Class Notes February 8

U.S. Entry into WWI

• Total war, each side commits all its resources.
• 1917 Wilson asked Congress for a draft law permitting the government to raise a multi-million dollar army
• First of Wilson's efforts was a New Freedom approach
• Failed
• Second he moved to a New Nationalist approach and created several centralized federal agencies.
• Food and Drug Administration
• Had success
• U.S. Railroad Administration
• Shifted to new traffic well
• Aircraft Production Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation
• Did a poor job
• Labor shortage was a real possibility as the flow of immigration dried up and the Americans left for duty
• The Great Migration- when the southerners went North.
• Half a million African-Americans (same as whites)
• 40,000 northern women took jobs as well.
• Still the labor pool was stretched
• Unemployment dropped total 2% in 1918
• White male workers felt free to quit a job knowing they could find a better one
• Workers strike for better wages and shorter hours
• Wilson was aware of labor's potential power
• 1st president to address a convention of the AFL
• When it came to raising an army, the federal government used its full power
• Wilson went right to a military draft
• Few men resisted the draft
• Black men joined at the same rate as their percentage

• Black Units
• New York 369th Reg. loaned to the French, entered the French front lines, and had a string of successes

Taxes

• Taxes were raised to pay for the war
• Rich Americans paid 67% income tax
• Taxes covered 1/3 of government needs
• Selling security bond raised the rest

Committee on Public Information

• Propaganda campaign
• Dark side hostility against Germans
• Called patriots to report on neighbors and co-workers

Immigrants

• Many Americans began to fear immigrants
• We begin to see admission of immigrants denied to adults that could not read
• We also create the 18th Amendment of prohibition of alcohol and the distribution of.