The Red Scare and Restriction of

Immigration
The main political and social
challenges facing America in 1920s

Why did immigration become such a

major issue in American society?
The Open Door
The purpose of the Open Door
policy was to make
immigration as easy as
possible. There was a mixture
of people living in America
during this period.
The Early Immigrants
Native Americans
Black Americans
Eastern and southern
Europeans
Hispanics
Asian people

Why did people want to come?

A combination of push and pull

factors made people immigrate to the
USA. The push factors made people
want to leave their own countries, and
the pull factors attracted them to the
USA. For example:
escaping from poverty in their own
country
escaping from political and economic
persecution
a promise of religious tolerance and a
chance to practice their faith safely
a plentiful supply of land and the hope
of owning property
creating a better life
a spirit of adventure, going to a country
of opportunity
equal opportunity

Who to blame?
Fearful middle class
Americans blamed any and
all involved in potentially
'radical' activities;
communist labor and
socialists, unions, strikers
(like those from the
Industrial Workers of the
World 1916-1917), newly
arriving immigrants,
progressives, anarchists,
etc.

Why did immigration become such

a major issue in American
society?

People started feeling angry

towards these 'new'
immigrants because:
they were often poor
many were illiterate
many were Roman Catholics
or Jews, therefore from a
different cultural and
religious background
the trauma of the First
World War and the fear of
Communism during the Red
Scare in 1919, worried
many Americans.

What was the Red Scare?

Many Americans were frightened

by the Communist Revolution
that had happened in Russia in
October 1917. The American
Socialist Party and the American
Communist Party were
established during this period.
Some believed that a communist
revolution was going to happen in
America, and the immigrants in
America were under suspicion of
being, perhaps, involved in
plotting a revolution.

The Rise of
Bolshevism

1917 The Bolsheviks, a Russian

revolutionary group, created the
world's first Communist nation
after succeeding in overthrowing
their previous form of government.
The Revolution in Russia caused a
lot of apprehension in the US, only
strengthened by involvement in
WWI and the influenza epidemic
that followed; many Americans
feared that Bolshevik and
Communist sympathizers would
attempt such a revolt in their
country. People across the country
began to become extremely
paranoid about any kind of
forward thinking or actions.

The first Red Scare (1919-1921)

In American history, the First Red Scare of

19191920 was marked by a widespread fear of
Bolshevism and anarchism. Concerns over the
effects of radical political agitation in American
society and alleged spread in the American
Labor Movement, fueled the paranoia that
defined the period.
The First Red Scare had its origins in the hypernationalism of World War I. At the war's end,
following the Bolshevik revolution in Russia,
American authorities saw the threat of
revolution in the actions of organized labor,
including such disparate cases as the Seattle
General Strike and the Boston Police Strike and
then in the bomb campaign directed by
anarchist groups at political and business
leaders. Fueled by labor unrest and the
anarchist bombings, and then spurred on by
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's attempt
to suppress radical organizations, it was
characterized by exaggerated rhetoric, illegal
search and seizures, unwarranted arrests and
detentions, and the deportation of several
hundred suspected radicals and anarchists.

Bombings
Bombs exploded in major cities around the country,
spurring people's fear on to hysteria and xenophobia.
- April 1919, the police discovered thirty-six bombs hidden
in the mail, ready to be sent to prominent members of the
economy and politics including: J. P. Morgan, J. D.
Rockefeller, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes,
A. Mitchell Palmer, and a few other immigration officials.
- 1919 eight bombs in eight different cities (including DC,
the target Palmer) exploded simultaneously, confirming to
some the suspicions that a nationwide conspiracy and
communist/socialist revolution was brewing.

American Reactions

the US Congress passed three laws to restrict

immigration and each law in turn was more
severe than the previous one.

Literacy Test, 1917 Immigrants had

to pass a series of reading and writing tests. Many
of the poorer immigrants, especially those from
eastern Europe, had received no education and
therefore failed the tests and were refused entry.

The Emergency Quota Act, 1921

The National Origins Act, 1924

A law which restricted the number of immigrants

to 357,000 per year, and also set down a quota only 3 per cent of the total population of any
overseas group already in the USA in 1910 could
come in after 1921.
This law reduced the maximum number of
immigrants to 150,000 per year and cut the quota
to 2 per cent, based on the population of the USA
in 1890. The act was aimed at restricting southern
and eastern Europeans immigrants. It also
prohibited immigration from Asia and this
angered the Chinese and Japanese communities
that were already in the USA.

Source
"[The] Red Scare [was] a nation-wide antiradical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear
and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution... was
imminent - a revolution that would change
Church, home marriage, civility, and the
American way of life." --historian L.B. Murray

Sacco and Vanzetti?

Happening around the same time

was the Sacco and Vanzetti Case
- Sacco, Vanzetti = Italian immigrants
with anarchist beliefs
- They were accused of murdering a
paymaster and a security guard
in South Braintree, MA
- Their case is thought to have a
tainted jury pool (against them), and
questionable eyewitness accounts,
unfair trials; many believe that
merely because they were anarchists
they were convicted of the crime
- Both were died in the electric chair
in 1927, even with multiple
international attempts to secure
them fair appeals
- extreme example of the extreme
fear people held, and how it blurred
their sense of justice

A. Mitchell Palmer and the "Red

Raids" (1919-1920)
After many widespread bombings, Palmer, appointed by Wilson to
be Attorney General in 1919, ordered the US Justice Department to
begin the Palmer "Red Raids:"
- "reds" = people suspected/arrested; named after the Russian
communist flag
- raids were supposed to locate and deport all radicals from
the country before they could do any harm; they expected to find
evidence of a mass conspiracy, but in reality they found very little
supporting their theory, and only a few weapons
- executed by his chief investigating officer, Edgar Hoover
- took place across thirty eastern cities; six to ten thousand people
were arrested on the basis of being potential radicals
- arrest warrants were not issued until after those suspected
were already held in jail
- "due process of the law" was violated in almost all
respects during this process

Who is A.
Mitchell Palmer

Palmer worked with officials from the

Bureau of Immigration and used the 1918
Deportation Act to increase the number of
people deported
- 1918 Deportation Act authorized
deportation of:
1) anarchists and those opposing organized
government.
2) those wanting to overthrow the
government by force
3) members of any groups which supported
or taught these views
- Assistant Secretary of Labor, Louis F. Post,
was one of the few at first who stood up to
Palmer; he overruled numerous
deportations he viewed to be unjust
- controversy over Palmer's actions was
widespread and very present in Congress.
As time passed and no Mayday revolution
was visibly occurred, people began to
dismiss Palmer's credibility, and the scare
calmed

Source
"My one desire
is to acquaint
people like you
with the real
menace of evilthinking which
is the
foundation of
the Red