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World War One and the American Constitution, by William G. Ross

2019; Oxford University Press; Volume: 134; Issue: 569 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ehr/cez191

1477-4534

Kristofer Allerfeldt,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

There can be little doubt that, although the USA famously entered the Great War late—and suffered considerably fewer casualties than most of its ‘co-belligerents’—those twenty months it did spend at war had a disproportionately galvanising effect on the nation. One of the most important results of the conflict was a massive growth in the power, reach and influence of the Federal government. Although many war measures were exactly that—wartime expediencies—William G. Ross argues here that the Federal government the war created ‘never shrank to its prewar dimensions’ (p. 108) and nor did its budget, reach or ambitions. This book is a study of how and why that growth took place, and how the US Constitution facilitated, slowed or stymied that expansion. Professor Ross clearly, if not exhaustively, demonstrates something of how the situation changed broad sections of American society. It is well known that the American worker benefited from a recognition of rights to better workplace conditions and increased powers to negotiate pay with a general liberalisation of industrial relations. A great deal has been written on the movement to enfranchise women gaining what proved an unstoppable momentum. Few would dispute that the African American population made at least some genuine gains in terms of their civil rights—if only through a massive migration away from the Deep South’s poverty and cruelty.