"Context: We were at war. It was the first total war. It was the first time the government tried to fully control the public. The pandemic was known as Spanish flu, but we know it did not start in Spain. It was called Spanish Flu because Spain was not at war, so there was a free press. Most of Europe had a censored press. The U.S. press was more open, but still the new Sedition Act was passed. This was a law that made the Patriot Act look like it was written by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). To enforce the law, the Justice Department issued badges to the “American Protective League” (APL), who was identified as Secret Service. Within a year, the attorney general said 200,000 APL members were operating in 1,000 communities. In Chicago, a “flying squad” of league members and police trailed, harassed, and beat members of the International Workers of the World (IWW). In Arizona, league members and vigilantes locked 1,200 IWW members and their “collaborators” into box cars and left them on a siding across the state line in the New Mexico desert. Throughout the country, the league's American Vigilance Patrol targeted “seditious street oratory,” sometimes calling upon the police to arrest speakers for disorderly conduct, sometimes acting more directly. Everywhere, the league spied on neighbors, investigated “slackers” and “food hoarders,” and demanded to know why people didn't buy—or didn't buy more—liberty bonds. At the same time, states outlawed the teaching of German. In Providence, Rhode Island, the Providence Journal carried a banner warning that “every German or Austrian in the United States unless known by years of association should be treated as a spy.” The problem was that the single largest ethnic group in the United States was German. 1918 was a time when there was a well-run propaganda machine. The government created the Committee for Public Information (CPI). It was intended to create one white-hot mass of determination. A quote by Arthur Bullard (who directed the CPI's Russian Division) summarizes the tenets of propaganda at the time, “Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms... There is nothing in experience to tell us that one is always preferable to the other... There are lifeless truths and vital lies... The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.” Part of the propaganda machine included the energetic direction of Mississippi newspaper editor George Creel, an advisor to President Wilson. Under Creel, the CPI churned out national propaganda through diverse media. Creel organized the “Four-Minute Men,” a virtual army of volunteers who gave brief speeches wherever they could get an audience. There were 150,000 of the Four-Minute Men, who would propagandize for “four minutes” prior to any kind of public gathering. These men were charged with creating fear in the population because it was “an important element to be bred in the civilian population. It is difficult to unite a people by talking only on the highest ethical plain. To fight for an ideal, perhaps, must be coupled with thoughts of self-preservation.”"