Objective: To examine the impact of the Red Scare on American society.

1. Objective: To examine the impact of the Red Scare on American society.

2. Describe the political climate in the US between 1914 and 1920 Four facts: Ku Klux Klan. “We believe that the American stock, which was bred under highly selective surroundings … and should not be mongrelized … automatically and instinctively developed the kind of civilization which is best suited to its own healthy life and growth; and this cannot be safely changed except by ourselves and along the lines of our own character. . . .. .

3. Summary … What is the political climate in the US between 1914 and 1920? • Anti-immigrant and violence erupted • Henry Ford prominent American very anti-semitic, anti-catholic, and anti-African American • Americans saw anarchists and communists as threat to government. How does the political climate change after 1917 and why? • Bolshevik Revolution – Czar overthrown • Russia becomes U.S.S.R. – with a Communist government • America fears anarchists and communists will overthrow government in U.S. • America leaves our troops in U.S.S.R to fight Lenin & refuses to recognize the Soviet government.

4. Fear of Radicals · People feared a communist revolution would occur in the U.S.

5. Labor Unrest · People blamed communists and Anarchists for labor strikes, labor problems

6. · Since many anarchists were immigrants, discrimination against immigrants increased.

7. Post-War American Attitudes Following WWI deep social tensions aggravated by high wartime inflation Food Prices Clothing Prices deep social tensions aggravated by high wartime inflation • Steel Strike (1919) • Organized Labor had won 8-hour workday due • to war time production (contract work) • By 1919 – ½ workers had a 48-hour work week • Unions on decline because • seen as a direct connect to radicals = immigrants • rise in violent labor strikes • discriminatory (women or African Americans) • made strides in work-hours • farmers in industrial work used to working alone

8. Study Table B & analyze the numbers under the quota acts: • Quota 1921 law numbers :___total Northwestern Europe____total Eastern and Southern Europe • Quota 1924 law numbers :_____ total Northwestern Europe ____ total Eastern and Southern Europe • Overall trends and reasons for the laws: Table 4.1 Compiled from House of Representatives Report No. 1621, 1924, p.190: United States Bureau of Immigration. Annual Report of the Commissioner – General of Immigration. 1924. pp24 ff.

9. Study:Immigration and National Origins (doc C) • What were the intended purpose of the Immigration Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act of 1924? • Describe the attributes/fears that the immigrants instilled in the authors of the laws. • How did the laws change and why? • The day the National Origins Act of 1924 went into effect was marked as Humiliation Day in Japan, the beginning of a major “Hate America” campaign. What are two reasons that the Japanese reacted this way?

10. Read the excerpt Immigration and National Origins In the decade before World War I, more than 10 million people flooded into the United States. Unlike the old immigrants, who had come from northern and western Europe in the 1800s, these new immigrants were primarily from eastern and southern Europe. They were not Anglo-Saxon, nor were they Protestants. For various reasons, including prejudice, many Americans wanted to limit the number of these immigrants. Some citizens believed that the newcomers did not have adequate job skills to be self-sufficient. Many worried that the immigrants would not be able to adapt to the American way of life. Labor unions feared that immigrant laborers would work for lower wages than their union workers. This would make it difficult for union members to find work at the higher wage they desired. Labor unions therefore headed the drive for more restrictive immigration laws. In 1921, Congress passed the first Immigration Act to establish an effective quota system. Three percent of the total of each nationality already in the country, based on the census of 1910, would be admitted. The maximum quota for all nationalities combined was to be 375, 803 per year.

11. This proved to be a temporary measure. Continued opposition to immigrants from eastern and southern Europe led to the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924. This was designed to prevent any major racial or ethnic changes in the population of the United States. By the terms of this new law, the quotas were set at 2 percent of each nationality based on the census of 1890. Most of the immigration from eastern and southern Europe began after 1890. The maximum quota for all immigration was to be 164,667. Canadians and Latin Americans were not part of the quota system in this or future acts. The Japanese were specifically excluded from all future immigration as “aliens ineligible to citizenship.” The law of 1924 was a slap in the face to the Japanese. It marked the beginning of disintegration in United States-Japanese relations. In 1929, a second National Origins Act was passed. The 1929 act established quotas of 2 percent of each nationality based on the census of 1920 but limited to a maximum quota of 153,714 of all nationalities. The years of unlimited immigration had ended long since.

12. Closing the Golden Door · The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 set up a quota system allowing only a certain number of people from each country into the U.S.

13. The Door gets locked? · The National Origins Exclusion Act and the Immigration Act of 1924 Superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act – further aimed at restricting Southern and Eastern Europeans and prohibited East Asians.

14. * The law favored Protestant nations from Northern Europe. * However, people from the Western Hemisphere were unaffected by the quota, and thousands of Mexicans and Canadians entered the U.S.

15. What problems did immigrants pose? Why did the quota law, 1921, seem to be satisfactory? If these were satisfactory why did the restrictions become more strict? Where did the “older type of immigration” come from and provide? What drain on society did immigrants cost? What would the US lack by imposing strict immigration restrictions? Homework Reading print from Aeries Keep on Guarding the Gates

16. More Post-War American Attitudes Following WWI Period of Disillusionment … veterans, artists, and intellectuals Society was lacking idealism and vision Sense of personal alienation Americans were obsessed with materialism and outmoded moral values. • Safeguarding America for Americans • “In this brief review of the work which the Department of Justice has undertaken, to tear out the radical seeds that have entangled American ideas in their poisonous theories, I desire not merely to explain what the real menace of communism is, but also to tell how we have been compelled to clean up the country…” A. Mitchell Palmer

17. The Palmer Raids • Several cities across the country • Mitchell Palmer and John Edgar Hoover • found no evidence of a proposed revolution • numbers of suspects, many of them members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were held without trial. • Many “suspects” were deported • In New York, five elected Socialists were expelled from the legislature. Palmer Raids