The Conflicted Legacies of WWI

The Conflicted Legacies of WWIWhat threats did democracy face in the immediate post-war period?

Demobilization = Economic TurmoilReturn to a peacetime economyGovernment abandon wartime controls on industryCancelled millions of dollars in war contractsBusinesses raised prices they had been forced to keep low during the war3 million soldiers return & flood job market = High unemploymentIncrease demand for consumer goods = Post-war spending spree = Rapid inflation1919 prices rose 75% over pre-war levels1920 prices rose another 28%Workers lose gains made during war time8 hr. work day goneLabor unions no longer recognizedPost War Recession

Post-War Labor UnrestSeattle General Strike (Feb. 1919)Shipyard workers unemployed due to demobilizationIWW & AFL called for strike to shut down the cityNewspapers claimed a Bolshevik effort to start a revolutionMayor used troops to crush strikeBoston Police Strike (Sept. 1919)Police want higher payRefused to walk beats = riots erupt = looter sack the cityGov. Calvin Coolidge called in National Guard There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.Steel Strike of 1919Industry plan return to 7-day weeks, 12-hr. days & $20/weekGompers (AFL) call for strike & 350,000 workers in 15 states walked out30,000 strikebreakers hired (mostly African-Americans)1919 = 3,600 strike involving 4 million workersConvinced public strikers were radicals bent on subverting democracy & capitalism!

The Red ScareCauses:Post-war recessionLabor unrestDifficulties of reintegration millions of veteransRussian Revolution & creation of the CominternWorld-wide association of communists intent on inciting rebellion in capitalist countriesTerrorist actsMail-bombs sent to dozens of prominent individualsSept. 16, 1919 dynamite filled Wagon on Wall St. exploded killing 38 and injuring 143

Fear of Internal Subversion

The Red ScarePalmer Raids Organized by Attny. Gen. A. Mitchell Palmer against various radical organizations, particularly CommunistFocused on foreign residents and immigrants6,000 alleged subversives arrested 500 noncitizens suspects detained and deported Raids failed to turn up evidence of revolutionary conspiracy.Leads to founding of ACLUContributes to resurgence of NativismFear of Internal Subversion

NativismSacco & Vanzetti2 Italian-born anarchistsArrested, charged, and tried for shooting and killing two employees of a shoe factory in Braintree, MA AND Robbing it of $15,000.No conclusive proof to their committing of the crime.

Sacco owned a gun similar to the one used in the crime- bullets matched.Both were found guilty and sentenced to deathGuilty or victims of prejudice?

Nativism & Public PolicyImmigrants seen as a threat to cultural orderThreat to soldiers of WWI who needed jobs in the post-war weak economy.Emergency Quota Act (1921)Only 3% of the total population of an ethnic group that was living in the US as recorded in the 1910 US census could be admitted into the US per year.Results = discriminated heavily against Immigrants from eastern and southern EuropeThe National Origins Act (1924)Set quotas at 2% of people living in the US of a particular nationality as recorded in the 1890 census.Result: scaled back where immigrants could come from- favoring Northern EuropeSecond part of the act that took effect in 1929 limited immigration to 150,000 people a year.Exempted people from the Western Hemisphere

Political Cartoons On Immigration19212014

Post-war Racial Tension The Great Migration300,000-500,000 Af.Amers. move to North during war to fill jobs. Post war- job competition & economic turmoil led to race riots 1919 race riots broke out in over 20 Northern cities.ChicagoBlack boy swam onto beach restricted to whitesWhites allegedly stoned boy = he drownedPolice refused to arrest the white man whom eyewitnesses identified as causing itSparked a week of rioting between gangs of black and white Chicagoans, concentrated on the South Side15 whites and 23 blacks killed and 500+ people injuredViolence spread to South1921Tulsa Riot1923Rosewood

The Re-emergence of the KKKOriginal KKK response to emancipation of the slaves & radical reconstruction1915 Klan rebornClaim that the Klan was fighting for AmericanismPromised to defend family, morality, traditional American values against threats posed by blacks, immigrants, radicals, feminists, Catholics & JewsAttracted 3-4 million members nationwide