WWI Over, But U.S. Still Prosecutes Draft Evaders
World War I ended on the 11th of November 1918, but President Woodrow Wilson’s Justice Department announced on this day that it would continue to prosecute young men who it believed had evaded the draft during the war.
The anti-dissent, anti-immigrant fervor generated by the war continued for more than a year after the war, in what came to be called the Red Scare. It included the notorious Palmer Raids, on November 7, 1919, and January 2, 1920, in which thousands of alleged radical working people were rounded up in a massive violation of due process.
Learn more: Christopher Finan, From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America (2007)
Read about the draft in World War I at the Library of Congress here
Read about President Woodrow Wilson and the repression of dissent in World War I: Samuel Walker, Presidents and Civil Liberties From Wilson to Obama (2012)
Learn about the ACLU during times of national crisis: https://www.aclu.org/aclu-history-defending-liberty-times-national-crisis