Mccarthyism And The Red Scare Essay

During the 1920s, revolutionaries in Russia overthrew the Czarist Family, the Royal Family of Russia, and proclaimed for a revolution for communism all over the world. The brutality that the revolutionaries exhibited when they overthrew the royal family caused the United States Government to be scared that the same thing would be done to them. This started the Red Scare in the 1920s, and also caused a Communist Party to form in the United States with 70,000 radicals joining it. Several dozen bombs were sent to various government and business leaders, which caused the public to fear that the Communists were taking over. Due to this event, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was infuriated and started to hunt down suspected communists, socialists

Mitchell Palmer was angered by the shipping of bombs to the various business and political leaders of America, including himself. He initiated the Palmer Raids, by invading homes, ignored civil rights, and went into private homes and offices and jailing suspects without giving them, legal counsel. He also deported thousands of radical immigrants without a trial. Palmer was deemed incompetent, however, because his raids never found any bombs or any evidence of a conspiracy against the government. “What will become of the United States Government if these alien radicals are permitted to carry out the principles of the Communist Party as embodied in its so-called laws, aims and regulations?” For those who do not know, alien in this case is a foreigner, meaning that Palmer implies that only immigrants could be communists, and also states the fear that the United States Government has against communism and immigrants in

Sacco and Vanzetti were two immigrants from Italy, who were accused of killing a factory paymaster and his guard in May 1920. Witnesses said that the criminals appeared to be Italians, the evidence was circumstantial, the presiding judge made prejudicial marks, but the jury voted them guilty. Sacco and Vanzetti died in the electric chair, without a fair trial. “Supporters of the two men believed they were victims of a deeply ingrained prejudice against immigrants and radicals.” From this secondary source, the viewpoint of supporters shows that they believed that it was because they were immigrants, that they were discriminated against. The fact that they had considered this discrimination against immigrants, implies that this kind of behavior was normal in America during the 1920s and after the Red Scare in general.

The Quota Acts were acts created to limit the amounts of immigrants coming to America by 3%, later 2%, of the current amount of that country’s immigrants. This limited the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Many immigrants were not able to be reunited with family members that were in the United States, because of the quotas put out by the government. Additionally, the Quota Act was the result of discrimination against immigrants, and against communism, because the United States feared that immigrants would spread communism in the