ShmoopTube

00:02

At long last America was ready to hop into World War one on the side of [American Soldier hops into world war one]

00:06

the Allies President Wilson knew however that the US would only be able to make a

00:11

difference if it had plenty of soldiers to throw into the conflict well at the [Wilson throws soldier into conflict]

00:15

beginning of 1917 a mere hundred thousand men were soldiers in the US

00:19

Army you probably have that many students at your high school or maybe it

00:24

just feels like that when you're squashed into a hot gymnasium for a

00:27

spirit rally but whatever in order to pat out the numbers President Wilson

00:31

requested that people volunteer to join the army and tens of thousands did

00:35

however most American citizens recognized that being a soldier was

00:40

gonna stink the pay was bad the equipment was lacking and nobody wants [Bullet fires towards soldier]

00:44

to have a close encounter with a bullet so while willing volunteers got the army

00:48

numbers up to about 175,000 President Wilson knew he still didn't have enough

00:53

soldiers to commit to the Allied cause and so in May 1917 Congress passed the

00:59

Selective Service Act yep our government brought out the draft all men between [Men registering for the draft]

01:05

the ages of 21 and 30 had to register for the draft then those numbers changed

01:11

so that all men between ages of 18 and 45 had to register of the 24 million men

01:18

who registered for the draft 3 million of them won the lottery and got to join

01:23

the military and not quite the same as a Powerball there yeah now President

01:29

Wilson and his minions understood why men would be reluctant to sign up for

01:32

battle and get the bullets think of a trench foot think of mother and wasn't [Soldier on the floor and mother appears]

01:37

Wilson all about neutrality whatever happened to that political position well

01:42

at any rate the government decided it would have to work to convince people to

01:45

ditch their lives for a possible death on the Western Front enter our old

01:50

friend propaganda the Committee on Public Information was created in April [People stood together on a street]

01:55

1917 to operate as the propaganda arm of the US government during World War one

02:00

George Creel, a journalist who had also done some work for the Democratic

02:05

National Committee was head of the CPI his mission should he choose to accept [George Creel approaches a film reel]

02:10

it was to use movies radio programs speeches

02:13

books pamphlets and posters to get Americans to support the US war effort [Creel places poster on the wall to sign up for US Army]

02:18

in Europe well Creel was good at his job he recruited famous directors and

02:23

movie stars including comedian Charlie Chaplin to work on his propaganda films

02:28

the CPI also recruited about 75,000 men from all over the US to be 4-minute men

02:34

these guys weren't soldiers they were talkers for four minutes they would

02:39

animatedly talk at audiences about what the government needed its citizens to do [Man talking to German soldier on a field]

02:43

to support the war effort not only did the four minutemen get a new speech to

02:48

give every ten days but some of them even gave speeches in other languages

02:51

since there were so many immigrant communities in the United States... The

02:56

Committee on Public Information also served as the Cerberus of war news [George Creel as a dog with three heads]

02:59

because it was so difficult to collect and process news about events happening

03:04

on the other side of the Atlantic there was no internet in those days people the

03:08

CPI was pretty much the best and biggest source for information about the war [CPI boat sailing in the ocean by the News Ship]

03:12

problem was Creel wanted Americans to hear only those parts of the news that

03:17

suited the government any news source reporting about the war had to agree to

03:21

self-censor if it wanted access to all the information the CPI had on hand and

03:27

yeah this approach worked most Americans were on board with the going to war, that is

03:33

except for those Americans who had ties with Germany yeah there were many many [American citizens wearing German flags on their suits]

03:37

millions of those in fact there were so many folks of German descent in the US

03:41

that there were American cities where German was the primary language we hoped

03:46

pretzels were the official food too.... The CPI did such a good job of convincing

03:51

Americans that Germans were evil that German Americans were treated with [George Creel places horns on German-American man]

03:56

suspicion prejudice and discrimination books by German authors were taken out

04:00

of libraries really.. traditionally German foods were rebranded although honestly

04:05

we rebrand foods in the name of patriotism all the time french fries

04:10

German Americans weren't the only ones regarded as troublemakers during [German American man graffiting a wall]

04:15

World War one a few people in the US didn't like the war at all they wanted

04:19

nothing to do with it and they wanted their country to have nothing to do with

04:22

it this anti-war sentiment so disturbed the government that Congress passed the

04:26

Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918

04:31

well the Espionage Act was supposed to prevent insubordination in the military [Military men stood together and Wilson appears]

04:35

and interference with military operations and recruitment it was also

04:40

supposed to stop people from supporting the Central Powers during the war the

04:45

Sedition Act was pretty much the same thing but taken to an extreme you

04:48

couldn't even say nasty things about the US government or the war Americans were

04:52

arrested under these laws including Eugene Debs one of the founders of the

04:57

Industrial Workers of the world and the perpetual socialist candidate for [Eugene in a jail cell]

05:01

president of the United States how ironic that the US supposedly entered

05:05

the war to save global democracy and yet it couldn't be bothered to protect the

05:09

First Amendment at home you know let's think about that people by combining

05:13

their powers the CPI in the draft got soldiers butts and boats and American [American soldiers marching]

05:17

citizens cheering for war hmm we wonder how things went once we got over there

05:23

over there send the words and the word over there.....

Full Transcript