The Only Badge Needed Is Your Patriot Fervor Analysis
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“No man who loves America, no man who really cares for her fame and honor and character… can justify mob action while the courts of justice are open and the governments of the States and the Nation are ready and able to do their duty.” said by President Woodrow Wilson who spoke out condemning mob rule. Civil libertarians on the home front put pressure on Wilson following the lynching of a German American whose story was used as German wartime propaganda. In July 1918 when Wilson publicly condemned mob rule, the State was rampant with criminal activity including race riots and lynchings. Here is when the line of vigilant citizen duty becomes blurred as the “actions of repressive state institutions, private organization and spontaneous crowds left dozens dead and thousands temporarily detained on war related crimes” (1355) but as the author notes, these years also became a transitional period as political arguments began to raise questions about extralegal authority which would eventually lay the groundwork for the political and legal dismantling of vigilantism.…show more content… The author notes that one way to understand the debates is “the distinction between vigilance and vigilantism” (1355). Many citizens believed themselves to be vigilant and found themselves doing the work the national government had requested them to do. However, many spoke out against vigilantism, more specifically the mob. Vigilance was a valuable service that embodied American democracy whereas Vigilantism was incompatible with the nations standards of law and of