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100-428: The five divisions of Federal One were these: All projects were supposed to operate without discrimination regarding race, creed, color, religion, or political affiliation. Federal Project Number One ended in 1939 when, under pressure from Congress, the theater project was cancelled and the other projects were required to rely on state funding and local sponsorship. Many people were opposed to government involvement in

200-513: A Galleanist radical who died in spectacular fashion when the bomb he placed at the home of Attorney General Palmer exploded in his face. Though not seriously injured, Attorney General Palmer and his family were thoroughly shaken by the blast, and their home was largely demolished. All of the bombs were delivered with pink flyers bearing the title "Plain Words" that accused the intended victims of waging class war and promised: "We will destroy to rid

300-577: A Wobbly and syndicalist , and claimed this was evidence that the steelworker strike was being masterminded by radicals and revolutionaries. The steel companies played on nativist fears by noting that a large number of steelworkers were immigrants. Public opinion quickly turned against the striking workers. State and local authorities backed the steel companies. They prohibited mass meetings, had their police attack pickets and jailed thousands. After strikebreakers and police clashed with unionists in Gary, Indiana ,

400-477: A fascist plot to seize the White House , known as the " Business Plot ". Contemporary newspapers widely reported the plot as a hoax. While historians have questioned whether a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed. It has been reported that while Dickstein served on this committee and the subsequent Special investigation Committee, he

500-703: A New York attorney with ties to the Justice Department , probably as a "volunteer spy", testified on January 22, 1919, during the German phase of the subcommittee's work. He established that anti-war and anti-draft activism during World War I, which he described as pro-German activity, had now transformed itself into propaganda "developing sympathy for the Bolshevik movement". America's wartime enemy, though defeated, had exported an ideology that now ruled Russia and threatened America anew. "The Bolshevik movement

600-567: A Revolutionary War soldier and passed out copies of the United States Declaration of Independence to those in attendance. Rubin then "blew giant gum bubbles, while his co-witnesses taunted the committee with Nazi salutes ". Rubin attended another session dressed as Santa Claus . On another occasion, police stopped Hoffman at the building entrance and arrested him for wearing the United States flag. Hoffman quipped to

700-426: A decisive role in constructing an image of a radical threat to the United States during the first Red Scare. U.S. Representative Hamilton Fish III (R-NY), who was a fervent anti-communist, introduced, on May 5, 1930, House Resolution 180, which proposed to establish a committee to investigate communist activities in the United States. The resulting committee, Special Committee to Investigate Communist Activities in

800-633: A huge New York City parade celebrated the return of General John J. Pershing , the hero of the American Expeditionary Force . A report from Washington, D.C., included this headline: "Senators Think Effort to Sovietize the Government Is Started". Senator Henry Cabot Lodge saw in the strike the dangers of the national labor movement: "If the American Federation of Labor succeeds in getting hold of

900-587: A march that lacked a permit. In the ensuing melee both sides fought for possession of the Socialists' red flags. One policeman was shot and died of his wounds; a second officer died of a heart attack. William Sidis was arrested. Later a mob attacked the Socialist headquarters. Police arrested 114, all from the Socialist side. Each side's newspapers provided uncritical support to their own the next day. In New York, soldiers in uniform burned printed materials at

1000-521: A mass uprising were commonly invoked by political officials at the time. Repression by the government was also prevalent; two examples include the Palmer Raids and Lusk Committee raids . The period was also marked by anti-Semitic rhetoric. In 1920, the five Socialist members of the New York state assembly were expelled from it by a vote of 140 to 6, partially in response to their support for

1100-451: A number of false statements. Hiss challenged Chambers to repeat his charges outside a Congressional committee, which Chambers did. Hiss then sued for libel, leading Chambers to produce copies of State Department documents which he claimed Hiss had given him in 1938. Hiss denied this before a grand jury, was indicted for perjury, and subsequently convicted and imprisoned. The present-day House of Representatives website on HUAC states, "But in

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1200-594: A pamphlet called Americanism versus Bolshevism . The Overman Committee was a special five-man subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary chaired by North Carolina Democrat Lee Slater Overman . First charged with investigating German subversion during World War I, its mandate was extended on February 4, 1919, just a day after the announcement of the Seattle General Strike, to study "any efforts being made to propagate in this country

1300-414: A standing (permanent) committee on January 3, 1945. Democratic Representative Edward J. Hart of New Jersey became the committee's first chairman. Under the mandate of Public Law 601, passed by the 79th Congress , the committee of nine representatives investigated suspected threats of subversion or propaganda that attacked "the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution ". Under this mandate,

1400-515: A system to investigate applicants for leave clearance, and step up Americanization and assimilation efforts largely coincided with WRA goals. In 1946, the committee considered opening investigations into the Ku Klux Klan , but decided against doing so, prompting white supremacist committee member John E. Rankin (D-Miss.) to remark, "After all, the KKK is an old American institution." Instead of

1500-520: A union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the AFL. During the strike, Boston experienced two nights of lawlessness until several thousand members of the State Guard supported by volunteers restored order, though not without causing several deaths. The public, fed by lurid press accounts and hyperbolic political observers, viewed the strike with a degree of alarm out of proportion to

1600-470: A wave of rent strikes occurred across all of New York City and Jersey City from 1918 to 1920. While it is unclear exactly how many tenants were involved, at least tens of thousands and likely hundreds of thousands tenants struck. In response to the strikes, which was marked heavily by the Red Scare, rhetoric accusing tenant leaders of being Bolsheviks and comments that claimed a fear that there would be

1700-424: Is America – not Russia," one said when denouncing the general strike. The non-striking part of Seattle's population imagined the worst and stocked up on food. Hardware stores sold their stock of guns. Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson announced that he had 1500 police and 1500 federal troops on hand to put down any disturbances. He personally oversaw their deployment throughout the city. "The time has come", he said, "for

1800-413: Is a branch of the revolutionary socialism of Germany. It had its origin in the philosophy of Marx and its leaders were Germans." He cited the propaganda efforts of John Reed and gave many examples from the foreign press. He told the senators that "We have found money coming into this country from Russia." The senators were particularly interested in how Bolshevism had united many disparate elements on

1900-461: Is also judged to be not only not overwhelming but entirely circumstantial. As a result, and also given how many documents remain classified, it is unlikely that a truly conclusive answer will ever be reached. In the wake of the downfall of McCarthy (who never served in the House, nor on HUAC; he was a U.S. Senator), the prestige of HUAC began a gradual decline in the late 1950s. By 1959, the committee

2000-551: Is no right to strike against the public safety, anywhere, anytime." The strike proved another setback for labor and the AFL immediately withdrew its recognition of police unions. Coolidge won the Republican nomination for Vice-President in the 1920 presidential election in part due to his actions during the Boston Police Strike. Following a housing and coal shortage caused by the mobilization for World War I,

2100-471: Is so necessary to artists and particularly to artists in a new country.” Most of the newspapers and magazines in America were Republican and anti-Roosevelt, and they made what capital they could out of traditional American Philistinism. The Art Projects were scorned as "boondoggling." Under this constant and relentless attack it was necessary to develop work projects that could be defended as "worthwhile." For

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2200-603: The Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, not the House. The Overman Committee was a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by North Carolina Democratic Senator Lee Slater Overman that operated from September 1918 to June 1919. The subcommittee investigated German as well as " Bolshevik elements" in the United States. This subcommittee

2300-581: The House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC ), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives , created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having fascist and communist ties. It became a standing (permanent) committee in 1946, and from 1969 onwards it

2400-545: The National Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC. In 1938, Hallie Flanagan , the head of the Federal Theatre Project , was subpoenaed to appear before the committee to answer the charge the project was overrun with communists. Flanagan was called to testify for only a part of one day, while an administrative clerk from the project was called in for two entire days. It

2500-557: The New York Times with evidence of Bolshevist propaganda targeting America's black communities that was "paralleling the agitation that is being carried on in industrial centres of the North and West, where there are many alien laborers". Vehicles for this propaganda about the "doctrines of Lenin and Trotzky" included newspapers, magazines, and "so-called 'negro betterment' organizations ". Quotations from such publications contrasted

2600-622: The Seattle General Strike and the Boston Police Strike and then in the bombing campaign directed by anarchist groups at political and business leaders. Fueled by labor unrest and the anarchist bombings, and then spurred on by the Palmer Raids and attempts by United States Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to suppress radical organizations, it was characterized by exaggerated rhetoric, illegal searches and seizures , unwarranted arrests and detentions, and

2700-584: The South Side were destroyed by mobs, and a militia force of several thousand was called in to restore order. In mid-summer, in the middle of the Chicago riots, a "federal official" told the New York Times that the violence resulted from "an agitation, which involves the I.W.W., Bolshevism and the worst features of other extreme radical movements". He supported that claim with copies of negro publications that called for alliances with leftist groups, praised

2800-429: The U.S. Army took over the city on October 6, 1919, and martial law was declared. National Guardsmen, leaving Gary after federal troops had taken over, turned their anger on strikers in nearby Indiana Harbor, Indiana . Steel companies also turned toward strikebreaking and rumor-mongering to demoralize the picketers. They brought in between 30,000 and 40,000 African-American and Mexican-American workers to work in

2900-573: The UC Berkeley , Stanford , and other local colleges, and dragged them down the marble steps beneath the rotunda, leaving some seriously injured. Soviet affairs expert William Mandel , who had been subpoenaed to testify, angrily denounced the committee and the police in a blistering statement which was aired repeatedly for years thereafter on Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley . An anti-communist propaganda film, Operation Abolition ,

3000-534: The War Relocation Authority (WRA) and news that some former inmates would be allowed to leave camp and Nisei soldiers to return to the West Coast, the committee investigated charges of fifth column activity in the camps. A number of anti-WRA arguments were presented in subsequent hearings, but Director Dillon Myer debunked the more inflammatory claims. The investigation was presented to

3100-410: The deportation of several hundred suspected radicals and anarchists. In addition, the growing anti- immigration nativist movement among Americans viewed increasing immigration from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe as a threat to American political and social stability. Bolshevism and the threat of a communist -inspired revolution in the U.S. became the overriding explanation for challenges to

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3200-476: The social order , even for such largely unrelated events as incidents of interracial violence during the Red Summer of 1919. Fear of radicalism was used to explain the suppression of freedom of expression in the form of display of certain flags and banners. In April 1920, concerns peaked with J. Edgar Hoover telling the nation to prepare for a bloody uprising on May Day . Police and militias prepared for

3300-453: The 1960s progressed, increasingly becoming the target of political satirists and the defiance of a new generation of political activists. HUAC subpoenaed Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman of the Yippies in 1967, and again in the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic National Convention . The Yippies used the media attention to make a mockery of the proceedings. Rubin came to one session dressed as

3400-532: The 1990s, Soviet archives conclusively revealed that Hiss had been a spy on the Kremlin's payroll." However, in the 1990s, senior Soviet intelligence officials, after consulting their archive, stated they found nothing to support that theory. In 1995, the National Security Agency 's Venona papers have been alleged to have provided overwhelming evidence that he was a spy, but the same evidence

3500-569: The 77th Congress, and alleged that certain cultural traits – Japanese loyalty to the Emperor, the number of Japanese fishermen in the US, and the Buddhist faith – were evidence for Japanese espionage. With the exception of Rep. Herman Eberharter (D-Pa.), the members of the committee seemed to support internment, and its recommendations to expedite the impending segregation of "troublemakers", establish

3600-466: The AFL recognized that the strike was damaging labor in the public mind and advised the strikers to return to work. The Police Commissioner, however, remained adamant and refused to re-hire the striking policemen. He was supported by Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge , whose rebuke of Gompers earned him a national reputation. Famous as a man of few words, he put the anti-union position simply: "There

3700-661: The Fish Committee and the McCormack–Dickstein Committee, to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist or fascist ties; however, it concentrated its efforts on communists. It was chaired by Martin Dies Jr. (D-Tex.), and therefore known as the Dies Committee. Its records are held by

3800-614: The House investigations, most studios produced a number of anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda films such as The Red Menace (August 1949), The Red Danube (October 1949), The Woman on Pier 13 (October 1949), Guilty of Treason (May 1950, about the ordeal and trial of Cardinal József Mindszenty ), I Was a Communist for the FBI (May 1951, Academy Award nominated for best documentary 1951, also serialized for radio), Red Planet Mars (May 1952), and John Wayne 's Big Jim McLain (August 1952). Universal-International Pictures

3900-753: The Klan, HUAC concentrated on investigating the possibility that the American Communist Party had infiltrated the Works Progress Administration , including the Federal Theatre Project and the Federal Writers' Project . Twenty years later, in 1965–1966, however, the committee did conduct an investigation into Klan activities under chairman Edwin Willis (D-La.). The House Committee on Un-American Activities became

4000-669: The Ku Klux Klan. The resulting investigation resulted in numerous Klansmen remaining silent and giving evasive answers. The House of Representatives voted to cite seven Klan leaders, including Robert Shelton , for contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over Klan records. Shelton was found guilty, and was sentenced to one year in prison, plus a $ 1,000 fine. Following his conviction, three other Klan leaders, Robert Scoggin, Bob Jones , and Calvin Craig, also pleaded guilty. Scoggin and Jones were each sentenced to one year in prison, while Craig

4100-550: The Machinery Sold to Them for a Song On the release of the final report, newspapers printed sensational articles with headlines in capital letters: "Red Peril Here", "Plan Bloody Revolution", and "Want Washington Government Overturned". There were several anarchist bombings in 1919. In late April 1919, approximately 36 booby trap bombs were mailed to prominent politicians, including the Attorney General of

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4200-529: The May Day marchers for provoking the nationalists' response. The Salt Lake City Tribune did not think anyone had a right to march. It said: "Free speech has been carried to the point where it is an unrestrained menace." A few, however, thought the marches were harmless and that the marchers' enthusiasm would die down on its own if they were left unmolested. More than two dozen American communities, mostly urban areas or industrial centers, saw racial violence in

4300-649: The Russian People's House and forced immigrants to sing the Star-Spangled Banner . Cleveland, Ohio saw the worst violence. Leftists protesting the imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs and promoting the campaign of Charles Ruthenberg , the Socialist candidate for mayor, planned to march through the center of the city. A group of Victory Loan workers, a nationalist organization whose members sold war bonds and thought themselves still at war against all forms of anti-Americanism, tried to block some of

4400-584: The Seattle Central Labor Council for support from other unions and found widespread enthusiasm. Within two weeks, more than 100 local unions joined in a call on February 3 for a general strike to begin on the morning of February 6. The 60,000 total strikers paralyzed the city's normal activities, like streetcar service, schools, and ordinary commerce, while their General Strike Committee maintained order and provided essential services, like trash collection and milk deliveries. Even before

4500-1063: The Seattle General Strike, arrived early and failed to explode as intended. Seattle police in turn notified the Post Office and other police agencies. On April 29, a package sent to U.S. Senator Thomas W. Hardwick of Georgia, a sponsor of the Anarchist Exclusion Act , exploded injuring his wife and housekeeper. On April 30, a post office employee in New York City recognized sixteen packages by their wrapping and interrupted their delivery. Another twelve bombs were recovered before reaching their targets. In June 1919, eight bombs, far larger than those mailed in April, exploded almost simultaneously in several U.S. cities. These new bombs were believed to contain up to twenty-five pounds of dynamite, and all were wrapped or packaged with heavy metal slugs designed to act as shrapnel. All of

4600-475: The Soviet regime, and contrasted the courage of jailed Socialist Eugene V. Debs with the "school boy rhetoric" of traditional black leaders. The Times characterized the publications as "vicious and apparently well financed," mentioned "certain factions of the radical Socialist elements", and reported it all under the headline: "Reds Try to Stir Negroes to Revolt". In mid-October, government sources again provided

4700-699: The United States commonly known as the Fish Committee, undertook extensive investigations of people and organizations suspected of being involved with or supporting communist activities in the United States. Among the committee's targets were the American Civil Liberties Union and communist presidential candidate William Z. Foster . The committee recommended granting the United States Department of Justice more authority to investigate communists, and strengthening of immigration and deportation laws to keep communists out of

4800-401: The United States is no longer a specter. Boston in chaos reveals its sinister substance." President Woodrow Wilson , speaking from Montana, branded the walkout "a crime against civilization" that left the city "at the mercy of an army of thugs". The timing of the strike also happened to present the police union in the worst light. September 10, the first full day of the strike, was also the day

4900-549: The United States, judges, businessmen (including John D. Rockefeller ), and a Bureau of Investigation field agent, R. W. Finch, who happened to be investigating the Galleanist organization. The bombs were mailed in identical packages and were timed to arrive on May Day, the day of celebration of organized labor and the working class. A few of the packages went undelivered because they lacked sufficient postage. One bomb intended for Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson , who had opposed

5000-655: The United States. From 1934 to 1937, the committee, now named the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities, chaired by John William McCormack ( D - Mass. ) and Samuel Dickstein (D-NY), held public and private hearings and collected testimony filling 4,300 pages. The Special Committee was widely known as the McCormack–Dickstein committee. Its mandate

5100-542: The WPA payroll. Many people benefitted from these programs and some FWP writers became famous, such as John Steinbeck and Zora Neale Hurston . These writers were considered to be federal writers. Furthermore, these projects also published books such as New York Panorama and the WPA Guide to New York City . House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities ( HCUA ), popularly

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5200-614: The alleged spread of socialism , communism , and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern. The scare had its origins in the hyper-nationalism of World War I as well as the Russian Revolution. At the war's end, following the October Revolution, American authorities saw the threat of communist revolution in the actions of organized labor , including such disparate cases as

5300-562: The arts. They feared that government funding and influence would lead to censorship and a violation of freedom of speech. Members of the House Un-American Activities Committee believed the program to be infiltrated by communists. However, with support from Eleanor Roosevelt , Franklin Roosevelt signed the executive order to create this project because the government wanted to support, as Fortune magazine stated, “the kind of raw cultural material—the raw material of new creative work—which

5400-526: The committee focused its investigations on real and suspected communists in positions of actual or supposed influence in the United States society. A significant step for HUAC was its investigation of the charges of espionage brought against Alger Hiss in 1948. This investigation ultimately resulted in Hiss's trial and conviction for perjury, and convinced many of the usefulness of congressional committees for uncovering communist subversion. The chief investigator

5500-537: The committee for five hours about a "Jewish Communist conspiracy" to take control of the US government. Moseley was supported by Donald Shea of the American Gentile League , whose statement was deleted from the public record as the committee found it so objectionable. The committee also put together an argument for the internment of Japanese Americans known as the "Yellow Report". Organized in response to rumors of Japanese Americans being coddled by

5600-685: The committee was renamed as the Internal Security Committee in 1969. The House Committee on Internal Security was formally terminated on January 14, 1975, the day of the opening of the 94th Congress. The committee's files and staff were transferred on that day to the House Judiciary Committee. Source: First Red Scare Progressive Era Repression and persecution Anti-war and civil rights movements Contemporary Active Defunct Publications Works The first Red Scare

5700-540: The country voluntarily, attacks by remaining members continued until 1932. The American labor movement had been celebrating its May Day holiday since the 1890s and had seen none of the violence associated with the day's events in Europe. On May 1, 1919, the left mounted especially large demonstrations, and violence greeted the normally peaceful parades in Boston , New York , and Cleveland . In Boston, police tried to stop

5800-466: The entertainment industry. In 1947, studio executives told the committee that wartime films—such as Mission to Moscow , The North Star , and Song of Russia —could be considered pro-Soviet propaganda , but claimed that the films were valuable in the context of the Allied war effort, and that they were made (in the case of Mission to Moscow ) at the request of White House officials. In response to

5900-461: The events, which ultimately produced only about $ 35,000 of property damage. Bolshevism in the United States is no longer a specter. Boston in chaos reveals its sinister substance. — Philadelphia Public Ledger The strikers were called "deserters" and "agents of Lenin." The Philadelphia Public Ledger viewed the Boston violence in the same light as many other of 1919's events: "Bolshevism in

6000-598: The eyes of the American public and Seattle's middle class. Press and political reaction made the general strike untenable, and they feared Seattle labor would lose gains made during the war if it continued. The national press called the general strike "Marxian" and "a revolutionary movement aimed at existing government". "It is only a middling step", said the Chicago Tribune , "from Petrograd to Seattle." As early as February 8 some unions began to return to work at

6100-793: The final report, referring to the Russians as "assassins and madmen", "human scum", "crime mad", and "beasts". The occasional testimony by some who viewed the Bolshevik Revolution favorably lacked the punch of its critics. One extended headline in February read: Bolshevism Bared by R. E. Simmons; Former Agent in Russia of Commerce Department Concludes his Story to Senators Women are 'Nationalized' Official Decrees Reveal Depths of Degradation to Which They are Subjected by Reds Germans Profit by Chaos Factories and Mills are Closed and

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6200-462: The horrors of the revolution in Russia and the consequences of a comparable revolution in the United States: the imposition of atheism , the seizure of newspapers, assaults on banks, and the abolition of the insurance industry. The senators heard various views of women in Russia, including claims that women had been made the property of the state. The press reveled in the investigation and

6300-447: The industry. Eventually, more than 300 artists – including directors, radio commentators, actors, and particularly screenwriters – were boycotted by the studios. Some, like Charlie Chaplin , Orson Welles , Alan Lomax , Paul Robeson , and Yip Harburg , left the U.S or went underground to find work. Others like Dalton Trumbo wrote under pseudonyms or the names of colleagues. Only about ten percent succeeded in rebuilding careers within

6400-402: The intended targets had participated in some way with the investigation of or the opposition to anarchist radicals. Along with Attorney General Palmer, who was targeted a second time, the intended victims included a Massachusetts state representative and a New Jersey silk manufacturer. Fatalities included a New York City night watchman, William Boehner, and one of the bombers, Carlo Valdinoci ,

6500-441: The left, including anarchists and socialists of many types, "providing a common platform for all these radical groups to stand on". Senator Knute Nelson , Republican of Minnesota, responded by enlarging Bolshevism's embrace to include an even larger segment of political opinion: "Then they have really rendered a service to the various classes of progressives and reformers that we have here in this country." Other witnesses described

6600-406: The marchers and a melee ensued . A mob ransacked Ruthenberg's headquarters. Mounted police, army trucks, and tanks restored order. Two people died, forty were injured, and 116 arrested. Local newspapers noted that only 8 of those arrested were born in the United States. The city government immediately passed laws to restrict parades and the display of red flags. With few dissents, newspapers blamed

6700-401: The mills. Company spies also spread rumors that the strike had collapsed elsewhere, and they pointed to the operating steel mills as proof that the strike had been defeated. Congress conducted its own investigation, focused on radical influence upon union activity. In that context, U.S. Senator Kenneth McKellar , a member of the Senate committee investigating the strike, proposed making one of

6800-551: The negroes can bring the white bourbon South to its knees. So go to it." The American Federation of Labor (AFL) began granting charters to police unions in June 1919 when pressed to do so by local groups, and in just 5 months had recognized affiliate police unions in 37 cities. The Boston Police rank and file went out on strike on September 9, 1919 in order to achieve recognition for their union and improvements in wages and working conditions. Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis denied that police officers had any right to form

6900-506: The operation or success of the military, and the Sedition Act forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government , flag , or armed forces of the United States during war. The Immigration Act of 1918 targeted anarchists by name and was used to deport Emma Goldman , Alexander Berkman and Luigi Galleani , among others. On January 21, 1919, 35,000 shipyard workers in Seattle went on strike seeking wage increases. They appealed to

7000-440: The outbreak of violence. On July 3, the 10th U.S. Cavalry , a segregated African American unit founded in 1866, was attacked by local police in Bisbee, Arizona . Two of the most violent episodes occurred in Washington, D.C. , and Chicago . In Washington, D.C., white men, many in military uniforms, responded to the rumored arrest of a black man for rape with four days of mob violence, rioting and beatings of random black people on

7100-408: The people in Seattle to show their Americanism  ... The anarchists in this community shall not rule its affairs." He promised to use them to replace striking workers, but never carried out that threat. Meanwhile, the national leadership of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and international leaders of some of the Seattle locals recognized how inflammatory the general strike was proving in

7200-418: The police in Boston it will go all over the country, and we shall be in measurable distance of Soviet government by labor unions." The Ohio State Journal opposed any sympathetic treatment of the strikers: "When a policeman strikes, he should be debarred not only from resuming his office, but from citizenship as well. He has committed the unpardonable sin; he has forfeited all his rights." Samuel Gompers of

7300-409: The press, "I regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country", paraphrasing the last words of revolutionary patriot Nathan Hale ; Rubin, who was wearing a matching Viet Cong flag, shouted that the police were communists for not arresting him as well. In 1965, Klan violence prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson and Georgia congressman Charles L. Weltner to call for a congressional probe of

7400-562: The principles of any party exercising or claiming to exercise any authority in Russia" and "any effort to incite the overthrow of the Government of this country". The Committee's hearings into Bolshevik propaganda, conducted from February 11 to March 10, 1919, developed an alarming image of Bolshevism as an imminent threat to the U.S. government and American values. The Committee's final report appeared in June 1919. Archibald E. Stevenson ,

7500-508: The project to have sent every artist home to paint his own pictures his own way without supervision or accountability would have invited disaster. Mural projects were a little less liable to charges of boondoggling than easel painting. They were relatively public and subject to scrutiny and criticism. At its peak Federal One employed 40,000 writers, musicians, artists and actors and the Federal Writers' project had around 6,500 people on

7600-492: The recent violence in Chicago and Washington, D.C., with "Soviet Russia, a country in which dozens of racial and lingual types have settled their many differences and found a common meeting ground, a country which no longer oppresses colonies, a country from which the lynch rope is banished and in which racial tolerance and peace now exist." The New York Times cited one publication's call for unionization: "Negroes must form cotton workers' unions. Southern white capitalists know that

7700-452: The steel industry, including almost all mills in Pueblo, Colorado ; Chicago, Illinois ; Wheeling, West Virginia ; Johnstown, Pennsylvania ; Cleveland, Ohio ; Lackawanna, New York ; and Youngstown, Ohio . The owners quickly turned public opinion against the AFL. As the strike began, they published information exposing AFL National Committee co-chairman William Z. Foster's radical past as

7800-420: The street. When police refused to intervene, the black population fought back. When the violence ended, ten whites were dead, including two police officers, and 5 blacks. Some 150 people had been the victims of attacks. The rioting in Chicago started on July 27. Chicago's beaches along Lake Michigan were segregated in practice, if not by law. A black youth who drifted into the area customarily reserved for whites

7900-399: The strike began, the press tried to persuade the unions to reconsider. In part they were frightened by some of labor's rhetoric, like the labor newspaper editorial that proclaimed: "We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by labor in this country  ... We are starting on a road that leads – NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" Daily newspapers saw the general strike as a foreign import: "This

8000-476: The strike the next day. The original strike in the shipyards continued. Though the general strike collapsed because labor leadership viewed it as a misguided tactic from the start, Mayor Hanson took credit for ending the five-day strike and was hailed for it by the press. He resigned a few months later and toured the country giving lectures on the dangers of "domestic bolshevism". He earned $ 38,000 in seven months, five times his annual salary as mayor. He published

8100-581: The strikes. By its end, the wave of strikes had led to the passage of the first rent laws in the country and fundamentally shifted tenant-landlord relations. However, the more radical tenant groups largely were destroyed by raids or slowly dwindled as a result of the new laws addressing the crisis. Though the leadership of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) opposed a strike in the steel industry, 98% of their union members voted to strike beginning on September 22, 1919. It shut down half

8200-520: The summer and early fall of 1919. Unlike earlier race riots in U.S. history , the 1919 riots were among the first in which blacks responded with resistance to white attacks. Martial law was imposed in Charleston, South Carolina , where men of the U.S. Navy led a race riot on May 10. Five white men and eighteen black men were injured in the riot. An official investigation found that four U.S. sailors and one civilian—all white men—were responsible for

8300-541: The urging of their leaders. Some workers went back to work as individuals, perhaps fearful of losing their jobs if the Mayor acted on his threats or in reaction to the pressure of life under the general strike. The executive committee of the General Strike Committee first recommended ending the general strike on February 8 but lost that vote. Finally on February 10, the General Strike Committee voted to end

8400-513: The world of your tyrannical institutions." Police and the Bureau of Investigation tracked the flyer to a print shop owned by an anarchist, Andrea Salcedo , but never obtained sufficient evidence for a prosecution. Evidence from Valdonoci's death, bomb components, and accounts from participants later tied both bomb attacks to the Galleanists. Though some of the Galleanists were deported or left

8500-680: The worst, but May Day passed without incident. Soon, public opinion and the courts turned against Palmer, putting an end to his raids and the first Red Scare. In reaction to subversive and militant leftist actions in the United States, the United States Congress passed the Espionage Act in 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918 , and the Immigration Act of 1918 . The Espionage Act made it a crime to interfere with

8600-679: Was Robert E. Stripling , senior investigator Louis J. Russell , and investigators Alvin Williams Stokes , Courtney E. Owens , and Donald T. Appell. The director of research was Benjamin Mandel . In 1947, the committee held nine days of hearings into alleged communist propaganda and influence in the Hollywood motion picture industry. After conviction on contempt of Congress charges for refusal to answer some questions posed by committee members, " The Hollywood Ten " were blacklisted by

8700-400: Was stoned and drowned. Blacks responded violently when the police refused to take action. Violence between mobs and gangs lasted 13 days. The resulting 38 fatalities included 23 blacks and 15 whites. Injuries numbered 537 injured, and 1,000 black families were left homeless. Some 50 people were reported dead. Unofficial numbers were much higher. Hundreds of mostly black homes and businesses on

8800-639: Was a former Soviet spy, by then a senior editor of Time magazine. Chambers named more than a half dozen government officials including White as well as Alger Hiss (and Hiss' brother Donald). Most of these former officials refused to answer committee questions, citing the Fifth Amendment . White denied the allegations, and died of a heart attack a few days later. Hiss also denied all charges; doubts about his testimony though, especially those expressed by freshman Congressman Richard Nixon , led to further investigation that strongly suggested Hiss had made

8900-494: Was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism , due to real and imagined events; real events included the Russian 1917 October Revolution , German Revolution of 1918–1919 , and anarchist bombings in the U.S. At its height in 1919–1920, concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and

9000-581: Was being denounced by former President Harry S. Truman as the "most un-American thing in the country today". Women Strike for Peace played a crucial role in bringing down the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In May 1960, the committee held hearings in San Francisco City Hall which led to the infamous riot on May 13, when city police officers fire-hosed protesting students from

9100-605: Was during this investigation that one of the committee members, Joe Starnes (D-Ala.), famously asked Flanagan whether the English Elizabethan era playwright Christopher Marlowe was a member of the Communist Party, and mused that ancient Greek tragedian " Mr. Euripides " preached class warfare . In 1939, the committee investigated people involved with pro-Nazi organizations such as Oscar C. Pfaus and George Van Horn Moseley . Moseley testified before

9200-544: Was fined $ 1,000. The charges against Marshall Kornegay, Robert Hudgins, and George Dorsett, were later dropped. Hearings in August 1966 called to investigate anti-Vietnam War activities were disrupted by hundreds of protesters, many from the Progressive Labor Party . The committee faced witnesses who were openly defiant. According to The Harvard Crimson : In the fifties, the most effective sanction

9300-543: Was known as the House Committee on Internal Security . When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee . The committee's anti-communist investigations are often associated with McCarthyism , although Joseph McCarthy himself (as a U.S. Senator ) had no direct involvement with the House committee. McCarthy was the chairman of

9400-525: Was not appointed to HUAC to "carry out measures planned by us together with him." Dickstein unsuccessfully attempted to expedite the deportation of Soviet defector Walter Krivitsky , while the Dies Committee kept him in the country. Dickstein stopped receiving NKVD payments in February 1940. On May 26, 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established as a special investigating committee, reorganized from its previous incarnations as

9500-610: Was originally concerned with investigating pro-German sentiments in the American liquor industry. After World War I ended in November 1918, and the German threat lessened, the subcommittee began investigating Bolshevism, which had appeared as a threat during the First Red Scare after the Russian Revolution in 1917. The subcommittee's hearing into Bolshevik propaganda, conducted February 11 to March 10, 1919, had

9600-535: Was paid $ 1,250 a month by the Soviet NKVD , which hoped to get secret congressional information on anti-communists and pro-fascists. A 1939 NKVD report stated Dickstein handed over "materials on the war budget for 1940, records of conferences of the budget subcommission, reports of the war minister, chief of staff and etc." However the NKVD was dissatisfied with the amount of information provided by Dickstein, after he

9700-642: Was produced by the committee from subpoenaed local news reports, and shown around the country during 1960 and 1961. In response, the Northern California ACLU produced a film called Operation Correction , which discussed falsehoods in the first film. Scenes from the hearings and protest were later featured in the Academy Award-nominated 1990 documentary Berkeley in the Sixties . The committee lost considerable prestige as

9800-476: Was terror. Almost any publicity from HUAC meant the 'blacklist'. Without a chance to clear his name, a witness would suddenly find himself without friends and without a job. But it is not easy to see how in 1969, a HUAC blacklist could terrorize an SDS activist. Witnesses like Jerry Rubin have openly boasted of their contempt for American institutions. A subpoena from HUAC would be unlikely to scandalize Abbie Hoffman or his friends. In an attempt to reinvent itself,

9900-460: Was the only major studio that did not purposefully produce such a film. On July 31, 1948, the committee heard testimony from Elizabeth Bentley , an American who had been working as a Soviet agent in New York . Among those whom she named as communists was Harry Dexter White , a senior U.S. Treasury department official. The committee subpoenaed Whittaker Chambers on August 3, 1948. Chambers, too,

10000-409: Was to get "information on how foreign subversive propaganda entered the U.S. and the organizations that were spreading it." Its records are held by the National Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC. In 1934, the Special Committee subpoenaed most of the leaders of the fascist movement in the United States. Beginning in November 1934, the committee investigated allegations of

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