Mobilizing a Nation: America’s Entry Into World War I :: United States History Historical Essays

Mobilizing a Nation Americas Entry Into World War IWorks Cited Missing Woodrow Wilson delivered his now-famous War Message to Congress on April 4, 1917. quadruple days later, Congress declared war and the United States became a nominal partner in the war to end all wars. As the Wilson nerve was to discover, however, declaring war and making war were two very different propositions. The causation required only an abstract statement of ideals and justifications and a two-thirds Congressional absolute majority the latter required the massive militarisation of virtually every area of American society - military, industrial, and economic, as well as universe opinion. The Wilson garbage disposal sought to accomplish this daunting task in two attendant and interdependent fashions. First, it undertook an unprecedented assumption of federal control and regulation. The federal political relation established an array of bureaus and agencies endowed with s weeping powers to regulate the nations economy and industrial production. Furthermore, it passed a series of laws designed to support these agencies and to gag what it deemed subversive antiwar opinion and activity. Second, and of equal importance, the cheek appealed to the publics nationalism and sense of civic responsibility, effectively encouraging volunteerism in both the public and private sectors. Each of these tacks was bulwarked by a pervasive dose of pro-war political sympathies propaganda. In the end, in terms of raising an army, mobilizing the economy and influencing the outcome of the war, the administrations mobilization efforts were largely successful. However, there were significant consequences to the governments actions, most acutely in the realm of civil liberties, both during and in the aftermath of the war. One of the earliest examples of federal muscle in wartime mobilization was the passage of the Lever Act in August 1917. The act gave the chairperson the power to regulate supplies and prices of food and fuel by creating two sweet government agencies the United States Food Administration and the United States Fuel Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover and Harry Garfield, respectively. Hoover and Garfield operated with virtually unlimited power and utilize the implicit threat of federal nationalization to regulate prices and cajole producers into increase production and conservation (Zeiger, 72).