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By October 1918, the number of American war casualties was growing rapidly. At home, a Liberty Loan fund-raising campaign - the fourth in 19 months - was attracting crowds to its rallies, urging them to lend the government more money with which to fight the war.
Meanwhile, the novel influenza virus which first struck the country in January had returned, more lethal and widespread than before. Coffins were back-ordered all over America , and cemeteries were running out of empty graves. For every American soldier or nurse who lay dying in Europe, three or four civilian Americans lay dying back home. President Woodrow Wilson said nothing about it.
