Oregon and World War 1

One hundred years ago on July 28th Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia starting what would eventually be called the first world war. The war quickly escalated. By August 4th Germany had started a invasion of France and violated Belgium’s neutrality. Britain’s declaration of war on Germany followed shortly after on August 4th 1914.

When the United States entered the war on April 6th 1917 Oregon did its part in the war effort. The Daily Capital Journal reported in its April 6th issue that the Third Oregon Regiment had completed its initial muster.

Posters from the period called on Oregonians to join the armed forces. Even librarians were enlisted in the war effort!

Despite public calls for enlistment President Wilson was disappointed with the voluntary enlistment numbers. The Selective Service Act of 1917 (40 Stat. 76), which is available to view in our collection here in the Law Llibrary, initially required all males 21 to 30 to register. In 1918 the age range was expanded to males 18 to 45. By the end of the war over 2.8 million people were drafted.

Oregon contributed thousands of those registrations. The Genealogical Forum of Oregon has indexed almost 180 thousand WW1 draft registrations. They also provide copies of those registrations for a nominal fee.

Not everyone in Oregon supported the war. A well known Oregonian labor activist named Marie Equi demonstrated publicly against the war. By the start of the war Equi was already famous for aiding victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Equi was locally well known for a dispute with Reverend Orson D. Taylor in 1893 over $100 in wages. Following through on a threat she horsewhipped the Reverend in front of his real estate office. While she didn’t get the $100 from him residents of Dallas, OR auctioned off the whip for more than $100 the proceeds going to Miss Equi.

And On May 16, 1918 congress passed the Sedition Act of 1918. This act made it a crime to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States” or “willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of the production" of the things "necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war."

Equi was arrested in 1918 during a demonstration at the Industrial Works of the World against the war. She was convicted on December 31 and sentenced to three years in prison. Adamn Hodges’ article “At War Over the Espionage act in Portland” (Oregon Historical Quarterly Volume 108 No. 3) is available in the Law Library and is a great place to start learning more about Marie Equi.

For a more general history Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August is a Pulitzer Prize winning book that covers the earliest stages of the war.