I believe that the question is about the First World War.
When the morale sunk, the government was actually dealing with people who opposed war effort, so you could say"controlling dissent". Further, they would control all the news about the war and remove things they didn't like, so they censored the news about the war.
Reconstruction is one reason. With the war over many people still thought the south had no right to succeed and many didn’t want anything to do with them.
