ABSTRACT
Despite America’s late entry to the First World War, it lost 112,000 men, and although this number was relatively low compared with those of other countries involved it had a huge psychological effect on the country, and seemed to confirm to many that America should have remained neutral. The war had also brought about restrictions of American liberties, with the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 basically stopping public criticism of government. Washington had also stirred up anti-German feeling to dangerous levels, and with it came a patriotism that had further implications for free speech. There can be little doubt that some of the less pleasant trends of the 1920s, such as xenophobia, emphasis on ‘100 per cent Americanism’, and an almost paranoid fear of left-wing ideas were partly a result of the war and the feelings it engendered. Race riots also increased between 1917 and 1919, partly as a result of hundreds of thousands of blacks moving to Northern cities during the war, and, as unemployment increased after the war, tensions between whites and blacks and immigrants simmered.
