[APUSH 2] US @ War Vocabulary

Selective Service Act

restarts the draft for all males 21 to 30

• Causes nationwide protest

Espionage and Sedition Acts

outlaws anti-war and anti-government speech; discourages talking about the war publicly

• “Loose Lips Sink Ships”

• Espionage and Sedition Acts - WWI

• Suspend Habeas Corpus - Civil War

• Internment Camps - WWII

• Patriot Act - War on Terror 

• Alien and Sedition Acts - Quasi War

Schenk v. US

1919 Supreme Court case that said the Espionage and Sedition Acts are constitutional as long as the speech presents a “clear and present danger” to public safety

• Essentially, the government was allowed to outlaw speech deemed dangerous to society

Eugene Debs

Union leader and Socialist jailed under the Espionage & Sedition Acts

• First high-profile socialist in American history… “The war is all about money”

• Ran for president from jail

WIS (Women In Service)

organization that promoted women working in factories

• They promoted women in industry to help win the war

WIB (Work Industries Board)

set up rationing and decided how much to build during the war, and was led by Herbert Hoover

National War Labor Board

settled strikes and prevented lockouts during the war

Samuel Gompers

Head of the AFL and in charge of the National War Labor Board

• Appointed by Wilson

Bolsheviks

Russian communists who took over the country

• Led by Lenin, and took over Russia, renaming it the Soviet Union

Vladmir Lenin

first leader of the Soviet Union

• Signed a separate peace treaty with Germany

  “A lie told often enough becomes the truth” - Lenin

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

kicked Russia out of WWI

• Made Russia an enemy of the Allied Powers

• Hammer & Sickle symbolizes Communism

• Russia is still a democracy today (under Vladmir Putin)

Victory Bonds

bonds that help pay for WWI (also called Freedom/Liberty Bonds)

• US government doesn’t make weapons, US manufacturing companies do

• Government has to pay for this, and uses these bonds

• Bonds = essentially an IOU (government will pay you back at a later date)

Armistice

temporary agreement to stop fighting (ceasefire)

• One side gives their opposition a chance to pay up

• The Korean War is still going on (as of December 4, 2024), but the US has an armistice with Korea

  • There’s still 30,000 American troops on the border between North Korea & South Korea

Big FOUR

leaders of the allied countries at the Versailles Conference

Clemenceau (France)

David Lloyd-George (Britain)

Woodrow Wilson (United States)

Vittorio Orlando (Italy)

• Lloyd-George & Orlando want to make a deal, but Clemenceau & Wilson are preventing them from it

• Each country has their own wants, and they can’t pick one or the other

14 Points

Wilson’s plan to rebuild after WWI

• Wilson puts together a 14-point plan in order to avoid war

• Starts dropping pamphlets over Germany, saying exactly what’s going to happen to them

• Wilson’s not looking to destroy Germany, because Wilson doesn’t want another war

• Other 3 countries are mad because they haven’t agreed on anything, and Wilson’s advertising this plan to Germany already

• US (mainly Wilson) is looking for world peace, and doesn’t necessarily want something in return, so these 14 Points are very unpopular back home

Self-Determination

the idea that people should choose the country that they live in

• Wilson wants to give Poland its own government (it sits between Germany & Russia) to make war more unlikely, and he wants to break up the empires

Reparations

payment for past damages

• Losers in war pay for reparations

• Mexican-American War: US pays Mexico, because the US essentially got the entire Rocky Mountains & West

• Germany essentially has to pay for everything (destruction to Paris, U-Boats, etc.)

  • Reparations for WWI were paid in 2011

League of Nations

international organization committed to world peace

• Wilson’s most important idea in his 14 Points (it was the 14th point)

• Wilson says the thing that caused the most destruction were the alliances

  • He wants to break alliances, and make a league instead

  • If two countries want to fight, the league would help mediate it

• Clemenceau opposes this, because he doesn’t want to negotiate with Germany after they ravaged Paris

• Senate has to approve treaties (according to the US Constitution), but the Senate doesn’t approve it because Wilson was departing from George Washington’s warning to not be entangled in foreign affairs, and Republicans are holding him accountable for that 

Treaty of Versailles

treaty that ends WWI

• Allied Touch: “choking” Germany

Henry Cabot Lodge

leader of the Senate Republicans who offered Wilson the “Lodge Reservations” to pass the Treaty of Versailles; Wilson refused

• Lodge Reservations: changes to the Treaty of Versailles that will give Wilson the amount of votes he needs for the treaty to pass through the Senate (Wilson refuses this deal)

“Spanish” Flu

worldwide pandemic from 1918-1920 that killed an estimated 30-100 million people after WWI