w aging w ar to t ransform the w orld 117administration, such as Burleson. And it is true that the president
blocked a move by ultra-nationalists to make the United States a war
zone, place it under martial law, try anyone who published anything
that endangered the success of the military eff ort in a military court,
and permit execution by fi ring squad of those convicted. Apart from
these isolated examples, however, the evidence suggests that Wilson
supported the persecution of those opposing his war. He clucked his
tongue over wartime limits on free expression even as he insisted they
were necessary. Wilson ignored most complaints about Burleson’s broad
interpretation of his power to restrict access to the mails. Although
the president occasionally asked his postmaster general to reconsider an
exclusion, Wilson never imposed his will on his subordinate and cer-
tainly never asked him to resign. Further, the president never
instructed his administration to cease cooperating with the ultra-
nationalists. As a president who insisted on control over all aspects of
his administration’s war-related policies, Wilson plainly “owns” its
record on civil liberties.
By extension, to him falls the blame for its political consequences.
Th e mobilization of conservative forces in defense of wartime nation-
alism eff ectively destroyed the reform movement. War inherently is a
force for social disruption and dislocation—exposing fi ssures, thrusting
people into new roles, uprooting millions through military service or
occupational demands—and World War I was no exception. One vivid
example: as mobilization led women into new responsibilities,
momentum built for women’s suff rage, culminating in the Nineteenth
Amendment in 1920. Th e result of war will be a new confi guration of
issues; American wars always have given rise to new political agendas.
What direction the postwar agenda will take, however, is not preor-
dained. Th e Civil War fostered the Republican program for promoting
industrial development through government support. As I observed,
Progressives anticipated that America’s entry into the First World War
would have a similar eff ect, spurring government activism in new areas.
But that expectation presupposed the continued political eff ectiveness
of various groups and movements that had boosted Progressive initia-
tives, especially forces on the political left—socialists who backed
Eugene Victor Debs, the IWW, and various agrarian populists clam-
oring for action to shield small farmers against railroads and other