In 1916, after Pancho Villa's raiders attacked Columbus, New Mexico, Wilson sent an expedition into Mexico under which general?
John J. Pershing
✓
Douglas MacArthur
George Dewey
Leonard Wood
Correct Answer
John J. Pershing
John J. Pershing led more than 10,000 soldiers deep into northern Mexico but never caught Villa, and Wilson withdrew the troops in early 1917 as war with Germany loomed. Pershing went on to command the American Expeditionary Force in France. Douglas MacArthur was a junior officer at the time. George Dewey was the admiral who won at Manila Bay in 1898. Leonard Wood was a senior general and former army chief of staff who did not lead it.
Category: Wilson and Latin America
Question 2
What did the Zimmermann telegram, intercepted by British intelligence in early 1917, propose?
A German pledge to stop attacking neutral ships
A German alliance with Mexico against the United States
✓
A British request for American troops in France
A Japanese plan to seize the Philippines
Correct Answer
A German alliance with Mexico against the United States
German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann offered Mexico help in recovering Texas, New Mexico and Arizona if it joined Germany in a war against the United States. Its publication enraged Americans and pushed the country toward war. A German pledge to stop attacking neutral ships was the opposite of German policy that year. A British request for American troops in France came only after the United States entered the war. A Japanese plan to seize the Philippines was not part of the message.
Category: Road to War
Question 3
Before 1917, why did American trade and loans flow overwhelmingly to the Allies rather than to Germany?
Congress banned all commerce with Germany in 1914
Germany refused to purchase any American goods
A British naval blockade cut off most trade with Germany
✓
Neutrality laws limited loans to democratic nations
Correct Answer
A British naval blockade cut off most trade with Germany
Britain's blockade of Germany made trade with the Central Powers nearly impossible, while exports to Britain and France soared and American banks lent the Allies large sums. These economic ties gave the United States a stake in an Allied victory. Congress banned all commerce with Germany in 1914 is wrong, since the country stayed officially neutral. Germany refused to purchase any American goods is wrong, since Germany wanted American products but could not get them. Neutrality laws limiting loans belong to the 1930s, not this period.
Category: Road to War
Question 4
Which German policy, announced in early 1917, did Wilson cite as a central reason for asking Congress to declare war?
Occupation of the Panama Canal Zone
A ban on American bank loans to Britain
Seizure of American property in Berlin
Unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping
✓
Correct Answer
Unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping
In early 1917 Germany resumed attacking merchant and passenger ships without warning, including American vessels, gambling that it could starve Britain before the United States made a difference. After several American ships were sunk, Wilson asked Congress for war in April 1917. Occupation of the Panama Canal Zone never happened. A ban on American bank loans to Britain was not something Germany could impose. Seizure of American property in Berlin was not a cause Wilson named.
Category: Road to War
Question 5
Why did Wilson's government aim loyalty campaigns and propaganda at immigrant communities during the war?
Officials feared some immigrants favored the Central Powers
✓
Immigrants had been barred from buying war bonds
Immigrants were forbidden to serve in the army
Congress had required all immigrants to learn English
Correct Answer
Officials feared some immigrants favored the Central Powers
Millions of Americans had roots in Germany or Austria-Hungary, or opposed Britain or Russia, so officials worried that some would not support the war. Posters, speakers and loyalty leagues urged immigrants to put American victory first. Immigrants had been barred from buying war bonds is false, since bond drives targeted them. Immigrants were forbidden to serve in the army is false, since large numbers of immigrants served in uniform. Congress had required all immigrants to learn English is not a law that existed.
Category: Controlling Dissent
Question 6
Which 1917 law required young men to register with local boards so the government could draft them into the army?
National Defense Act
Selective Service Act
✓
Lever Food and Fuel Act
Trading with the Enemy Act
Correct Answer
Selective Service Act
The Selective Service Act of 1917 set up a draft run through local boards, and millions of men were inducted under it. The draft supplied most of the soldiers the United States sent to Europe. The National Defense Act of 1916 enlarged the regular army before the war. The Lever Food and Fuel Act gave the president control over food and fuel. The Trading with the Enemy Act restricted commerce and mail involving enemy nations.
Category: Mobilizing for War
Question 7
Which agency, led by Bernard Baruch, set production priorities and allocated raw materials among private manufacturers?
Food Administration
Fuel Administration
War Industries Board
✓
Railroad Administration
Correct Answer
War Industries Board
The War Industries Board directed the flow of raw materials, set production priorities and used profitable contracts to move firms into war production. It showed how far government and business could cooperate in wartime. The Food Administration, under Herbert Hoover, managed food supplies. The Fuel Administration, under Harry Garfield, rationed coal and oil. The Railroad Administration, under William McAdoo, ran the nation's rail lines.
Category: Mobilizing for War
Question 8
How did the wartime Food Administration chiefly try to conserve food for soldiers and the Allies?
Mandatory ration books issued to every household
Seizure of private farms by the army
A complete ban on food exports to Europe
Voluntary efforts such as meatless and wheatless days
✓
Correct Answer
Voluntary efforts such as meatless and wheatless days
The Food Administration relied on patriotic persuasion, urging families to observe days without meat or wheat, plant gardens and avoid waste. Slogans such as food will win the war made conservation a civic duty. Mandatory ration books were a feature of World War II, not this war. Seizure of private farms by the army never took place. A complete ban on food exports to Europe would have defeated the purpose of feeding the Allies.
Category: Mobilizing for War
Question 9
Besides higher income taxes, how did the federal government raise much of the money it spent on World War I?
Selling Liberty bonds to citizens
✓
Issuing unbacked greenback currency
Selling federal lands in the West
Taxing imports from Allied nations
Correct Answer
Selling Liberty bonds to citizens
Through a series of Liberty Loan drives, the government sold bonds to ordinary Americans, raising billions of dollars and tying citizens personally to the war effort. Income taxes, made possible by the Sixteenth Amendment, supplied much of the rest. Issuing unbacked greenback currency was a Civil War method. Selling federal lands in the West was not a war financing tool. Taxing imports from Allied nations would have hurt the countries the United States was supplying.
Category: Mobilizing for War
Question 10
George Creel headed which agency that used posters, films and volunteer speakers to build public support for the war?
American Protective League
Committee on Public Information
✓
National War Labor Board
Council of National Defense
Correct Answer
Committee on Public Information
The Committee on Public Information, formed days after the declaration of war, produced a flood of propaganda that celebrated sacrifice and portrayed Germany as a brutal enemy. Its campaigns fed a wave of anti-German feeling at home. The American Protective League was a private volunteer group that spied on suspected dissenters. The National War Labor Board settled disputes between workers and employers. The Council of National Defense coordinated resources and planning, not publicity.
Category: Controlling Dissent
Question 11
In Schenck v. United States (1919), the Supreme Court upheld limits on wartime speech using what standard?
Separate but equal
Rule of reason
Clear and present danger
✓
Strict scrutiny
Correct Answer
Clear and present danger
Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes held that speech could be punished when it created a clear and present danger, comparing antidraft leaflets to falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. The ruling let the Espionage Act stand. Separate but equal came from Plessy v. Ferguson on segregation. Rule of reason was an antitrust standard. Strict scrutiny is a later test for laws that burden fundamental rights.
Category: Controlling Dissent
Question 12
Which Socialist Party leader received a ten-year prison sentence for an antiwar speech prosecutors said obstructed military recruitment?
Samuel Gompers
William Jennings Bryan
Robert La Follette
Eugene V. Debs
✓
Correct Answer
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs was convicted under the Espionage Act after a 1918 speech attacking the war, and he ran for president in 1920 from prison. His case showed how far wartime laws reached into political speech. Samuel Gompers led the American Federation of Labor and supported the war. William Jennings Bryan resigned as secretary of state in 1915 but was never prosecuted. Robert La Follette opposed entry into the war as a senator but was not imprisoned.
Category: Controlling Dissent
Question 13
During the war, the National War Labor Board won a no-strike pledge from unions in exchange for what?
Government support for the right to organize and bargain
✓
Exemption of union members from the military draft
A ban on new immigration from Europe
Government ownership of the nation's factories
Correct Answer
Government support for the right to organize and bargain
Labor agreed not to strike for the duration of the war, and in return the government backed workers' right to join unions and bargain collectively and promoted the eight-hour day. Union membership grew sharply as a result. Exemption of union members from the draft was never offered. A ban on new immigration from Europe was not part of the bargain. Government ownership of the nation's factories did not happen, since production stayed in private hands.
Category: Labor and Women
Question 14
What drew many African Americans from the rural South to northern cities during World War I?
Free land offered under the Homestead Act
Industrial jobs opened by wartime labor shortages
✓
Federal laws ending segregation in the South
Bonuses offered by the Army for northern service
Correct Answer
Industrial jobs opened by wartime labor shortages
War production boomed just as the draft and the near halt of European immigration left factories short of workers, so jobs in steel, meatpacking, shipbuilding and auto plants opened to Black migrants. This movement, called the Great Migration, also offered an escape from Jim Crow and racial violence. Free land under the Homestead Act lay in the West, not in northern cities. Federal laws ending segregation in the South came decades later. Bonuses offered by the Army for northern service did not exist.
Category: African Americans and the War
Question 15
Which suffrage leader headed the National Woman's Party when its members picketed the White House during the war?
Carrie Chapman Catt
Susan B. Anthony
Alice Paul
✓
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Correct Answer
Alice Paul
Alice Paul led the National Woman's Party, whose members picketed the White House beginning in 1917, and many who were jailed went on hunger strikes. Their treatment drew public sympathy to the cause. Carrie Chapman Catt led the larger and more moderate National American Woman Suffrage Association, which backed the war. Susan B. Anthony died in 1906. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in 1902.
Category: Labor and Women
Question 16
Which principle in Wilson's Fourteen Points held that national groups should be able to choose their own governments?
Collective security
Balance of power
Dollar diplomacy
Self-determination
✓
Correct Answer
Self-determination
Self-determination meant that peoples such as the nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire should decide their own political future, and it shaped the new states drawn in Eastern Europe after the war. Wilson applied it unevenly, and it was not extended to most colonial peoples. Collective security was the League idea that members would defend one another. Balance of power was the older European system Wilson criticized. Dollar diplomacy was Taft's policy of using investment to gain influence abroad.
Category: Making the Peace
Question 17
Which provision of the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to accept responsibility for causing the war?
The war guilt clause
✓
Article X
The Open Door Note
The Monroe Doctrine
Correct Answer
The war guilt clause
The war guilt clause blamed Germany for the war and became the basis for heavy reparations, which many Germans bitterly resented. Historians link that resentment to the later rise of extremist parties in Germany. Article X was the League covenant pledge that members would defend one another. The Open Door Note was an 1899 American policy on trade with China. The Monroe Doctrine was an 1823 statement about European involvement in the Western Hemisphere.
Category: Making the Peace
Question 18
Senate opponents of Article X of the League of Nations covenant objected that it would do what?
Force the United States to pay German reparations
Commit the United States to defend other members militarily
✓
Require the United States to free the Philippines
Make the United States abolish its protective tariffs
Correct Answer
Commit the United States to defend other members militarily
Article X pledged League members to protect one another against aggression, and critics argued it could drag the country into foreign wars without a vote of Congress. Wilson refused to accept reservations limiting it, and the treaty failed in the Senate. Force the United States to pay German reparations is wrong, since Germany was the one ordered to pay. Require the United States to free the Philippines was not in the covenant. Make the United States abolish its protective tariffs was not in it either.
Category: Making the Peace
Question 19
What fueled the Red Scare of 1919 and 1920?
Fear of a German invasion launched from Mexico
Anger over rising crime under Prohibition
Fear of a communist revolution like the one in Russia
✓
Worry about Japanese expansion into China
Correct Answer
Fear of a communist revolution like the one in Russia
The Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, a record wave of strikes and a series of mail bombs convinced many Americans that radicals planned a revolution at home. The panic led to mass arrests and deportations of suspected radicals, many of them immigrants. Fear of a German invasion launched from Mexico belonged to the Zimmermann telegram episode of 1917. Anger over rising crime under Prohibition grew later in the 1920s. Worry about Japanese expansion into China was a foreign policy issue, not the source of this domestic panic.
Category: Postwar Turmoil
Question 20
In the 1920 presidential race, Republican Warren G. Harding promised voters what?
A New Freedom
A Square Deal
A New Nationalism
A return to normalcy
✓
Correct Answer
A return to normalcy
Harding's call for a return to normalcy appealed to Americans weary of war, reform and international commitments, and he won in a landslide over Democrat James Cox. His victory signaled a turn away from Progressive activism and from the League of Nations. A New Freedom was Wilson's 1912 program. A Square Deal was Theodore Roosevelt's slogan. A New Nationalism was Roosevelt's 1912 Progressive platform.
Category: Postwar Turmoil