Progressive Legislation

							Progressive Legislation
1901
New York State Requires fire escapes, lights in dark hallways, a window
Tenement House in each room
Law
1902
Maryland          Provide benefits for workers injured on the job
Workmen's
Compensation
Law
Wisconsin         Allows voters to select candidates
Direct
Primary Law
1903
Oregon women's Limits work for women in industry to 10 hours a day
labor law
1906
Hepburn Act       Authorizes Interstate Commerce Commission to set
                  maximum railroad rates

Pure Food and   Prohibits sale of adulterated or fraudulently labeled
Drug Act        foods and drugs
Meat Inspection Enforces sanitary conditions in meatpacking plants
Act
1915
Seaman's Act      Regulates conditions of maritime workers
1916
Federal Farm      Provide farmers with low interest loans
Loan Act
Federal Child     Barred products produced by children from interstate
Labor Law         commerce (declared unconstitutional in 1918)
                                                                  Return to Birklid      Please
1920's Red Scare
Why did the US government return to a "hands-off" approach to the economy?

Shortly after the end of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Red Scare took hold in the
United States. A nationwide fear of communists, socialists, anarchists, and other dissidents suddenly grabbed
the American psyche in 1919 following a series of anarchist bombings. The nation was gripped in fear.
Innocent people were jailed for expressing their views, civil liberties were ignored, and many Americans feared
that a Bolshevik-style revolution was at hand. Then, in the early 1920s, the fear seemed to dissipate just as
quickly as it had begun, and the Red Scare was over.

During World War I, a fervent patriotism was prevalent in the country, spurred by propagandist George Creel,
chairman of the United States Committee on Public Information. While American boys were fighting the
"Huns" abroad, many Americans fought them at home. Anyone who wasn't as patriotic as possible--
conscientious objectors, draft dodgers, "slackers," German-Americans, immigrants, Communists--was suspect.
It was out of this patriotism that the Red Scare took hold.

At the time the World War I Armistice was executed in 1918, approximately nine million people worked in war
industries, while another four million were serving in the armed forces. Once the war was over, these people
were left without jobs, and war industries were left without contracts. Economic difficulties and worker unrest
increased.

Two main Union/Socialist groups stood out at the time--the International Workers of the World (the I.W.W. or
Wobblies) centered in the northwest portion of the country and led by "Big" Bill Haywood, and the Socialist
party led by Eugene Debs. Both groups were well know objectors to WWI, and to the minds of many
Americans therefore, unpatriotic. This led them open to attack. Any activity even loosely associated with them
was suspicious.

One of the first major strikes after the end of the war was the Seattle shipyard strike of 1919 which, erroneously,
was attributed to the Wobblies. On January 21, 35,000 shipyard workers in Seattle struck. A general strike
resulted when 60,000 workers in the Seattle area struck on February 6. Despite the absence of any violence or
arrests, the strikers were immediately labeled as Reds who and charges that they were trying to incite revolution
were leveled against them. The Seattle strike suddenly became national news, with newspaper headlines across
the country telling of Seattle's impending doom and po tential loss to the Reds and urging for the strike to be put
down. Seattle mayor Ole Hansen, who had long hated the Wobblies and took the strike as a personal affront to
him, took the offensive against the strikers. He guaranteed the city's safety by announcing that 1500 of the
city's policemen and an equal number of federal troops were at his disposal to help break the strike and keep
the peace. On February 10, realizing the strike could not succeed and could even damage the labor movement
in Seattle, orders were given to end the strike. Mayor Hansen took credit for the termination of the strike,
proclaimed a victory for Americanism, quit his job, and became a national expert and lecturer on anti-
communism.

Subsequent to the Seattle strike, all strikes during the next six months were demonized in the press as "crimes
against society," conspiracies against the government," and "plots to establish communism."

On September 9, the Boston police force went on strike. A panic that "Reds" were behind the str ike took over
Boston despite the lack of any radicalism on the part of the striking police officers. Although the city
experienced primarily looting and vandalism (as well as some rioting), papers around the country ran
inflammatory and polemical headlines.
On September 22, 275,000 steel workers walked off their jobs, and soon the strikers numbered 365,000. Three
quarters of Pittsburgh's steel mills were shut down, and the strikers estimated that the strike was 90% effective.
Riots, attributed only to the strikers with no newspapers laying any blame on police or political leaders,
resulted in many places. In Gary, Indiana, for example, unrest was so prevalent that martial law was declared
on October 5. The steel owners held fast, and in January of 1920, with less than a third of the strikers still out,
the strike ended without the strikers gaining a single demand.

As a result of the strikes and unrest, the strikers were branded as "Reds" and as being unpatriotic. Fear of
strikes leading to a Communist revolution spread throughout the country. Hysteria took hold. "Red hunting"
became the national obsession. Colleges were deemed to be hotbeds of Bolshevism, and professors were
labeled as radicals. The hunt reached down to public secondary schools where many teachers were fired for
current or prior membership in even the most mildly of leftist organizations. The American Legion was
founded in St. Louis on May 8, 1919 "[t]o uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America;
to maintain law and order; to foster and perpetuate a one hundred per cent Americanism."

The government, too, was not immune to anti-communistic hysteria. The Justice Department, under Attorney
General A. Mitchell Palmer, started the General Intelligence (or antiradical) Division of Bureau of Investigation
on August 1, 1919 with J. Edgar Hoover as its head. Its mission to uncover Bolshevik conspiracies, and to find
and incarcerate or deport conspirators. Eventually, the antiradical division compiled over 200,000 cards in a
card-filing system that detailed radical organizations, individuals, and case histories across the country. These
efforts resulted in the imprisonment or deportation of thousands of supposed radicals and leftists.

Legislatures also reflected the national sentiment against radicals. Numerous local and state legislatures passed
some sort of ordinance against radicals and radical activity. Thirty-two states made it illegal to display the red
flag of communism. The New York Legislature expelled five duly elected Socialist assemblymen from its
ranks. While Congress was unable to enact a peacetime anti-sedition bill, approximately seventy such bills
were introduced.
                                                             Name:

                            Answer   Evidence from reading
1. What was the
   attitude towards
   labor unions and
   socialist in the 1920?




2. Why did that attitude
   exist?




3. What was the result
   of that attitude
            Lassize-Faire economy 1870's-1900's        Progressive 1900's - 1920's       1920's
Summary of  Hands- off government policy               Protection for the consumer      "The business of America is business"
government  There were little or no restrictions on    Started by farmers because of    WWI ended and there were very few
involvement    child labor                                mistreatment by big business      jobs for people to come back to
in the       There were little or no safety            New policies on business         Fear of Communism translated to fear
economy        precautions                                                                  of unions
during this  There were no benefits for workers
time period  There was political corruption were
               business people had lots of power
             Unions wanted collective bargining

Business        Vertical Consolidation-                Pure food and drug act-           Assembly line-
practices or
government      Horizontal Consolidation-              Clayton anti-trust-
policies that
were used/      Monopolies-                            Heburn Act-
created
during this     Social Darwinism-                      Meat inspection Act-
time period
                Scabs-

                Sherman anti- trust act-


Major event     Homestead Strike-                      Coal strike (square deal)-        WWI ended-
that
occurred        Haymarket Riot-                        Election of Roosevelt-            Palmer raids-
during this
time period     Pullman Strike-                        Election of Wilson-


Key people      Andrew Carnegie-                       Teddy Roosevelt-                  Warren G Harding-
from this
time period     John D Rockefeller-                    William Howard Taft-              Calvin Coolidge-

                John J Hill-

                Samuel Gomper-