And he proceeded to point out their inexperience with democratic institutions, their lack of respect for law and for women, their disbelief in progress. In addition, we need only note that many of these people were Catholics and Jews; the total number of the former in the United States in 1923 being estimated at 18,000,000 and of the latter at 3,600,000. And the Jews were far more conspicuous than their numbers, on account of their massing in the great cities and their concentration in certain lines of industry. Thus the ground was fully prepared for a new anti-alien movement, expressing itself this time in the form of efforts to restrict immigration. This movement was under way in 1914, and would probably have followed in the course of its precursors. But world-shaking events ensued which altered the course of groups in America as well. The outbreak of the World War in 1914, the entrance of the United States into the war in 1917, altered all groups, profoundly affected the American group mind, and made the relation between the sub-groups and the mind of America very different from what it had been. The results of this process are still evident, and it is among them that we can look for anti-Semitism, together with many other types of intolerance and group opposition.
CHAPTER V.
THE WORLD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
1.
With the outbreak of the World War in August 1914, the mind of America suddenly became strikingly distinct from that of Europe. They were fighting; we were watching. President Wilson appealed to the United States to be “neutral in fact as in name ... impartial in thought as well as in action.” The older American stock sympathized, on the whole, with England, except for the Irish and Germans; the newer immigrants had different racial and national affinities and memories, some holding allegiance to their former governments, some, like the oppressed Russian Jews, being especially bitter against their former rulers. In this situation, American neutrality was the result, not of indifference, but of lack of understanding on the part of many groups in our population and of a stalemate between the rest.
One definite result certainly was that all these diverse groups of new and old immigrants began to feel themselves a unity, an American people. They felt their distinction from the warring nations overseas, their own interest, their own reaction to the complex problems at issue. Meanwhile, however, both parties were trying every means to bring the United States into the war on their own sides. Germany tried to bring about an embargo on munitions sold to the Allies and in default of that, to obstruct their shipment by both peaceful and warlike means. Great Britain, more especially, tried to influence American public opinion in favor of the Allies and against Germany. Within, there were pacifists and advocates of preparedness, both trying to mold opinion. This formation of an American mind, and the difficulty of determining its future direction, came to a head in the election of 1916, when the German-Americans opposed President Wilson, and when Hughes was supported by Roosevelt, the arch-interventionist. During this period we experienced the first development of what we have since grown to know intimately as “propaganda,” a deliberate, elaborate technique for influencing the mind of the group.
The declaration of war by the United States in April, 1917, unified the American mind in a manner and to a degree that were almost inconceivable. Every immigrant group began to pass resolutions favoring the government; the foreign language newspapers commenced an intensive propaganda for the prosecution of the war. Volunteers came from every section of the country and every type of origin, as many from the children of Germans as from any other group. The draft law was passed with apparent general approval; and its enforcement met with surprisingly little difficulty. Huge loans were made to the Allied governments. Tremendous bond issues were raised by the American government, with general approval and the coercion of any minority objectors. The National Council of Defense, founded in August, 1916, was able in many cases to overcome the dominant profit-motive of our society in gaining self-sacrificing patriotism of manufacturers and merchants.
Along with this voluntary and spontaneous unification of the group mind, came repression and coercion directed to forcing into agreement any unabsorbed minority groups. The Committee on Public Information was founded in September, 1917, to exert propaganda through the sources of public information, to send out favorable news and opinion, and even through censorship to suppress material considered dangerous to the general cause. The censorship exercised by the military forces on war bulletins, war correspondents and the personal letters of soldiers, was applied less strictly to the general population. The secret service, greatly expanded to cope with German spies, began hunting out strikers, radicals or any others who—in the minds of the detectives or of any other government officials—might possibly obstruct the war efforts. Emergency acts gave the President unusual power in these and other directions.
This use of force was characteristic, not only of the government, but of local groups as well. In one place a German sympathizer (real or supposed) might be made to kiss the flag; in another a strike leader might be lynched. In Milwaukee, where public opinion was sensitive on account of the large number of German-Americans, a quota of Liberty Bonds was assigned arbitrarily to every person, and he was practically forced to purchase them, irrespective of his ability to do so, by threats of ostracism, by influence of his creditors, by every sort of social pressure,—in order that Milwaukee might rank as a real American community and go “over the top” in every “drive.” The military language applied to these campaigns was matched by a growing technique of organization. Professional propagandists perfected a method of meetings, songs, card-catalogs, and quotas, by which any cause might be assured of huge sums of money. The greater propaganda of our government and foreign governments was matched by the little propaganda of every subgroup, as long as this was not in conflict with the general purpose.
A striking illustration of this is in the successful drives of the various war-work agencies, the Red Cross, American Library Association, Young Men’s Christian Association, Jewish Welfare Board, Knights of Columbus, and the rest; and especially in their enormous joint campaign just after the signing of the armistice. Every American felt that this joint campaign, first, would help the soldiers and the common cause; and second, indicated by its inclusiveness the complete unification of America. Along with this general unification came the similar process in many of the immigrant groups themselves. Professor Miller[68] tells how this was reflected in the Czecho-Slovak group in America, so that bitter atheists united with Catholic priests on joint committees for national freedom in their old home in Europe.
2.