Chapter 4 - Political and social tensions, 1919-1929

Question 1

What was the main social clash in the 1920s?

Answer 1

Old-time America - white Protestants - farming.
VS
New urban/industrial USA, immigrants - Catholic Irish, Italians, Polish, Jews from Austria-Hungary and Russia.

Question 2

What was The Monkey Trial?

Answer 2

1925 social clash between Old and New Americans.
Science teacher Scopes - teaching Darwinian theory in biology - opposed creationism/Bible.
Criminal offence - fined $500.
Bryan argued for God.
Atheist lawyer Darrow argued against (defended Scopes).
Scopes fined $100 as he WAS teaching it.
Showed clashes between religion and evolution.

Question 3

What was the Protestant attitude towards alcohol?

Answer 3

Many saw saloons with 80% proof strength spirits - badges of shame.
Powerful anti-alcohol lobby groups e.g. The Prohibition Party.
Saloon closures/limit traffic liquor.
Drunken violence/poverty - a man’s wages - better spent on family than selfish self destruction.
Kansas - dry in 1880 - impossible to get a drink.

Question 4

How was alcohol associated with immigrants?

Answer 4

Poorer immigrants - Irish.
Supposedly feckless behavior.
Businessmen required sobriety in the workplace.
1917 - 18 states had adopted prohibition
1920 - 33 - when the Volstead Act became nation-wide.
Many brewers - German in origin.
1919 - the necessary 36 states had ratified the amendment - constitutional to enforce prohibition.
Wilson tried vetoing the Volstead Act- but 2/3 majority Congress overrode the veto.

Question 5

Was the alcohol ban popular?

Answer 5

An alliance of feminists, tee-totalling protestants, preachers, patriots and businessmen had practically made the USA dry.
Protests were surprisingly muted.
Only a mass meeting in NY.
Baltimore parade and few protests in bigger cities.
Keenest supporters - Mississippi - self-employed/attended Baptist churches.
Opponents - cities/Roman Catholics.

Question 6

What was the problem with alcohol prohibition? 7

Answer 6

1. Congress willing to pass, but not fund.
   Lack of enforcement agents - 3,000 were meant to cover the entire country; poor pay - $2,500 per agent.
2. Bootlegging between Canada and Detroit - worth $215m per year.
3. Speakeasies.
4. Methyl alcohol produced by accident caused blindness/death - 30 died in NY - ‘moonshine’: (illegal distilleries were in many homes).
5. Tasted foul - had to mix - cocktails.
6. High prices - highball drink 3 dollars in 1920 from 15 cents in 1914.
7. ‘Turf wars’ between rivals.

Question 7

How many speakeasies were there?

Answer 7

Washington DC - 300 bars before - 700 after.
Massachuesetts - 1,000 before - 80,000 speakeasies after.
4,000 in Boston alone.
Even West could easily obtain alcohol - Kansas City was famous for its nightlife.

Question 8

What was the most famous ‘turf war’ incident?

Answer 8

St Valentine’s Day massacre - 1929.
6 people gunned down (Irish Moran gang) by Italian Capone gang.
Al Capone - annual income $60m by 1927.
Rival gangs struggled to control the supply of alcohol in an area and exclude rivals.
Corruption of police/officials through bribery e.g. William Thompson, Mayor of Chicago.

Question 9

How did prohibition stimulate organised crime?

Answer 9

Enhanced organisational skills.
Vast sums made by booze - drugs, gambling and prostitution.
Mainly from Irish, Italian and Jewish communities.
Chicago: 1927-1930 - 227 gang murders, but no successful convictions.
‘Tommy gun’ and the Cadillac was popular.

Question 10

What was the general rural view on alcohol?

Answer 10

Supported it.
Small-town America - consumption decrease - sustained in 1933 when prohibition ended.
Only 50% breweries re-opened when allowed to do so.
Clear shift between drinking hard liquor to wine/beer.

Question 11

Who was most likely to enter the speakeasies?

How did speakeasies promote equality?

Answer 11

Young and middle-class men.
Women entered them with their partners - saloons had never encouraged this before.
Famous for Black jazz musicians.

Question 12

How was the prohibition a good thing?

Answer 12

1. Drop in road accidents.
2. Black jazz - equality.
3. Money went to consumer goods - cinema.
   - HOWEVER it did NOT stop drinking -

Question 13

How was the 1928 presidential election related to alcohol?

Answer 13

Democrat Smith was against prohibition - said it only handed the money over to criminals.
Republican Hoover was for prohibition - won by a landslide.

Question 14

What were the main immigrants in the USA between 1880-1914?

Answer 14

2.3 million Jews from Russia and Poland.
2 million Catholic Poles.
4 million Catholic Italians.

Question 15

What did the ‘nativist’ protests include?

Answer 15

1849 ‘Know Nothing’ Party - attacked new Irish immigrant wave - Irish potato famine in 1846-1847.
Chinese worker flood into California after the Civil War - Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Question 16

What was the feeling towards immigration before the FWW?

Answer 16

1907 - Congress commission established to study immigration.
Literacy tests to limit the number of ‘inferior’ races - eugenics (controlled breeding).
Emphasised the inferiority of the new immigrants compared to the ‘old’ Nordic stock.

Question 17

What did the 1917 Immigration Act do?

Answer 17

16+ had to undergo rigorous health checks/literacy tests.
Failure - entry refusal/sent back.
Vetoed by Wilson.
However 2/3 majority Congress overrode this.

Question 18

How did the FWW affect immigration?

Answer 18

‘Hyphenated Americans’ - referred to German-Americans Stimulated nationalism/Americanism - loyalty fears.
Suspicion of ‘aliens’ - Germans and Austro-Hungarians.
Wilson - expressed the need for 100% Americans.
1917 - established Committee on Public Information to circulate/distribute anti-German and pro-Allied propaganda.
Bureau of Investigation - disrupted German American work, trade unions, and leftist organisations through raids, arrests, agents and legal prosecution.
Roosevelt - ‘America for Americans’.

Question 19

What did the Espionage Act do?

What did the Sedition Act do?

Answer 19

1917 - illegal to interfere with the military.
1918 - forbade Americans to use disloyal/abusive language against the US government, flag or armed forces during the war.

Question 20

What did the 1921 Emergency Quota Act do?

Answer 20

Limited immigration to 3% of the total of the number of each nationality resident in the US according to the 1910 census.
357,000 per year.

Question 21

What did the 1924 Quota Act do?

The Johson-Reed Immigration Act

Answer 21

Modified the 1921 Act.
Base figure 2% of the 1890 census.
164,000 per year.
Completely barred Asian immigration.
Reviewed in 1927.
Immigration from GB and Ireland fell 19%, Italy fell 90%.

Question 22

What was The Chinese Exclusion Act?

Answer 22

1882 - temporarily prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers due to the flood into California after the Civil War.
Made permanent in 1904.

Question 23

What were all the names of the immigration acts?

Answer 23

The Chinese Exclusion Act - 1882.
The Immigration Act - 1917.
The Emergency Quota Act - 1921.
The Quota Act - 1924.

Question 24

What was the Red Scare?

Answer 24

Communist fear.
Immigrants linked to violent left-wing politics.
Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia.
16 bombs were found in a NY post office - ‘enemies of the revolution’.
Further 18 were found elsewhere.

Question 25

What was the origin of the Palmer Raids?

Answer 25

1919 - anarchist bomber blew himself up on the steps of Attorney General Mitchell Palmer.
Inspired by Galleani, Italian anarchist and editor of an anarchist journal.
Department of Justice then compiled lists of radicals.
Headed by Edgar Hoover (Hoover lists).

Question 26

What were the Palmer Raids?

Answer 26

1919/1920.
Investigations of the ‘Hoover’ lists.
Subscription to a ‘suspect’ magazine would be enough to be arrested.
5,000 arrests were made, 1,000 prosecuted and 500 deported.
Boston was a main area - 800 arrests - Vanzetti was a subscriber to Galleani’s journal.

Question 27

Who were Sacco and Vanzetti?

Answer 27

Accused of two robberies in 1919/1920 - 2 guards died.
Reported to the police by a garage owner - garages was told to report all Italian owners.
Lied about possessing firearms/anarchist connection - then arrested.

Question 28

What was the Sacco and Vanzetti 1921 trial like?

Answer 28

Judge Webster Thayer was biased - wanted them to be hung.
14 year old boy - foreigner by the way he ran.
22/35 said that Sacco and Vanzetti weren’t there.
Sacco/Vanzetti both produced evidence that they were elsewhere.

Question 29

What was the outcome of the Sacco and Vanzetti 1921 trial?

Answer 29

Sentenced to death in July 1921.
Spent 6 years on Death Row.
Became icons for socialist and anarchist groups.
1921 - Celestino Madeiros, came forward and said that Sacco and Vanzetti had played no part in the robberies.
BUT executed by the electric chair in 1927.

Question 30

Why was there an anti-immigrant feeling regarding politics?

Answer 30

Southern states - concerned of undercut political power - by immigration growth.
House of Representatives - then represented North more - linked to the total population.

Question 31

Why was there an anti-immigrant feeling regarding the economy?

Answer 31

Working class - unrestricted immigration - lower wages.

Question 32

Who were the KKK?

Answer 32

Began in 1866.
Wore white robes and hoods.
Wanted white supremacy and nationalism - anti-immigration.

Question 33

What was the first movement of the KKK?

Answer 33

1866, Tennessee.
Most were ex-confederate soldiers.
500,000 across the southern states.
Practised terrorism against AAs - targeted black schools/churches.
P. Grant and Federal Army tried to stop them - 3,000 lynchings.
Died down when North lost interest in South.

Question 34

What was the second movement of the KKK?

Answer 34

Re-emerged in 1915 - anti-immigration.
Birth of a Nation 1915 film - blacks threatening white women.
Appealed to prejudiced/patriotic US - sexually appealing.
Doc Simmons - key re-founding figure.
Fiery Cross - symbol.
1921 - 100,000 members.
Subscription structure.
National Chief was the Imperial Wizard.
5 million members by 1925.
Local police seemed Klan-dominated.
Impartial judges.
The Red Scare was a perfect breeding ground.
$10 initiation and $6.50 robes - half went to organisers, the other half to head officials.
‘The Fiery Cross’ - KKK newspaper.

Question 35

Who were some key figures in the KKK?

Answer 35

Doc Simmons - 1915 re-founder.
Elizabeth Tyler and Edgar Clark - fund-raisers.
Money poured into Atlanta HQ: set up ‘Kleagles’ - Klan organisers who signed up new members.
Hiram Evans took over as Imperial Wizard in 1922 - greatest influence in 1925.
David Curtis, Great Dragon of Indiana Klans - North expansion.
Indiana had the greatest number of Klaverns.

Question 36

What happened to the KKK membership AFTER 1925?

Answer 36

1924 - Tyler died and Clark was sent to jail for fraud.
David Stephenson - convicted of rape
- 90% Indiana Klan loss.
Lots of financial scandals.
1930 - membership fell to 30,000-100,000 - immigration troubles were over.
Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans - social club - didn’t work
KKK 1926 Washington parade - only 30,000 - disappointed Evans.
Small groups active in the 50/60s - opposition to Civil Rights movement.
Official National KKK - dissolved in 1944 - taken to court over tax non-payment.

Question 37

Where were the main supporters of the KKK?

Answer 37

1925 - 40% membership were in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois.
25% were in the Old South.
50% Klan members were in Detroit - 40,000.

Question 38

What were some KKK successes (for them)?

How important were they?

Answer 38

AA victims - their violence was supremely important.
1924 Democratic Convention - lots of political influence.
BUT little achieved on a national scale.
One of many groups supporting Prohibition/immigration restriction.
Social club - dressing up for drama.
To others - terrorising AAs under the cloak of respectability.
Secret society - affected membership numbers.

Question 39

What were the two main prohibition pressure groups?

Answer 39

The Anti-Saloon League.
The Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
Aim - persuade State governments to ban the sale of alcohol within their states.

Question 40

Who were some famous prohibition Bureau agents?

Answer 40

Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith.
5 years - confiscated 5 million bottles of liquor, worth over $15 million.
4,000 arrests made.

Question 41

What was ‘the noble experiment’?

Answer 41

The 18th Amendment.
1917 - proposed: ‘prohibiting the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors’.
1919 - accepted by all U.S. states.
1920 - came into effect as law, under the ‘Volstead Act’.
Called ‘the noble experiment’ donned by President Warren Harding.

Question 42

What was ‘The Red Summer’ of 1919?

Answer 42

Race riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities in the United States during the summer and early autumn of 1919.
In most instances, whites attacked AAs.

Question 43

How did blacks keep track of the ‘Red Summer riots’ and why were they being attacked?

Answer 43

Through newspapers.
Chicago Defenders - 1905.
NAACP - The Crisis Newspaper - 1910.
Press/government linked black protest to Bolshevism.

Question 44

What are some other ‘Red Summer riot’ examples?

Answer 44

Chicago July - young AA was hit by a rock: 38 killed, 500 injured.
Washington D.C. - black man arrested for rape led to 4 days of violence.
Elaine race riot September - Black union meeting, whites tried to intervene. 5 whites and 100+ blacks died.

Question 45

What was The Hayes Report?

Answer 45

A report reinstating that white and black race relations were bad - could lead to a race war in many cities.
Stated that mob violence created hatred and intolerance - making it impossible for discussion.

Question 46

What was some KKK political success?

Answer 46

Played key roles of the selection of governors to Maine, Ohio, Colarado and Louisiana.
Governor of Indiana selected - Klan member in 1924.
At one point, both Georgia Senators were Klansmen.
1924 - Klan temporarily got control of the city council (although opposition regained it in 1925).
Democratic Party Convention 1924 - Al Smith was opposed by the Klan and stepped down.
1926 - Bibb Graves won Alabama governor’s office (former Klan ‘chapter head’).