Increased Social Tension In The 1920s

Question 1

Immigration

Answer 1

• WASPS didn’t like Catholics and Jews, poor & illiterate & non-English speaking eastern/southern Europeans, fear of radicalism after Russian revolution in 1917, worries about job loss
• Policies: The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 limited immigration outside West to 357,000 a year and each country could send 3% of their population in USA 1920. National origins Act of 1924 lowered to 164,000 and 2% living in 1890, ans in 1929 the quota was lowered again to 150,000
• Impacts: 1914, 1.2 mill immigrants had arrived, fallen 280,000 by 1929. New Enforcemnt and border patrol set up in 1925

Question 2

The palmer raids and the ‘red scare’

Answer 2

• Red Scare: 3,6000 strikes across USA, general strike in Seattle of 100,000 workers and a police strike in Boston, April 1919 had 40 mail bombs to important individuals, June had 8 cities experiencing bomb attacks ( including outside the house of Alexander Palmer, the Attorney General )
• Palmer Raids: Palmer set up General Intelligence Division headed by John Edgar Hoover (later joining the FBI) to spy on arrest radical group members, 7 Nov 1919 Union of Russian Workers offices searched, peak of raids from 1919-1920 was 2 Jan 1920 when 33 cities experienced raids
• Results: thousands arrested, 600 deported and kept in awful prisons, increased support for immigration restrictions, weakened trade Union movement, May Day 1920 = ended

Question 3

The Sacco and Vanzetti case

Answer 3

• 3 pm, 15 April 1920, $15,776.51 was stolen by armed robbers in Braintree, Massachusetts
• 5 May 1920, Sacco and Vanzetti Arrested, May 1921, jury of 12 listened to evidence of 167 witnesses = Gun (ballistics expert said gun and bulletin matched, but evidence was n’ont conclusive and evidence tampered with) , Background ( Vanzetti had a previous conviction of armed robbery and both anarchists, but had character witness from police and boss) , Lying ( to police when arrested because they though it was to do with Red Scare Bombs) and Eyewitnesses (some identified them, but 6 people saw Vanzetti selling fish in Plymouth and Sacco at Italian consulate)
• Results: 14 July 1921 - GUILTY - led to protests around the world and in 60 cities in Italy and a mail bomb to American Embassy in Paris on 19 Oct 1921, also United immigrants in USA with a support committee set up 9 May 1920, raising $300,000 in défense

Question 4

Black Americans

Answer 4

• Segregation and Jim Crow Laws: only 1% black teenagers were able to attend school
• Lynch Mobs: even after 400,000 has served in WW1, 76 were lynched 1919
• great migration from south during war: 1.5 mill movies, most lived in ghettos with low wages and unskilled work, Harlem in NYC has population rise from 50,000 to 165,000 - segregation by wealth
• Race Riots: 1919, 24 locations
• Impact: lack of job opportunity (unskilled labour, agriculture or domestic service), low job security, literacy test for black people to stop voting, lacked plumbing and electricity

Question 5

KKK

Answer 5

• Shut down in 1871…1915 ‘Birth of a Nation’ inspired William Simmons to restart the organisation Made up of WASPS with Christian values and hatred of immigration
• Divide into Chapters / Klaverns, with Klansmen reporting to their Kleagle
• Employed Edward Clarke & Elizabeth Tyler to attract members: Kleagles kept $4 / $10 of joining fees and by 1923, 5 mill members over 4,000 chapters (mainly urban middle class)
• Violence towards black people, Stopped teaching Evolution, Boycott businesses and Protest political candidates
• Important Members: Senators of Texas and Indiana, Governor of Alabama and Mayor of Portland in Oregon - however, 1925, David Stephenson found guilty of murder and rape of 28 year old woman
• 1929, 200,000 members left

Question 6

‘Monkey Trial’

Answer 6

• Fundamentalists (Bible Belt, Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson’s mega-church) vs Modernists (Darwinism and changing morality)
• Anti-Evolution League of America’s campaign succeeded in 1925 Tennesse - The Butler Act (1925-67) - fine of $500
• John Scopes’s Trial: 10 July 1925, Willian Jennings-Bryan vs Clarence Darrow (a member of the American Civil Liberties Union) - Scopes fined $100
• Religious debate got national attention and damaged the cause of fundamentalist beliefs

Question 7

Prohibition

Answer 7

• 18th Amendment in 1919, Volstead Act in 1920
• Women’s Christian Temperance Union, founded 1874, and Anti-Saloon League, founded 1893, argued that: alcohol led to unemployment, wasted wages, domestic violence, sinful behaviour, poor working and economic loss, loss of wheat that should be used for food
• 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 rot 10.7 in 1929 liver disease
• 40% of population in favour in survey and Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith seized 5 mill bottle
• Thousands in breweries, farming and saloons lost jobs, government lost income from tax, loss estimated at $11 bill by 1931, enforcement problems = smuggling, medicinal alcohol and moonshine, illegal speakeasies… 34 died over 4 days in NYC from wood alcohol poisoning
• Enforcemnt Division given $2 mill to stop bootleggers, manufactures and speakeasies
• 5 states refused to enforce, juries refused to convict = 20 / 6904 cases convicted 1921-24
• Association Against Prohibition… ban ended 1933

Question 8

Gangsters

Answer 8

• Chicago & NYC… gambling dens, brothels, loan sharks, protection money
• Al Capone, Chicago, Four Deuces, Jonny Torrio replaced at 25, earning $105 mill a year, Valentine’s Day 1929 killed 7 rival North Side gang members
• Eliot Ness ‘Untouchables’… Internal Revenue service uncovered $200,000 unpaid federal income tax - arrest in 1931
• Nov 1924 had 200 murders, Big bill Thompson elected with gang support 1927, 200 gallons of alcohol manufactured by normal citizens turned to crime, bribery of low paid prohibition agents, 1929 had 70% of 1914 levels with 32000 speakeasies in NYC