116 e lusive v ictories
Th e Wilson administration’s response to mainstream pro-war critics
was tame in comparison to how it dealt with those who opposed Amer-
ican participation in the war. By stressing Americanism, the Creel
Committee fostered suspicion of all things foreign, including political
radicals born abroad or those who espoused “unAmerican” ideas. A
series of laws targeted war foes and the means they used to express their
dissent: the 1917 Espionage Act allowed fi nes and prison for interfering
with recruitment and authorized the postmaster general to block the
mailing of literature he found seditious; under the October 1917 Trading
with the Enemy Act, all foreign language publications had to clear
certain pieces with the post offi ce before publication; the Alien Act of
1918 let the government deport or incarcerate foreign residents suspected
of disloyalty or merely accused of belonging to organizations that advo-
cated violent overthrow of the government; and the May 1918 Sedition
Act permitted jailing anyone who said anything disloyal or abusive
about the government or the army. Some of these measures, of course,
had historical precedents in earlier national security crises. But taken
together the Wilson administration’s laws against antiwar opposition
represented a new order of censorship of dissent.
Th e administration followed with vigorous enforcement of the new
statutes. Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson went after any publi-
cation he deemed disloyal, including socialist materials, eff ectively
excluded from the mail by the end of summer 1917. In a striking dem-
onstration of poor executive coordination, Burleson even banned pub-
lications that the Creel Committee urged Americans to read so they
could better understand Germany. Meanwhile, Attorney General
Th omas W. Gregory sought to prosecute those he deemed radicals and
subversives. Lacking adequate manpower to police the many threats he
identified, Gregory turned to a private vigilante force, the ultra-
nationalist American Protective League (APL). Th e APL, which grew
to 250,000 members by November 1918, sought to destroy radical
organizations, especially the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW),
or “Wobblies.”
If Wilson personally did not direct the repression of dissidents, he
also never lifted a finger to stop it. Some historians contend that
Wilson tried to check the more extreme expressions of anti-German
chauvinism and urged restraint on the more zealous members of his