Mr. Owens

The Roaring Twenties

Part 2

Essential Questions

• How did technological change, modernization, and changing demographics cause increased political and conflict during the 1920s including: tradition vs. innovation, urban vs. rural, fundamentalist Christianity vs. scientific modernism, management vs. labor, native-born vs. new immigrants, white vs. black, and idealism vs. disillusionment?

Science vs.

Religion• Modernism: melding of Christianity with modern Darwinian science – Harry Emerson Fosdick

• Fundamentalism: literal truth of the Bible, blamed modernists for immorality, opposed evolution

• Revivalism: new Great Awakening style preaching, used the radio – Billy Sunday (anti-drinking, gambling, dancing) Aimee Semple McPherson preached against twin evils of communism & jazz in Los Angeles

Scopes Trial: Science vs. Religion• Tennessee’s “Butler Act” (& other Southern states)

banned teaching of evolution in public schools• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) supported John T.

Scopes to defy law in Dayton 1925• “Monkey Trial” defended by ACLU lawyer Clarence

Darrow• Prosecuted by fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan• Scopes found guilty (later overturned on technicality)

but laws remained & battle between science & religion continued – Bryan died 5 days later

ProhibitionCauses: “Drys” led by WCTU, Anti-Saloon League & rising fundamentalists, most Republicans, business leaders & anti-Germanism – 18th Amendment ratified

in 1919• Prohibition 1920-1933 Volstead Act passed to

enforce it (included anything over 1% alcohol)Effects: more success in rural areas, but not in cities• Speakeasies – illegal bars & saloons• Bootleggers – smugglers (from Canada &

Caribbean) in Chicago controlled by Al Capone – rise of organized crime (expanded to prostitution, gambling, & narcotics), murder rates rose significantly

• Police & city officials often bribed to look other way & not enough $ to enforce it effectively

Opposition & Repeal: growing crime rates turned public against it, Northern Democrats opposed it “wets”, Depression raise taxes & use $ elsewhere.21st Amendment (1933) ended the “Noble Experiment”

1920s NativismCauses: anti-foreign mood from WWI, Red Scare, conservative Republicans, isolationists, job concerns• Immigration Act of 1921 set up quota system

=annual immigration less than 3% of nationality from 1910

• National Origins Act of 1924, lowered to 2% of 1890 (why?) & banned immigration from East Asia

• 1929 Immigration law limit annual total to 150,000• Canadians & Mexicans were exempt: 500,000

migrants from Mexico in decade• Rise of New KKK: support in strong in Midwest

(Indiana) in South (Texas), support from lower-middle class white Protestants, target: blacks, Jews, Catholics, foreigners, Communists, “100% Pure Americanism”, headed by Grand Dragon David Stephenson (convicted of rape & murder in 1925)

• Sacco & Vanzetti case: convicted of robbery & murder in 1921, executed in 1927

• 1928 Election: Democrat Al Smith was attacked & nearly mobbed for being 1st Catholic candidate defeated by Republican Herbert Hoover

1920s Foreign Policy• Republicans effort to cut budget pushed disarmament

& avoid conflict• Washington Conference of 1921 led by Sec. of State

Hughes naval reductions: Five-Power Treaty reduce largest battleships at ratio: US & GB 5, Japan 3, France & Italy 1.67, Four-Power Treaty: respect territory in Pacific, Nine-Power Treaty: respect Open Door

• Dawes Plan – “circular loans”: Britain & France owed $10-11 billion in war debts to US banks, Charles Dawes plan in 1924 loaned billion to Germany to pay off debts (collapsed in 1929)

• Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928: due to pacifist pressure (Jane Addams won Nobel Peace Prize in 1931) Sec. of State Frank Kellogg international pact to outlaw war for nationalist ends signed by most of world (defense OK & no means of enforcement)

• $ expansion in Latin America: troops in decline (removed from D.R.), but investment doubled

• “Red Line Agreement” 1928 U.S. negotiated right for U.S. oil companies to drill in Iraq