Fears for Internal Security.

America's involvement in World War I provoked serious and widespread abuses of civil liberties. While most Americans responded to the call for mobilization with intense patriotic sentiment, there were those who, for a variety of reasons, remained opposed to intervention in the war, and a few, including many pacifists, who resisted the call to arms altogether. In 1917 Congress, under pressure to take some action to protect the nation's security against those who might provide aid to its foreign enemies, passed the much-debated Espionage Act. This act provided the government with extraordinary powers over the rights of free speech and press. Immediately after the nation's declaration of war, the country was filled with rumors regarding the activities of spies and their sympathizers; there were also numerous stories concerning sabotage and plots to render America's industrial might useless. These concerns...