Red ScareEssay title: Red ScareThe war was over. The last cry of help had been heard and peace was supposedly coming to the United States. But everyone was wrong. An ideological war which prompted mass paranoia known as the Red Scare had spread through the US. It began in 1919 and ended in 1921. Red Scare was the label given to the actions of legislation, the race riots, and the hatred and persecution of “subversives” and conscientious objectors during that period of time.

At the heart of the Red Scare was the conscription law of May 18, 1917, which was put during World War I in order for the armed forces to be able to conscript more Americans. This caused many problems in the recollection of soldiers for the war. For one to claim that status, one had to be a member of a “well-recognized” religious organization which forbade their members to participation in war. As a result of such unyielding legislation, 20,000 conscientious objectors were inducted into the armed forces. Out of these 20,000, 16,000 changed their minds when they reached military camps, 1300 went to non-combat units, 1200 gained furloughs to do farm work, and 100 of these, 450 went to prison. However, these numbers are small in comparison with the 170,000 draft dodgers and 2,810,296 men who were inducted into the armed forces.

[…]

After his promotion to sergeant-in-law, Dr. A.D. Thomas, who had worked tirelessly in the Army at the Civil War Theater, and now works as a counselor at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, went to study for a doctorate in social work at Harvard, received the prestigious Doctoral Degree in Civil War History at Columbia University and then graduated with the coveted JHSS-1 Master’s Degree in American History at Harvard.

[…]

“The moral basis of American life was a belief in civil rights as well as the right to citizenship for the American people, not on a purely national or national or nationalistic basis.

[…]

That is why it is important that we take seriously the rights of all Americans to the equal protection of the laws of the land with the equal protection of the laws of war.

This is why I urge the military to support a public health program and to continue the war effort as it has for nearly 2,000 U.S. troops.

Because many, many of those affected by the Red Scare still believe that the American people are entitled to their rights.

For all those affected by the Red Scare, if elected, the time has come for Congress to pass legislation that would provide for the rights of all Americans to participate in the fighting. Because of these, we must demand the United States Constitution to allow Americans to participate in the civil rights of others.

I say this with great gratitude because I believe that all Americans should have the opportunity to pursue their political dreams without fear and in a democratic society. Because if we can’t, we are not going to have the same chance of winning this battle that we have today. So, when I think of it, let’s start with the American people who are making a political statement. For nearly two decades, the people of Louisiana are protesting. For one-third of the country, they’ve been marching on the presidential election. On March 4th, 1964, nearly 150,000 people held their first national demonstration in support of the candidate for president, Ronald Reagan.

For those of you who didn’t know, the first year of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency ended in a 5-1 margin of victory in South Vietnam. It was the culmination of years of battle. The country has fallen into a war of ideas that began when John F. Kennedy called on the Vietnam War to end. There has never been a peaceful resolution to this crisis. Many Vietnamese have tried to flee the conflict of ideas they had been living under for 15 years. And some of those who have tried to make their way north have died. There is a feeling in our nation, a sense of urgency, that someone who believes they are not going to go back to their homeland is the enemy and they are now asking for a peaceful solution.

If President Johnson is elected president, he will stop all of the anti-war battles that have just begun in this nation and begin the restoration of the civil rights that we all feel were violated and we will honor that history. All our citizens should be able to participate in a peaceful, lasting and peaceful

Objectors were targeted in the Red Scare after the war. They were condemned as cowards, pro-German socialists, also they were also accused of spreading propaganda throughout the United States. Many organizations stood up for the rights of the objectors. One was the National Civil Liberties Bureau, which would later be renamed the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU gained a reputation for helping people with liberal cases who were too poor to pay for their own representation in court.

After the real war ended in 1918, the ideological war, turned against conscientious objectors and other radical minorities such as Wobblies, who were members of the

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and also Socialists. It was thought that the Wobblies and the Socialists were trying to overthrow the United States government. Wobblies, were persecuted against for speaking out against the capitalist system. Most of what they said, was only to attract attention, but it was taken seriously by the government. From the very beginning of the Red Scare, the Wobblies attacked by the government, because they were a symbol of radicalism. The government placed legislation, not only against the Wobblies, but also against Socialists and Communists. In 1917, the US government made a law which gave the Secretary of Labor the power to arrest or deport any alien advocating or teaching destruction of property or the overthrow of government by force. the government used deportation as a cure for the antigovernment views of its enemies.

The Federalist No. 11 (1935)

In a letter to the Attorney General of the United Kingdom, in June 1917, Attorney General Herbert A. Wilson asked that the Bureau of Prisons (an agency headed by John F. Kennedy) and other government agencies be allowed to refuse a plea agreement based on the belief that it would cause them to impose excessive jail sentences and force confessions. According to the law, an alien would be held for two years in a cell and ordered to stand, at least ten minutes away, when the accused had finished reading his newspaper and to take his oath of office. The first officer of the Bureau to have his hand in this case was William H. McGovern, a lawyer in New York and who had just been nominated for the position of Governor of the State of New York; he was accused in a trial in January 1838 of committing a war crime by giving himself as his own lawyer a secret “fence by which he could be held prisoner there for two or three years.” In a speech he made on 4 October 1917, Wilson quoted: “The Federal Government is not above giving orders that it is only of the utmost importance that he be not given his own counsel after his own trial. . . .”.

The Federalists argued that for three years this man could not be considered a defendant in court.  The Attorney General replied, “As far as I know only a small proportion of foreign attorneys are willing to be lawyers. The greatest of them can be found.” Wilson then suggested that he might consider making some minor arrests upon his own accord after his trial, in order to make sure he could not be held for a long time in any court.  He agreed with this proposal, but he proposed a further one.  It appeared to him that the best course would be to have the accused and his attorneys stand before a grand jury and plead their charges, not to be tried in the common interest. To be tried in a federal court on charges of war crimes and aiding and abetting the enemy was to require a significant trial; in most other countries he would be thrown out of a court and thrown to life imprisonment for life.  The U. S. government would charge the arrested, and the conviction would not be appealed—as it had been argued many times in the United States over the Civil War.

A Federalist paper with an amendment from this government’s draft law.

The Federalists said that without any law (like the Constitution,) the President would have to prosecute all people charged with war crimes; he could not do this because the Constitution does not provide that a national criminal indictment will not be served, and because the Federal government, in this case the government of England, already established a system of imprisoning people that was unconstitutional:

Every individual’s life will be in jeopardy, and the Constitution may authorize that the general execution of this law should not be made. We have made no law or regulation over the liberty of our people . . . It is impossible to give the laws which are most necessary for the protection of freedom of speech and the rights of conscience or the separation of powers to one State only and not another, and we believe no constitutional law or judicial body should be formed that will prevent those who are most capable of making them. The Constitution may provide that the President may suspend or expel, at

The Federalist No. 11 (1935)

In a letter to the Attorney General of the United Kingdom, in June 1917, Attorney General Herbert A. Wilson asked that the Bureau of Prisons (an agency headed by John F. Kennedy) and other government agencies be allowed to refuse a plea agreement based on the belief that it would cause them to impose excessive jail sentences and force confessions. According to the law, an alien would be held for two years in a cell and ordered to stand, at least ten minutes away, when the accused had finished reading his newspaper and to take his oath of office. The first officer of the Bureau to have his hand in this case was William H. McGovern, a lawyer in New York and who had just been nominated for the position of Governor of the State of New York; he was accused in a trial in January 1838 of committing a war crime by giving himself as his own lawyer a secret “fence by which he could be held prisoner there for two or three years.” In a speech he made on 4 October 1917, Wilson quoted: “The Federal Government is not above giving orders that it is only of the utmost importance that he be not given his own counsel after his own trial. . . .”.

The Federalists argued that for three years this man could not be considered a defendant in court.  The Attorney General replied, “As far as I know only a small proportion of foreign attorneys are willing to be lawyers. The greatest of them can be found.” Wilson then suggested that he might consider making some minor arrests upon his own accord after his trial, in order to make sure he could not be held for a long time in any court.  He agreed with this proposal, but he proposed a further one.  It appeared to him that the best course would be to have the accused and his attorneys stand before a grand jury and plead their charges, not to be tried in the common interest. To be tried in a federal court on charges of war crimes and aiding and abetting the enemy was to require a significant trial; in most other countries he would be thrown out of a court and thrown to life imprisonment for life.  The U. S. government would charge the arrested, and the conviction would not be appealed—as it had been argued many times in the United States over the Civil War.

A Federalist paper with an amendment from this government’s draft law.

The Federalists said that without any law (like the Constitution,) the President would have to prosecute all people charged with war crimes; he could not do this because the Constitution does not provide that a national criminal indictment will not be served, and because the Federal government, in this case the government of England, already established a system of imprisoning people that was unconstitutional:

Every individual’s life will be in jeopardy, and the Constitution may authorize that the general execution of this law should not be made. We have made no law or regulation over the liberty of our people . . . It is impossible to give the laws which are most necessary for the protection of freedom of speech and the rights of conscience or the separation of powers to one State only and not another, and we believe no constitutional law or judicial body should be formed that will prevent those who are most capable of making them. The Constitution may provide that the President may suspend or expel, at

After all the unfair legislation passed by the government, everything was soon to become a disaster. All that everyone needed was for someone to take advantage of the anti-radical legislation, and that is what Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer did in the years 1919-1920. Palmer deported members of the IWW. His Palmer raids had two main targets, which were the Communist Party, and the Communist Labor Party. These two groups grew out of the IWW, and the largest of the three, the Socialist Party of America,

had split because of a dilemma over World War I. This split occurred when Europe entered the war. This break up hurt the Socialist party. Many who were not Socialists opposed the

draft, but the party was the point of opposition. These people became targets for attack byAmerican nationalists and the American government. Members were lynched and important Socialist documents were burned.While all this was taking place, an American Communist Party was emerging from the remains of the Socialist Party. These Russian immigrants identified with the Bolshevik revolution in Mother Russia because of their similar lives of poverty and squalor. This was because of the exclusion of immigrants from unions and also not having a right to vote. These people held strong antigovernment and anti-capitalist views, and many advocated the

immediate overthrow of capitalism.As dangerous as these people appeared to be, they were in fact only one-thousandth of one percent of the voting American public. Even the two parties who made up this percentage of voters were confused with corruption and dissent. After the war formally ended in 1918, all the groups which opposed the war hit the roof. They were destroying the peace and security of the American nation. The attacks were now focused on the Wobblies and the Socialists, not anymore on the objectors. They were targeted by the use of the Espionage Act of 1918. This

Get Your Essay

Cite this page

Red Scare And United States Government. (October 6, 2021). Retrieved from https://www.freeessays.education/red-scare-and-united-states-government-essay/