With a commander in chief handing out a general license to hunt for spies, it's not surprising Americans responded. - Arthur Herman

Wilson worried that the Constitution itself would not survive: "a nation can't put its strength into a war and keep its head level; it has never been done."13

On November 26, the MRC decreed that "high-ranking functionaries in state administration, banks, the treasury, the railways, and the post and telegraph offices are all sabotaging the measures of the Bolshevik government. Henceforth, such individuals are to be described as 'enemies of the people,' " and they would be named in newspapers and public places. The war on "enemies of the people," whether the case was proved or not, had begun — and it had likewise begun on those suspected of "sabotage, speculation, and opportunism."

The term used to describe them was rednecks, a Scots border term meaning Presbyterians. Another was cracker, from the Scots word craik for "talk," meaning a loud talker or braggart. Both words became permanent parts of the American language, and a permanent part of the identity of the Deep South the Ulster Scots created.