Ronald Schaffers America In The Great War Gives New Insights Into Wor

Ronald Schaffer's America in the Great War gives new insights into World War I. The book gave historical accounts about the war that other books negated to included. The thesis that Schaffer tries to prove that the Great War was the start of the American welfare state and the beginning of "big" government. America in the Great War was structured in chronological order of the war, from America's mobilization to the actual fighting. What the book did not include is a detail account of the fighting. This was the biggest draw back in a otherwise well thought book. The book begins with the mobilization of the United State's industry and man power. The first two chapters dealt with how the Federal Government shaped the view of the war in America's minds. The methods that the Federal Government used varied from propaganda to coercion. The point behind the Federal Government's involvement in propaganda was to rally the country to fight the war. The first step in shaping the people's mind was to get the labor and industry to work together. The Federal Government established committees and teams to persuade the minds of the United States. One of these committees were the Committee on Public Information established in April 13 1917 by order on the President of the United States. The committee was led by George Creel, former social reformer. He had great power in what the United States saw and heard for the next few years. His first order was to manage American minds without directly using propaganda and censorship. Other nations fighting the war practiced wide spread censorship of all war related material. Creel realized that this would not work in the United States, instead he flooded Americans with news. The news released to the public was in such large numbers and in such great detail that Americans could not understand all of it. The Committee on Public Information also produced films. The films were designed to rally Americans behind the war effort. The films were nothing else but propaganda, but Creel designed the films to not come across as propaganda. The committee was very successful in hiding the fact that they were engaging in propaganda. Many Americans believed in the films and supported the war effort, but there were many people who did not. The committee was aware of growing dissent among Americans and took steps to keep that dissent in check. Congress passed many acts that prevented and punished dissent in the Untied States. Three of these acts were the Espionage Act of 1917, the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, and the Sedition Act of 1918. These acts were successful in limiting the amount of discontent towards the war. The price of this limited discontent was the suspension of rights of American citizens. Thousands of Americans suspected of dissension were arrested and convicted of sedition. Americans were encouraged to tell government officials of any kind of anti-war activities that they know about. The government arrested people and sent them to jail for even hinting about anti-war feelings. This created fear among Americans towards the Federal Government, but did succeeded in stopping dissension. The next three chapters focused on the mobilization of American industry to fight the war. In the years before the Great War, America was making the work place a safer and better place to work. Labor unions had power to control wages, hours and working conditions. The Great War for the most part suspended the labor movement. The United States needed to fight a war, and American industry was key in winning that war. The Federal Government became heavily involved in controlling industry. The level of control that the government used was on heard of a few years ago. American labor suffered during the Great War. Advances that labor gained before the war were suspended. Industry could again work it's employees longer and in unsafe working conditions. The workers were paid well during the Great War. The Federal Government paid the industries based on their cost to produce the products. This type of payment encouraged the industries to pay their workers very highly, knowing the government would pay them higher. The war provided the excuse for the government to take control of industry. A good example of this control is in the railroad industry. Before the war, the railroad industry enjoyed limited government control. As a result different companies had different rail lines and different prices. When America joined the Great War, the Federal Government took complete control of the railroads.