Chapter 12

Part 1

Pages 412-418

Terms to know

• Nativism

• Anarchists

• Sacco and Vanzetti

• Quota System

• John L. Lewis

• Isolationism

• Communism

Post War Trends

• Americans were tired of war• Disenchanted with the Treaty of Versailles

• Wanted Isolationism• Senate did not ratify Treaty of Versailles

• The war ended for America by a joint resolution of congress

The Economy

• Had to convert to peace time production

• Returning soldiers booted women and Blacks out of factories

• Led to race riots and more racism in the North

Price controls of WWI ended

• Prices went way up very quickly

• Labor who had taken no-strike pledges during the war went on strike

• 1919 over 3,000 strikes

• Largest in the steel industry when 300,000 walked off of the job

Government was still influenced by Big Business

• Big Business, Government, Newspapers called the strikers

• Communists

• Anarchists

• Public opinion against the strikers

• Big fear of communism

The Red Scare

• Communism: a political and economic system in which a government is run by a dictator.

• No Private Property

• Russia dropped out of WWI to fight its own revolution

• Ended up with a communist country

Marx and Engels

• The Communist Manifesto

• Big influence on the Russian Revolution

• Anarchists: folks who were out to destroy existing governments and start again from scratch

A. Mitchell Palmer

• As the U.S. attorney general

• Wanted to be president

• Tried to make himself out as the champion against communism in America

• Hired J.Edgar Hoover as his assistant

• Hoover was later the head of the FBI

The Palmer Raids

• 1920-21 Palmer and Hoover went after communists, Socialists, Labor leaders, etc.

• Deported a number of people illegally to Russia

• Blacklisted others

• Civil rights were trampled

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Italian immigrants were were accosed of robbery and murder of a paymaster in Braintree, Mass.

• Convicted on circumstantial evidence

• Judge Thayer called them, “Anarchist bastards” during the trial!

• Were quickly convicted an executed

Immigration Patterns had changed

• 1880’s-1890’s

• Hundreds of thousands from Eastern and Southern Europe

• Wanted to escape poverty, oppression

• Did not assimilate well

• Catholic, lived in Little Italys, etc.

Fear of Foreign Influence

• The rise of the second KKK• Went after Blacks but also immigrants• Tried to seem patriotic• Claimed they were safeguarding American

culture from foreign influence• 5 million members in the early 1920’s• Even President Harding!• 1927 a KKK scandal and disgrace

Immigration Restriction

• Big Business feared communism more than they needed more cheap labor

• Put pressure on government to restrict immigration

• 1921 Emergency Quota Act: Allowed only 3% of a nationality in that were already here in 1910

But still too many

• The Immigration Act of 1924:

• (AKA The National Origins Act)

• Allowed only 2% in according to the number already here in 1890

• No more Asians, Africans, Eastern Europeans. Due to quota System

Immigration Act of 1924

• Did not apply to folks in the Western Hemisphere

• But still pretty racist

• Evidence of Nativism

Back to labor

• Police strike in Boston

• The Governor…Calvin Coolidge fired them all

• Said, “There is no right ot strike against the public safety anywhere, anytime, by anyone.”

John L. Lewis

• Represented striking mine workers

• Ignored a court order ordering them back to work

• The Mine workers did gain some s\concessions