Ch.31 American Life In The "Roaring 20s" Flashcards
An epidemic of strikes that convulsed the Republic at war’s end were a result of high prices and frustrated union-organizing. What conclusion did Americans jump to about the labor trouble?
That the labor troubles were form enter by bomb-and-whisker Bolsheviks.
What spawned a tiny Communist party in America?
The Bolshevik revolution in 1917 (and the fears of red Russia that came with it).
The big “red scare” of 1919-1920 resulted in what?
A nationwide crusade against left-wingers whose Americanism was suspect.
Who earned the title of the “Fighting Quaker” and how?
Attorney General A. Mitchell because he “saw red” too easily and zealously rounded up suspects (an estimate 6,000).
The Fighting Quaker’s drive to root out radicals was redoubled in June 1919 by what?
A bomb in 1919 that shattered both the nerves and the Washington home of Palmer. (The “Fighting Quaker” was thereupon dubbed the “Quaking Fighter”.)
What other events highlighted the red scare of 1919-1920?
- December 1919: a shipload of 249 alleged alien radicals was deported on the Buford (“Soviet Ark”) to the “workers’ paradise” in Russia.
- one zealot cried: “My motto for the Reds is S.O.S. – ship or shoot.”
- September 1920: an unexplained bomb blast on Wall Street killed 38 people and wounded several hundred others.
In 1919-1920 a number of legislatures passed criminal syndicalism laws. What did these anti-red statutes do?
They made unlawful the mere advocacy of violence to secure social change. They reflected the outcry against radicals during this time and the anxiety of “solid” citizens.
How did businessmen use the red scare to their advantage?
They used it to break the backs of the fledgling unions. Labor’s call for the “closed”, or all-union, shop was denounced as “Sovietism in disguise”. Employers, in turn, hailed their own anti union campaign for the “open” shop as “the American plan”.
What case, regarded by liberals as a “judicial lunching”, reflected anti-red ism and anti-foreignism?
A 1921-1927 case where Nicola Sacco, a shoe-factory worker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler, we’re convicted if the murder of a Massachusetts paymaster and his guard. The jury and the judge were prejudiced in some degree against the defendants because they were Italians, atheists, anarchists, and draft dodgers.
Describe the results of the 1922-1927 case regarding Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Liberals and radicals the world over rallied to the defense of the two aliens doomed to die. When the condemned men were electrocuted in 1927, communists and other radicals were this presented with two martyrs in the “class struggle”.
Describe the new Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s.
- resembled the anti foreign “nativist” movements of the 1850s
- anti foreign, anti-Catholic, antiblack, anti-Jewish, antipacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, antievolutionist, antibootlegger, antigambling, antiadultery, and anti-birth control
- pro Anglo-Saxon, pro “native” American, and pro-Protestant
The new KKK betokened an extremist, ultra conservative uprising against what?
Against many of the forces if diversity and modernity that we’re transforming American culture.
Where was the KKK mainly found?
Spread rapidly especially in the Midwest and the “Bible Belt” South.
What was one of the KKK’s slogans?
“Kill the Kikes, Koons, and Katholics.”
The KKK was an alarming manifestation of what?
Of the intolerance and prejudice plaguing people anxious about the dizzying pace of social change in the 1920s.
