I’m reading The Great Influenza and what is most striking about it to me is what was going on in America during WWI under President Wilson. If we think things are bad right now with Bush, which they absolutely are, it was ten times worse in 1918.

Anyone that spoke out against the war or the government could be put in jail, and many were. There was a horrible plague of influenza striking all across the country and killing millions but the newspapers only reported that great strides were being made with vaccines (which was really false) and that fear is the greatest enemy and not to panic. Bodies were piling up in the morgues and almost every family had a death from influenza but the newspapers just said “don’t panic” because they didn’t want morale and support for the war to go down.

A great book although gets a little too in detail with the science of Influenza for me. But it was fascinating to see how Wilson turned America into a war machine with no room for dissent. It’s scary to think how this could totally happen again today. The government would not be able to deal at all with an epidemic of this magnitude again.

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History