Unsafe for Democracy: World War I and the U.S. Justice Department's Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent (Studies in American Thought and Culture) - Softcover

Thomas Jr., William H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299228967 ISBN 13: 9780299228965

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009

Synopsis

During World War I it was the task of the U.S. Department of Justice, using the newly passed Espionage Act and its later Sedition Act amendment, to prosecute and convict those who opposed America's entry into the conflict. In Unsafe for Democracy, historian William H. Thomas Jr. shows that the Justice Department did not stop at this official charge but went much further - paying cautionary visits to suspected dissenters, pressuring them to express support of the war effort, or intimidating them into silence. At times going undercover, investigators tried to elicit the unguarded comments of individuals believed to be a threat to the prevailing social order. In this massive yet largely secret campaign, agents cast their net wide, targeting isolationists, pacifists, immigrants, socialists, labor organizers, African Americans, and clergymen. The unemployed, the mentally ill, college students, schoolteachers, even schoolchildren, all might come under scrutiny, often in the context of the most trivial and benign activities of daily life. Delving into numerous reports by Justice Department detectives, Thomas documents how, in case after case, they used threats and warnings to frighten war critics and silence dissent. This early government crusade for wartime ideological conformity, Thomas argues, marks one of the more dubious achievements of the Progressive Era - and a development that resonates in the present day. Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association of School Librarians "Recommended for all libraries". - Frederic Krome, Library Journal "A cautionary tale about what can happen to our freedoms if we take them too lightly". - Dave Wood, Hudson Star-Observer

About this title

About the Author:

William H. Thomas Jr., an independent scholar, received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Iowa. He lives in O'Fallon, Illinois.

Review:

"Now, thanks to this excellent study, readers learn of the department's covert campaign to silence a diverse variety of critics." Justus D. Doenecke, The Historian.

"[A] well-researched, richly detailed account of the US government's illiberal and covert wartime activities."  Jonathan Rosenberg, The International History Review.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0299228967
• ISBN 13: 9780299228965
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 470