![]() ![]() ![]() Others outright refused to assist in any area that might be perceived as part of the war effort. Some men objected only to military service, but would participate in other forms of work that might aid the war. They used religion, politics, or simply personal pacifism to justify their objections to participating in the war effort. Conscientious objectors came from all walks of life. When the United States decided to manage its manpower resources through Selective Service, it encountered a form of opposition that would otherwise have remained on the fringes of the war effort: conscientious objection. The United States’ entrance into the First World War not only thrust Americans onto the world stage, but also tested some of their most fundamental constitutional beliefs. These efforts to squash dissent represented one of the most egregious attacks on civil liberties in the history of the United States. In order to stop groups deemed disloyal from influencing draft-age men, military intelligence officers, Bureau of Intelligence agents, vigilante groups, and others investigated them, kept them under watch, broke into their offices, and seized their documents and literature - sometimes with warrants, sometimes without, sometimes openly but more often covertly. When an unrecognized religion such as the International Bible Students Association claimed conscientious objection and preached against war, military and civil authorities declared them to be disloyal. When socialists espoused a philosophy of international equality - that workers had no reason to kill each other - many in Congress, the Wilson administration, and governmental investigative organizations claimed they were being disloyal. Legislators were especially concerned about protecting the fighting spirit of the nation’s young men and specifically decreed it to be unlawful to “cause disloyalty” or to “obstruct the draft.” ĭisloyalty, however, was often in the eye of the beholder. Fearing these groups’ power to persuade others and to wreak havoc on the machinery of mobilization, Congress passed the Espionage Act in June 1917. Various groups, such as pacifists (religious or otherwise) and socialists, questioned America’s entrance into the war and its adoption of conscription. Thus, not all Americans were willing to have the federal government manage their wartime participation, or even require that they participate. Some Americans, however, viewed the draft as an infringement upon their freedom to choose, since it forced men to join the military. Conscription offered the Wilson administration a way to manage the people’s contributions by retaining skilled workers in factories and weeding out the physically and mentally unfit from those who would don a military uniform. Wilson explained his confidence that every citizen desired to do his part to help win the war, but in the new total war of the 20 th century, not all could go fight the Germans. A little over a month later, the President signed into law the Selective Service Act, which established a military draft. On the rainy evening of 2 April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) addressed a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany.
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