1918 Spanish Influenza Outbreak: The Enemy Within
By Christine M. Kreiser

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Wilson had won a second term in 1916 because he had kept the United States out of the war. Once war was declared in 1917, however, he could not afford to waver in his commitment to seeing the conflict through to Allied victory. To shore up public support, Wilson created the Committee on Public Information a week after declaring war on Germany. (One of its lasting contributions was the Uncle SamI want you recruiting poster.) The CPI’s news division issued thousands of press releases and syndicated features about the war that made their way, often unedited, into newspapers across the country. The CPI also had a pictorial publicity division, an advertising division and a film division. In short, it used every possible media source to influence public opinion.

Wilson’s zeal for advancing democratic ideals abroad was secured by his willingness to suppress them at home. Dissent was not tolerated. Under the 1917 Espionage Act, roundly criticized as being unconstitutional, Socialist leaders Eugene Debs and Victor Berger were sentenced to a combined 30 years in prison for their antiwar protests. The act also gave the postmaster general the right to determine what constituted unpatriotic or subversive reading material and ban it from the U.S. mail. The Justice Department authorized the 200,000 members of a volunteer group called the American Protective League to report on suspected spies,slackers who didn’t buy war bonds and anyone who voiced opposition to the government.

In this hyper-patriotic atmosphere, fighting the flu came second to winning the war. Public officials, and the public itself, downplayed the seriousness of the silent enemy within and focused on the more tangible enemies of a nation at war. The Germans could be defeated on the battlefield overseas and by surveillance at home. Nothing could stop a disease that immobilized great cities for weeks and carried off hundreds of thousands in the prime of life.

And then, it was over. By the end of 1918, deaths from flu and pneumonia nationwide had subsided greatly, and a third wave in the spring of 1919 left far fewer casualties in its wake.In light of our knowledge of influenza and the way it works, explained Dr. Shirley Fannin, an epidemiologist and current director of disease control for Los Angeles County, Calif.,we do understand that it probably ran out of fuel. It ran out of people who were susceptible.

Those who survived their exposure to the flu developed immunity to the disease, but not to its lasting consequences. William Maxwell, writer and longtime editor at The New Yorker, was a 10-year-old in Lincoln, Ill., when the flu struck his family, killing his mother.I realized for the first time, and forever, that we were not safe. We were not beyond harm, he remembered eight decades later.From that time on there was a sadness, which had not existed before, a deep down sadness that never quite went away….Terrible things could happen — to anybody.

For all the advances in medical science, it is still not clear where the 1918 virus originated, or why it took such a toll on healthy young adults. Flu viruses are extremely adaptable. According to the National Institutes of Health, one new strain of flu appeared in humans between the Hong Kong flu outbreak in 1969 (the last flu pandemic) and 1977. Between 1997 and 2004, five new strains appeared.

Modern researchers agree that it is probably impossible to prevent an outbreak of flu, but it is possible to prepare for one — if the public, health officials and government agencies can agree on a plan of action. Today, as in 1918, a global conflict demands an ever-increasing amount of resources. The government has enacted extraordinary measures in the name of national security. And a public health crisis of the magnitude of the 1918 epidemic is almost incomprehensible. After all, it’s only the flu.

This article was written by Christine M. Kreiser and originally published in the December 2006 issue of American History Magazine.For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

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