The (Not So) Roaring 20s:
Nativism and the Red Scare
Pee Dee TAH Institute
Fall Meeting 2009
Dr. Witherspoon
Nativism
 1900, new anti-immigrant sentiment
 The “new immigrants”
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Not educated
Religious conflicts
Slow to adopt American ways
Crime
Radical political groups
 Economic arguments
 Depressions, 1893, 1897
 Racism
Nativism Ascendant
 1894, Immigration Restriction
League
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Harvard graduates
Important pressure group
Henry Cabot Lodge, MA Rep. 18871924
Literacy Test
 1917 Immigration Act - Literacy
 Results of literacy test:
 Deterred a few immigrants
 1920-21: 800,000 admitted; 1400 denied
 1903, political opinion test
The United States at War
 The Committee on Public
Information*
 George Creel
 Propaganda
 Super-patriotism
 Condemned all things German
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Espionage Act 1917, Sedition Act
1918
 1500 Americans arrested
The Red Scare
 Communism
 Bolshevik Revolution, 1917
 Paranoia = Red Scare
 Fear of communism = labor
The Red Scare
 Soldiers returning
home = turmoil
 Problems for
workers:
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Injury
No regulation
Natural problems
Day and seasonal
labor
Unemployment
The Red Scare
 1919 Seattle shipyard strike
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Oly Hanson
 May-Day plot
 Investigations, bombings, strikes
 A. Mitchell Palmer bombed, June 1919
The Red Scare
 Palmer Raids
 Lusk Committee
 Boston police strike,
Sept. 1919
The Ku Klux Klan, reborn
 “Birth of a Nation,” 1915
 The new Klan:
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anti-black
anti-Catholic
anti-Jewish
4.5 million members
peak 1924
 Decline of the Klan,
1924-28
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David Curtis Stephenson
The Red Scare
 Ends May, 1920
 Sacco-Vanzetti case, executed 1927
The Red Scare
Nativism Triumphant
 Anti-immigration bill, 1920
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Passes House, 196-42
Senate, Dillingham Quota Bill
 Limit total # of immigrants
 Determine a % for each ethnic
group
 Europeans at 5% of Census,
1910 (about 600k)
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House again, 3% of Census
(about 350k)
Signed by Harding
Nativism Triumphant
 Immigration Act of 1924:
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1924, nativists to revise
Dillingham
 Even fewer immigrants
 Based on 1890 Census:
effects?
 Italians drop from 42,000 to
2,000
 Polish drop from 31,000 to
6,000
Nativism Triumphant
 Immigration Act of 1924:
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Uses 1890 Census
Reduces totals from 3% to 2%
About 300,000 annually
Japanese “aliens ineligible to citizenship”
Tightened administration
Deportation easier
Albert Johnson
Was it a good thing?
Replaced by Immigration Act, 1965