How and why did the government censor the American people during World War I? |
A LITTLE CONTEXT
The Wilson Administration was quite worried about the presence of immigrants from the countries with which the United States was at war, as the administration thought that they might be turning the American people against the war effort. However, they also saw this in purely American organizations, such as the Socialist Party. The Wilson Administration then naturally thought that government censorship was a necessary step during the first World War as a natural extension of the propaganda efforts already underway. The propaganda efforts occurred in an attempt to convince a divided American public on the necessity of going to war. The administration recognized that large swaths of the population felt that the war was unnecessary and a European problem in which the United States should not involve itself. But, they wished to have a population united behind the idea of going to war. So, during World War I, the United States government undertook the process of creating systemic censure of the American people and press. Governmental censorship included especially the proliferation of "obscene" literature, increased political radicalism, and controversy surrounding World War I.¹ Even before the start of the war, the Wilson Administration had begun creating legislation calling for the restriction of the press and public to try to suppress the dissent that had been building from radical politicians and the Socialist party.² During the war, the Wilson Administration encouraged fears of different sects of the American population through the use of the Committee of Public Information, directed by George Creel. The Wilson Administration used the Espionage and Sedition acts to impose economic hardships against those it disagreed with, restrict freedom of the press, and the free flow of mail.
There are probably in this country a million traitors and alien enemies who have the disposition to destroy our military and naval forces and defeat us in this war. Many people insist that the number is at least one hundred per cent. higher. We do not know. We only know that there are many, too many, and that no country has ever staggered into war cursed with so many. We include among traitors all those naturalized members of th races with which we are at war and their descendants who either actually conspire, or secretly hope, for the triumph of our enemies, the draft resisters and other slackers, and all those pacifists who strive to bring about a peace which will spell victory for the malevolent forces of autocracy.
- O'Donnell, T. J. "Military Censorship and Freedom of the Press." Virginia Law Review 5, no. 3 (1917): 178-89. doi:10.2307/1063233.
Photo credit: [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Forms of Censorship
Espionage ActThe Espionage Act severely restricted communication and gave far greater censor powers to the executive branch
Photo credit: Freedom of the Press Foundation
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Censorship of the PressThere were various and opposing opinions, even within the press, on the legality and even necessity of censoring the press
Photo Credit: Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project |
Economic CensorshipThe federal government used creative methods to discourage publications and dissent that it found to be objectionable
Photo Credit: By Crusoe8181 [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons |
¹ Ronald S. Rasmus, "Censorship, Press and Artistic," in Dictionary of American History, ed. Stanley I. Kutler, 3rd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003), 2: accessed February 1, 2018, https://goo.gl/FSe44N.
² David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society, 25th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 22.
² David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society, 25th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 22.