Sedition Act

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Trading with the Enemy Act were established; then in 1918 the Sedition Act was passed because the Espionage Act wasn’t restrictive enough. The Espionage act silenced Germans from being able to say things that could be thought of as interfering with the war like stating reason on why not to go to war with Germany. This act made it effectively illegal for Germans to say anything about not going to war. The act that did the most damage to Germans was the Trading with the Enemy Act. This act forced all foreign papers to provide war commentary with an English translation. This made every foreign based paper operating on a tight budget go under. This act was a major contributor in why many German papers ended (McPherson 2014). The Sedition …show more content…

There were many reason for why people didn’t like Germans, but one important one was the volume of German immigrants in the US at the time of the war. When the war started, there was 2.3 million German citizens in the US that had immigrated to US. The problem with this is you couldn’t pick out of German out of a crowd because Germans were white. This made people think that the Germans were hiding in the crowds and that they are infiltrated this country. People thought Germans to be the enemy within that must be fought and controlled to win the war. (McPherson 2014) Another reason why German Americans were disliked was that Germans had some cultural differences that irritated others. The most common thing that was hated about Germans was that Germans would drink on Sundays, and not use Sunday as a holy day. This division allowed people to have angry towards Germans and combined with the fear of them, this anti-German sentiment was only bound to happen. (Manning 2014) The fear was only increased when the Zimmerman Telegram situation happened. The Zimmerman Telegram was a secret telegram that was intercepted prior to the US joining the war in 1917. In the Telegram Germany proposed that Mexico join Germany’s side in the war if US fought against Germany. When the people of the US found out about this proposal the fear towards Germans increased

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