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war, you could be found guilty of obstructing the recruitment of soldiers by encouraging disloyalty (Divine 791). The conservative political ring used the sedition acts as an opportunity to prosecute their opponents. In the guise of Patriots the conservatives targeted the Socialist party, as well as the "Industrial Workers of the World". Wilson had his postmaster ban publications of Socialist publicans that had been read by half a million people weekly (Divine 792). The Red Scare that began in 1919 fostered hostility at anything that smacked of dissent.

Through the impending war against Germany, the U.S. gained the knowledge that propaganda was a powerful weapon in the struggle to engage the U.S. in a unified reason to fight. The interception of a Telegram to Mexico from Germany revealed some disturbing news. Should Germany win the war, they offered Mexico the chance to recover all her lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona in return for an alliance (Divine 786). What affect this had on Mexican immigrants civil rights is anybody's guess. Previous relaxed immigration restrictions allowed Mexicans to enter the U.S. only to be scorned by our citizens. The ability to become a citizen was often near impossible (Divine 797). Soon Wilson echoed a seemingly heartfelt reason to war. The reasons invoked for war entertained the precepts of "...rights and liberties of small nations ...a concert of free people as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world at last free..."(Divine 787).

Although the War was trumpeted as a noble cause, the surrender of certain rights quickly became mandatory. An editor protesting the stripping of civil rights was jailed for the following sentence. "...We must make the world safe for democracy even if we have to "bean" the Goddess of liberty to do it. It was recorded that fifteen hundred were arrested for breaking the Sedition law alone.(Divine, 2002, p. 791). Businesses that once allowed union protest would now label these activities as activities akin to conspiracy.

Civil liberties and Sovereignty of nations have been infringed upon in the past in places such as everywhere by the championing of new spheres of trade. President Wilson's

new laws and organizations may have seemed against the law, but a great president of the Civil War had done similar actions. Abraham Lincoln invoked Martial laws during the civil war that some said were close to treason. During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln's declared

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