Remembering the War to End All Wars -- August 28, 2017

New York Tribune, 11-November-1918

Today I went to Good Shepherd School in Pacifica and talked to Junior High kids about the topic of the current DAR essay contest, inspired by the upcoming centennial of Armistice Day: if you were living at the end of the war, what effect would it have on your life?  I talked about the effects the war had on peoples' lives.  I pointed out that we had been at war all their lives, but it didn't have much of an effect because, from the US point of view, they are all limited wars.  I talked about total war, mobilization, propaganda, censorship, 100 percent Americanism, conscription, influenza and suffrage.  I also pointed out that in 1918 they didn't call it World War One.  People were hoping there would not be another one.