In a study with significant relevance to questions of government authority in contemporary America, author William H. Thomas argues that the U.S. Justice Department, in its efforts to suppress anti-war sentiment during World War I, went considerably beyond its official charge of prosecuting objectors through espionage and sedition statutes. Drawing on a massive collection of microfilmed reports written by Department detectives from around the nation, Thomas demonstrates how they simultaneously augmented this more open, public mission with subtler forms of coercion, stifling opposition by...