How did World War I affect progressive reform?
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, Woodrow Wilson insisted that the United States should remain neutral. However, Wilson soon came to believe that America ought to support Britain and France against Germany and its allies. Wilson was especially infuriated that German submarines were attacking American ships in the Atlantic Ocean, which he considered a violation of the right of neutral countries to travel on the oceans and not be dragged into the conflict. From the German government's point of view, the United States was far from neutral, because the U.S. shipped arms and other supplies to Britain, while American trade with Germany was small by comparison. In April 1917, largely in response to German attacks on American shipping, Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. Congress overwhelmingly voted to do so.
In some respects, as progressives had feared, the war undermined reform by absorbing the nation's resources and attention. But in other ways, the war was itself a new laboratory for progressive experimentation. Mobilizing the nation's people, economy, and government for war allowed progressives to create many new links between government, corporations, universities, and citizens. The war effort led to the creation of several new agencies, the Council of National Defense, the War Industries Board, and the National Research Council. These agencies sought to coordinate the war effort by linking the federal government, corporations that manufactured weapons and other supplies, and universities and private laboratories engaged in war-related research. The federal government also created the Selective Service System to oversee the drafting of young men into the nation's military. To manage public opinion and morale concerning the war, the government created the Committee on Public Information, which produced films, posters, pamphlets, and other materials to publicize the war effort. Many former muckrakers, including Ray Stannard Baker and Ida Tarbell, worked for this committee.
Maintaining support for the war was accompanied by efforts to suppress opposition to it. In 1917, Wilson signed the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918), both of which empowered the government to suppress critics of the war and of the government. The Espionage Act made it illegal to use mail to interfere with the war effort. This act was used to prohibit many magazines critical of the war from being distributed to their subscribers. The Sedition Act outlawed "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government. Socialists and other leftists were especially likely to be punished under the provisions of this act. In 1919, in the case of Schenk v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that the Espionage Act did not violate the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, since the dangers of wartime permitted some restrictions on the freedoms enjoyed when the nation was at peace. This suppression of dissent confirmed, as many progressives had feared, that war would contribute to undermining freedom, rather than extending it.