Download CHAPTER 23: AMERICA and the GREAT WAR

CHAPTER 23: AMERICA and the GREAT WAR
PIB AMERICAN HISTORY
I. INTRODUCTION Following two and a half years of pro-Allied "neutrality," the United States entered World War
I because of economic and cultural factors, as well as German submarine warfare. The armies and civilians of Europe
had already suffered mightily by the time the United States finally entered. American forces, initially at sea and then
on land, provided the margin of victory for the Allies. To mount its total effort, the United States turned to an array of
unprecedented measures: sharply graduated taxes, conscription for a foreign war, bureaucratic management of the
economy, and a massive propaganda and anti-sedition campaign. Women entered the work force in record numbers,
and the hopes of African Americans were raised by military service and war-related jobs in the North. President
Woodrow Wilson formulated American war aims in his famous Fourteen Points, but he was unable to convince either
Europe or the United States fully to accept his tenets as the basis for peace. By 1920, the American people, tired from
nearly three decades of turmoil, had repudiated Wilson's precious League of Nations in favor of an illusion called
"normalcy."
II. CHAPTER OUTLINE: THE EVIDENCE of HISTORY (terms, people & groups, issues & events)
A. THE ROAD TO WAR pp612-616
"total" war
"...war to end all wars"
"...to make the world safe for democracy."
imperialism
nationalism
mobilization
belligerents
neutral
unterseeboot
unrestricted submarine warfare
pacifists, interventionists, isolationists
"He kept us out of war."
"New World Order"
"peace without victory."
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Emperor Francis Joseph II
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Czar Nicholas II
King George V
Woodrow Wilson
Charles Evans Hughes
Theodore Roosevelt
Edward House
B. "WAR WITHOUT STINT" (pp624-629)
convoy system
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
conscription
Newton D. Baker
conscientious objector
GEN John J. Pershing
"doughboys"
trench warfare
"Over There"
women's auxiliary corps
armistice
"the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month"
C. THE WAR AND AMERICAN SOCIETY (pp629-632)
Herbert Hoover
Bernard Baruch
The Great War
1914-1918
Triple Entente
Triple Alliance
Sarajevo June 28, 1914
Allied Powers
Central Powers
Lusitania May 1915
Sussex Mar 1916
Election of 1916 (P)
Zimmermann Telegram Jan 1917
Russian Revolution Mar 1917
Declaration of War Apr 2/6 1917
Bolshevik Revolution Nov 1917
Treaty of Brest- Utovsk Mar 1918
AEF (American Expeditionary Force)
Selective Service Act May 1917
Houston Riot
Aug 1917
Chateau-Thierry
Jun 1918
Belleau Wood
Jun-Jul 1918
St. Mihiel
Sep 1918
Meuse-Argonne
Sep-Nov 1918
November 11, 1918
Liberty Bonds
War Industries Board Jul 1917
War Labor Board
Apr 1918
Ludlow Massacre
Apr 20, 1914
“The Great Migration”
East St. Louis Race Riot Jul 2, 1917
Women’s trade Union League
Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)
D. THE SEARCH FOR SOCIAL UNITY (pp. 632-636)
peace movement
Carrie Chapman Catt
revivalism
Billy Sunday
propaganda war/censorship
George Creel
“the great dissenter”
Hiram Johnson
“The life of the law has not been logic, Oliver Wendell Holms, Jr.
it has been experience.”
The Common Law 1881
“clear and present danger”
S C Justice 1902-1932
“free trade in ideas”
vigilantism
“liberty cabbage” and “liberty sausage”
Women’s Peace Party 1915
National American woman Suffrage Assoc
Committee on Public Information 1917
Espionage Act 1917
Sabotage Act 1918
Sedition Act 1918
Schenck v. United States 1919
Abrams v. United States 1919
American Protective League
Patterns of Popular Culture: Billy Sunday and Modern Revivalism (pp634-635)
E. THE SEARCH FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER (pp. 636-640)
Wilsonianism
David Lloyd George
Fourteen Points Jan 1918
“national self-determinism”
Georges Clemenceau
Election of 1918 (C)
liberalism
Vittorio Orlando
Paris Peace Conference 1919
“open covenants openly arrived at”
Woodrow Wilson
“The Big Four”
reparations and demilitarized zones
Henry Cabot Lodge
League of Nations
Jan 1919
“war guilt” clause
Edith Wilson
Treaty of Versailles
Jun 1919
mandate system
Pueblo, CO
Sept 1919
“covenant”
“Referendum” Election of 1920
irreconcilables and “reservations”
F. A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL (pp. 640-646)
reconversion and demobilization
Calvin Coolidge
“…there is no right to strike against
Marcus Garvey
the public safety by anybody
anywhere, any time.”
A. Mitchell Palmer
“rising expectations”
J. Edgar Hoover
black nationalism
Flex Frankfurter
communism/radicalism
Warring G. Harding
conspiracy
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
anarchist
“normalcy”
Seattle Genera Strike Jan 1919
Boston Police Strike
Sep 1919
Great Steel Strike
Sep 1919
Great Coal Strike
Sep 1919
Chicago race Riot
summer 1919
United Negro Improvement Association
The Red Scare
Russian Revolution
Nov 1917
Communist International (Comintern) 1919
American Communist Party
1919
Palmer Raids
1919-1920
Sacco and Vanzetti Case 1920-1927
Nineteenth Amendment
1920
Election of 1920 (P)
Gitlow v. New York (1925)
G. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS AND CONCLUSION (pp. 646)
III. ADDITIONAL READINGS: For the Record.
The Zimmermann Note (1917)
p. 162/163
Wilson:
Declaration of War against Germany (1917)
p. 163/164
Norris:
The Profits of War (1917)
p. 165/170
Johnson:
Why Not a Dollar Draft? (1919)
p. 167/172
Hoffman:
from / Remember the Last War
p. 169/173
Wilson:
The Fourteen Points (1918)
p. 172
Wilson:
The League of Nations (1919)
p. 175/117
Lodge:
The League of Nations Must Be Revised (1919)
p. 177/179
Palmer:
from The Case against the Reds (1920)
p. 182/184
White:
The Red Scare is Un-American (1920)
p. 183/120
The Sacco-Vanzetti Case (1927)
p. 184/186
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. Explain how and why the US eventually entered World War I.
2. Explain Woodrow Wilson’s vision for the peace and the problems he had getting European leaders to adopt
his vision after the war.
3. Describe the ratification battle fought in the United States over the Treaty of Versailles
4. Describe the Red Scare that occurred in the United States shortly after the end of World War I.
C23 America and the Great War
Sec A The Road to War (pp620-624)
Sec B "War without Stint" (pp624"629)
ADDITIONAL READINGS: For The Record.
The Zimmermann Note (1917)
p162/163
Wilson:
Declaration of War against Germany (1917) p163/164
"The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
Lord Grey, Aug 3,1914 (the eve of Britain's declaration of war)
I. March to Armageddon The Great War (1914-18), known to us as World War I, was a conflict among most of the
world's great powers. On one side were the Allies (chiefly France, Britain, Russia, and the U.S.); on the other were the
Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey). Prominent among the war's causes were the imperialist,
territorial, and economic rivalries of the great powers. The German empire in particular was determined to establish
itself as the preeminent power on the Continent. The Germans were also intent on challenging the naval superiority of
Britain. However, it was rampant nationalism-especially evident in the Austro-Hungarian empire-that furnished the
immediate cause of hostilities. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian
throne, was assassinated at Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist. One month later, after its humiliating demands were
refused, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Other declarations of war followed quickly, and soon every major
power in Europe was in the war. On the Western Front, the Germans smashed through Belgium, advanced on Paris,
and approached the English Channel. After the first battles of the Marne and Ypres, however, the Germans became
stalled. Grueling trench warfare and the use of poison gas began all along the front, and for the next three years the
battle lines remained virtually stationary despite huge casualties at Verdun and in the Somme offensive during 1916.
On the Eastern Front, the Central Powers were more successful. The Germans defeated (Aug.-Sept. 1914) the
Russians at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. Serbia and Montenegro fell by the end of 1915. In the south, the
Italian campaigns were inconclusive, though they benefited the Allied cause by keeping large numbers of Austrian
troops tied down there. In Turkey, the Allies' ambitious Gallipolli Campaign (1915), an attempt to force Turkey out of
the war, was a costly failure. In the Middle East, T.E. Lawrence stirred Arab revolt against Turkey. U.S. neutrality had
been threatened since 1915, when the British ship Lusitania was sunk. By 1917 unrestricted German submarine
warfare had caused the U.S. to enter the war on the side of the Allies.
A. Russian Revolutions (1905; Mar 1917) The Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) revealed the corruption and
incompetence of the regime of Nicholas II. The Revolution of 1905 began in January, when troops fired on a peaceful
crowd of workers who, led by a priest, were marching to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to petition the czar. This
"bloody Sunday" was followed by months of disorders throughout Russia. In October the czar granted basic civil
liberties and a parliament, or duma, but the first and second dumas were soon dissolved and the revolutionary
movement was ruthlessly suppressed. World War I, which began in 1914, brought the situation to a head. By March
1917 (February in the Old Style calendar), military defeats, acute civilian suffering, and government ineptness had led
to food riots and strikes in Petrograd (the capital's new, less Germanic name) and Moscow. Many soldiers refused to
help put down the disorders. In mid-March the czar tried unsuccessfully to dissolve the fourth duma. The insurgents
seized Petrograd, the duma appointed a provisional government under Prince Lvov and Kerensky, and Nicholas was
forced to abdicate. Most welcomed the end of autocracy, but the new government had little support, and its power was
limited by the Petrograd workers' and soldiers' council, or soviet, which controlled troops, communications, and
transport. The government called for a general amnesty, civil liberties, and a constituent assembly elected by universal
suffrage, but Kerensky said nothing about the war or about redistribution of land.
B. Bolshevik Revolution (October 1917) In Apr., 1917, Lenin and other revolutionaries returned to Russia
after having been permitted by the German government to cross Germany. The Germans hoped that the Bolsheviks
would undermine the Russian war effort. Lenin galvanized the small and theretofore cautious Bolshevik party into
action. The courses he advocated were simplified into the powerful slogans "end the war," "all land to the peasants,"
and "all power to the Soviets." The failure of the all-out military offensive in July increased discontent with the
provisional government, and disorders and violence in Petrograd led to popular demands for the soviet to seize power.
The Bolsheviks assumed direction of this movement, but the soviet still held back. The government then took strong
measures against the Bolshevik press and leaders. Nevertheless, the position of the provisional government was
precarious. Prince Lvov resigned in July because of his opposition to Chernov's cautious attempts at land reform. He
was replaced by Kerensky, who formed a coalition cabinet with a socialist majority. Army discipline deteriorated after
the failure of the July offensive. The provisional government and the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary leaders
in the soviet lost support from the impatient soldiers and workers, who turned to the Bolsheviks.
Although the Bolsheviks were a minority in the first all-Russian congress of Soviets (June), they continued to
gain influence. Conservative and even some moderate elements, who wished to limit the power of the Soviets, rallied
around General Kornilov, who attempted (September, N.S./August, O.S.) to seize Petrograd by force. At Kerensky's
request, the Bolsheviks and other socialists came to the defense of the provisional government and the attempt was put
down. From mid-September on the Bolsheviks had a majority in the Petrograd soviet, and Lenin urged the soviet to
seize power. On the night of Nov. 6 (Oct. 24, O.S.), the Bolsheviks staged an coup, engineered by Trotsky; aided by
the workers' Red Guard and the sailors of Kronstadt, they captured the government buildings and the Winter Palace in
Petrograd. A second all-Russian congress of Soviets met and approved the coup after the Mensheviks and Socialist
Revolutionaries walked out of the meeting. A cabinet, known as the Council of People's Commissars, was set up with
Lenin as chairman, Trotsky as foreign commissar, Rykov as interior commissar, and Stalin as commissar of
nationalities. The second congress immediately called for cessation of hostilities, gave private and church lands to
village Soviets, and abolished private property. Moscow was soon taken by force, and local groups of Bolshevik
workers and soldiers gained control of most of the other cities of Russia. The remaining members of the provisional
government were arrested (Kerensky had fled the country). Old marriage and divorce laws were discarded, the church
was attacked, workers' control was introduced into the factories, the banks were nationalized, and a supreme economic
council was formed to run the economy. The long-promised constituent assembly met in Jan., 1918, but its
composition being predominantly non-Bolshevik, it was soon disbanded by Bolshevik troops. The Cheka (political
police) was set up to liquidate the opposition.
Negotiations with the Central powers, which had begun late in 1917, resulted in the Russian acceptance (Mar.,
1918) of the humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (see below). Most of the lands ceded to Germany under the treaty
were home to non-Russian nationalities. The ceded lands and Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia,
Armenia, and Azerbaijan had proclaimed their independence from Russia after the Bolshevik coup. Following
Germany's defeat by the Allies and the withdrawal of German troops, the Bolsheviks regained some of the lost
territory (Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) during the Russian civil war (1918-1920),
C. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty in World War I, signed by Soviet Russia and the, Central
Powers, Mar. 3,1918, at Brest-Litovsk (Belarus). After the separate armistice of Dec. 5,1917, long, bitter negotiations
were conducted by Leon Trotsky for Russia, Richard von Kuhlmann for Germany, and Count Ottokar Czernin for
Austria-Hungary (the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were also represented). Trotsky at one point suspended
negotiations, but Germany resumed warfare and the Soviets—on the insistence of Lenin—accepted the German
ultimatum, which set conditions even harsher than at first. Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine and
Georgia; confirmed the independence of Finland; gave up Poland, the Baltic states, and part of what is now Belarus to
Germany and Austria-Hungary; and ceded Kars, Ardahan, and Batum to the Ottomans. Later, Germany demanded a
large indemnity. The general armistice of Nov. 11,1918, forced Germany to renounce the treaty, and Russia also
declared it null and void. The western frontiers of Russia were later agreed upon by a series of separate treaties.
II. "Over There": At the end of 1916, Germany, whose surface fleet had been bottled up since the indecisive battle
of Jutland, announced that it would begin unrestricted submarine warfare in an effort to break British control of the
seas. In protest the United States broke off relations with Germany (Feb., 1917), and on Apr. 6 it entered the war.
American participation meant that the Allies now had at their command almost unlimited industrial and manpower
resources, which were to be decisive in winning the war. It also served from the start to lift Allied morale, and the
insistence of President Woodrow Wilson on a "war to make the world safe for democracy" was to weaken the Central
Powers by encouraging revolutionary groups at home.
The war on the Western Front continued to be bloody and stalemated. The first troops of the American
Expeditionary Forces (AEF), commanded by General Pershing, landed in France in June, 1917, and were rushed to the
Chateau-Thierry area to help stem a new German offensive. A unified Allied command in the West was created in
Apr., 1918. It was headed by Marshal Foch, but under him the national commanders (Sir Douglas Haig for Britain,
King Albert I for Belgium, and General Pershing for the United States) retained considerable authority. The Central
Powers, however, had gained new strength through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Mar., 1918) with Russia. The
resources of Ukraine seemed at their disposal, enabling them to balance to some extent the effects of the Allied
blockade; most important, their forces could now be concentrated on the Western Front.
The critical German counteroffensive, known as the Second Battle of the Marne, was stopped just short of
Paris (July-Aug., 1918). At this point Foch ordered a general counterattack that soon pushed the Germans back to their
initial line (the so-called Hindenburg Line). The Allied push continued, with the British advancing in the north and the
Americans attacking through the Argonne region of France. While the Germans were thus losing their forces on the
Western Front, Bulgaria, invaded by the Allies under General Franchet d'Esperey, capitulated on Sept. 30, and Turkey
concluded an armistice on Oct. 30. Austria-Hungary, in the process of disintegration, surrendered on Nov. 4 after the
Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto.
German resources were exhausted and German morale had collapsed. President Wilson's Fourteen Points
were accepted by the new German chancellor, Maximilian, prince of Baden, as the basis of peace negotiations, but it
was only after revolution had broken out in Germany that the armistice was at last signed (Nov. 11) at Compiègne.
Germany was to evacuate its troops immediately from all territory W of the Rhine, and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
was declared void. The war ended without a single truly decisive battle having been fought, and Germany lost the war
while its troops were still occupying from territory from France to Crimea. This paradox became important in
subsequent German history, when nationalists and militarists sought to blame the defeat on traitors on the home front
rather than on the utter exhaustion of the German machine and war economy.
C23 America and the Great War
Sec C The War and American Society (pp629-632)
Sec D The Search for Social Unity
(pp632-636)
ADDITIONAL READINGS: For The Record
Norris:
The Profits of War (1917)
p 165/170
Johnson:
Why Not a Dollar Draft? (1919)
p 167/172
Hoffman:
from / Remember the Last War
p 169/173
I. Social Change as a Result of the War Effort
A. Race Relations: The Great Migration (also see previous notes) On their arrival in the North, migrants
found not just better wages but the freedom to vote, less exposure to white violence, and, sometimes, better schools
for their children. Racism remained persistent, however. Discriminatory real-estate practices forced blacks into illmaintained and segregated housing, contributing to the rise of the urban black ghetto. Blacks were routinely excluded
from labor unions, and many migrants were forced into menial jobs as butlers, waiters, and the like, or served as
replacement workers ("scabs") during strikes by white unions. The increased competition among blacks and whites for
jobs and housing sparked race riots in dozens of Northern cities, including major white-on-black riots in East St.
Louis, Illinois, in 1917, and Chicago, Illinois, in 1919. For blacks, the riots were an enduring reminder that white
violence was not restricted to the states of Jim Crow. For the nation, the tensions caused by black migration made
many people aware of what blacks had known for some time: the problems of race were an American, not only a
Southern, phenomenon.
1. East Saint Louis Race Riot of 1917 was a bloody outbreak of violence in stemming specifically
from the employment of black workers in a factory holding government contracts. It was the worst of many incidents
of racial antagonism in the United States during World War I that were directed especially toward black Americans
newly employed in war industries. In the riot, whites turned on blacks, indiscriminately stabbing, clubbing, and
hanging them and driving 6,000 from their homes; 40 blacks and 8 whites were killed. On July 28 the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) staged a silent parade down Fifth Avenue in New
York City, protesting the riot and other acts of violence toward black Americans. German propaganda magnified these
incidents in an attempt to arouse antiwar sentiment in the American black community, and President Woodrow
Wilson publicly denounced mob violence and lynchings, of which there had been 54 in 1916 and 38 in 1917.
2. Chicago Race Riot of 1919 was the most severe of approximately 25 race riots throughout the U.S.
in the "Red (bloody) Summer" following World War I; a manifestation of racial frictions intensified by large-scale
Negro "Great Migration" to the North, industrial labor competition, overcrowding in urban ghettos, and greater
militancy among black war veterans who had fought "to preserve democracy." In the South revived Ku Klux Klan
activities resulted in 64 lynchings in 1918 and 83 in 1919; race riots broke out in Washington, D.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.;
Longview, Texas; and Phillips County, Ark. In the North the worst race riots erupted in Chicago and in Omaha, Neb.
Chicago racial tension, concentrated on the South Side, was particularly exacerbated by the pressure for adequate
housing: the black population had increased from 44,000 in 1910 to more than 109,000 in 1920. The riot was triggered
by the death of a black youth on July 27. He had been swimming in Lake Michigan and had drifted into an area tacitly
reserved for whites; he was stoned and he shortly drowned. When police refused to arrest the white man whom black
observers held responsible for the incident, indignant crowds began to gather on the beach, and the disturbance began.
Distorted rumors swept the city as sporadic fighting broke out between gangs and mobs of both races. Violence
escalated with each incident, and for 13 days Chicago was without law and order despite the fact that the state militia
had been called out on the fourth day. By the end, 38 were dead (23 blacks, 15 whites), 537 injured, and 1,000 black
families made homeless.
The horror of the Chicago Race Riot helped shock the nation out of indifference to its growing racial conflict. Pres
Woodrow Wilson castigated the "white race" as "the aggressor" in both the Chicago and Washington riots, and efforts
were launched to promote racial harmony through voluntary organizations and ameliorative legislation in Congress.
The period also marked a new willingness on the part of black men to fight for their rights in the face of injustice and
oppression.
B. Labor Relations; Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States
struck down the Keating-Owen Act, which had regulated child labor. The act, passed in 1916, had prohibited the
interstate shipment of goods produced in factories or mines in which children under age 14 were employed or
adolescents between ages 14 and 16 worked more than an eight-hour day. Hammer v. Dagenhart was a test case
brought by employers outraged at this regulation of their employment practices. Dagenhart was the father of two boys
who would have lost jobs at a Charlotte, N.C., mill if Keating-Owen were upheld; Hammer was the U.S. attorney in
Charlotte. In a 5 to 4 decision, the Court ruled that the Keating-Owen Act exceeded federal authority and represented
an unwarranted encroachment on state powers to determine local labor conditions. In a notable dissent, Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes pointed to the evils of excessive child labor, to the inability of states to regulate child labor, and to
the unqualified right of Congress to regulate interstate commerce-including the right to prohibit. Hammer v.
Dagenhart was overturned when the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Fair Labor Standards Act in U.S. v.
Darby Lumber Company (1941).
II. "The first casualty of war is the truth": the coercive nature of government in wartime.
A. Prohibition The modern movement for prohibition had its main growth in the United States and developed largely
as a result of the agitation of 19th-century temperance movements. A number of states passed temperance laws in the
early part of the century, but most of them were soon repealed. A new wave of state prohibition legislation followed
the creation (1846-51) of a law in Maine, the first in the United States. Thus, emphasis shifted from advocacy of
temperance to outright demand for government prohibition. Chief of the forces in this new and effective approach was
the Anti-Saloon League. Prohibition had now become a national political issue, with a growing Prohibition Party and
support from a number of rural, religious, and business groups. The drive was given impetus in World War I, when
conservation policies limited liquor output. After the war national prohibition became the law, the Eighteenth
Amendment (proposed by Congress Dec, 18, 1917; ratified Jan. 16, 1919; repealed by Twenty-first Amendment,
effective Dec. 5, 1933) to the Constitution forbidding the manufacture, sale, import, or export of intoxicating liquors.
In spite of the strict Volstead Act (1919 defines as "intoxicating" any beverage containing 0.5 percent alcohol or
more), law enforcement proved to be very difficult. Smuggling on a large scale ("bootlegging") could not be
prevented, and the illicit manufacture of liquor sprang up with such rapidity that authorities were unable to suppress it.
There followed a period of unparalleled illegal drinking (often of inferior and dangerous beverages) and lawbreaking.
B. Espionage is the act of obtaining information clandestinely. The term applies particularly to the act of collecting
military, industrial, and political data about one nation for the benefit of another. The threat of foreign espionage is
used as an excuse for internal suppression and the suspension of civil rights in many countries. By World War I, all
the great powers except the United States had elaborate civilian espionage systems and all national military
establishments had intelligence units. To protect the country against foreign agents, the U.S. Congress passed the
Espionage Statute of 1917. Mata Hari, who obtained information for Germany by seducing French officials, was the
most noted espionage agent of World War I. Germany and Japan established elaborate espionage nets in the years
preceding World War II.
Schenck v. United States (1919) During World War I, Charles T. Schenck produced a pamphlet
maintaining that the military draft was illegal, and was convicted under the Espionage Act of attempting to cause
insubordination in the military and to obstruct recruiting. In his opinion for the Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes rejected the argument that the pamphlet was protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He
argued that speech may be suppressed if it creates a clear and present danger that it will produce a "substantive evil"
which can be legally prevented. Subsequent decisions would limit the clear and present danger test to violent actions,
and not the mere advocacy of ideas. Indeed, Holmes himself agreed that the 1919 decision had been abused by the
federal government in cases where political dissidents were prosecuted.
C. Sedition in law, are acts or words tending to upset the authority of a government. Although there have been several
statutes in the United States forbidding seditious utterances and writings, the protection guaranteed to speech and
press by the First Amendment to the Constitution has made them difficult to enforce except during periods of great
national stress. During World War I the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918) punished speeches and
writings that interfered with the war effort or caused contempt for the government. Vaguely worded and broadly
interpreted, they resulted in over 2,000 prosecutions, mostly against radicals and the radical press.
Abrams v. United States (1919) The Supreme Court's first attempts to define constitutionally
protected expression came in a series of cases growing out of prosecutions under the 1918 Sedition Act and other
laws. Ironically, the "war to make the world safe for democracy" triggered the worst invasion of civil liberties at home
since the nation's founding. The government obviously had to protect itself from subversion, but the new statutes
seemed aimed as much at suppressing radical criticism of administration policy as at ferreting out spies. The federal
laws, as well as some state counterparts, caught radicals, pacifists and other dissenters in an extensive web. The total
number of indictments ran into the thousands; the Attorney General reported 877 convictions out of 1,956 cases
commenced in 1919 and 1920.
The initial challenge to the law came in the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States, in which a prominent socialist
leader had been indicted and convicted for urging resistance to the draft. A unanimous Court had upheld the
conviction, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes did not depart very far from the older British notion that free speech
and press meant little more than no prior restraint that is, one could say what one wanted, but then could be prosecuted
for it. Freedom of speech, he declared, was not unlimited, and in a famous aphorism noted that one could not shout
"Fire!" in a crowded theater. The test he announced at that time became the basis for all speech tests for the next fifty
years: “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature
as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to
prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree."
Holmes, who thought the Schenck case simple, was surprised at the criticism it evoked among people he respected in
the academic community. Professor Ernst Freund of the University of Chicago, for example, argued that "tolerance of
adverse opinion is not a matter of generosity but of political prudence." Holmes, who had always enjoyed the respect
of legal scholars, did not understand their objections, and he agreed to meet with Professor Zechariah Chafee, Jr., of
the Harvard Law School. Chafee convinced Holmes that free speech served important national purposes, and the
country would suffer more from restriction on that speech than from alleged and vague dangers posed by unpopular
doctrines. Within a short time Chafee's arguments bore fruit.
Jacob Abrams and others had been convicted of distributing pamphlets criticizing the Wilson administration for
sending troops to Russia in the summer of 1918. Although the government could not prove that the pamphlets had
actually hindered the operation of the military, an anti-radical lower court judge had found that they might have done
so, and found Abrams and his co-defendants guilty. On appeal, seven members of the Supreme Court had used
Holmes's "clear and present danger" test to sustain the conviction. But Holmes, joined by Louis D. Brandeis,
dissented, and it is this dissent that is widely recognized as the starting point in modern judicial concern for free
expression.
C23 America and the Great War
Sec E The Search for a New World Order
Sec F A Society in Turmoil
(pp636-640)
(pp640-646)
ADDITIONAL READINGS: For The Record.
Wilson:
The Fourteen Points (1918)
p172
Wilson:
The League of Nations (1919)
p175
Lodge:
The League of Nations Must Be Revised (1919)
p177
Palmer:
from The Case against the Reds (1920)
p182
White:
The Red Scare is Un-American (1920)
p183
The Sacco-Vanzetti Case (1927)
p184
"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." George Bernard Shaw
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." Thomas Jefferson
I. The New World Order: World War I and the resulting peace treaties radically changed the face of Europe and
precipitated political, social, and economic changes. By the Treaty of Versailles Germany was forced to acknowledge
guilt for the war. Later, prompted by the Bolshevik publication of the secret diplomacy of the czarist Russian
government, the warring powers gradually released their own state papers, and the long historical debate on war guilt
began. It has with some justice been claimed that the conditions of the peace treaties were partially responsible for
World War II. Yet when World War I ended, the immense suffering it had caused gave rise to a general revulsion to
any kind of war, and a large part of mankind placed its hopes in the newly created League of Nations.
To calculate the total losses caused by the war is impossible. About 10 million dead and 20 million wounded is a
conservative estimate. Starvation and epidemics raised the total in the immediate postwar years. Warfare itself had
been revolutionized by the conflict (air plane; chemical warfare; mechanized warfare; tank).
A. The Paris Peace Conference The most important treaty signed was the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It was the
chief among the five peace treaties that terminated World War I. The other four were Saint-Germain, for Austria;
Trianon, for Hungary; Neuilly, for Bulgaria; and Sevres, for Turkey. Signed on June 28, 1919, by Germany on the one
hand and by the Allies (except Russia) on the other, the Treaty of Versailles embodied the results of the long and often
bitter negotiations of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
The outstanding figures in the negotiations leading to the treaty were Woodrow Wilson for the United States, Georges
Clemenceau for France, David Lloyd George for England, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando for Italy—the so-called Big
Four. Germany, as the defeated power, was not included in the consultation. Among the chief causes of Allied
dissension was Wilson's refusal to recognize the secret agreements reached by the Allies in the course of the war;
Italy's refusal to forgo the territorial gains promised (1915) by the secret Treaty of London; and French insistence on
the harsh treatment of Germany. Wilson's Fourteen Points were, to a large extent, sacrificed, but his main objectives,
the creation of states based on the principle of national self-determination and the formation of the League of Nations,
were embodied in the treaty. However, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty, and the United States merely
declared the war with Germany at an end in 1921.
The treaty formally placed the responsibility for the war on Germany and its allies and imposed on Germany the
burden of the reparations payments. The chief territorial clauses were those restoring Alsace and Lorraine to France;
placing the former German colonies under League of Nations mandates; awarding most of West Prussia, including
Poznan and the Polish Corridor, to Poland; establishing Danzig (Gdask) as a free city; and providing for plebiscites,
which resulted in the transfer of Eupen and Malmédy to Belgium, of N Schleswig to Denmark, and of parts of
Upper Silesia to Poland. The Saar Territory was placed under French administration for 15 years; the Rhineland was
to be occupied by the Allies for an equal period; and the right bank of the Rhine was to be permanently
demilitarized. The German army was reduced to a maximum of 100,000 soldiers, the German navy was similarly
reduced, and Germany was forbidden to build major weapons of aggression. Germany, after futile protests, accepted
the treaty, which became effective in Jan., 1920.
Notes for Future Reference: Subsequently, German dissatisfaction with the terms of the treaty played an important
part in the rise of National Socialism, or the Nazi movement. While Gustav Stresemann was German foreign minister,
Germany by a policy of fulfillment succeeded in having some of the treaty terms eased. Reparations payments, the
most ruinous part of the treaty, were suspended in 1931 and were never resumed. In 1935 Chancellor Adolf Hitler
unilaterally canceled the military clauses of the treaty, which in practice became a dead letter; in 1936 he began the
remilitarization of the Rhineland. A vast literature has been written on the Paris Peace Conference and on the Treaty
of Versailles, and controversy continues as to whether the treaty was just, too harsh, or not harsh enough.
B. The League of Nations
Background: The League was a product of World War I in the sense that that conflict convinced most persons of the
necessity of averting another such cataclysm. But its background lay in the visions of men like the due de Sully and
Immanuel Kant and in the later growth of formal international organizations like the International Telegraphic Union
(1865) and the Universal Postal Union (1874). The Red Cross, the Hague Conferences, and the Permanent Court of
Arbitration (Hague Tribunal) were also important stepping-stones toward international cooperation.
Basis: The Covenant: At the close of World War I, such prominent figures as Jan Smuts, Lord Robert Cecil, and
Leon Bourgeois advocated a society of nations. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson incorporated the proposal into the
Fourteen Points and was the chief figure in the establishment of the League at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
The basis of the League was the Covenant, which was included in the Treaty of Versailles and the other peace treaties.
The Covenant consisted of 26 articles. Articles 1 through 7 concerned organization, providing for an assembly,
composed of all member nations; a council, composed of the great powers (originally Great Britain, France, Italy, and
Japan, later also Germany and the USSR) and of four other, nonpermanent members; and a secretariat. Both the
assembly and the council were empowered to discuss "any matter within the sphere of action of the League or
affecting the peace of the world." In both the assembly and the council unanimous decisions were required. Articles 8
and 9 recognized the need for disarmament and set up military commissions. Article 10 was an attempt to guarantee
the territorial integrity and political independence of member states against aggression. Articles 11 through 17
provided for the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice (see World Court), for arbitration and
conciliation, and for sanctions against aggressors. The rest of the articles dealt with treaties, colonial mandates,
international cooperation in humanitarian enterprises, and amendments to the Covenant.
Members: The original membership of the League included the victorious Allies of World War I (with the exception
of the United States, whose Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles) and most of the neutral nations. Among
later admissions to membership were Bulgaria (1920), Austria (1920), Hungary (1922), Germany (1926), Mexico
(1931), Turkey (1932), and the USSR (1934). Through the efforts of Sir Eric Drummond, the first secretary-general of
the League, a truly international secretariat was created. Geneva, Switzerland, was chosen as the League headquarters.
For Future Reference: The League quickly proved its value by settling the Swedish-Finnish dispute over the Aland
Islands (1920-21), guaranteeing the security of Albania (1921), rescuing Austria from economic disaster, settling the
division of Upper Silesia (1922), and preventing the outbreak of war in the Balkans between Greece and Bulgaria
(1925). In addition, the League extended considerable aid to refugees; it helped to suppress white slave and opium
traffic; it did pioneering work in surveys of health; it extended financial aid to needy states; and it furthered
international cooperation in labor relations and many other fields.
The problem of bringing its political influence to bear, especially on the great powers, soon made itself felt. Poland
refused to abide by the League decision in the Vilnius dispute, and the League was forced to stand by powerlessly in
the face of the French occupation of the Ruhr (1923) and Italy's occupation of Kerkira (1923). Failure to take action
over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931) was a blow to the League's prestige, especially when followed by
Japan's withdrawal from the League (1933). Another serious failure was the inability of the League to stop the Chaco
War (1932-35) between Bolivia and Paraguay.
In 1935 the League completed its successful 15-year administration of the Saar territory by conducting a plebiscite
under the supervision of an international military force. But even this success was not sufficient to offset the failure of
the Disarmament Conference, Germany's withdrawal from the League (1933), and Italy's successful attack on Ethiopia
in defiance of the League's economic sanctions (1935). In 1936, Adolf Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland and
denounced the Treaty of Versailles; in 1938 he seized Austria.
Faced by threats to international peace from all sides—the Spanish civil war, Japan's resumption of war against China
(1937), and finally the appeasement of Hitler at Munich (1938)—the League collapsed. German claims on Danzig
(Gdask), where the League commissioner had been reduced to impotence, led to the outbreak of World War II. The
last important act of the League came in Dec., 1939, when it expelled the USSR for its attack on Finland.
In 1940 the League secretariat in Geneva was reduced to a skeleton staff; some of the technical services were removed
to the United States and Canada. The allied International Labor Organization continued to function and eventually
became affiliated with the United Nations. In 1946 the League dissolved itself, and its services and real estate (notably
the Palais des Nations in Geneva) were transferred to the United Nations. The League's chief success lay in providing
the first pattern of permanent international organization, a pattern on which much of the United Nations was modeled.
Its failures were due as much to the indifference of the great powers, which preferred to reserve important matters for
their own decisions, as to weaknesses of organization.
II. Society in Turmoil After the end of World War I, many Americans were left with a feeling of distrust toward
foreigners and radicals, whom they held responsible for the war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the founding of
the communists' Third International in 1919 further fanned American fears of radicalism. Race riots and labor unrest
added to the tension. Thus, when a series of strikes and indiscriminate bombings began in 1919, the unrelated
incidents were all assumed—incorrectly in most cases—to be communist-inspired. During the ensuing Red Scare,
civil liberties were sometimes grossly violated and many innocent aliens were deported. The Red Scare was over
within a year, but a general distrust of foreigners, liberal reform movements, and organized labor remained throughout
the 1920s. In fact, many viewed Harding's landslide victory in 1920 as a repudiation of Wilson's internationalism and
of the reforms of the Progressive era.
A. Red Scare The first Communist parties in the United States were founded in 1919 by dissident factions of
the Socialist party. The larger, which called itself the Communist party of America, consisted of many of the former
foreign language federations of the Socialist party, in particular the Russian Federation, and the former Michigan
Socialist party. The other, named the Communist Labor party, was led by Benjamin Gitlow and John Reed. The
parties immediately became subject to raids by agents of Attorney General A. Mitehell Palmer and local authorities.
These raids resulted in a sharp drop in party membership and, in Jan., 1920, forced the Communists to go
underground.
B. Anarchism: 1. The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and
should be abolished. 2. Active resistance and terrorism against the state, as used by some anarchists. 3. Rejection of all
forms of coercive control and authority. (American Heritage dictionary)
Emma Goldman (1869-1940) Born in Lithuania, she emigrated to Rochester, N.Y., in 1886 and
worked there in clothing factories. After 1889 she was active in the anarchist movement, and her speeches attracted
attention throughout the United States. In 1893, Goldman was imprisoned for inciting to riot. From 1906 she was
associated with Alexander Berkman in publishing the anarchist paper Mother Earth. In 1916 she was imprisoned for
publicly advocating birth control, and in 1917 for obstructing the draft. With Berkman, Goldman was deported in
1919 to Russia but left that country in 1921 because of her disagreement with the Bolshevik government. In 1926 she
married James Colton, a Welshman. She was permitted to reenter the United States for a lecture tour in 1934 on
condition that she refrain from public discussion of politics. She took an active part in the Spanish civil war in 1936.
She died in Toronto.
Alexander Berkman (18707-1936) Born in Vilna (then in Russian Lithuania), he emigrated to the
United States c.1887. At the time of the Homestead, Pa., strike (1892) Berkman attempted to kill Henry Clay Frick,
but succeeded only in wounding him. He served 14 years of a 22-year sentence imposed for this attack. His
association with Emma Goldman, begun before his imprisonment, was resumed after his release. In 1917 they were
arrested for obstructing the draft and in 1919 were deported to Russia. Disappointed in his hope of finding under the
Bolshevik government the freedom that he sought, Berkman left Russia and in various European cities supported
himself by translation. He committed suicide in Nice.
C. Palmer Raids A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936) served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1909-15) and played
a prominent role in securing the Democratic presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson in 1912. He ran for the
Senate in 1914 but was defeated. Upon U.S. entry into World War I, Palmer was appointed alien property custodian.
In 1919 he was named U.S. attorney general by President Wilson. During his two years at that post, he used the
Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 as a basis for launching an unprecedented campaign against
political radicals, suspected dissidents, left-wing organizations, and aliens. He deported the self-avowed anarchist
Emma Goldman and others suspected of subversive activities. On Jan. 2, 1920, government agents in 33 cities
rounded up thousands of persons, many of whom were detained without charge for long periods. The disregard of
basic civil liberties during the "Palmer raids," as they came to be known, drew widespread protest and ultimately
discredited Palmer, who nevertheless justified his program as the only practical means of combating what he believed
was a Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. Although he lost the Democratic presidential
nomination in 1920, Palmer remained active in the Democratic Party until his death, campaigning for, among others,
presidential candidates Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
D. Sacco-Vanzetti Case On Apr. 15,1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Mass., and his guard
were shot and killed by two men who escaped with over $15,000. It was thought from reports of witnesses that the
murderers were Italians. Because Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had gone with two other Italians to a garage
to claim a car that local police had connected with the crime, they were arrested. Both men were anarchists and feared
deportation by the Dept. of Justice. Both had evaded the army draft. On their arrest they made false statements; both
carried firearms; neither, however, had a criminal record, nor was there any evidence of their having had any of the
money. In July, 1921, they were found guilty after a trial in Dedham, Mass. and sentenced to death. Many then
believed that the conviction was unwarranted and had been influenced by the reputation of the accused as radicals
when antiradical sentiment was running high. The conduct of the trial by Judge Webster Thayer was particularly
criticized. Later much of the evidence against them was discredited. In 1927 when the Massachusetts supreme judicial
court upheld the denial of a new trial, protest meetings were held and appeals were made to Gov. Alvan T. Fuller. He
postponed the execution and appointed a committee to advise him. On Aug. 3 the governor announced that the judicial
procedure in the trial had been correct. The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti on Aug. 22,1927, was preceded by
worldwide sympathy demonstrations. They were—and continue to be—widely regarded as martyrs. However, new
ballistics tests conducted with modern equipment in 1961 seemed to prove conclusively that the pistol found on Sacco
had been used to murder the guard. This has led some authorities to conclude that Sacco was probably guilty of the
crime, but that Vanzetti was innocent. The case was the subject of Maxwell Anderson's play Gods of the Lightning
and is reflected in his Winterset. It is also the subject of Upton Sinclair’s novel Boston and of sonnets by Edna St.
Vincent Millay. In 1977 the govennor of Massachusetts, Michael S. Dukakis, issued a proclamation stating that Sacco
and Vanzetti had not been treated justly and that no stigma should be associated with their names.
E. Gitlow v. New York (1925) The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Benjamin Gitlow, who had been
convicted by the state courts of violating the New York Criminal Anarchy Act of 1902 by his publication of The Left
Wing Manifesto. The pamphlet included calls for "mass strikes," "expropriation of the bourgeoisie" and the setting up
of a “dictatorship of the proletariat." The Court upheld the right of free speech in the abstract but said of the pamphlet
that "it is the language of direct incitement." Justices Brandeis and Holmes dissented, with Holmes observing that
"every idea is an incitement" and that the Court had been too narrow in its interpretation of the right of freedom of
speech. The importance of the case lies in the fact that for the first time the Court proceeded on the assumption that
freedom of speech and of the press "which are protected by the 1st Amendment from abridgment by Congress"—are
among the fundamental personal rights and "liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment from impairment by the states." The Court held, however, that the New York Act as applied in Gitlow's
case did not unduly restrict freedom of the press and was therefore valid.
F. Near v. Minnesota (1931) The First Amendment not only protects free speech, but it explicitly includes a guarantee
of freedom of the press. Modern Press Clause jurisprudence begins with this landmark case, which in many ways
reiterated the views of free speech going back through Holmes and Blackstone to Milton, who had protested against
the British system of licensing the press.
Minnesota had authorized abatement (the prevention of publication), as a public nuisance, of any "malicious,
scandalous or defamatory" publication. The law was specifically aimed at the Saturday Press, a Minneapolis tabloid
that in addition to exploiting rumors had uncovered some embarrassing facts about local political and business figures.
The state courts gladly "abated" the Press, which then appealed to the United States Supreme Court claiming that its
First Amendment rights had been violated.
The decision is important in two respects. First, it continued the process, begun only a few years earlier, of extending
the protection of the Bill of Rights to cover the states as well as the federal government. Although the First
Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law ...," the Court in a series of rulings held that the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment "incorporates" the provisions of the Bill of Rights and makes them applicable to
the states as well. In effect, the First Amendment now reads, "Neither Congress nor any state shall make any law ..."
Second, the Court established, as a central tenet of the Press Clause, that the government has no power of prior
restraint; that is, the government cannot censor the press and prevent publication. This did not mean that a newspaper
could not be held liable for false and defamatory statements, but that would remain a matter to be proven in court.
Governments could not rule that such materials were libelous and thus prevent publication.
The decision did not so much create new law as expand and confirm the older notion of freedom of the press. Chief
Justice Hughes quoted approvingly from Blackstone that liberty of the press "consists in laying no previous restraints
upon publication, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published."
C23 America and the Great War
Sec E The Search for a New World Order
Sec F A Society in Turmoil
(pp636-640)
(pp640-646)
ADDITIONAL READINGS: For The Record.
Wilson:
The Fourteen Points (1918)
p172
Wilson:
The League of Nations (1919)
p175/177
Lodge:
The League of Nations Must Be Revised (1919)
p177/179
Palmer:
from The Case against the Reds (1920)
p182/184
White:
The Red Scare is Un-American (1920)
p183/185
The Sacco-Vanzetti Case (1927)
p184/186
"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." George Bernard Shaw
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." Thomas Jefferson
I. The New World Order: World War I and the resulting peace treaties radically changed the face of Europe and
precipitated political, social, and economic changes. By the Treaty of Versailles Germany was forced to acknowledge
guilt for the war. Later, prompted by the Bolshevik publication of the secret diplomacy of the czarist Russian
government, the warring powers gradually released their own state papers, and the long historical debate on war guilt
began. It has with some justice been claimed that the conditions of the peace treaties were partially responsible for
World War II. Yet when World War I ended, the immense suffering it had caused gave rise to a general revulsion to
any kind of war, and a large part of mankind placed its hopes in the newly created League of Nations.
To calculate the total losses caused by the war is impossible. About 10 million dead and 20 million wounded is a
conservative estimate. Starvation and epidemics raised the total in the immediate postwar years. Warfare itself had
been revolutionized by the conflict (air plane; chemical warfare; mechanized warfare; tank).
A. The Paris Peace Conference The most important treaty signed was the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It was the
chief among the five peace treaties that terminated World War I. The other four were Saint-Germain, for Austria;
Trianon, for Hungary; Neuilly, for Bulgaria; and Sevres, for Turkey. Signed on June 28, 1919, by Germany on the one
hand and by the Allies (except Russia) on the other, the Treaty of Versailles embodied the results of the long and often
bitter negotiations of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
The outstanding figures in the negotiations leading to the treaty were Woodrow Wilson for the United States, Georges
Clemenceau for France, David Lloyd George for England, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando for Italy—the so-called Big
Four. Germany, as the defeated power, was not included in the consultation. Among the chief causes of Allied
dissension was Wilson's refusal to recognize the secret agreements reached by the Allies in the course of the war;
Italy's refusal to forgo the territorial gains promised (1915) by the secret Treaty of London; and French insistence on
the harsh treatment of Germany. Wilson's Fourteen Points were, to a large extent, sacrificed, but his main objectives,
the creation of states based on the principle of national self-determination and the formation of the League of Nations,
were embodied in the treaty. However, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty, and the United States merely
declared the war with Germany at an end in 1921.
The treaty formally placed the responsibility for the war on Germany and its allies and imposed on Germany the
burden of the reparations payments. The chief territorial clauses were those restoring Alsace and Lorraine to France;
placing the former German colonies under League of Nations mandates; awarding most of West Prussia, including
Poznan and the Polish Corridor, to Poland; establishing Danzig (Gdask) as a free city; and providing for plebiscites,
which resulted in the transfer of Eupen and Malmédy to Belgium, of N Schleswig to Denmark, and of parts of
Upper Silesia to Poland. The Saar Territory was placed under French administration for 15 years; the Rhineland was
to be occupied by the Allies for an equal period; and the right bank of the Rhine was to be permanently
demilitarized. The German army was reduced to a maximum of 100,000 soldiers, the German navy was similarly
reduced, and Germany was forbidden to build major weapons of aggression. Germany, after futile protests, accepted
the treaty, which became effective in Jan., 1920.
Notes for Future Reference: Subsequently, German dissatisfaction with the terms of the treaty played an important
part in the rise of National Socialism, or the Nazi movement. While Gustav Stresemann was German foreign minister,
Germany by a policy of fulfillment succeeded in having some of the treaty terms eased. Reparations payments, the
most ruinous part of the treaty, were suspended in 1931 and were never resumed. In 1935 Chancellor Adolf Hitler
unilaterally canceled the military clauses of the treaty, which in practice became a dead letter; in 1936 he began the
remilitarization of the Rhineland. A vast literature has been written on the Paris Peace Conference and on the Treaty
of Versailles, and controversy continues as to whether the treaty was just, too harsh, or not harsh enough.
B. The League of Nations
Background: The League was a product of World War I in the sense that that conflict convinced most persons of the
necessity of averting another such cataclysm. But its background lay in the visions of men like the due de Sully and
Immanuel Kant and in the later growth of formal international organizations like the International Telegraphic Union
(1865) and the Universal Postal Union (1874). The Red Cross, the Hague Conferences, and the Permanent Court of
Arbitration (Hague Tribunal) were also important stepping-stones toward international cooperation.
Basis: The Covenant: At the close of World War I, such prominent figures as Jan Smuts, Lord Robert Cecil, and
Leon Bourgeois advocated a society of nations. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson incorporated the proposal into the
Fourteen Points and was the chief figure in the establishment of the League at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
The basis of the League was the Covenant, which was included in the Treaty of Versailles and the other peace treaties.
The Covenant consisted of 26 articles. Articles 1 through 7 concerned organization, providing for an assembly,
composed of all member nations; a council, composed of the great powers (originally Great Britain, France, Italy, and
Japan, later also Germany and the USSR) and of four other, nonpermanent members; and a secretariat. Both the
assembly and the council were empowered to discuss "any matter within the sphere of action of the League or
affecting the peace of the world." In both the assembly and the council unanimous decisions were required. Articles 8
and 9 recognized the need for disarmament and set up military commissions. Article 10 was an attempt to guarantee
the territorial integrity and political independence of member states against aggression. Articles 11 through 17
provided for the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice (see World Court), for arbitration and
conciliation, and for sanctions against aggressors. The rest of the articles dealt with treaties, colonial mandates,
international cooperation in humanitarian enterprises, and amendments to the Covenant.
Members: The original membership of the League included the victorious Allies of World War I (with the exception
of the United States, whose Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles) and most of the neutral nations. Among
later admissions to membership were Bulgaria (1920), Austria (1920), Hungary (1922), Germany (1926), Mexico
(1931), Turkey (1932), and the USSR (1934). Through the efforts of Sir Eric Drummond, the first secretary-general of
the League, a truly international secretariat was created. Geneva, Switzerland, was chosen as the League headquarters.
For Future Reference: The League quickly proved its value by settling the Swedish-Finnish dispute over the Aland
Islands (1920-21), guaranteeing the security of Albania (1921), rescuing Austria from economic disaster, settling the
division of Upper Silesia (1922), and preventing the outbreak of war in the Balkans between Greece and Bulgaria
(1925). In addition, the League extended considerable aid to refugees; it helped to suppress white slave and opium
traffic; it did pioneering work in surveys of health; it extended financial aid to needy states; and it furthered
international cooperation in labor relations and many other fields.
The problem of bringing its political influence to bear, especially on the great powers, soon made itself felt. Poland
refused to abide by the League decision in the Vilnius dispute, and the League was forced to stand by powerlessly in
the face of the French occupation of the Ruhr (1923) and Italy's occupation of Kerkira (1923). Failure to take action
over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931) was a blow to the League's prestige, especially when followed by
Japan's withdrawal from the League (1933). Another serious failure was the inability of the League to stop the Chaco
War (1932-35) between Bolivia and Paraguay.
In 1935 the League completed its successful 15-year administration of the Saar territory by conducting a plebiscite
under the supervision of an international military force. But even this success was not sufficient to offset the failure of
the Disarmament Conference, Germany's withdrawal from the League (1933), and Italy's successful attack on Ethiopia
in defiance of the League's economic sanctions (1935). In 1936, Adolf Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland and
denounced the Treaty of Versailles; in 1938 he seized Austria.
Faced by threats to international peace from all sides—the Spanish civil war, Japan's resumption of war against China
(1937), and finally the appeasement of Hitler at Munich (1938)—the League collapsed. German claims on Danzig
(Gdask), where the League commissioner had been reduced to impotence, led to the outbreak of World War II. The
last important act of the League came in Dec., 1939, when it expelled the USSR for its attack on Finland.
In 1940 the League secretariat in Geneva was reduced to a skeleton staff; some of the technical services were removed
to the United States and Canada. The allied International Labor Organization continued to function and eventually
became affiliated with the United Nations. In 1946 the League dissolved itself, and its services and real estate (notably
the Palais des Nations in Geneva) were transferred to the United Nations. The League's chief success lay in providing
the first pattern of permanent international organization, a pattern on which much of the United Nations was modeled.
Its failures were due as much to the indifference of the great powers, which preferred to reserve important matters for
their own decisions, as to weaknesses of organization.
II. Society in Turmoil After the end of World War I, many Americans were left with a feeling of distrust toward
foreigners and radicals, whom they held responsible for the war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the founding of
the communists' Third International in 1919 further fanned American fears of radicalism. Race riots and labor unrest
added to the tension. Thus, when a series of strikes and indiscriminate bombings began in 1919, the unrelated
incidents were all assumed—incorrectly in most cases—to be communist-inspired. During the ensuing Red Scare,
civil liberties were sometimes grossly violated and many innocent aliens were deported. The Red Scare was over
within a year, but a general distrust of foreigners, liberal reform movements, and organized labor remained throughout
the 1920s. In fact, many viewed Harding's landslide victory in 1920 as a repudiation of Wilson's internationalism and
of the reforms of the Progressive era.
A. Red Scare The first Communist parties in the United States were founded in 1919 by dissident factions of
the Socialist party. The larger, which called itself the Communist party of America, consisted of many of the former
foreign language federations of the Socialist party, in particular the Russian Federation, and the former Michigan
Socialist party. The other, named the Communist Labor party, was led by Benjamin Gitlow and John Reed. The
parties immediately became subject to raids by agents of Attorney General A. Mitehell Palmer and local authorities.
These raids resulted in a sharp drop in party membership and, in Jan., 1920, forced the Communists to go
underground.
B. anarchism: 1. The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and
should be abolished. 2. Active resistance and terrorism against the state, as used by some anarchists. 3. Rejection of all
forms of coercive control and authority. (American Heritage dictionary)
Emma Goldman (1869-1940) Born in Lithuania, she emigrated to Rochester, N.Y., in 1886 and
worked there in clothing factories. After 1889 she was active in the anarchist movement, and her speeches attracted
attention throughout the United States. In 1893, Goldman was imprisoned for inciting to riot. From 1906 she was
associated with Alexander Berkman in publishing the anarchist paper Mother Earth. In 1916 she was imprisoned for
publicly advocating birth control, and in 1917 for obstructing the draft. With Berkman, Goldman was deported in
1919 to Russia but left that country in 1921 because of her disagreement with the Bolshevik government. In 1926 she
married James Colton, a Welshman. She was permitted to reenter the United States for a lecture tour in 1934 on
condition that she refrain from public discussion of politics. She took an active part in the Spanish civil war in 1936.
She died in Toronto.
Alexander Berkman (18707-1936) Born in Vilna (then in Russian Lithuania), he emigrated to the
United States c.1887. At the time of the Homestead, Pa., strike (1892) Berkman attempted to kill Henry Clay Frick,
but succeeded only in wounding him. He served 14 years of a 22-year sentence imposed for this attack. His
association with Emma Goldman, begun before his imprisonment, was resumed after his release. In 1917 they were
arrested for obstructing the draft and in 1919 were deported to Russia. Disappointed in his hope of finding under the
Bolshevik government the freedom that he sought, Berkman left Russia and in various European cities supported
himself by translation. He committed suicide in Nice.
C. Palmer Raids A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936) served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1909-15) and played
a prominent role in securing the Democratic presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson in 1912. He ran for the
Senate in 1914 but was defeated. Upon U.S. entry into World War I, Palmer was appointed alien property custodian.
In 1919 he was named U.S. attorney general by President Wilson. During his two years at that post, he used the
Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 as a basis for launching an unprecedented campaign against
political radicals, suspected dissidents, left-wing organizations, and aliens. He deported the self-avowed anarchist
Emma Goldman and others suspected of subversive activities. On Jan. 2, 1920, government agents in 33 cities
rounded up thousands of persons, many of whom were detained without charge for long periods. The disregard of
basic civil liberties during the "Palmer raids," as they came to be known, drew widespread protest and ultimately
discredited Palmer, who nevertheless justified his program as the only practical means of combating what he believed
was a Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. Although he lost the Democratic presidential
nomination in 1920, Palmer remained active in the Democratic Party until his death, campaigning for, among others,
presidential candidates Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
D. Sacco-Vanzetti Case On Apr. 15,1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Mass., and his guard
were shot and killed by two men who escaped with over $15,000. It was thought from reports of witnesses that the
murderers were Italians. Because Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had gone with two other Italians to a garage
to claim a car that local police had connected with the crime, they were arrested. Both men were anarchists and feared
deportation by the Dept. of Justice. Both had evaded the army draft. On their arrest they made false statements; both
carried firearms; neither, however, had a criminal record, nor was there any evidence of their having had any of the
money. In July, 1921, they were found guilty after a trial in Dedham, Mass. and sentenced to death. Many then
believed that the conviction was unwarranted and had been influenced by the reputation of the accused as radicals
when antiradical sentiment was running high. The conduct of the trial by Judge Webster Thayer was particularly
criticized. Later much of the evidence against them was discredited. In 1927 when the Massachusetts supreme judicial
court upheld the denial of a new trial, protest meetings were held and appeals were made to Gov. Alvan T. Fuller. He
postponed the execution and appointed a committee to advise him. On Aug. 3 the governor announced that the judicial
procedure in the trial had been correct. The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti on Aug. 22,1927, was preceded by
worldwide sympathy demonstrations. They were—and continue to be—widely regarded as martyrs. However, new
ballistics tests conducted with modern equipment in 1961 seemed to prove conclusively that the pistol found on Sacco
had been used to murder the guard. This has led some authorities to conclude that Sacco was probably guilty of the
crime, but that Vanzetti was innocent. The case was the subject of Maxwell Anderson's play Gods of the Lightning
and is reflected in his Winterset. It is also the subject of Upton Sinclair’s novel Boston and of sonnets by Edna St.
Vincent Millay. In 1977 the govennor of Massachusetts, Michael S. Dukakis, issued a proclamation stating that Sacco
and Vanzetti had not been treated justly and that no stigma should be associated with their names.
E. Gitlow v. New York (1925) The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Benjamin Gitlow, who had been
convicted by the state courts of violating the New York Criminal Anarchy Act of 1902 by his publication of The Left
Wing Manifesto. The pamphlet included calls for "mass strikes," "expropriation of the bourgeoisie" and the setting up
of a “dictatorship of the proletariat." The Court upheld the right of free speech in the abstract but said of the pamphlet
that "it is the language of direct incitement." Justices Brandeis and Holmes dissented, with Holmes observing that
"every idea is an incitement" and that the Court had been too narrow in its interpretation of the right of freedom of
speech. The importance of the case lies in the fact that for the first time the Court proceeded on the assumption that
freedom of speech and of the press "which are protected by the 1st Amendment from abridgment by Congress"—are
among the fundamental personal rights and "liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment from impairment by the states." The Court held, however, that the New York Act as applied in Gitlow's
case did not unduly restrict freedom of the press and was therefore valid.
F. Near v. Minnesota (1931) The First Amendment not only protects free speech, but it explicitly includes a guarantee
of freedom of the press. Modern Press Clause jurisprudence begins with this landmark case, which in many ways
reiterated the views of free speech going back through Holmes and Blackstone to Milton, who had protested against
the British system of licensing the press.
Minnesota had authorized abatement (the prevention of publication), as a public nuisance, of any "malicious,
scandalous or defamatory" publication. The law was specifically aimed at the Saturday Press, a Minneapolis tabloid
that in addition to exploiting rumors had uncovered some embarrassing facts about local political and business figures.
The state courts gladly "abated" the Press, which then appealed to the United States Supreme Court claiming that its
First Amendment rights had been violated.
The decision is important in two respects. First, it continued the process, begun only a few years earlier, of extending
the protection of the Bill of Rights to cover the states as well as the federal government. Although the First
Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law ...," the Court in a series of rulings held that the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment "incorporates" the provisions of the Bill of Rights and makes them applicable to
the states as well. In effect, the First Amendment now reads, "Neither Congress nor any state shall make any law ..."
Second, the Court established, as a central tenet of the Press Clause, that the government has no power of prior
restraint; that is, the government cannot censor the press and prevent publication. This did not mean that a newspaper
could not be held liable for false and defamatory statements, but that would remain a matter to be proven in court.
Governments could not rule that such materials were libelous and thus prevent publication.
The decision did not so much create new law as expand and confirm the older notion of freedom of the press. Chief
Justice Hughes quoted approvingly from Blackstone that liberty of the press "consists in laying no previous restraints
upon publication, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published."