Imagine if you will the United States in the midst of turmoil not seen since the days of civil war. The nation was in the throes of a decades-long period of progressive reforms that changed the relationship between citizen and government, with the new balance in favor of Washington. 

A war in a distant, foreign land saw the loss of over a hundred thousand American soldiers and the passage of new laws to imprison those who dared to speak out against it. Coming in on the war tide was a horrific bout of a new strain of influenza that took the lives of nearly 700,000 Americans, while infecting as much as a quarter of the entire population, spreading fear across the country.