Transcript Americans Struggle with Postwar Issues

p. 412-418
AMERICANS STRUGGLE WITH POSTWAR ISSUES
Objectives
• Summarize the reaction in the United States to the
perceived threat of communism
• Analyze the causes and effects of the quota system in
the United States
• Describe some of the postwar conflicts between labor
and management
POSTWAR TRENDS
Nativism
• Prejudice against foreignborn people
Isolationism
• A policy of pulling away from
involvement in world affairs
FEAR OF COMMUNISM
The Red Scare
Communism
• An economic government ruled by
a dictatorship
• Karl Marx’s version of extreme
socialism
• No private property
• Government owns all factors of
production
Lenin’s Bolsheviks established
themselves in the post revolution
Russia
Communist Party in the United States
70,000 strong
A number of bombs
were mailed to
government and
business leaders
Americans began to
fear a Communist take
over
FEAR OF COMMUNISM
The Palmer Raids
A. Mitchell Palmer
• U.S. Attorney General
Civil
Rights
Trampled
J. Edgar Hoover
• Appointed by Palmer as special assistant
• Started to hunt down suspected
• Communists
• Socialists
• Anarchists
• People who opposed any form of government
Homes & offices invaded
Suspects jailed without legal council
100s of foreign-born radicals were deported
Palmer’s
Raids
Fail
No evidence of revolutionary conspiracy
Many thought Palmer has aims at the White
House and was using the raids as a jumping off
point
FEAR OF COMMUNISM
May 1920 – arrested and charged with murder of a
factory paymaster and guard in Massachusetts
Sacco and Vanzetti
Witnesses said the criminals appeared to Italian
Bartolomeo
Vanzetti
Nicola
Sacco
• Shoe maker
• Fish
peddler
Avoided
the draft
Both proclaimed their innocence and had alibis
Evidence was circumstantial - pointing indirectly toward
someone's guilt but not conclusively proving it.
Judge maid prejudicial remarks - harmful to someone or
something
Anarchists
Found guilty and sentenced to death
LIMITING IMMIGRATION
“Keep America for Americans”
Southern and Eastern Europe
New
Immigrants Willing to work for low wages in tough jobs
After WWI fewer unskilled workers were
needed
Immigrants were seen as taking these jobs
from Americans
Postwar labor disputes were often
immigrant anarchists and socialist – secret
communists
LIMITING IMMIGRATION
The Klan Rises Again
Ku Klux Klan
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•
•
Devoted to 100% Americanism
1924 – 4.5 million
Keep African-American “in their place”
Destroying saloons
Breaking up unions
Driving out
• Catholics
• Jews
• Foreign born people
LIMITING IMMIGRATION
The Quota System
19191921
Immigration had grown 600%
140,000-805,000
Emergency Quota Act of 1921
Quota
System
Established a maximum number of
people who could enter the United
States from each foreign country
LIMITING IMMIGRATION
The Quota System (cont.)
Each European country was limited to 2% of the number
of its nationals living in the United States in 1890
Later was shifted to 1920
Law limited the total number of persons admitted to
150,000
The quota system did not effect the Western Hemisphere
• 500,000 Mexicans and Canadians came to America
A TIME OF LABOR UNREST
The Boston Police Strike
Had not had a raise since the start of the war
Could not unionize
Those reps who asked for a raise were fired
Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge
called out the Nation Guard
Strike ends and new policemen are hired
The Steel Mill Strike
U.S. Steel Corporation
• Shorter working hours
• Union recognition
• Collective bargaining
• is a process of negotiations between employers and a group of
employees aimed at reaching agreements to regulate working
conditions.
300,000 workers walk off the job
• Strikebreakers are brought in
• Propaganda is used against union
Exposing of harsh working conditions finally helps the
steel companies to an eight-hour day
A TIME OF LABOR UNREST
The Coal Miners’ Strike
United Mine
Workers of
Organized since 1890
America
John L.
Lewis
Leader of United Mine Workers of America
Organized a strike in 1919 to protest low wages and long
hours
Attorney General Palmer has court order send workers back
Mines stayed closed another month
President Wilson appoints and
arbitrator
• an independent person or body officially
appointed to settle a dispute
Coal miners receive 27% pay increase
Lewis becomes a national hero
A TIME OF LABOR UNREST
Labor Movement Loses Appeal
Sharp drop off in union membership
• 5 million - 3.5 million
Several reasons why
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Immigrant work force
Organization problems
Individualism
Exclusion of African-Americans
Only 82,000 African-Americans were
apart of a union in 1929
• 1% of the African-American population
• 3% of the white population were in unions
A. Phillip Randolph
• Founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porter
• Helped gain fair wages for African-Americans
1. Why did Americans move towards isolationism?
2. How did Americans react to the perceived threat of Communism?
3. Why did the United States limit immigration?
4 How did anti-immigration sentiment strengthen the Ku Klux Klan’s
attack on minorities?
5. What was the quota system?
6. Why did conflict between labor and management increase after
WWI?
7. Why did labor membership decline in the 1920s?