TOMERNOTES
AP US History Chapter 35
Red Scare and Anti-red Incidents
America isolated itself after the Second World War. The US shunned foreign diplomatic commitments, denounced radical ideas, condemned “un-American” lifestyles, and put restrictions on immigration. The economy was also sealed from the rest of the world, beginning a decade of homegrown prosperity.
After the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, which created a tiny Communist party in the US, Americans feared Communism would bring anarchy and chaos into the US. This period of time is known as the First Red Scare.
1919 Seattle General Strike. Idea: At the end of the war, there were high prices and frustrated union-organizing drives. This led to an epidemic of strikes. Many Americans falsely believed that the Communists caused these problems.
A large general strike occurred in Seattle in 1919. It was modest in its demands and orderly in its methods. However, the mayor, who cited Communism as well, called for federal troops.
Attack on the home of A.G. A. Mitchell Palmer. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer deeply feared and hated Communism and was a big figure in the red scare. He “saw red” too easily. He was known as the “Fighting Quaker”.
A bomb shattered part of Palmer’s house in June 1919. The “fighting Quaker” was said to be renamed the “Quaking fighter.” (Not in book: He led controversial raids against radicals, which were known as Palmer Raids).
The Buford. One technique to get suspected Communists out of the country was to deport them to Russia. Late in 1919, 249 radicals were deported on the Buford (nicknamed the “Soviet Ark”) and were tricked into believing in a “workers’ paradise” in Russia. One person’s motto was, “…S.O.S—ship or shoot.”
Wall Street blast. In September 1920, a huge horse-chariot bomb went off in Wall Street, killing 38 and injuring 100’s. The attackers were assumed to be Communists, although it is unknown even today.
Legislative action against Communism. In 1919-1920, some legislatures passed criminal syndicalism laws/antired statues, which outlawed the mere advocacy of violence to secure social change. Critics argued for freedom of speech as people were prosecuted. In 1920, five member of the New York legislature were actually denied their seats simply because they were Socialists.
Labor unions and business. Conservative businesspeople used the red scare to fight against labor unions by calling them “Sovietism in disguise.” Workers wanted “closed”, or all-union, shop, while employers wanted “open” shop (?).
The Sacco and Vanzetti Case. Nicola Sacco was a shoe-factory worker. Bartolomeo Vanzetti was a fish peddler. Both were Italians, atheists, anarchists, and draft dodgers. Both were convicted in 1921 for killing a Massachusetts paymaster and his guard.
Why was this Sacco and Vanzetti case so significant? Because it was a very controversial, with many critics believing the court was prejudice against the defendants because of their beliefs and nationality. Liberals and radicals defended them. The case held over until 1927 when the two men were electrocuted and considered martyrs in a “class struggle.” If they weren’t tried during the red scare, they probably would have received mere prison terms.
Ku Klux Klan
Reappearance. The last time we heard of the Ku Klux Klan, it was created after the Civil War and was anti-black. It was re-founded in 1915 and is sometimes called the Second Ku Klux Klan. Now, in addition to being anti-black, the group was anti-foreign, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, anti-revolutionist, anti-bootlegger, anti-gambling, anti-adultery, and anti-birth control. It was also pro-Anglo Saxon, pro-“native” American, and pro-Protestant. Basically, they hated the diversity that was transforming American culture at the time and reflected the old anti-foreign nativist movement of the 1850s.
Popularity. The Klan was astonishingly popular in the 1920s, particularly in the Midwest and “Bible Belt” South. It peaked in the mid-1920s, when it had about 5 million dues-paying members (which was about 4.5% of the population)
Influence and actions. The Klan had potent political influence and was a sort of political bloc. They held secret rituals and huge flag-waving parades, one of which was held in the middle of Washington, D.C. with 40,000 participants. They burned the cross as their chief warning. They used a lash as a weapon, followed by humiliating tar and feathers.
Fall. This movement collapsed suddenly in the late 1920s as people stopped liking flesh and terrorism and Congress launched an investigation into embezzling by Klan officials. The movement was revealed as a ‘vicious racket’ rather than a ‘crusade.’
The New Immigration
Increased number of immigrants came to America after the war. About 800,000 came in 1920-1921, two thirds from southern and eastern Europe. The “one-hundred percent Americans” were unhappy.
Emergency Quota Act of 1921. Congress reacted to the “New Immigration” by passing the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. A certain number of immigrants could come to the US, which was set to 3 percent of the number of people of their same nationality living in the US in 1910.
This system favored the southern and eastern Europeans, since many had already migrated to the US by 1910.
Immigration Act of 1924. Congress replaced the Emergency Quota Act with the Immigration Act of 1924. This act reduced the quota to 2 percent, and the population from which the quota was taken was shifted to the census of 1890. In addition, the act cut off all Japanese immigration and exempt Canadians and Latin Americans from any quotas.
This system dramatically turned the scale against southern and eastern Europeans, who had comparatively few migrants in the US by 1890. Many saw this as a win for the “nativists” who thought northern Europeans (the majority of Europeans in the US) were of better blood. Japan held many “hate America” rallies, and one man committed suicide at the US embassy.
Immigration dropped as a result of this act. By 1931, for the first time in US history, more people left the US than entered. The act also marked an end of a period of virtually unrestricted immigration that had brought 35 million newcomers.
Diversity. By the 1920s, there was a patchwork of ethnic communities in the US, separated from each other by language, religion, and customs. Recently-arrived Italians, Jews, and Poles lived isolated with their own houses of worship, newspapers, and theaters. Labor unions often had trouble breaking through these ethnic barriers, although they sought the same cause. Employers sometimes took this to their advantage.
Prohibition
Eighteenth Amendment. Crusading churches and many women wanted prohibition, the ban on sales of alcoholic beverages. In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment authorized prohibition, and was implemented by the Volstead Act passed by Congress later that same year. The Eighteenth Amendment is sometimes called the “dry” amendment.
Public reaction. The Eighteenth Amendment was overwhelmingly ratified. Prohibition was fairly popular in the Midwest, and especially popular in the South, where whites didn’t want alcohol in the hands of blacks, who might get out of hand. Prohibition was unpopular in larger eastern cities, where many foreigners who drank in their country of birth didn’t want to give it up. People held wild drinking parties on the last day before prohibition.
Enforcement. American tradition held weak control over private lives. Historically, the federal government has never satisfactorily enforced a widely unpopular law. People didn’t consider drinking a crime, and it couldn’t successfully become a crime overnight.
Prohibition was tough to enforce. People believed that if they broke the law at a large enough scale, they would repeal the law. Many legislators voted against prohibition, but drank anyway. Soldiers fighting in Europe were frustrated to come back to prohibition. Workers argued that only the rich could manage to break the law and drink.
There weren’t enough officials to enforce prohibition, and the ones who did exist were bribed and underpaid. Several people were killed by “dry agents.”
Avoiding the law. Prohibition did not prohibit. Saloons were replaced by “speakeasies” where people communicated softly before entering. Beverages were packed with more alcohol because of the difficulty of transporting and concealing bottles. Foreigners from the West Indies and Canada profited by smuggling liquor into the US. Some people tried to make their own beverages, sometimes resulting in blindness or death.
Positive results. Although prohibition wasn’t entirely enforced, good thing did result. Banks savings increased, absenteeism in industry decreased, and less liquor was consumed (though drinks were still available).
Gangs
Gang wars over alcohol. The 1920s are considered the golden years for gangs. As different groups competed with each other in smuggling alcohol, they turned to weapons to help them dominate the booze market. These gangs bribed the police and fought each other. Arrests were rare and convictions rarer, because of the “underworld’s code of silence” which prevented information leaks.
Al Capone and Chicago. Chicago was the gang capitol. In the Chicago gang wars of the 1920s, 500 murders were recorded. The gang icon was “Scarface” Al Capone, an alcohol distributor who began six years of highly profitable smuggling and gang warfare in 1925. He rode in an armored vehicle with bulletproof windows. He was nicknamed “Public Enemy Number One.” He was not convicted of the St. Valetine’s Day massacre in 1929 in which he killed 7 unarmed rival gang members, but served most of an 11-year sentence for income-tax evasion, from which he was released as a syphilitic wreck.
Effects on life. Gangsters engaged in prostitution, gambling, narcotics, as well as alcohol smuggling. Merchants who tried to obey the law had to hire gangs to protect them or face broken windows or dead employees. Organized crime became very profitable, with an estimated annual intake of $12 billion to $18 billion by 1930, several times the US government income.
Death of Lindbergh’s son. In 1932, the infant son of aviator-hero Charles A. Lindbergh (see later in this chapter) was kidnapped for ransom and murdered. The entire nation was shocked and saddened, and Congress passed the Lindbergh Law that same year. This law made interstate abduction in certain circumstances punishable by the death penalty.
Education and Science
Improvements in education. Education improved in the 1920s, as more and more states required students to remain in school until age 16 or 18, or until the end of high school. The proportion of 17-year-olds who graduated high school doubled in the 1920s, to more than one in four (and we think we have it bad).
John Dewey, professor at Columbia University, provided the most revolutionary contribution to education at this time. He emphasized the principles of “learning by doing” and started what became known as progressive education. He believed that the workbench was as essential as the blackboard and that “education for life” should be the primary goal of the teacher.
As a result of Dewey’s new emphasis, students liked schools more. Pupils no longer saw school as a juvenile jail and cheered with happiness when school ended.
Improvements in science. Science advanced as well. The Rockefeller Foundation started a massive public-health program in the South in 1909 that virtually wiped out the ancient affliction of hookworm by the 1920s. Also, better nutrition and health care increased life expectancy from 50 years in 1901 to 59 years in 1929.
Evolution and Fundamentalism
Dislike of evolution. Old-time religionists known as fundamentalists felt that the teaching of Darwinian evolution was destroying faith in God and the Bible while contributing to the moral break down of youth.
Fundamentalists tried to create laws against teaching evolution. Three southern states, including Tennessee, did so. These states were in the heart of the Bible Belt South- where the spirit of evangelical religion was strongest.
Scopes Trial a.k.a. “Monkey Trial”. In 1925, a likable high-school biology teacher at Dayton, Tennessee named John T. Scopes was put to trial for teaching evolution. The trial was highly publicized. Scopes was prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan, an ardent Presbyterian Fundamentalist and expert on the Bible. Scopes had nationally-known attorneys, including Clarence Darrow, who made Bryan appear foolish. Five days after the trial was over, Bryan died of a stroke, surely caused by the stress.
The result: Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. However, the supreme court of Tennessee dismissed the fine on a technicality, although still upholding the law. The law wasn’t formally repealed in Tennessee until 1967. The Scopes Trial set ridicule on the Fundamentalists.
Fundamentalism. An increasing number of Christians were coming to accept modern while still upholding their religion. Fundamentalism, which emphasized reading of the bible and old-time religion, remained a vibrant force in American life. It was strongest in the Baptist church and the growing Churches of Christ, organized in 1906.
The Mass-Consumption Economy
New, better industries. The 1920s were prosperous. After the recession of 1920-1921, the US sprinted forward economically for nearly 7 years. Why? The war and SoT Andrew Mellon’s tax policies favored the rapid expansion of capital investment. New machines powered by newly found oil helped. Henry Ford’s Rouge River plant perfected assembly-line production and spat out a new car every 10 seconds. The demand for electricity created a new giant electricity industry. The car landed in the hands of the common man, with 30 million in the hands of Americans by 1930.
Advertising. A new type of advertising resulted from this need to sell so many new products. Advertising now used persuasion, ploy, allure, and sexual suggestion to get people to always want more and more.
Bruce Barton, a prominent New York partner in a Madison Avenue firm, was a founder of the new advertising. In 1925 he published the best seller The Man Nobody Knows, which argued that Jesus was the best advertiser of all time and all advertisers should learn from him. He took twelve men from the bottom of business and formed an organization (Christianity) that conquered the world.
Sports. Sports were becoming very profitable in a commercialized world. In baseball, George H. “Babe” Ruth was very famous for his home-run hits. The crowds he brought led to the idea that he “built” his stadium, Yankee Stadium. In wrestling, heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey knocked out French light heavyweight (?) Georges Carpentier in 1921. The crowd at this match paid more than a million dollars, which happened repeatedly in the 1920s.