The US Post Office censored mail it found objectionable by forcing those sending the mail to use more expensive postal rates.¹ They did this commonly to groups that did not support the war effort, such as the Socialist Party, a common target of their censorship activities. The activities of the postal censors were directed by the Committee on Public Information.
US customs also prohibited the import of any books it found "obscene," including those of well know authors such as D.H. Lawrence and others such as Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, and James Joyce.² The reasoning was that they were able to suppress subversive communication from German allies, wherein reality they were simply suppressing the writings of foreigners who did not support the war or whose books exhibited messages that could be construed as not supporting the war effort. It was possible for an entire book to be rejected because of a single sentence that censors found objectionable.
Bands of citizens came together in mobs and regularly harmed, humiliated, and even lynched those in opposition to the war.³ As shown by the quotes shown on Censorship of the Press, there was highly charged discussion taking place throughout America on the necessity of the various forms of censorship. This did not always stay peaceful, especially as the public was whipped into a furor by the press coverage of the publications and actions of censors. This caused many Socialists and Germans to be publicly threatened by a mob mentality caused by some of the fear-mongering caused by some of the commentators.
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By WPA Federal Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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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), accessed February 1, 2018, https://goo.gl/B7WmsC.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.