Objective: Assess the reasons for the palmer raids, red scare, communism in
America, KKK, and Immigration Quotas

• During Industrialization there was a need for immigrants to do work
• Worry that they would ruin American “way of life”
– Nativists
– Melting Pot v Salad Bowl
• Civil liberties – individual rights

• After Sept 11 there was a movement of hatred against who?
• Rights were taken away in the name of security
– Wire tapping
– Obtain library records or check out books

• According to Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer, what was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongues . . . licking the altars of the churches"?
– 1. Communism.
– 2. The philosophy of nativism.
– 3. The hopelessness of poverty.
– 4. Governmental abuse of civil rights.

• Harass
– to annoy persistently
• Isolationism
– abstention from alliances
• Communism
– goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
• Quota
– a fixed number or percentage of minority group members
• Dominate
– 1to exert the supreme determining or guiding influence on
• Anarchist
– a person who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power

• After the war people turned to isolationism
– Isolationism also lead to a strong nativist movement
• Keep America for Americans became the new attitude for Americans
– Anti-immigrant feelings started in 1880s
– Gentleman’s Agreement, Chinese Exclusion Act,
Anti-German/Austro Hungarian during the war

• Most immigrants were unskilled and took jobs that offered low wages
• After the war fewer non-skilled jobs were available
– Don’t need immigrants in the US
– Believed labor unions and immigrants were communist
• Main Communist color is red = RED SCARE

• Congress decided to limit immigrants from the
South & Eastern Europe
• Emergency Quota Act set up the Quota system
– Established maximum number of people from each foreign country
– Limited to 2% of countries population in 1890
– 1920 only 150,000 people from any country

• Anti-Immigrant sentiment offered people the chance to harass groups that were not like them
• KKK – Ku Klux Klan – devoted to 100% American
– White male persons, native born gentile citizens
• Believed
– keeping blacks “in their place”
– Destroying Saloons
– Opposing Unions
– Driving Roman Catholics, Jews, foreign born people out of the country

• Recruited members to the clan
• Dominate in the South
• Controlled state politics
– Allowed criminal activity
– Also lead to the downfall of the clan

• Communism caused Russia to pull out of WWI
• Become leery of anything that pushes people to be equal
– Get rid of capitalism because there is competition
• Communist Party formed in America
– Quickly made up of 70,000 people
– Including members of labor unions

• Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti
– Italian immigrants and anarchists
– Dodged the draft in WWI
• Arrested on charges of robbery & murder
– Witness said criminals appeared to be Italians
– Had good alibis and bad evidence
– Judge made prejudicial statements
– Found guilty and sentenced to death
– Gov of Mass denied a stay and they were electrocuted
• 1961 bullet was from Sacco’s gun but no proof he pulled the trigger

• US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
– Wanted to protect America from Communism
• 1919 hunted down, anarchists, socialist,
Communists
– Ignored civil rights to arrest people who assumed to the “enemy”
– Invaded homes
– Put people in jail with out cause
– Didn’t allow legal counsel
• Failed to find evidence of conspiracy
– No bombs either

• According to Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer, what was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongues . . . licking the altars of the churches"?
– 1. Communism.
– 2. The philosophy of nativism.
– 3. The hopelessness of poverty.
– 4. Governmental abuse of civil rights.

• In the 1920’s, the growth of the Ku Klux Klan and the establishment of immigration quotas reflected a re-emergence of American belief in
– 1. nativism.
– 2. socialism.
– 3. imperialism.
– 4. internationalism.

• According to Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer, what was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongues . . . licking the altars of the churches"?
– 1. Communism.
– 2. The philosophy of nativism.
– 3. The hopelessness of poverty.
– 4. Governmental abuse of civil rights.

• In the 1920’s, the growth of the Ku Klux Klan and the establishment of immigration quotas reflected a re-emergence of American belief in
– 1. nativism.
– 2. socialism.
– 3. imperialism.
– 4. internationalism.