Chapter IV 

 THE IMPACT OF WAR 



CERTAINLY no other section of the United States was less prepared than 

 the Middle West for the news in August, 1914, that a general war 

 had broken out in Europe. Nor was any section more convinced that the 

 war was strictly Europe's war and not America's. Country dwellers from 

 Chicago westward, while dependent to a degree on world markets for 

 the disposal of their produce, knew little of what went on outside the 

 United States and cared even less. Not a few of them, indeed, had migrated 

 from the Old World to the New to get away from the turmoil and strife 

 of Europe, with its emphasis on universal military training and its con- 

 stant talk of war. No more convinced isolationists existed anywhere in 

 America than these adopted sons and daughters and their descendants. 

 Later, in opposing the entrance of the United States into the war, they 

 were often less concerned about fighting against the nation of their origin 

 than about having to fight at all. They thought that in migrating to 

 America they had left all that behind. 1 



In commenting on the travail of Europe, Wallaces farmer, which well 

 represented rural opinion in the Middle West, urged its readers not to 

 take sides, but suggested at the same time that they make ready "to feed 

 the nations." There was no thought that this American contribution 

 should be a free offering; rather it was assumed that war trade would 



i. Benton H. Wilcox, "A Reconsideration of the Character and Economic Basis 

 of Northwestern Radicalism" (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wis- 

 consin, 1933), p. 139; Wallaces farmer, XXXIX (August 28, 1914), p. 1165. 



