Red Scare
Mr. Williams
10th Grade U.S. History
Limits to Free Speech
• 1917 Espionage Act: punished
people for aiding enemy or
refusing military duty
• Sedition Act: illegal to “utter,
print, write, or publish any
disloyal…or abusive language”
criticizing government, flag, or
military: more than 1,000 jailed
Emma Goldman
• Russian-born anarchist
• Supported labor strikes,
women’s rights, and birth
control
• Ordered to be deported as a
result of her anti-draft
speeches
•What was the Bolshevik
Revolution? What was
the Red Scare? Why
were people so afraid of
Communism in our
country after WWI?
Red Scare
• Russian Revolution scared
Americans
• Bolsheviks led by Vladimir I.
Lenin overthrew Russian
Monarchy
• Series of bombs mailed to
leading American Capitalists like
J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller
•“I believe it has been
‘scared up’ considerably by
the newspapers, which
relate every arrest and
incident…by printing large
scary headlines.’
Palmer Raids
• Led by U.S. Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer in Jan. 1920
• He and J. Edgar Hoover and
arrested over 6,000 thousand
people in 33 cities
• In the end more than 500
deported
Labor Problems at Home
• 1919: More than 4 million
workers took part in more
than 3,000 strikes nationwide
• During War: War Labor Board
established shorter hours and
higher wages for men and
women
• Wilson focused time on peace
plans, not on promoting
worker’s causes
• Soldiers expected jobs when
they got back in factories,
demand was not there so
many unhappy workers were
striking and being replaced
Major Strikes
• 1919 in Seattle, city-wide
strike involving all industries
• Boston Police Strike 1919 to
protest low wages and poor
working conditions
• Calvin Coolidge, governor,
called in militia to end strike
• Steel industries and coalfields
of eastern United States
• United Mine Workers won
large wage increase
• Still did not win demands for a
shorter five day workweek
Sacco and Vanzetti
•Nicola Sacco and
Bartolommeo Vanzetti
arrested for armed robbery
and murder
•Italian immigrants who
were proclaimed anarchists
• Men were executed in 1927
• “My conviction is that I have
suffered for things I am guilty
of. I am suffering because I am
a radical, and indeed I am a
radical; I have suffered
because I was an Italian, and
indeed I am Italian.”
Closing the Gate
• Immigration increased from
110,000 in 1919 to 430,000 in
1920 and 805,000 in 1921
• Emergency Quota Act 1921
• National Origins Act 1924
• Limited immigration from any
one country to 3% of the number
from that country already in U.S.
Backlash against immigrants
• Nativists targeted newer
arrivals from southern and
eastern Europe
• If they did not want to be
“Americanized” they were not
wanted
Resurgence of KKK
• Slogan of 1920: Native white,
Protestant supremacy.”
• Not only focused on African
Americans in the south, now
targeted Jews, Catholics, and
radicals of all types
•What was the Red Scare?
•Why were the nativist ideas
and anti-immigrant feelings
so strong following WWI?
•3.8 Format with SPECIFIC
examples