When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, the American government officially stayed neutral, and while many in Washington and along the eastern seaboard harbored strong feelings for the United Kingdom, the U.S. government found it hard to convince the general American population of the war's benefits, mostly due to the presence of a massive German population in the republic's middle section (America's first “silent minority,” the Germans encompassed roughly one-tenth of the entire population of the U.S. in 1914).