Well wrap up other countries neutralities. But were going to focus on what neutrality looked like and meant for the americans, especially in the first half of the war. So the thing that i want you to understand the most, and this is really vital, because its its a very different understanding of neutrality than we have today. Neutrality at the beginning of the war did not mean inactivity. It did not mean passtivity and it most certainly did not mean impartiality. If it doesnt mean those things, then what does it mean . The definition differs with each country. Some, like belgium, will say they never gave up their neutrality. So they were aggrieved against as a neutral country. Others like switzerland will say, were neutral and to prove it, dylan, im going to hold your wallet, and im going to hold your wallet, and thats how im neutral. In the case of the United States, neutrality will for the most part mean that they will do business with whoever and the very willingness to do business with both germans or the central powers and the allies is proof of their neutrality. A lot of people are surprised to learn that at the beginning of the war, the u. S. Traded with and maintained diplomatic relations with all of the belligerent nations. Some of those relationships were strained to be sure. One of my favorite examples is the one of both the first and last Ottoman Empire ambassador appointed to the United States, a polishturk. And hes appointed to d. C. And hes given one instruction on his departure. And so they tell him, go to the states and all you have to do is be charming. All you have to do is have fabulous parties, be a fabulous guest, and by all means, avoid any social or political tensions. Of course he gets to d. C. Right about the time that news of crisis is happening in the Ottoman Empire. Armenians and other christians are being attacked. The American Press is pointing out that this is a problem. Well, to belinski and the other ottomans, they felt that wasnt neutral. And he irritates Woodrow Wilson, that Woodrow Wilson has his privileges as an ambassador revoked. How timely with our current news. You dont behave, you lose your office. On his way out, belinski, he said how dare you, americans, who claim to be neutral, judge we, ottomans for how we treat r people. Until you stop segregation, you have to business telling us about being violent or how to control our minorities. In order to ensure having lost his ambassadorship that he left Woodrow Wilson on the brink of a comple comple complete he was praying and singing with africanamericans and talking about their plight and suffering helped him under who americans truly were despite their browbeating all over the world as purported neutrals who were also morally superior. So what we see in the case of the United States is that the question of race will already be part of this diplomatic tugofwar, the germans will do the same. It will return. So in the United States what we get from the very beginning of the war are a lot of the same kinds of concerns that had been weighing heavily on european empires that weve been talking about, right . What were some of those concerns . That there would be that their own countries were full of dissents who could set the place ablaze by pointing out the fissures in American Society. Hence our first picture here. What have are we looking at . Women. Women protesting in front of the white house, demanding the right to vote, pointing out how american democracy is not perfect and, again, therefore, who are they, more so as a neutral state, to go around the world telling other people whats right and whats wrong . What are other dissent groups that we have in the country . Just like in europe, we have workers who are galvanizing around their right to a safe working space, a fair living wage, safe reasonable working hours. This is a time where we work 6 1 2 days a week. And on the half day were off, our boss is supervising us at church. Workers are a problem. Women are a problem. Can anyone hazard a guess at other groups who might be a problem . Jenny . Minorities. Specifically what kind of minorities . Blacks. Africanamericans are a problem. They continue to say, we want our civil rights. We want the right to vote. We are in fact americans. We pay taxes. We own land. We want the right to go to school wherever we qualify. Africanamerican women are also wanteding very much to have the vote. The most pressing problem for africanamericans was certainly lynching and other forms of racial violence. Africanamericans will say, we want this to end. Indeed, it must end immediately. Because every incidence of racialized violent, every one of those incidences places us too close to how the kaiser and other europeans treat their colonial populations. So these various groups, we have prohibitionists, pointing out how immigrants are problem populations, there are too many of them. We have to have rules, borders, walls, medical screenings to keep these undesirables from pouring into europe, to continue coming and bringing with them their drinking habits and their weird religions, right . Catholics, italians, irish. Conveniently forgetting that plenty of germans and french and british are also catholics. But this idea that the cal dron that is the United States is having its own kind of bubbling up of problems, native americans who are demanding citizenship, they do not have it at this time, right . These are worrisome enough that americans should focus on themselves in order to control that population, lest what happened over there, also ends up happening over here. And will democracy be enough to prevent what happened over there from also happening over here . One of the things that youre often taught in high school that is just plain wrong is the idea that americans are isolationists. They are not. The period between at least the 1890s and certainly still through the 1920s, that window is one in which americans actually spread out from the United States in pretty spectacular ways. Some talked about an american imperialism being born. And certainly an imperial vision, if not yet, its full manifestation. From the 1890s, the u. S. Has reached into hawaii, reached into cuba, reached into puerto rico, and most significantly, reached into the philippines. All the way into asia. It isnt that americans are isolationists. They very much want to get into your house. They just dont want you to come into theirs. And that is not then isolationism. We want to change other people. We dont want them to have any say as to who we get to be. And so in that period, in those early years of the war, we talked about this a few weeks ago, americans have their attention completely trained on the americas. And so whats happening . We talked about whats happening on the Canadian Border . Canadians are getting ready to celebrate the war of 1812 and 1814. Thats where the activity is happening, on the borders. Will mainers go toe to toe . Who is going to pipe up the band the loudest to show that theyre the place that matters more, that they thrived . Then in 1812 and through 1814 and again in 1914. And again, americans attention is trained on the Mexican Border and why there . Because since at least 1910 truly earlier, but since at least 1910, mexico had been undergoing several revolutions and those revolutions had only intensified in nature and grown closer to the american border. And the source of the tension in many instances were americans who mexicans felt were too much of a presence in mexico, owned too much of the land, controlled too much of the capital, and controlled and owned too much of the industry, industrial footprint, in mexico. Its a very complicated set of revolutions. Its not just one. Nonetheless that internal set of conflicts in mexico is working its way closest to the american border. Hence, once again, being very concerned about american safety, american protectionism, with respect to what comes through that southern border. What we know is that people also came through that southern border. And so the idea that a Central American migration pattern is really contemporary misses what was happening 100plus years ago. That the border was quite porous. Its like a valve, opened and closed depending on American Labor needs. And so people are very surprised to find out that at around this time, a quarter of the workforce in chicago Meatpacking Industries are mexicans. If you went skiing in colorado at this time, the ski patrol were mexicans and mexicanamericans. Weve continued this myth that somehow its a population thats a new wave when in fact theres been a pretty constant stream, one that americans have welcomed and vilified, depending on political and economic expediency. But that border was of tremendous concern in 1914. The concern there is also framed around that eugenics language that we talked about. So immigrants bring disease. And disease is as much political and in your mind ideas like communism and autocracy and socialism and catholicism. But they also bring maladies, right . And so part of the way that we make ourselves feel safer is to screen for these maladies. To tell ourselves that they are more inherent to one set of people and not another. That is the way that were spending our energy in 1914. Why is that southern border and the caribbean so important . I just want to take a slight step back here and talk about, again, those problem constituencies. And here, women in public spaces felt that this was such an egregious act to put on your hat, put on your full support girdle, and leave the house to protest because it would be an embarrassment to you and your family and possibly land you in jail. This was not the time to mince words. You notice the words on the banner, kaiser wilson. Wilson who spent much of his career curating the notion that he functioned from a higher moral stance than his own country could meet. My favorite quote about wilsons 14 points comes from the french Prime Minister at the end of the war. He says after wilson gets up and he goes through all 14 of his points and his vision for world peace after the war. He says, even god only had ten. This is the picture of africanamericans marching down fifth avenue in new york and their banner reads, the first blood for america, for american independence was spilled by crispus adams. Reminding the nations that africanamericans have been part of defending this country at every turn. How can we continue to have laws that limit their citizenship rights, laws that limit where they can go, laws that limit where they can go to school, et cetera. Its fundamentally not independence. So for much of the world, europeans in particular, this political cartoon captures it, right . Here is uncle sam selling stuff and europe has a long Shopping List and basically theyre asking how is my credit . How much can i borrow for you in order to keep fighting . If you were to ask a german, a british person what are the americans doing in 1914, they would say fattening their pockets. And do not ever forget that the fattening of those pockets comes at the cost of european lives. That american greed and their willingness in particular to sell to anyone could ultimately result in the collapse of european empires, more so than europeans killing themselves. So to come back to the question that tom asked many, many weeks ago, how is it that the germans are always penned the bad guys, we can see as early as 1914, were starting to vilify the roles of even some neutrals. In this case, the u. S. , that sells indiscriminately. In this political cartoon, we see that theres an image of food, apples in that barrel, and its important to remember that 1914 was a real boom time for the american economy. Like most countries, when the war first began, theres a retraction. People are concerned. They spend a little bit less. You dont have easy access to all of the sources you would normally want to purchase, right . The Stock Exchange was closed in new york just had it had closed in paris and berlin. But once by december people start coming out of their caves again, the americans realize that this war is an amazing boom for their economy. If nothing else, while the europeans are fighting for each other, they cant produce things. And the country that produced the best and most of things, germany, is especially unable to do so because its fighting on two, soon to be three fronts. We talked about the example of harmonicas in christmas of 1914. The holidays are coming and we need things. Those things are chocolate, toys for children, clothing, remember, most of the the armies had not prepared for winter. And so the americans are the ones who can sell all of their cotton, sell all of their wheat, sell their corn and sell one of the first ways we see americans making money has to do with horses and mules. There is a robust trade in american horses, cattle and mules, from the upper northwest through the midwest. So, kansas, for example, its economy goes through the roof because it has huge stockyards where all of these trains bringing in horses could then be sorted, screened for illness and put on fastmoving trains up to chicago and across to philadelphia, new york and boston. Why are we moving so many horses . They need them at the front. Who needs them at the front . The british in particular. Youll recall that i told you that the average lifespan of a horse is about two weeks and thats a lucky horse. At the front. So theyre dying almost more quickly than we can get them over there. And the germans will say, they will have a robust Propaganda Campaign saying you are responsible for killing my son. Because the horse that youre sending over and that youre making scores of money on, right, that horse is being used to pull artillery, to move cavalry, even though cavalry wasnt really doing much. To for food. Right . So horses are vital. Theyre vital in terms of how the armies imagine themselves but also vital for all of the Different Things they can do in the war zone. And the people who are shipping the most number of horses and at the same time saying that theyre neutral are the americans. And because americans have a healthy transportation system, railways, ports, deep ports, people are also sending the horses up from argentina and brazil and uruguay. Theyre coming down from canada. We are selling to germany on occasion. But those horses have to make it past the british were selling to germans, absolutely. When the germans float that sub that i told you about, that makes its ways to philly, that sub goes back completely full of american products. And germans will see that trip, the successful nature of that trip, as a continued partnerships with american commerce. Why would the germans think the u. S. Potentially a good partner . Well, for one thing, there were a lot of germans here. We talked about that, right . About 25 of the population by some estimates higher still, were either first generation or Second Generation germanamericans. The largest population of germans outside of berlin is in new york. Most cities on the east coast will have some version of a germantown, right . So germany at the very least, would say, well my cousin is not going to let them go nuts and go after us so quickly, right . We have a chance. We just have to convince them that were besides the irish dont care about the british. The irish will join us. French canadians hate the british. We could get that started up there too. We have a good chance of winning a media war, if you will. Right . Public sentiment. And for a time, that seemed to work. It worked in part because the germans were winning. But the moment the war starts it becomes a little more dangerous being germany in america. We see in iowa, for example, an attempt to pass an englishonly when making english the the United States has no official language. English is not the official language of the United States. And in some parts of the United States, like pennsylvania, they could just as well have made german the official language so much as its spoken. Some parts of eastern ohio, very czech. So all of a sudden being seen speaking in germany, singing german songs, those become suspect behaviors. Remember, the suspicions that we have for people who are not like us, who may be genetically defective, racially defective, colonially defective, that muscle can easily be rerouted to a new cause. So what we see in 1914, certainly in 1915, it becomes downright dangerous being german, being suspected of german, doing, consuming, celebrating things, however broadly german. And my favorite example of this is actually this set of images. So we get reports in the United States and moscow of people going out on the street with their baseball bats, pounding to death little daschaund dogs because they are germans. So that little tiny thing becomes an emblem of all that is wrong with germans. Even their animals are murderous. In your way of proving your positionalty on that patriotism, club it. It doesnt its no longer sauerkraut. Youre having freedom cabbage. Americans love rebranding food in times of war. Its not french fries, its liberty fries, right . So american having a stein thats what theyre called, right . There are public steincrashing gatherings where you show youre making real your distance from your an ancestors by publicly crashing that. If youre german, those mean a lot. They stay within the family for generations. They represent your military background, and as with all things with this war, children always have a row. Note the little boy pointing a gun at a little dog and note the shadow behind them. Its patriotism that goes all the way back. This german was found to be suspect because he was allegedly speaking german in public, i believe it was in illinois, and he had responded entirely too slowly to the call to enlist. And worst of all, had raised the derelict question of why are we doing this again . And his peers lost their minds, beat him up, tarred and feathered him, and then lynched him. Lynching is not a practice uniquely reserved for africanamericans. It is a practice that is also being seen against latinos in the u. S. , union workers, people who are gay or suspected of being gay, nonconforming in whatever way, is suspect behavior. Now t