On the evening of April 2, 1917, President Wilson drove through a light drizzle to the Capitol. He was led into an antechamber where he stopped to look himself in the mirror. The editor of the Atlantic Monthly, Ellery Sedgwick, describes how “chin shaking, face flushed, he placed his left elbow on the mantel and gazed steadily at himself until he composed his features.” Wilson then walked into the corridor, through some swinging doors, and emerged in the House chamber. According to The Last Days of Innocence by Meiron and Susie Harries, “every seat was taken, and people were standing shoulder to shoulder in the galleries. Surpeme Court judges, Cabinet members with their wives, foreign diplomats, and senators wearing or carrying tiny flags were crammed together on the lower floor."
In a subdued voice, Wilson described the German’s various attempts at spying and sabotage against the United States and how German submarines attacked hospital ships and those carrying relief supplies to Belgium. Wilson elaborated, saying how “the present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.” He therefore “advise[s] that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government of the people of the United States.” However, he asserted that this war was for “keeping the war safe for democracy." In the climaxing conclusion, Wilson declared, “America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.”
Two days later, the Senate approved of the declaration for war with 82 yeas to 6 nays. On April 5, Good Friday, the House of Representatives followed suit with 373 yeas to 50 nays. One day later, on April 6, 1917, the war resolution was brought before Wilson. In a side room off the main lobby, Wilson signed the resolution at 1:18 P.M. The Last Days of Innocence describes how “a buzzer sounded in the executive office, and immediately Daniel’s personal aide, Lieutenant Byron McCandless, ran out onto the White House lawn and semaphored to an officer waiting at a window in the Navy Department across the street. At once the signal was flashed to every ship and shore installation: ‘W…A…R.”
The US government took various steps to mobilize the nation, including starting a propaganda campaign, censoring potentially damaging information, and building up the army. Before long, the government came upon several obstacles. To succeed, Wilson had to solve the problems enlistment and the domestic administration of the war effort. The US had many valuable assets to this war, including its population and its food.
Furthermore, Wilson had his past experience as a progressive that helped him appeal to the public’s emotions. Wilson once said in order for the war to succeed, his administration had to mobilize “not an army but a nation.” America’s mobilization is truly a major factor in the Allies’ success in World War I.
In the progressive movement, reformers learned that change could only be attained after appealing to the public’s emotions. From the hunger striking suffragists to the saloon-busting Carrie Nation, the progressives employed a variety of techniques to arouse the public. Lewis W. Hine traveled across the country between 1907 and 1918 photographing working children. With his pictures, Hine made the public shocked and angry. Between 1911 and 1913, the time when Hine’s photos were being circulated, 39 states passed child labor laws.
President Wilson was elected president of Princeton in 1902, during the height of the progressive 
movement. He became governor of New Jersey in 1910, won the Democratic Party ticket two years later, and became president in 1912. His early presidency was dominated by progressive reform. Wilson signed the Underwood tariff in 1913, a bill that cut the taxes on imported goods. He also supported anti-trust laws such as the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Wilson pushed the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 through Congress, thus limiting business practices that lead to monopolies. He appointed Louis Brandeis to the United States Supreme Court, a leading opponent of big business. From his progressive background, Wilson learned that playing on the public’s emotion was the key for change.
movement. He became governor of New Jersey in 1910, won the Democratic Party ticket two years later, and became president in 1912. His early presidency was dominated by progressive reform. Wilson signed the Underwood tariff in 1913, a bill that cut the taxes on imported goods. He also supported anti-trust laws such as the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Wilson pushed the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 through Congress, thus limiting business practices that lead to monopolies. He appointed Louis Brandeis to the United States Supreme Court, a leading opponent of big business. From his progressive background, Wilson learned that playing on the public’s emotion was the key for change. The ensuing few month’s after President Wilson’s supposedly electrifying message to Congress, patriotic sentiments were almost nonexistent among the general public. According to Thomas Fleming’s The Illusion of Victory, on May 23, 1917, an American Press Résumé author commented on the lack of zeal, saying “There is evidence that in many localities the people have only entered the war with reluctance and with a feeling of inevitability rather than with any enthusiasm.” Wilson’s private secretary wrote to Colonel House explaining that “the people’s righteous wrath” had not yet been aroused.
According to Jean M. Jensen’s The Price of Vigilance, US Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory became convinced that German spies and sympathizers of the Kaiser Wilhem II were overrunning the country. The Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation only had 300 agents, who had to provide for their own transportation. Enter Chicago businessman Alfred M. Briggs. Briggs offered to recruit local agents with their own cars to hunt out these traitors. This idea turned into a national organization that would become known as the American Protection League (APL), which would be operating under cover as the “Secret Service Divisions.” By June of 1917, membership surged to 250,000. A dollar bought a man membership and the right to call himself a member of the “Secret Service.” His credentials were shown in an official membership card and a badge proclaiming the holder a member of the US Department of Justice.
In 1919, the New York Bar Association created a report on 
vigilante groups during WWI, saying, “These associations did much good awakening the public to the danger of insidious propaganda but no other one cause contributed so much to the oppression of innocent men as the systematic and indiscrimate agitation against what was claimed to be an all-pervasive system of German espionage.” The government did much to fan the fire of suspicion and hatred spreading across the country. On June 15, 1917, President Wilson signed the Espionage Bill, which punished those who “wilfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies.” People found guilty under this law were “punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more that twenty years or both."
vigilante groups during WWI, saying, “These associations did much good awakening the public to the danger of insidious propaganda but no other one cause contributed so much to the oppression of innocent men as the systematic and indiscrimate agitation against what was claimed to be an all-pervasive system of German espionage.” The government did much to fan the fire of suspicion and hatred spreading across the country. On June 15, 1917, President Wilson signed the Espionage Bill, which punished those who “wilfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies.” People found guilty under this law were “punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more that twenty years or both."According to author R.M. Elroy, “[w]e all know this, that through disguised in a hundred ways, sly stealthy, ruthless, the German propagandists are still at work in every city of our land, striving by every means to make America accept the supremacy of Kultur.” The CPI even encouraged Americans to inform authorities of disloyalties in others. The APL took this to heart and worked in less-than-ethical ways to achieve this goal, including opening their suspects’ mail, burglarizing their homes and offices, tapping their telephones, and planting listening devices in their bedrooms and parlors. Meiron and Susie Harries’ The Last Days of Innocence describes how in the summer of 1918, the Attorney General Gregory received 1500 letters a day each accusing someone of disloyalty.
On the President’s Fourth of July speech in 1917, Wilson said, “Woe to the man or group of men who seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution.” To augment to the somber mood, Attorney General Thomas Gregory warned that rebels to expect no mercy “from an outraged people and an avenging government.” A popular writer sent a letter to The New York Times suggesting that anyone obstructing this “righteous war” should be executed.
EXPECTATION #3:
The CPI played an integral role in this national witch-hunt. According to The Last Days of Innocence, in 1918, the CPI began screening a film called The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin. This hate film showed the ruthless burning of Louvain and the pain 
of the victims on the Lusitania. In writing, a popular publication was Why America Fights Germany. In the novel, the Germans successfully penetrate into American soil and advance towards Lakewood, New Jersey. There, they demand beer and money. Furthermore, “[o]ne feeble old woman tries to conceal $20 which she had been hoarding in her desk drawer; she is taken out and hanged…Some of the teachers in the two district schools meet a fate which makes them envy her. The Catholic priest and Methodist minister are thrown into a pig-sty while the German soldiers look on and laugh.” Then, when the soldiers unsurprisingly become drunk, and “robbery, murder and outrage run riot. Fifty leading citizens are lined up against the First National Bank and shot. Most of the town and beautiful pinewoods are burned, and then the troops move on to treat New Brunswick the same way.”
of the victims on the Lusitania. In writing, a popular publication was Why America Fights Germany. In the novel, the Germans successfully penetrate into American soil and advance towards Lakewood, New Jersey. There, they demand beer and money. Furthermore, “[o]ne feeble old woman tries to conceal $20 which she had been hoarding in her desk drawer; she is taken out and hanged…Some of the teachers in the two district schools meet a fate which makes them envy her. The Catholic priest and Methodist minister are thrown into a pig-sty while the German soldiers look on and laugh.” Then, when the soldiers unsurprisingly become drunk, and “robbery, murder and outrage run riot. Fifty leading citizens are lined up against the First National Bank and shot. Most of the town and beautiful pinewoods are burned, and then the troops move on to treat New Brunswick the same way.” EXPECTATION #5:
Obviously, the CPI did its best to portray Germany and everything German in the worst way 
possible. It was rumored that the Germans put ground glass into food and poison on Red Cross bandages. Fear of espionage became so great that flashes of light from the stained glass windows of William Randolph Hearst’s apartment was thought to be covert signals to German submarines waiting in the Hudson River. Everything German was suddenly taboo. Frankfurters became “Liberty sausages,” dachshunds were “Liberty dogs,” and sauerkraut got changed into “Liberty cabbage.” Interestingly, following France’s refusal to support invading Iraq in 2003, French fries were changed into “Freedom fries,” showing that in some aspects, Americans never change.
possible. It was rumored that the Germans put ground glass into food and poison on Red Cross bandages. Fear of espionage became so great that flashes of light from the stained glass windows of William Randolph Hearst’s apartment was thought to be covert signals to German submarines waiting in the Hudson River. Everything German was suddenly taboo. Frankfurters became “Liberty sausages,” dachshunds were “Liberty dogs,” and sauerkraut got changed into “Liberty cabbage.” Interestingly, following France’s refusal to support invading Iraq in 2003, French fries were changed into “Freedom fries,” showing that in some aspects, Americans never change. The New York Times suspended all German publications saying, “[a]ny book whatever that comes to us from a German printing press is open to suspicion. The German microbe is hiding somewhere between its covers.” Renowned publisher Irving Putnam declared, “I am opposed to opening the markets of America to the products of Germany for the next 25 years, and I will knowingly buy and use no German-made goods in the said period of time.”
The German language itself came under brutal attack as well. In Win the War for Permanent Peace, the author Elroy proclaims that “[t]he surest way to defeat Kultur’s ambition is to destroy its grip on the schools…Fort Wayne, Indiana spent last year $14,772 for teaching German to immigrants, and $108 for teaching English; Columbus, Ohio, spent nothing teaching English and $16,000 for teaching German; Philadelphia spent $11,000 for English instruction and $70,000 for German.” As a result of these negative public sentiments, teaching of the German language was banned in many schools and German books burned. A speaker at a conference of the League to Enforce Peace declared, “Behind the chair of innumerable teachers we have seen the shadow of the spiked helmet.”
In 1918, anti-German sentiments erupted into violence, with mobs ransacking German-American homes, painting their houses yellow, tarring and feathering German-American men, and forcing them to crawl on the streets. On March 28 in Willard, Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that German-American couple Mr. and Mrs. Zuelch “were taken by a crowd of men to the city hall and there before a crowd of 200 persons compelled to salute the American flag and then kiss it. A flag was given to Zuelch and he was commanded to display it in front of his cigar store. It was waving there tonight.”
For Aurora, Honorable Charles F. Clyne, the U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, played an important role for the United States Department of Justice. For example, in the case of United States vs. Victor L. Berger, et al., “ five defendants were charged with conspiracy to violate the Espionage Law. All defendants were convicted and each was sentenced to imprisonment. All of the above cases are still under review by the District Court of Appeals on appeal by the defendants.” By pushing those who broke the law, the US government sent a clear message to the public that all dissenters would be punished, augmenting the feelings of fear, hatred, and suspicion.
Germans in Aurora, as in the rest of the United States, were met with trepidation from the general public. In February of 1918, Mayor James E. Harley, in accordance with the requests from the State Council of Defense, the American Protective League, and the Local Board for the City of Aurora, ordered the registration of all aliens living in Aurora or the Aurora area regardless of country of origin. Over 1600 families in Aurora and its proximity were registered with the information filed for “future use, if so desired, by government officials.” Then, the US Department 
of Justice ordered Aurora to register all the German aliens, including those who had declared their intent of becoming US citizens. Between March 1, 1918 and March 11, Chief Detective A. G. Wirz registered 99 male German aliens. This endeavor was so successful that the Justice Department ordered the registering of the 117 female German aliens currently residing in Aurora. Included with the registration form were the names of all relatives engaged in the war (and the side they were on), their desire for naturalization, the reason for their arrest (if applicable), complete measurements under the Bertillion System, three photographs, and finger prints from all fingers from both hands. A copy was mailed to the US Justice Department in Washington DC, a copy was forwarded to the United States Marshal in Chicago, and a copy was kept at the local police station.
of Justice ordered Aurora to register all the German aliens, including those who had declared their intent of becoming US citizens. Between March 1, 1918 and March 11, Chief Detective A. G. Wirz registered 99 male German aliens. This endeavor was so successful that the Justice Department ordered the registering of the 117 female German aliens currently residing in Aurora. Included with the registration form were the names of all relatives engaged in the war (and the side they were on), their desire for naturalization, the reason for their arrest (if applicable), complete measurements under the Bertillion System, three photographs, and finger prints from all fingers from both hands. A copy was mailed to the US Justice Department in Washington DC, a copy was forwarded to the United States Marshal in Chicago, and a copy was kept at the local police station. President Wilson realized that in order to make change in the public’s attitude towards war, he would also have to incite their dormant emotions. His administration surreptitiously imbedded feelings of suspicion, anger, and hate into the public. Armed with the public’s wrath, America could carry on fighting the war to end all wars.
