theater acts and film
screenings. Towns held war-bond parades . All told, the government ran four great "Liberty
Loan" drives and one "Victory Loan" drive. As Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo put
it, only "a friend of Germany" would refuse to buy war bonds.
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8.
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Why did Wilson believe he
needed to “sell the war” with a propaganda campaign?
a. | make the public more
patriotic | c. | make the public
patriotic and hate the Germans | b. | make the public hate the Germans | d. | it helped the TV stations with
advertising |
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9.
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Why did the government sell war
bonds?
a. | to curb
inflation | c. | to promote
savings | b. | to raise money for the war | d. | to promote investments |
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COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC
INFORMATION
To directly
popularize the war, the government set up the nation's first propaganda agency, the Committee on
Public Information. The head of the CPI was a former muckraking journalist George Creel. An
imaginative individual, Creel mobilized the nation's artists and advertising people, who created
thousands of paintings, posters, cartoons, and sculptures promoting the war. He persuaded choirs,
social clubs, and religious institutions to join "the world's greatest adventure in
advertising. He recruited some 75,000 men to serve as "Four Minute Men" who would deliver a
speech anytime, any place. The Four Minute Men spoke about everything relating to the war: the draft,
rationing, bond drives, victory gardens, and topics such as "Why We Are
Fighting,"
It is estimated that by the end of the war, the Four Minute Men had delivered
more than 7.5 million speeches to 314 million listeners. He did not convince everyone, but he
certainly succeeded in reaching them .
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10.
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What was the purpose of the
CPI?
a. | to raise money for the war
effort | c. | to raise money for new
hospitals | b. | to mobilize industry for the war effort | d. | to sell the war to the American
Public |
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11.
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Why did Wilson pick a
“muckraking journalist” to head the CPI?
a. | he most likely knew how to influence
the public | c. | he was a
Progressive | b. | he was an important Democrat | d. | he was the only person who would take the
job |
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Attacks on Civil
Liberties
Early in 1917,
President Wilson expressed some apprehension about U.S . attitudes
toward the war. The
president's prediction was correct. As soon as war was declared, conformity indeed became the
order of the day. Attacks on civil liberties, both unofficial and official,
erupted.
ANTI-GERMAN ATTITUDES
The main targets of the drive for conformity
were Americans who had emigrated from other nations, especially those from Germany and
Austria-Hungary. The most bitter attacks were directed against the 2 million Americans who had been
born in Germany. Many Americans with German -sounding names lost their jobs. Orchestras refused
to play the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Braluns. Some towns with German names changed them
. A mob in Collinsville, Illinois, wrapped a German flag around a German-born miner named Robert
Prager and lynched him . A jury later cleared the mob's leaders .
Finally, in a burst of
anti-German fervor, Americans changed the name of German measles to "liberty measles."
Hamburger-named after the German city of Hamburg-became "Salisbury steak" or "liberty
sandwich," depending on whether you were buying it in a store or eating it in a restaurant.
Sauerkraut was renamed "liberty cabbage," and dachshunds turned into "liberty
pups."
ESPIONAGE AND SEDITION ACTS
In June 1917 Congress passed the
Espionage Act, and in May 1918 it passed the Sedition Act. Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts a
person could be fined up to $10,000 and sentenced to 20 years in jail for interfering with the draft,
obstructing the sale of government bonds, or saying anything disloyal, profane, or abusive about the
government or the war effort .
Like the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, these laws clearly
violated the spirit of the First Amendment. Their passage led to some 6,000 arrests for loosely
defined antiwar activities and 1,500 convictions, including the five anarchists of the
Abrains case. By 1918 even mainstream publications like the New York Times and The
Saturday Evening Post had lost their mailing privileges, at least temporarily The House of
Representatives refused to seat Victor Berger, a socialist congressman from Wisconsin, because of his
antiwar views. Columbia University fired a distinguished psychologist from its faculty because lie
too opposed the war. A colleague who supported the war thereupon resigned in protest, saying,
"if we have to suppress everything we don't like to hear, this country is resting on a
pretty wobbly basis."
The Espionage and Sedition Acts targeted socialists and labor
leaders .Eugene V Debs was handed a ten-year prison sentence for delivering a speech in which he
discussed the economic causes of the war, but he was pardoned by President Warren G. Harding after
serving only three years . The anarchist "Red Emma" Goldman received a two-year sentence
and a $10,000 fine for organizing the No Conscription League. When she left jail, the authorities
deported her to Russia. "Big Bill" Haywood and other leaders of the Industrial Workers of
the World were accused of sabotaging the war effort because they urged workers to strike for better
conditions and higher pay. Haywood received 30 years, while most of the other Wobblies
received 5 to 10. Under such federal pressure, the IWW faded away. On the whole, the civil
liberties record of the Wilson administration was not one to make Americans
proud.
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12.
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What was the main group of
immigrants that were attacked during the war?
a. | Irish | c. | Latino’s | b. | African Americans | d. | Germans |
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13.
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Why did the Alien and Sedition
Act target Socialists for prosecution?
a. | their activities were helping the
Russians to win the war | c. | their activities
were patriotic | b. | their activities were hurting the war effort
| d. | they were just a disliked
minority |
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14.
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We can tell from the
deportation of Emma Goldman that the Anarchists were considered to be part of the _____ movement by
the government
a. | Capitalist | c. | religious | b. | Communist | d. | Nazi |
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Social Changes During the
War
Wars often unleash
powerful social forces . The period of World War I was no
exception, and important changes
occurred among African Americans and women. The war also contributed to one of the worst epidemics in
history-the 1918 flu epidemic.
AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE WAR
Black public
opinion about the war was divided . On one side were people like W E. B . Du Bois, who editorialized
in The Crisis, the NAACP newspaper, that blacks should support the war effort. Du Bois recognized the
German imperial threat . Du Bois believed that it made sense for African Americans to cooperate
with the Wilson administration because African-American support for the war would lend strength to
calls for racial justice . On the other side were people like William Monroe Trotter, founder and
editor of the Boston. Guardian, who believed that victims of racism should not support a racist
government. Trotter condemned Du Bois's accommodationist approach and favored protest instead .
Nevertheless, despite grievances over continued racial inequality in the United States, most African
Americans backed the war
THE GREAT MIGRATION
In concrete terms, the greatest
effect of the First World War on African Americans' lives was that it accelerated the Great
Migration, the large scale movement of hundreds of thousands of Southern blacks to cities in the
North. As early as the late 19th century African Americans had trickled northward to escape the Jim
Crow South, but in the decade between 1910 and 1920, the trickle became a tidal wave. Several factors
caused the tremendous growth in black migration . First, many African Americans sought to escape the
racial discrimination in the South, which made it hard to make a living and often threatened their
lives. Also, a boll weevil infestation, aided by floods and droughts, had ruined much of the
South's cotton fields by 1916.
In the meantime, Henry Ford had opened his automobile
assembly line to black workers in 1914 . Then the outbreak of World War I and the drop in European
immigration increased job opportunities for African Americans in steel mills, munitions plants, and
stockyards. So Southern blacks boarded trains and moved away from the, South. Between 1910 and
1930, hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated to such cities as Chicago, New York, and
Philadelphia. The migration was heaviest from about 1915 to 1925.
Black migrants faced many
problems in their new surroundings, however, the concentration of African Americans in particular
areas encouraged them to set up their own commercial institutions . Some were in businesses that
provided personal services, such as hairdressing and undertaking. Others entered areas of finance
that whites considered too risky-such as insuring blacks' lives and property or arranging credit
for them . African Americans established thousands of such enterprises in Northern communities
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15.
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What was the “Great
Migration?”
a. | African Americans followed Marcus
Garvey in the “Back to Africa” movement | c. | African Americans moved from the North to the South to work on
farms | b. | African Americans moved from the South to the North to work in
industry | d. | A locust infestation of the cotton
crop in the South |
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16.
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What was W.E.B Dubois and most
African Americans position on the war?
a. | were against
it | c. | supported the Communist
position | b. | supported the war effort | d. | supported the Socialist position |
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17.
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Long before America entered
World War I, _______ hired African Americans to work in his factories.
a. | J.P.
Morgan | c. | John
Rockefeller | b. | W.E.B. Dubois | d. | Henry Ford |
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WOMEN IN THE
WAR
While African
Americans carved new lives for themselves in unfamiliar places, women increasingly found themselves
filling unfamiliar social roles as they moved into jobs that had formerly been held exclusively by
men. Women began driving cabs and delivery tracks . They became railroad workers, cooks, dockworkers,
and bricklayers . They even mined coal and took part in shipbuilding . At the same time, women
continued to fill more traditional jobs as nurses, clerks, and teachers. Many women worked as
volunteers, serving at Red Cross facilities and encouraging the sale of bonds and the planting of
victory gardens. In contrast, other women were active in the peace movement. For example, Jane
Addallis helped found the Women's Peace Party in 1915 and remained a pacifist even after the
United States entered the war.
In general, women made notable contributions to the
nation's war effort . As President Wilson acknowledged, "The services of women during the
supreme crisis have been of the most signal usefulness and distinction; it is high time that part of
our debt should be acknowledged ." While acknowledgment of that debt did not include equal pay
for equal work, it did help bolster public support for woman suffrage . In 1919, Congress finally
passed the Nineteenth Amendment, and the states ratified it the following year giving women the right
to vote..
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18.
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We can safely say that the
activities of women in World War I
a. | made them even more dependent on
men | c. | delayed woman’s
suffrage | b. | hurt the cause of womens rights | d. | helped women to finally get the
vote |
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19.
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What amendment to the
Constitution gave women the right to vote?
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THE FLU
EPIDEMIC
In the fall of
1918 the United States suffered a homefiont crisis that affected both men and omen, white and
black alike. An international flu epidemic gripped the nation . It apparently came from France, to
which it had been brought by Chinese war workers . About one-quarter of the U.S . population fell ill
with high fever, headaches, and aching muscles, often followed by pneumonia. The effect of' the
epidemic on the economy was devastating. Mines shut down, telephone service was cut in half, and
factories and offices staggered working hours to avoid contagion . Cities ran short of coffins, and
the corpses of poor people lay unburied as long as a week. Doctors did not know what to do, other
than to recommend cleanliness and quarantine . One epidemic survivor recalled that "so many
people died from the flu they just rang the bells ; they didn't dare take [corpses]
into the church ."
In all, about 500,000 Americans perished before the epidemic
disappeared in 1919. Historians believe that the influenza virus killed as many as 40 million people
worldwide . Like the flu epidemic, the war ended, and Americans across the country hoped that this
"war to end all wars" would do just that. Their hopes rested on the peace settlement, and
President Wilson traveled to Europe to ensure it. In
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20.
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Which statement is
true
a. | the flue epidemic was serious but it
did not really hurt the war effort | c. | the flue epidemic only took place in China and the United
States | b. | the flu epidemic hurt the war effort in
America | d. | the flu epidemic was a gift from France because they did
not like Americans |
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