WThe 1917 Bath Riots occurred from January 28 to 30, 1917 at the Santa Fe Bridge between El Paso, Texas and Juárez, Mexico. The riots were sparked by the practices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which required Mexicans to "strip naked and be disinfected with various chemical agents, including gasoline, kerosene, sodium cyanide, cyanogens, sulfuric acid, and Zyklon B before gaining entry into the United States." Zyklon B, was the fumigation of choice for clothing and bedding on the U.S.–Mexico border, and was later used in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany. Police officers were also accused of taking and sharing nude photography of Mexican women bathers. A year earlier, 50 Mexicans had their bodies sprayed with gasoline and set on fire, causing 27 of them to burn to death. All of these conditions contributed to the riots, which began when Carmelita Torres refused to submit to the procedure. Torres was denied a refund of her transport fare, so she began yelling at the officials and convinced other riders to join her. After three days of rioting, the protest subsided, but the process of disinfecting Mexican migrants at the U.S. border continued for another 40 years.
WAviation Act of 1917 was a United States military appropriations bill authorizing a temporary increase for the United States Army Signal Corps. The Act of Congress authorized provisions for airship or dirigible operations governed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps Aeronautical Division. The legislation provided United States President Woodrow Wilson emergency authority for the maintenance, manufacture, operation, purchase, and repair of airships and associated aerial machines.
WThe Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18. Specifically, it is 18 U.S.C. ch. 37
WThis list of American films of 1917 is a compilation of American films released in 1917.
WThe Food and Fuel Control Act, Pub.L. 65–41, 40 Stat. 276, enacted August 10, 1917, also called the Lever Act or the Lever Food Act was a World War I era US law that among other things created the United States Food Administration and the United States Fuel Administration.
WThe Immigration Act of 1917 was a United States Act that aimed to restrict immigration by imposing literacy tests on immigrants, creating new categories of inadmissible persons, and barring immigration from the Asia-Pacific zone. The most sweeping immigration act the United States had passed until that time, it followed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in marking a turn toward nativism. The 1917 act governed immigration policy until it was amended by the Immigration Act of 1924; both acts were revised by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.
WThe Jones–Shafroth Act —also known as the Jones Act of Puerto Rico, Jones Law of Puerto Rico, or as the Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act of 1917— was an Act of the United States Congress, signed by President Woodrow Wilson on March 2, 1917. The act superseded the Foraker Act and granted U.S. citizenship to anyone born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899. It also created the Senate of Puerto Rico, established a bill of rights, and authorized the election of a Resident Commissioner to a four-year term. The act also exempted Puerto Rican bonds from federal, state, and local taxes regardless of where the bondholder resides.
WThe Lansing–Ishii Agreement was a diplomatic note signed between the United States and Japan on 2 November 1917 over their disputes with regards to China.
WThe No Conscription League was an anarchist organisation designed to promote anti-draft manifestos and aid those who refused military service. The league lasted for 6 weeks and was used to charge its founders Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman with conspiracy to obstruct the draft.
WThe Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army"—was an unsuccessful military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.
WThe Selective Service Act of 1917 or Selective Draft Act authorized the United States federal government to raise a national army for service in World War I through conscription. It was envisioned in December 1916 and brought to President Woodrow Wilson's attention shortly after the break in relations with Germany in February 1917. The Act itself was drafted by then-Captain Hugh S. Johnson after the United States entered World War I by declaring war on Germany. The Act was canceled with the end of the war on November 11, 1918. The Act was upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in 1918.
WThe Sheppard Bone-Dry Act, sponsored by Sen. Morris Sheppard (D) of Texas, was passed by the US Congress in 1917. It imposed a ban on alcoholic beverages in the District of Columbia.
WThe 1917 State of the Union Address was given by Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States on Tuesday, December 4, 1917, during his turbulent second term. He spoke in the United States House of Representatives chamber, in the United States Capitol. He said, "I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true American to need to be rehearsed." He addressed the 65th United States Congress, and spoke of World War I. He ended with, "A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of His own justice and mercy." In the middle of the speech, he said this about the German Empire, "The worst that can happen to the detriment the German people is this, that if they should still, after the war is over, continue to be obliged to live under ambitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the peace of the world, men or classes of men whom the other peoples of the world could not trust, it might be impossible to admit them to the partnership of nations which must henceforth guarantee the world's peace." He is saying that empires' do not promote world peace. A year after he gave this speech, on December 4, 1918, the United States military would swallow Germany in victory, and the saying that is written would come true, "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
WThe presidency of Woodrow Wilson began on March 4, 1913 when Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1921.
WThe Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917 is a United States federal law, enacted on October 6, 1917, that gives the President of the United States the power to oversee or restrict any and all trade between the United States and its enemies in times of war. TWEA was amended in 1933 by the Emergency Banking Act to extend the president’s authority also in peace time. It was amended again in 1977 by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to restrict the application of TWEA only in times of war, while the IEEPA was intended to be used in peace time.
WThe 1917 United States declaration of war on Austria-Hungary, officially House Joint Resolution 169, was a resolution adopted by the United States Congress declaring that a state of war existed between the United States of America and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It occurred eight months after the earlier declaration of war against Germany that had brought the United States into World War I. Enacted on December 7, 1917 and coming into effect the same day, it was officially terminated in 1921, three years after the effective capitulation of Austria-Hungary.
WOn April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked a special joint session of the United States Congress for a declaration of war against the German Empire. Congress responded with the declaration on April 6.
WUnited States of Poland was an unrealized political concept of reborn Poland, created by Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860–1941). It was first presented in Paderewski Memorial, given to US President Woodrow Wilson on 11 January 1917.
WThe Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. If the United States entered World War I against Germany, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence.