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- The Modern Temper - Document Overview
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World War I unleashed forces that caused severe social strains in the United States. In 1920 the American economy suffered a brief but sharp recession as factories and businesses shifted back to peacetime production. At the same time, returning soldiers and sailors swamped the labor market. Prices soared as consumers sought to buy the goods and services they had sacrificed during the war. Frustration over scarce jobs and high prices led to violent labor disputes fanned by socialist and communist agitators. In 1919 a flurry of bombs addressed to government officials led many Americans to fear that something akin to Russia's Bolshevik Revolution was erupting in the United States.
This "Red Scare" prompted Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whose front porch was destroyed by a mail bomb, to launch a series of raids directed at labor radicals and alien activists across the country. Over 5,000 people were arrested, some 250 of whom were convicted without the benefit of a court hearing, loaded onto a ship, and deported to the Soviet Union. These "witch hunts" were conducted by the FBI under the direction of a young official named J. Edgar Hoover.
These powerful anti-immigrant and anti-radical sentiments surfaced in the most sensational criminal trial of the decade. In 1920 robbers shot and killed the paymaster and guard at a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts. The police later arrested two Italian immigrants who were avowed anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and charged them with the murders. A jury found them guilty in 1921, and numerous appeals supported by prominent liberals kept the case in court until 1927, when they both were executed.
During the summer of 1919 the same social tensions that ignited the Red Scare fueled a new round of race riots. The war had disrupted the patterns of race relations. Blacks from the rural South who served in the military were less willing to tolerate racial abuse and "Jim Crow" segregation laws once they returned home. Thousands of southern blacks also migrated north and west in search of higher wages and racial equality, only to discover that racism was not limited to the deep South. White mobs in communities across the nation assaulted blacks for various reasons or for no reason at all. In a Chicago riot thirty-eight people were killed and hundreds injured; troops had to be called in to restore order.
By the end of 1920 the race riots and the Red Scare had dissipated, but they left in their wake an atmosphere of venomous racism and xenophobia and a latent tension that repeatedly erupted in violence over the next two decades. During the early 1920s the Ku Klux Klan witnessed a dramatic revival, and anti-immigration sentiment culminated in new laws intended specifically to restrict the number of newcomers from southern and eastern Europe.
The nativism and racism that surfaced after World War I revealed fissures that repeatedly sent tremors through American society and culture during the 1920s. The social fault lines tended to occur between rural and urban values. Large cities increasingly represented centers of modernism. The residents were more affluent, more secular, and more "liberated" about mores and manners than their rural counterparts. Many young adults—especially affluent college students—discarded old prohibitions. They engaged in sensual dancing, public kissing and swimming, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption that shocked and angered moral guardians. Drawing upon manipulated theories of the Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, young rebels engaged in what amounted to a sexual revolution during the 1920s. In the face of such cosmopolitan challenges, many rural traditionalists countered with an aggressive conservatism that coupled religious and cultural fundamentalism.
Traditionalists focused much of their energy on an old crusade: the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Throughout the nineteenth century, moral reformers had tried to outlaw the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, but not until 1919 did they succeed on the national level. With the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the federal government prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transport of all intoxicating liquors, and the Volstead Act, enacted the same year, defined as "intoxicating" any beverage that had 0.5 percent or more of alcohol.
The clash between rural and urban values reached a theatrical climax during the famous "monkey trial" in the town of Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925. A state law prohibiting the teaching of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was challenged by a high-school biology teacher named John Scopes, and the resulting trial pitted the forces of fundamentalism against liberalism. The court ruled against Scopes, but the widely publicized trial helped generate a nationwide assault against fundamentalism that further eroded the foundations of biblical and social orthodoxy. Liberal Protestants and advocates of modern scientific methods heaped scorn upon fundamentalists, initiating a cultural civil war that persists today.
- The Case Against the Reds (1920), A. Mitchell Palmer
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After the outbreak of strikes and riots in 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer organized a carefully coordinated series of raids against Communists and anarchists on January 3, 1920. He was a Quaker attorney from Pennsylvania who had served three terms in Congress. Driven by hatred of foreign radicals and a desire to gain the Democratic presidential nomination in 1920, he often acted on his own without informing or consulting President Wilson. In the article below, he sought to counter the many critics of the "Palmer raids."
Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution of law and order a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking into the altars of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society.
Robbery, not war, is the ideal of communism. This has been demonstrated in Russia, Germany, and in America. As a foe, the anarchist is fearless in his own life, for his creed is a fanaticism that admits no respect for any other creed. Obviously it is the creed of any criminal mind, which reasons always from motives impossible to clean thought. Crime is the degenerate factor in society.
Upon these two basic certainties, first that the "Reds" were criminal aliens, and secondly that the American Government must prevent crime, it was decided that there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national laws. An assassin may have brilliant intellectuality, he may be able to excuse his murder or robbery with fine oratory, but any theory which excuses crime is not wanted in America. This is no place for the criminal to flourish, nor will he do so, so long as the rights of common citizenship can be exerted to prevent him. . . .
By stealing, murder and lies, Bolshevism has looted Russia not only of its material strength, but of its moral force. A small clique of outcasts from the East Side of New York has attempted this, with what success we all know. Because a disreputable alien--Leon Bronstein, the man who now calls himself Trotzky--can inaugurate a reign of terror from his throne room in the Kremlin: because this lowest of all types known to New York can sleep in the Czar's bed, while hundreds of thousands in Russia are without food or shelter, should Americans be swayed by such doctrines? . . .
My information showed that communism in this country was an organization of thousands of aliens, who were direct allies of Trotzky. Aliens of the same misshapen cast of mind and indecencies of character, and it showed that they were making the same glittering promises of lawlessness, of criminal autocracy to Americans, that they had made to the Russian peasants. How the Department of Justice discovered upwards of 60,000 of these organized agitators of the Trotzky doctrine in the United States, is the confidential information upon which the Government is now sweeping the nation clean of such alien filth. . . .
One of the chief incentives for the present activity of the Department of Justice against the "Reds" has been the hope that American citizens will, themselves, become voluntary agents for us, in a vast organization for mutual defense against the sinister agitation of men and women aliens, who appear to be either in the pay or under the spell of Trotzky and Lenine [sic]1. . . .
The whole purpose of communism appears to be a mass formation of the criminals of the world to overthrow the decencies of private life, to usurp property that they have not earned, to disrupt the present order of life regardless of health, sex, or religious rights. By a literature that promises the wildest dreams of such low aspirations, that can occur to only the criminal minds, communism distorts our social law. . . .
These are the revolutionary tenets of Trotzky and the Communist Internationale. Their manifesto further embraces the various organizations in this country of men and women obsessed with discontent, having disorganized relations to American society. These include the I. W. W.'s, the most radical socialists, the misguided anarchists, the agitators who oppose the limitations of unionism, the moral perverts and the hysterical neurasthenic women who abound in communism. The phraseology of their manifesto is practically the same wording as was used by the Bolsheviks for their International Communist Congress.
. . . The Department of Justice will pursue the attack of these "Reds" upon the Government of the United States with vigilance, and no alien, advocating the overthrow of existing law and order in this country, shall escape arrest and prompt deportation.
It is my belief that while they have stirred discontent in our midst, while they have caused irritating strikes, and while they have infected our social ideas with the disease of their own minds and their unclean morals, we can get rid of them! And not until we have done so shall we have removed the menace of Bolshevism for good.
1. Editorial insertion.
[From A. Mitchell Palmer, "The Case against the Reds," The Forum 63 (February 1920): 63-75.]- The Red Scare is Un-American (1920), William Allen White
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The majority of Americans supported the actions of Attorney General Palmer and shared his fears of the Red menace. A few people, however, raised concerns about the arbitrary use of police powers to deal with aliens. William Allen White, the crusading editor of the Emporia Gazette in Kansas and a prominent Republican progressive, criticized Palmer's crusade.
The Attorney General seems to be seeing red. He is rounding up every manner of radical in the country; every man who hopes for a better world is in danger of deportation by the Attorney General. The whole business is un-American. There are certain rules which should govern in the treason cases.
First, it should be agreed that a man may believe what he chooses.
Second, it should be agreed that when he preaches violence he is disturbing the peace and should be put in jail. Whether he preaches violence in politics, business, or religion, whether he advocates murder and arson and pillage for gain or for political ends, he is violating the common law and should be squelched—jailed until he is willing to quit advocating force in a democracy.
Third, he should be allowed to say what he pleases so long as he advocates legal constitutional methods of procedure. Just because a man does not believe this government is good is no reason why he should be deported.
Abraham Lincoln did not believe this government was all right seventy-five years ago. He advocated changes, but he advocated constitutional means, and he had a war with those who advocated force to maintain the government as it was.
Ten years ago Roosevelt1 advocated great changes in our American life—in our Constitution, in our social and economic life. Most of the changes he advocated have been made, but they were made in the regular legal way. He preached no force. And if a man desires to preach any doctrine under the shining sun, and to advocate the realization of his vision by lawful, orderly, constitutional means—let him alone. If he is Socialist, anarchist, or Mormon, and merely preaches his creed and does not preach violence, he can do no harm. For the folly of his doctrine will be its answer.
The deportation business is going to make martyrs of a lot of idiots whose cause is not worth it.
1. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919).
[From William Allen White, "The Red Scare is Un-American," Emporia Gazette (Kansas), 8 January 1920.]- The Sacco-Venzetti Case (1927)
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The most controversial case associated with the Red Scare of the 1920s involved two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 1920 they were charged with murdering a guard and a paymaster at a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Both had guns when they were arrested and both told lies about their activities. That they were also aliens, atheists, anarchists, and conscientious objectors during the war made the circumstantial evidence against them seem even more damning. Convicted and sentenced to death, they appealed their convictions for years. Supporters argued that they were victims of the communist hysteria fomented by Attorney General Palmer and the prejudices of the trial judge, Webster Thayer. In August 1927, having exhausted their appeals, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. Vanzetti's defiant last words to the judge are extracted below.
You see, it is seven years that we are in jail. What we have suffered during these seven years no human tongue can say; and yet you see me before you, not trembling, you see me looking in your eyes straight, not blushing nor changing color, not ashamed or in fear.
Eugene Debs1 say that not even a dog—something like that—not even a dog that kill chickens would have been found guilty by an American jury with the evidence that the Commonwealth2 have produced against us. I say that not even a leprous dog would have his appeal refused two times by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts—not even a leprous dog. . . .
We have proved that there could not have been another judge on the face of the earth more prejudiced and more cruel than you3 have been against us. We have proven that. Still they refuse the new trial. We know, and you know in your heart, that you have been against us from the very beginning, before you see us. Before you see us you already knew that we were radicals, that we were underdogs, that we were the enemy of the institution that you can believe in good faith in their goodness—I don't want to condemn that—and that it was easy on the time of the first trial to get a verdict of guiltiness.
We know that you have spoke yourself and have spoke your hostility against us, and your despisement against us with friends of yours on the train, at the University Club of Boston, on the Golf Club of Worcester, Massachusetts. I am sure that if the people who know all what you say against us would have the civil courage to take the stand, maybe your Honor—I am sorry to say this because you are an old man, and I have an old father—but maybe you would be beside us in good justice at this time. . . .
This is what I say: I would not wish to a dog or to a snake to the most low and unfortunate creature of the earth—I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already.
1. Socialist party leader.
2. Massachusetts.
3. Judge Webster Thayer.
[From The Sacco-Vanzetti Case: Transcript of the Record of the Trial . . . and Subsequent Proceedings, 1920-1927 (5 vols.; New York: Henry Holt Co., 1928-29), pp. 4898-99, 4904.]- The Klan's Fight for Americanism (1926), Hiram W. Evans
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The backlash against "alien" groups "infesting" American life after World War I assumed its most virulent form in a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The organization had first emerged in the rural South after the Civil War, seeking to intimidate blacks from voting or holding office, and had pretty much died out by 1900. The zealous patriotism fostered by American intervention in World War I helped revive the Klan. In its new form it was more of an urban than a rural phenomenon. It adopted a broader agenda than the original organization, and its membership grew across the nation. By 1926 it boasted over 3 million members. Klan intolerance now went beyond blacks to include Jews, Catholics, Communists, and labor unionists. Texas dentist Hiram Evans assumed leadership of the organization in 1926. In this speech he reveals that the Klan was fundamentally a protest against all of the ills associated with modern culture.
. . . The Klan, therefore, has now come to speak for the great mass of Americans of the old pioneer stock. We believe that it does fairly and faithfully represent them, and our proof lies in their support. To understand the Klan, then, it is necessary to understand the character and present mind of the mass of old-stock Americans. The mass, it must be remembered, as distinguished from the intellectually mongrelized "Liberals."
These are, in the first place, a blend of various peoples of the so-called Nordic race, the race which, with all its faults, has given the world almost the whole of modern civilization. The Klan does not try to represent any people but these. . . .
These Nordic Americans for the last generation have found themselves increasingly uncomfortable, and finally deeply distressed. There appeared first confusion in thought and opinion, a groping and hesitancy about national affairs and private life alike, in sharp contrast to the clear, straightforward purposes of our earlier years. There was futility in religion, too, which was in many ways even more distressing. Presently we began to find that we were dealing with strange ideas; policies that always sounded well but somehow always made us still more uncomfortable.
Finally came the moral breakdown that has been going on for two decades. One by one all our traditional moral standards went by the boards or were so disregarded that they ceased to be binding. The sacredness of our Sabbath, of our homes, of chastity, and finally even of our right to teach our own children in our own schools fundamental facts and truths were torn away from us. Those who maintained the old standards did so only in the face of constant ridicule. . . .
The old-stock Americans are learning, however. They have begun to arm themselves for this new type of warfare. Most important, they have broken away from the fetters of the false ideals and philanthropy which put aliens ahead of their own children and their own race. . . .
One more point about the present attitude of the old-stock American: he has revived and increased his long-standing distrust of the Roman Catholic Church. It is for this that the native Americans, and the Klan as their leader, are most often denounced as intolerant and prejudiced. . . .
The Ku Klux Klan, in short, is an organization which gives expression, direction and purpose to the most vital instincts, hopes, and resentments of the old-stock Americans, provides them with leadership, and is enlisting and preparing them for militant, constructive action toward fulfilling their racial and national destiny. . . . The Klan literally is once more the embattled American farmer and artisan, coordinated into a disciplined and growing army, and launched upon a definite crusade for Americanism! . . .
Thus the Klan goes back to the American racial instincts, and to the common sense which is their first product, as the basis of its beliefs and methods. . . .
There are three of these great racial instincts, vital elements in both the historic and the present attempts to build an America which shall fulfill the aspirations and justify the heroism of the men who made the nation. These are the instincts of loyalty to the white race, to the traditions of America, and to the spirit of Protestantism, which has been an essential part of Americanism ever since the days of Roanoke and Plymouth Rock. They are condensed into the Klan slogan: "Native, white, Protestant supremacy."
[From Hiram W. Evans, "The Klan's Fight for Americanism," North American Review 223 (March 1926):38-39.]- Images
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Courtroom Scene during the Scopes Trial
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Cotton Club Dancers
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A March for Women's Suffrage
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Margaret Sanger (left)
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La Follette with admirers
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Warners' Theater
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H. L. Mencken
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- Audio
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Charles Lindbergh and Calvin Coolidge Lindbergh's return to the United States, 1927
Amelia Earhart The Future of Women in Flight, 1931
Lou Gehrig his Farewell to Baseball, 1939
- The Case Against the Reds (1920), A. Mitchell Palmer
