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Seattle General Strike Essay

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-Seattle General Strike The Seattle General Strike, which occurred in February of 1919, was considerably one of the largest American union strikes of all time that ultimately shut down the city. The strike started by shipyard workers was a “protest against continuing wartime controls on production and wages imposed by local yard owners…”(Lecture B, Week 2). Even though this strike was started by the shipyard workers many other unions chimed in with “At least 25,000 union members…”(Lecture B, Week 2) following “...in support of the shipyard workers”(Lecture B, Week 2). The city of Seattle had anticipated this would be a dangerous strike and had brought in plenty of extra protection by putting thousands of police on duty for the strike. However, …show more content…

After World War I, America had come across some terror attacks which contributed to the Red Scare and also prompted A. Mitchell Palmer to initiate a campaign that “...targeted men and women who harbored ideas that Palmer believed could lead to violence, even though the individuals may not have done anything illegal.”(Roark, Pg.738). In his campaign he was determined to find and convict radical immigrants who held “revolutionary conspiracies”(Roark, Pg.738), in order to enforce the American way of life. In Palmer’s eyes, in order to prevent crime in America “...there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national laws.”(Doc.17, Pg.66), which resulted in the “...500 noncitizen suspects deported.”(Roark, Pg.738). A.Mitchell Palmer’s significance was that he was responsible for being a great contributor in the anti-radical revolution within in America which was responsible for many deportations of immigrants after the Great War.(Roark, Pg.738; Doc.#17,

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