skilled labour, also, was secured for shipyards and camp construction. From Jan. 1 1918 up to the signing of the Armistice, about 2,400,000 workers had been placed in essential industries. Later this Service undertook to find employment for ex-servicemen; and from Dec. 1 1918 to Sept. 27 1919 out of 758,474 registrants, 474,085 were duly placed (see Demobilization and Resettlement). The influx of labour in the industrial centres created a serious housing problem. In Feb. 1918 in the Department of Labor there was organized a Bureau of Industrial Housing and Transportation. On May 16 Congress appropriated $60,000,000 (later increased to $100,000,000) for providing adequate housing facilities for labourers and their families. By Act of June 4 1918 the President was authorized to form a corporation for carrying on this work. Accordingly, on July 10 1918 the U.S. Housing Corporation was incorporated under the laws of New York. The personnel was the same as that of the Bureau of Industrial Housing and Transportation. Elaborate preparations were made for erecting dwellings, dormitories, and cafeterias, but actual construction had not proceeded far before the Armistice.
In addition to these and other official organizations several private agencies were established which had the goodwill and aid of the authorities and raised large sums for the comfort and health of the soldiers in the service, the care of the sick and wounded and aid to refugees and non-combatants in the war zones. Chief among these was the American National Red Cross, which during a single drive raised $100,000,000 and was to be found wherever there was fighting, sickness, suffering, or starvation. At the date of the Armistice its total membership was 19,928,022; the number of women giving their services in Red Cross workrooms was 8,000,000; supplies had been furnished to the amount of almost $76,000,000. Special attention to the social welfare of soldiers in camps both in America and overseas was given by the Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., Knights of Columbus, Salvation Army, Jewish Welfare Board, American Library Association, and War Camp Community Service. An attempt was made to coördinate the work of these various organizations through the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities, which also acted in an advisory capacity in connexion with the prevention of the sale of intoxicating liquor and the discouragement of brothels near the camps.
The Government formally took charge of all foreign trade Feb. 15 1918, and seized not only all German ships interned in U.S. ports since the war broke out, but also ships under the Dutch and other neutral flags, and impressed them into war service. Under the Webb Act of April 10 1918 the Government went to the extent of permitting combinations for foreign trade, which would otherwise have been in violation of the anti-trust Acts.
Enemies in the United States.—While the people of the United States were practically a unit in favour of a vigorous prosecution of the war, there were a few, chiefly foreign-born or sons of foreign-born, who were opposed to the war or more often to the nations in concert with which and partly for whose salvation the United States was fighting. Ever since 1914 the country had been irritated and aroused by a series of illegal, violent and often murderous acts which were traced to German and Austrian agents. For example, determined efforts were made to blow up the international bridge at Vassalboro, Me., and the locks of the Welland Canal, by men acting within the boundaries of the United States. Bopp, German consul-general at San Francisco, was convicted and imprisoned for aiding German vessels in the Pacific in defiance of neutrality laws. Rintelen (after the war specially rewarded by the German Government) was sent to the Federal prison at Atlanta for aiding in placing bombs on outgoing vessels with intent to destroy them. In 1910 Eugene V. Debs, Presidential candidate four times of the Socialist party, was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for advising men not to enlist in the army. Victor Berger, member of Congress from Wisconsin, was convicted and sentenced for disloyalty, then reëlected to Congress, which refused to seat him.
The I.W.W. took advantage of the general confusion to engage in a campaign of disturbance and violence in the west; as many as 97 leaders of that order, including William Haywood, were convicted of disloyal conduct by one court at one time. These prosecutions were supported by the Trading with the Enemy Act of Oct. 6 1917, the Espionage Act of June 15 1917, and the Act of April 18 1918 as to alien enemies. Several thousand German and Austrian citizens who were believed to be dangerous were interned. On Dec. 19 1918 two pro-German editors were punished for disloyal utterances in a German-American paper. These prosecutions against American-born citizens, naturalized citizens and unnaturalized foreigners continued for two years after the end of hostilities. The authorities were particularly incensed by an open propaganda carried on by Russians and others in favour of Bolshevism as a principle of Government and a substitute for the institutions of the United States. In Dec. 1919 some 250 alien anarchists were placed on a Government transport and taken to Russia. On Dec. 25 1921 President Harding commuted the sentences of Debs and 23 others who had been convicted under the Espionage Act, but a number of persons remained in jail under sentences for disloyal action.
The Armistice and the 1918 Elections.—All at once this tremendous energy, these costly preparations, this enrolling of millions of men, this unceasing action of the great national relief societies, were interrupted by the end of the war in western Europe. The fierce campaign of 1918 was the final effort of the Germans. For the second time in the war they came almost within striking distance of Paris, but were repelled by the bravery of the French and British combined with the new armies from America. No one can say positively that the American army in the field was the chief element that insured victory; but there is not a doubt that the triumphant success in raising, drilling and transporting incessantly provisions and supplies, was to the German mind convincing and disheartening evidence that the Government and the people of the United States, with all their power and potentiality, would stand by the Allies indefinitely. November 11 1918, by the Armistice in which the American armies shared, the Germans admitted their defeat and at once began to evacuate the occupied regions and also portions of their own national territory.
This climax came a few days after the state and Congressional elections of the autumn of 1918. The war was a national war. Enlistments, whether volunteer or by draft, had no relation to politics. Nobody paid any attention to the party affiliations of officers or men or civilian administrators and aids. Nevertheless, Oct. 15, a few days before the elections, President Wilson took the strange course of issuing a circular letter urging the voters to return a Democratic majority to the Senate and the House, because, if the Republicans were successful, it would be considered an imputation upon the President. The warning was in vain; in fact, it probably helped the Republicans materially. The result of the election made the new House decidedly Republican and the Senate Republican by two votes. It was apparent, therefore, that the Administration in making the necessary adjustments after the war must take into account the preponderance of the opposition in both Houses of Congress. Several changes came about in the Cabinet at the end of 1918. McAdoo resigned and was followed in the Treasury by Carter Glass, a representative from Virginia, who gave way in turn to Houston, transferred from the Department of Agriculture, where he was succeeded by Meredith. February 13 1920 Secretary Lansing was practically removed by President Wilson for “insubordination,” and was succeeded in the State Department by Bainbridge Colby.
Throughout the year 1918 the influence of Theodore Roosevelt was steadily growing. He was by his whole nature a supporter of the war. He and his four sons volunteered for service, though, as he put it with plaintive humour: “Wilson has kept me out of the war.” He was recognized as a Republican and the most powerful Republican. Even his strongest political enemies admitted that the party must reckon with him. As the months passed it became clear that he would be nominated by the Republican Convention of 1920 and in all probability would be elected President. But he died suddenly, Jan. 6 1919, leaving behind him a long roll of achievements and a place among the greatest of American statesmen and world figures.
