ABSTRACT
During World War I the government imposed harsh restrictions on the expression of antiwar opinion, and when official action was not swift enough to suit the public, vigilante groups took matters into their own hands. When Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress in April 1917, he proclaimed that World War I would be fought for the cause of humanity, not for mere conquest. Although the war smoothed the passage of political, moral, and economic reforms long sought by Progressives, it also led to government actions that conflicted sharply with Progressive values. If the war profoundly affected Americans, it was because, as Bourne observed, they expected too much from the conflict, not because-as compared with the other belligerents-they sacrificed too much for it. They organized it along the lines of such corporations as United States Steel. Time that was to have been devoted to carefully drawing up the peace treaty with the Germans was, at the president's insistence, spent on rewriting the covenant.
