Marking centennial of America’s entry into World War I, here is what happened at Club

With membership booming, the National Press Club relocated in 1914 to expanded facilities atop what was known as the Albee Building at the corner of 15th and G Streets, N.W.

Nearly a year before the United States declared war, President Woodrow Wilson spoke to the Club on May 15, 1916, about the worldwide conflagration and his burden in deciding what to do.

The country’s fortunes, President Wilson said, are subject to the “incalculable winds of passion flowing from other parts of the world.” The strain, he said, is not to know “what turn of the wheel of fortune will take control of things out of your hand.”

But, Wilson said, the United States is now a world power of great influence and cannot sit back and let the rest of the world fight.

“If I cannot maintain my moral influence over a man except by occasionally knocking him down; if that's the only way he will respect me, then for the sake of his soul I have got to occasionally knock him down,” Wilson said. “The great burden on me is to choose when that time comes.”

As the war progressed in Europe, the changes at the Club were first noted at the bar, as the first Club historian, Homer Dodge, noted:

“Turbaned Indian rubbed elbows with kilted Scots Highlander and blue-bloused French officer courteously jostled the gorgeously garbed Beraglieri, while more drab soldiers of English and American regiments lent contrast.”

German diplomats stopped showing up, and even Club members of German heritage faced tough times. One of the Club’s charter members, German-born A.D. Jacobson, who for many years served as editor at the Postital and wrote a syndicated column on European aristocracy, was sent to an internment camp.

Members appeared in military uniform. A few joined a volunteer cavalry troop at Fort Meyer and straggled back to the Club, saddle sore and weary after a day of drill. When America entered the war, a service flag with 51 stars designating members serving in the armed services flew over the Albee Building.

The Club played a new role in wartime news censorship. In a controversial move, Wilson formed the Committee on Public Information to be the central source for war news. George Creel, who had worked on Wilson’s re-election campaign, directed the committee, which was created on April 14, 1917. Generals and admirals asked that more than 100 topics be kept secret. Creel whittled those down to 18 and then brought them to the Club and asked members what they thought.

“The temper of the gathering, hostile at first, grew more friendly as understandings were reached, and at the end there was an agreement that the plan merited a fair trial,” Creel wrote in Dateline Washington, a Club history published in 1948.

The 18 requests –- asking news organizations not to print troop movements, base locations, ship sailings and coastal defenses –- were printed on 6-by-12 inch cards and distributed to every Washington correspondent and to every newspaper in the country. No censorship board was created. “Their enforcement is a matter for the press itself,” Creel wrote. Washington correspondents “leaned over backwards in observance of the card’s requests.”

Club members who fought in the war returned to found their own American Legion Post in 1919. Post 20 was known as the Pershing Post or the Black Jack Post in honor of Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and a Club member.

The Post is still active today.