01:512:205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 32: Sacco And Vanzetti, Roaring Twenties, Criminal Syndicalism
18 May 2018
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Chapter 32: American Life in the “Roaring Twenties,”
1919-1929
Seeing Red
• Americans turned inward in the 1920s shunning diplomatic commitments to
foreign countries, denouncing radical foreign ideas, condemned un-
American lifestyles, and clanged shut the immigration gates against foreign
peoples—boom of the golden twenties showered benefits
• New technologies, new consumer products, and newer forms of leisure made
the twenties roar
• Hysterical fears of red Russia followed the Bolshevik revolution of 1917
(Communist party)
• Tensions were heightened by an epidemic of strikes that convulsed the
Republic at war’s end
• Americans jumped to the conclusion that the Bolsheviks fomented labor
troubles
• The big red scare of 1919=19210 resulted in a nationwide crusade against
left-wingers whose Americanism was suspect—Mitchell Palmer, the Fighting
Quaker, seeing red
• Alien radicals deported on Buford to Russia, Wall Street bomb killing 38
people
• A number of State legislatures passed criminal syndicalism laws—made
unlawful the mere advocacy of violence to secure social change—mere words
were not criminal deeds
• The red scare was a godsend to conservative businesspeople—broke backs
of unions
• Antiredism and Antiforeignism were reflected in notorious case regarded as a
judicial lynching
• Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were convicted of two murders and the
jury/judge were prejudiced in some degree against the defendants because
they were Italians, atheists, anarchists, and draft dodgers—liberals/radicals
rallied to their defense but they were electrocuted (martyrs)
Hooded Hoodlums of the KKK
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• A new Ku Klux Klan, spawned by the postwar reaction, spread fearsomely in
the early 1920s
• It was antiforeign, anti-Catholic, anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, anti-
Communist, anti-internationalist, antievolution, anti-bootlegger, antigambling,
anti-adultery, and anti-birth control
• It was pro-Anglo-Saxon, pro-native American, and pro-Protestant
(ultraconservative uprising)
• The Klan spread rapidly in the Midwest and the South—peak in the mid-1920s
with 5 million
• Capitalized on American love of adventure, camaraderie, and secret ritual—
conclaves, huge flay-waving parades, and the chief warning was the blazing
cross (reign of hooded horror)
• The movement collapsed in the late 1920s with a congressional
investigation—initiation fee
Stemming the Foreign Flood
• Immigrants began to flood into the country as peace settled in the 1920s;
some 800,000 stepped ashore in 1920-1921, about two-thirds of them from
southern and eastern Europe
• Congress plugged the breach with the Emergency Quota Act of 1921—
newcomers from Europe were restricted in any given year to a definite quota
(set at 3 percent of the people of their nationality who had been living in the
U.S. in 1910—favorable to southern/eastern Europeans)
• The Immigration Act of 1924 replaced the stopgap legislation of 1921—quotes
were cut from 3% to 2% and the national-origins base was shifted from the
census of 1910 to that of 1890
• Comparatively few southern Europeans had arrived there and the door was
shut absolutely against Japanese immigrants (hate rallies in Japan); exempt
were Canadians and Latin Americans
• The quote system was a departure in American policy—immigration dwindled
to a mere trickle
• The Immigration Act of 1924 marked the end of virtually unrestricted
immigration (by 1931)
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• America was patchwork of ethnic communities separated (language, religion,
customs)
• Efforts to organize labor unions repeatedly founded on the rocks of ethnic
differences; ethnic variety thus undermined class and political solidarity—did
not have a common language
The Prohibition Experiment
• The last pillar of the progressive reform was prohibition, loudly supported by
crusading churches and by many women—Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 as
implemented by the Volstead Act
• The legal abolition of alcohol was especially popular in the South and West
(Southern whites wanted to keep blacks in place and West led an attack on all
vices associated with saloons)
• Prohibitionists overlooked the tenacious American tradition of strong drink and
of weak control by the central government, especially over private lives—
majority of people were hostile to it
• Slaking thirst became a cherished personal liberty; frustrated soldiers
complained about prohibition; workers bemoaned their loss of cheap beer;
flaming youth of the jazz age drank
• State/federal agencies were understaffed and snoopers, susceptible to
bribery, were underpaid
• Both men and women drank hard liquor in staggering volume—cases leaked
from Canada
• Home brew and bathtub gin became popular but some produced blindness,
even death
• Bank savings increased, absenteeism in industry decreased, less alcohol was
consumed than in the days before prohibition, though strong drink continued
to be available
The Golden Age of Gansterism
• Lush profits of illegal alcohol led to bribery of the police; violent wars broke out
in the big cities between rival gangs who sought to corner the rich market in
booze (bootlegging competitors)
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Chapter 32: american life in the roaring twenties, . Seeing red: americans turned inward in the 1920s shunning diplomatic commitments to foreign countries, denouncing (cid:1688)radical(cid:1689) foreign ideas, condemned (cid:1688)un- Republic at war"s end: americans jumped to the conclusion that the bolsheviks fomented labor troubles, the big (cid:1688)red scare(cid:1689) of 1919=19210 resulted in a nationwide crusade against left-wingers whose americanism was suspect mitchell palmer, the fighting. Hooded hoodlums of the kkk: a new ku klux klan, spawned by the postwar reaction, spread fearsomely in the early 1920s. It was antiforeign, anti-catholic, anti-black, anti-jewish, anti-pacifist, anti- Communist, anti-internationalist, antievolution, anti-bootlegger, antigambling, anti-adultery, and anti-birth control. Charles a. lindbergh congress passed the lindbergh law in 1932, making interstate abduction in certain circumstances a death-penalty offense (annual take of underworld was to billion. 1920s better nutrition and health care: science and progressive education were subjected to unfriendly fire from the.
