• Government agencies removed their controls from the American economy

• Rapid inflation occurred

• Cost of living increased greatly

Workers needed higher wages to keep up with cost of living

Companies wanted lower wages from increased operating costs

STRIKES!!

Anti-Labor Anti-Labor Anti-Labor Anti-Labor

““If Capital & Labor Don’t Pull If Capital & Labor Don’t Pull Together” – Together” – Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune

• 35,000 shipyard workers walked off the job demanding higher wages and shorter hours

• Started first “general strike”-involves all workers in the community

• 60,000 people joined and paralyzed the city for 5 days

• Strikers returned and made all Americans scared

-no pay increase since start of war

-organized a union though against its department rules

-rioting and looting broke out- put back in order for public

safety by the National Guard by Governor Coolidge

-Coolidge fired them & new police force was hired to replace them

Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike

““He gives aid & comfort to the He gives aid & comfort to the enemies of society” – enemies of society” – Chicago Chicago

TribuneTribune

Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike Boston Police Strike

““Striking Back” – Striking Back” – New York Evening New York Evening WorldWorld

• 350,000 steelworkers went on strike for higher pay, shorter hours, and recognition of union

• Hired enough strike breakers to keep mill operating

• Complete failure that set back the union cause in the steel industry

““What a What a Year Has Year Has Brought Brought Forth” – Forth” – NY WorldNY World

Social, political and economic ideology that aims at a classless society structured upon common ownership

• Immigration-importing radical communist ideas

• WWI- criticism of the war seen as communist and effectively silenced by Espionage and Sedition Acts

• Now it had seized control of entire nation (Communist International)

• Response to the wave of strikes

• Fear of communists or ‘reds’ spreading radicalism in US from Soviet Union

• Americans associated communism with disloyalty and unpatriotic behavior

Consequences of Labor Consequences of Labor UnrestUnrest

Consequences of Labor Consequences of Labor UnrestUnrest

““While We Rock the Boat” – While We Rock the Boat” – Washington Washington TimesTimes

• Postal service intercepted more than 30 packages addressed to leading business people and politicians

• Triggered to explode when opened

• June 8 bombs in eight cities exploded within minutes of one another

• One bomb damaged the home of US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

• No one took responsibility for the packages

• …communists trying to destroy Americans way of life

• Palmer set up special division in the Justice Department

• Called the General Intelligence Division

• J. Edgar Hoover was the head of department

• Palmer organized raids on various radical organizations, mostly rounding up immigrants

Police Arrest Police Arrest “Suspected Reds’ in “Suspected Reds’ in

Chicago, 1920Chicago, 1920

• Racism and nativism increased with people competing for jobs

• Ethnic prejudice was the basis of this case

• Two immigrants from Italy accused of murder and theft

• At 3:00 P.M. on April 15,1920, two men are shot and killed with $15,776 stolen from a company in South Braintree, Massachusetts.

• Two Italians, Nicola Sacco a shoemaker and Bartolomeo Vanzetti a

fish peddler, fell into a police trap that had been set for a suspect in the Braintree crime.

• Sacco & Vanzetti were carrying guns at the time of their arrest with the same bullets found in the men who were shot. As a result they were held and eventually indicted for the South Braintree crimes.

• Both associated with anarchists involved in labor strikes, political protests, and antiwar propaganda.

• Fred H. Moore politicizes the case using mass media. Effective but Expensive!

• Both men found guilty of robbery & murder!

• Protests throughout America and around the world by Italian government, liberals, radical anarchists, socialists, and communists in protesting the verdict against Sacco and Vanzetti.

• Sentenced to death and in 1927 executed still proclaiming their innocence

Emergency Quota Act 1921

Immigration Act of 1924

Emergency Quota Act 1921

• Limited immigration to 3% of the total number of people in any ethnic group already living in the United States

• Discriminated against southern and eastern Europeans

National Origins Act 1924

• Made immigrant restriction a permanent policy

• Lowered the quota to 2% of each national group living in the U.S

Nativist movement focused on the superiority of the “original” Americans of Northern European descent.

Eugenics- a pseudo-science that deals with improving hereditary traits.

• 1st Clan: Freed African Americans

• 2nd Clan: immigrants, Catholics, Jews and others with “un-American” values

• Led the movement to restrict immigration

• 1924: Over 4 million members

“At the top of the list of enemies were Roman Catholics. Centuries-old tales and prejudices revived under Klan

propaganda, with emphasis on a foreign-led church intent on destroying Protestantism and American democracy. The

foreign-born themselves constituted a second Klan enemy, for they too threatened Protestantism and democracy. Blacks were a third enemy, though less dangerous than Catholics, except in a few cities where their segregated

neighborhoods were expanding. And the enemy included all those immoral and indecent who put the roar into the Roaring Twenties: adulterers, gamblers, prohibition violators, corrupt

politicians, and undisciplined youth.”

• William J. Simmons founder

• Simmons pledged to preserve America’s white, Protestant civilization

• Klan publicity claimed they are fighting for “America”

• Simmons hired public relations entrepreneurs Clarke and Tyler

• Paid a commission of $8 of every $10 initiation fee for a new Klan recruit

• Membership reached nearly 4 million by 1924

Hellfighters become a new African American band after the war

Klan overrules them with their intensive protests around the nation

• Freedom: A History of US: Episode 11: Safe for Democracy 14:30-18:00

• Hellfighters 8:00-12:00