Red Scare: Encyclopedia II - Red Scare - The Red Summer

Red Scare - The Red Summer

A series of bombings in June of 1919 sparked the FBI to more aggressive actions. The mayor of Seattle received a homemade bomb in the mail on April 28, which was defused. Senator Thomas W. Hardwick received a bomb the next day, which blew off the hands of his servant who had discovered it, severely burning him and his wife. The following morning, a New York City postal worker discovered sixteen similar packages addressed to well-known people of the time, including oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. There were 38 bombs in all, sent to prominent figures. On June 2, a bomb partially destroyed the front of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's house.

On May 1, 1919, a May Day parade in Cleveland, Ohio, protesting the imprisonment of Eugene Debs erupted into the violent May Day Riots. Charles Ruthenberg, a prominent Socialist leader who organized the march, was arrested for "assault with intent to kill".

Labor actions, such as the Seattle general strike, the Boston police strike, and the organizing efforts of the Industrial Workers of the World, seemed to demonstrate the rise of radical labor unions. Furthermore, many of the organizations which supported the unions were not only associated with socialism or communism, but had already been persecuted for opposing World War I.

In the Wall Street bombing on September 16, 1920, 100 pounds (45 kg) of dynamite with 500 pounds (230 kg) of fragmented steel exploded in front of the offices of the J.P. Morgan Company, killing 40 people and injuring 300 others. Anarchists have long been suspected as initiating the attack, which followed a number of letter bombs that targeted Morgan himself. However, the identity of the bombers has never been determined.

Red Scare - Reactions

In response to the bombings, the public flared up in a surge of patriotism, often involving violent hatred of communists, radicals, and foreigners. Senator Kenneth D. McKellar proposed sending radicals to a penal colony in Guam; General Leonard Wood called to place them on "ships of stone with sails of lead"; evangelist Billy Sunday clamored to "stand [radicals] up before a firing squad and save space on our ships." In Centralia, Washington, a Wobblie was dragged from a town jail and hanged.

The largest government action of the Red Scare was Palmer Raids against anarchist, socialist, and communist groups. Left-wing activists, such as Eugene V. Debs, were jailed by government officials using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Section Four of the Sedition act empowered Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson to slow or confiscate all Socialist material in the mail, a task that he took on readily. In a spectacle that exposed the paranoia, xenophobia, and fear of anarchism which much of the United States was experiencing, Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists, were executed for murder in a trial seen as unfair.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Red Summer", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki