The end of World War I did not bring a return to tolerance. The nativism unleashed by the war reached a new high in a short but intense Red Scare. In November 1917, Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia and promptly created a communist dictatorship. The revolutionary upheaval in Russia alarmed many Americans who believed that communist sympathizers and other radicals secretly planned to undermine the United States government.
Strikes and Bombs
A sudden postwar recession unsettled Americans as prices rose more than 15 percent, 100,000 businesses declared bankruptcy, and 5 million workers lost their jobs. The recession triggered an unprecedented wave of 3,600 strikes as over 4 million workers walked off their jobs.
The press demonized the strikes as “crimes against society,” “conspiracies against the government,” and most ominously “plots to establish communism.” The wave of strikes coincided with a sudden outbreak of anarchist violence. In April 1919, alert postal workers discovered and defused over thirty bombs addressed to leading businessmen and politicians. Just two months later, eight bombs exploded in eight cities, suggesting a nationwide conspiracy. One of the bombs damaged the façade of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s home in Washington.
The Palmer Raids
Known as the Red Scare, the nationwide fear of radicals prompted Palmer to act. Although no more than one-tenth of one percent of adult Americans belonged to the domestic communist movement, Palmer launched a massive roundup of aliens and alleged communists.
One January 2, 1920, agents of the Department of Justice arrested some 5,000 suspects in a dozen cities across America. The Palmer Raids violated civil liberties as government agents broke into private homes, clubs, coffee shops, and union offices without arrest warrant. Although the Department of Justice released most of those arrested, they nonetheless deported about 500 aliens without bearings or trials.
Back to “Normalcy?”
The Palmer Raids seemed to mark the end of the Red Scare. During the 1920 presidential campaign, the Republican candidate Warren G. Harding promised voters a “return to normalcy.” Harding’s landslide victory appeared to usher in a beginning of peace and prosperity.
Historian Burl L. Noggle argues that in fact the Red Scare “never really ended.” He points out that intolerance and nativism remained deeply rooted and enduring characteristics of American society during the Roaring Twenties. For example, the revived Ku Klux Klan, the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, and the enactment of strict immigration quotas all substantiate his view that fear and suspicion continued to affect American life.
So why should you remember the First Red Scare? APUSH test writers often ask students to interpret political cartoons depicting anarchists and other aspects of the First Red Scare. In addition, be prepared for short-answer questions asking you to compare and contrast the First Red Scare with the Second Red Scare during the early 1950s.