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U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos
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U.S. History 1877-Present 6: The Selective Service Act 110 Views
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Description:
If you thought the Selective Service Act meant you could be selective about what services you provide, you'd be very wrong. It meant you had to go to war. Or else.
Transcript
- 00:04
America's pre-world War one army only had about a hundred [American soldiers appear]
- 00:07
thousand soldiers not quite enough to start a war with an already mobilized
- 00:11
German army even so President Woodrow Wilson hopes that he could build an [Woodrow Wilson sitting by office]
- 00:16
entirely volunteer army and avoid implementing the draft but Woody's dream
- 00:22
was doomed to fail he probably cried into his pillow at night in the end only [Woodrow crying into US pillow]
Full Transcript
- 00:26
73,000 Americans volunteered to join to compare Germany alone had about 13
- 00:33
million soldiers well the German army could have taken out the American army
- 00:37
in like 15 minutes well more like a month or so if we're [Germany crushes cockroach]
- 00:40
being realistic but still out of other options Congress passed the Selective
- 00:44
Service Act in May 1917 the first military draft since the Civil War so [Judge bangs gavel]
- 00:51
originally men ages 21 to 30 were required to register as potential
- 00:55
draftees but that was quickly expanded to men ages 18 to 45 well 2.8 million [Army helmet placed on mans head]
- 01:02
ended up being drafted joining about 2 million additional volunteers this draft
- 01:08
also included black men which a lot of black activists like WB Dubois actually
- 01:13
saw as a good thing yeah the unit's were segregated but
- 01:17
optimistic activists hoped that if African Americans showed they were [African american fighting and explosion appears in background]
- 01:21
willing to give it their all for democracy white people would finally
- 01:25
start to pay attention to the civil rights violations happening all over [Man thrown into air]
- 01:28
America optimism is nice but well it does set you up for disappointment
- 01:33
failure after the war the same old abuses kept on keepin on w eb Du Bois
- 01:38
definitely cried into his pillow at night there was one cool difference [Dubois crying into pillow]
- 01:42
between dis raft and previous drafts in American history though rich people had
- 01:47
a lot tougher time weaseling out of the whole thing before rich folks could pay [Man with sack of money]
- 01:52
a poor person to fight for them but this go-around that practice was nixed so
- 01:58
yeah America was still trying to work out its racial issues but at least the
- 02:01
US was making a teensy bit of progress with a different set of inequalities so
- 02:05
great now everybody had the same chance to experience the joys of trench warfare [Soldiers standing in trench]
- 02:10
only everyone hadn't done had the same opportunity to free ice
- 02:14
cream but history is early that none [Poor man holding ice cream cone]
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