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The Red Scare In Nevada, 1919-1920by Ted DeCorte

Chapter 1: The Stage Is SetImmediately following the First World War (1914-1918), the United States experienced a brief yet hysterical "Red Scare," a fear of a radical communist, or bolshevik takeover of the United States. Fear of a radical takeover in the United States led to suppression and persecution of anyone perceived as "un-American." This era of intolerance and paranoia engulfed Nevada, and its citizens responded harshly to the "Red Menace." Nevada's response was both a part of and a reaction to the volatile national scene during 1919-1920.

World War I demanded personal sacrifice on the part of Americans. It created immense social and economic strains such as runaway inflation, labor unrest and excessive governmental controls. In 1917 Bolshevik "Reds" had overthrown Russia's repressive Czarist government, and America' newspapers had kept the public well informed of the revolution's gruesome events. Americans were also distressed by the influence of two radical organizations on their own home front: a Socialist party advocating drastic change in the existing political and economic system, and the Industrial Workers of the World preaching the destruction of capitalism and the government. Wartime superpatriotism had not only created an overwhelming suspicion and hatred of foreigners, but of domestic radicals as well. This experience of war, plus the fear of a worldwide radical conspiracy, produced a pattern of racism, intolerance and flagrant disregard for human rights which permeated American society throughout the postwar decade. Never before had the nation been so overwhelmed with fear. Economic and social dislocations combined with a series of highly suspicious and spectacular events into a common mass from which emerged the public panic and paranoia known as the Red Scare.

During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson's "Crusade for Democracy," received the support of all "loyal" Americans. In an attempt to mobilize the people behind the war effort, Wilson established the Committee on Public Information. Headed by journalist George Creel of Colorado, the Creel Committee utilized the talents of thousands of creative people in the arts, advertising and motion pictures to "sell the war." Creel's army of speakers and writers blanketed the country with propaganda, picturing the war as a crusade for freedom and democracy, and the Germans as a bestial people bent on world domination. The committee's endeavors created a national mood blending sincere idealism, patriotic dedication, nationalistic aggression and xenophobia. The Wilson-Creel propaganda machine made nationalism an American religion. By 1917 the vast majority of Americans found themselves caught up in the patriotic spirit. Most men and women believed

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this war would be the world's last; they felt that victory could bring a new universal freedom, and therefore fought the war with an almost evangelical zeal. President Wilson himself demanded absolute loyalty and support for America's conflict in Europe. His administration urged all "loyal" citizens to report persons who spoke against the war and advocated peace. Quick to sense the new superpatriotic mood, Congress enacted the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, making "disloyal" and seditious talk against the war - - and the Wilson Administration - - illegal.

During the war years Americans encountered severe limitations on freedom of speech and press, as well as outright suppression of dissent. The federal government arrested over fifteen hundred persons for disloyal comments and banned the dissemination of radical publications. Opening and censoring private mail also became an effective tool for monitoring "pro-German" thoughts and deeds. Periodically the Administration seized obviously loyal magazines critical of government policy. In its zeal, the Justice Department, for instance, delayed an edition of The Nation because it carried the caption "Civil Liberties Are Dead," and confiscated copies of The Public when it suggested that wartime taxes on large incomes were too low. By far the most serious wave of intolerance, of high-handed governmental disregard for individual rights, and of popular hysteria erupted during the second Wilson Administration. The Administration's forced fanning of the war fever led to a state of passion which made nonconformity and, certainly, dissent dangerous.

The United States Supreme Court contributed to the atmosphere of repression. In Schenck v. United States (1919) and Abrams v. United States (1919), the Court ruled that the federal government could suspend constitutional rights when the nation faced "a clear and present danger." Charles Schenck and his associates had distributed pamphlets denouncing the Selective Service Act and urging young men to resist the draft, while Jacob Abrams and others published leaflets attacking American intervention in the Bolshevik Revolution.

In addition to the federal government, the American people were also guilty of repressive acts during the war. Wartime propaganda indoctrinated the public with "100% Americanism," a hatred of the "Hun," and a general prejudice towards foreigners. Uttering ritual phrases of reverence and hate guaranteed protection from fanatical Germanphobes. Throughout the U.S. there arose a wild and fearful hatred of the Hun, the German Beast, and the murderous Kaiser. The passionate and unreasoning hatred of anything German, including literature, language and music, grew into a purge of anything un-American. Equating loyalty with conformity, the 100 Percenters belligerently demanded universal compliance. After 1917, pacifists, socialists and conscientious objectors, as well as "hyphenated-Americans," such as German-Americans or Italian-Americans,

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encountered unprecedented persecution and harassment. Citizens often subjected persons who refused to buy war bonds to public contempt and even assault. Local officials jailed those who questioned the draft or criticized Red Cross or Y.M.C.A. activities, while vigilante groups looked for "draft dodgers" and "slackers."

Eventually America's loyalty crusade focused on domestic radicals, chiefly the socialists, anarchists and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) labor union. A radical was defined as anyone who favored progressive legislation or spoke out against governmental injustice. Nationalistic attacks on radicals gathered strength during 1917-1918 when most Americans identified the IWW and the Socialist party with the pacifist movement. By advocating peace and nonconforming political beliefs, these groups ran afoul of both anti-radical nativism and anti-German hysteria. America's passionate intolerance during the war eventually led to the indictment and conviction of two Socialist party leaders, on the charges of promoting draft evasion. In mid-1918 federal courts sentenced three-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs and U.S. Senatorial candidate Victor L. Berger to ten and twenty years imprisonment respectively. Although Debs and Berger had never posed a serious threat to the country's ability to wage war, they had violated American society's notions of patriotism, nationalism and 100% Americanism. Not until 1921, after conservatives so thoroughly cowed the spirit of radicalism in America, were they freed from governmental harassment: Debs by a Presidential pardon from Republican Warren G. Harding and Berger by Supreme Court edict.

Another target of the government's anti-radical campaign, the Industrial Workers of the World, advocated, at least in rhetoric, full-scale revolution. Yet, the majority of the IWW members rarely practiced what they preached, utilizing unethical and, at times, illegal methods to obtain their stated goals of labor reform and social justice, most "Wobblies" wanted only to change the unjust and oppressive conditions of western mining and lumber camps, of which Nevada had a number. IWW propaganda demanded better wages, hours (a six-hour work day) and conditions, the release of all "class-war prisoners" and the overthrow of the capitalistic system. Distraught Americans came to identify members of the radical union as agents of the Kaiser, working for the ruin of western civilization. Senator Henry Ashurst of Arizona dubbed the Wobblies "Imperial Wilhelm's Warriors." With the advent of the Russian Revolution in 1917, IWW-ism became more closely associated in the public mind with Bolshevism.

The disregard for individual freedoms, the increasing intolerance toward aliens, minorities and political dissidents, and the misguided patriotic spirit which flourished during wartime should have diminished after the hostilities ended in Europe. Yet, when the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918, the nationalistic

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fervor continued unabated. The termination of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson's "war to end all wars" did not bring the peace and tranquility Americans expected. The transition from war to peace would not come easy. Postwar economic and social problems spoiled the fruits of victory. Business and labor clashed; unemployment and inflation plagued the economy; and labor strikes and race riots erupted in many major cities.

During the war, Big Business had erased much of its tarnished reputation and enhanced its strength and public acceptance. Labor unions also gained increasing support, and enjoyed the benefits of high wartime wages, in addition to achieving a temporary eight-hour work day. Washington's power expanded too, leaving the government in control of the country's communication and transportation systems and theoretically regulating every aspect of America's economy. Organized labor sought to retain its wartime gains. And although the majority of the workers received high wartime wages, pay had not kept pace with the rapid inflation. Thus, unions demanded wage increases, as well as a permanent eight-hour day and better working conditions. Labor leaders also pushed for continued federal regulation of both the economy and Big Business.

In 1919 businessmen wanted a return to normalcy, to a time before Big Labor and government interference. They desired freedom from government's wartime regulation, from labor union demands, and from public responsibility. Troubled by high taxes, spreading radicalism and government ownership, the business community launched an attack on organized workers and Big Government. Labor responded with a series of strikes beginning in January 1919. The clash between business and labor forced the American public to choose sides, and by 1919 most Americans sided with business.

An ailing postwar economy led by the high cost of living as well as runaway inflation became the immediate cause of social discontent. From 1914 to 1919 the cost of living had doubled. After the armistice the Wilson Administration abruptly cut all government spending and the chaotic demobilization which followed caught Americans by surprise. Cancellation of government contracts forced wartime industries to lay off their workers, creating mass unemployment. American workers faced a serious economic recession by 1919.

With the collapse of Germany in November 1918, Americans continued to need some release for the nationalistic frenzy fostered by the Creel Committee. For most Americans, the Great War had been too brief. Hostilities ended in Europe sooner than expected, leaving many citizens full of unreleased patriotic emotions. The sudden halt of the war can be equated with a state of “coitus interruptus”. Americans had indulged in the act of intercourse with the "Whore of the World," and suddenly the war ended and the whore vanished. The aggressive nationalism

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of wartime could not be turned off as easily as it had been turned on. The armistice did not end the ideological war on the home front.

The defeat of the German Hun cleared by way to concentrate on the "enemies" at home, and the drive for conformity and 100% Americanism continued. Fear of Bolshevism and domestic radicals replaced the hatred of the Hun. Instead of diminishing the anti-radical hysteria and demand for 100% Americanism, the war's end only intensified it. With economic abnormalities, the capital-labor dispute and the explosive national mood the stage was set for America's first Red Scare.

As opposed to America's "Red Scare" of the late 1940s and 1950s, the Red Scare of 1919-1920 erupted during the early months following the armistice which ended the First World War. Hysteria gained momentum throughout the spring and summer of 1919, and climaxed in January 1920. By mid-1920 the illiberal frenzy had fizzled.

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 had a profound effect on the American people. Stories of communist atrocities filled column after column in America's newspapers. Details of mass executions by the communists, along with the horrors of the European war, convinced Americans of the Red Menace. Millions of otherwise rational Americans listened to ugly rumors of a huge radical conspiracy and feared a Red Revolution in the United States. A series of domestic and world events convinced many Americans that the U.S. stood on the brink of its own Bolshevik. No longer willing to tolerate socialists, communists and foreign-born radicals, Americans took swift and decisive action to combat the growing Red threat.

Bolshevik uprisings plagued Bavaria and Hungary, and threatened Italy and France. In March 1919 the Communist Third Internationale in Moscow drafted plans to promote civil war and world revolution. Social unrest in the U.S. had little to do with a world-wide communist conspiracy. Nevertheless, the American people made the most preposterous connections between foreign and domestic dangers, and responded by crushing what they believed were Bolshevik-inspired strikes, suppressing radical publications, and clamoring for the wholesale deportation of alien "reds."

Ironically, the federal government's wartime repression had eliminated the majority of domestic radicals, leaving few politically active in the postwar states. In 1919 no more than 100,000 members, or .001 percent of the adult population, belonged to the two American Communist parties. Labor strikes, radical bombings, race riots, and Red demonstrations further compounded America's postwar fears. Strike activity in 1919 alone involved four million American workers in 3,600 strikes. During the Boston police strike, the little-known

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Governor of Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge, reflected the feelings of American people when he declared, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." Employers continually fed the antiunion sentiment by purposefully equating all strike activity with revolutionary radicalism. The anxieties of the Red Scare seriously damaged organized labor, including the moderate American Federation of Labor. In reality, most workers struck for legitimate reasons. Wages had not kept pace with wartime inflation and after the Armistice, most industries had returned to the traditional ten- to twelve-hour work day. During the fall of 1919 coal miners, and iron and steel workers struck to achieve increased wages and better working conditions. In Seattle, shipyard workers struck in an effort to equalize all wages paid by shipyard owners. Boston's "finest", its policemen walked out, hoping to achieve higher wages and recognition for their union. In each case the strikers lost. Public officials, like Seattle's Mayor Ole Hanson, denounced the workers as "Bolsheviks" and utilized the National Guard to suppress the "Bolshevik-inspired" demonstrations.

More dramatic events plagued American society. In April 1919 a bomb was discovered in Mayor Hanson's mail. The next day a bomb addressed to Senator Thomas A. Hardwick blew off the hands of a domestic servant in Atlanta. A mail clerk in New York discovered sixteen parcels containing "infernal machines" addressed to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and other government officials and industrialists. All together thirty-six packages turned up. A few weeks later several bombs exploded, one in front of Attorney General Palmer's Washington home, blowing a man, presumably the bomber, to pieces. Although the bombings were largely the work of criminal fanatics, actions like the veteran's raid on the New York Call socialist newspaper office, the Cleveland May Day Riot, and the Centralia Washington Massacre, were planned by overzealous patriots, paranoid dissidents, or overreacting citizens.

With each new frightening event, America's fear of the "Red Menace" increased. Public figures and the media reflected this concern. Senator Kenneth D. McKellar of Tennessee advocated sending native-born radicals to a penal colony in Guam. Evangelist Billy Sunday wanted to stand all the "ornery wild-eyed Socialists and IWWs" in front of a firing squad. The Tacoma (Washington) Leader crudely demanded,

"We must smash every un-American and anti-American organization in the land. We must put to death the leaders of this gigantic conspiracy of murder, pillage, and revolution. We must imprison for life all its aiders and abettors of native birth. We must deport all aliens."

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Various governmental agencies responded to the anti-"red" clamor. In New York, the Lusk Committee of the State Assembly authorized a raid on the Communist headquarters. The Committee's investigation led to the eventual arrest of hundreds of Bolsheviks and "fellow-travelers." The federal government also acted. In November and December of 1919 and in January of 1920 the Justice Department led by Attorney General Palmer and special investigator John Edgar Hoover conducted a series of "Red Raids" and arrested thousands of alien radicals. Believing that the United States stood on the brink of revolution, Palmer and his assistants ignored fundamental human and civil rights. Many arrests took place without warrants. Suspected communists were seized in their homes and jailed, often without any knowledge of the specific charges against them. In Detroit, authorities herded over a hundred men into a bullpen measuring twenty-four by thirty feet and kept them there for a week under intolerable conditions. In Hartford, overzealous officials took the further precaution of arresting and incarcerating all visitors who came to see the suspects.

The American public supported the "Palmer Raids" and the removal of alien radicals. Utilizing the power given by the Immigration Act of 1917, the Labor and Justice Departments cooperated in the first deportation of 249 anarchists, including the notorious Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The ship, dubbed the "Soviet Ark," left for Russia on December 21, 1919. Constantine M. Panunzio, in a study of these cases, argued that,

"To deport a person merely for the possession of ideas, however objectionable, is not only an illiberal, but a wholly futile, method of directing intellectual development."

According to Panunzio the majority of those deported were hard working Russian and Ukrainian immigrants with families who have lived in the United States from six to ten years. Only a small minority of those exiled could be called "dangerous radicals."

Gradually, opposition to these practices emerged. Twenty-two New York clergymen denounced the "deportation delirium," while one U.S. district attorney resigned in protest. Acting Labor Secretary Louis F. Post held up these proceedings, and released most of the six thousand prisoners against Attorney General Palmer's wishes. Palmer retaliated by calling Post a "Bolshevik." Mounting opposition and legal obstacles caused the movement to quickly subside, but only after 556 had been deported.

Society's intolerance did not limit itself to the purging of Eastern European immigrants. During the war, blacks and other disadvantaged groups had experienced unprecedented economic gains. The army had siphoned millions of men from the labor market creating a huge labor shortage, and with immigration

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reduced to a trickle, blacks migrated form the rural South to the industrial centers of the North to fill wartime jobs. As more and more blacks came into contact with whites, racial conflicts erupted. In 1917 for example, a bloody riot gripped East St. Louis, leaving forty blacks clubbed, beaten, stabbed or hanged. A series of race riots continued throughout the war. With the return of America's soldiers many employers fired the unwanted blacks and whites, and contributed substantially to black unemployment and poverty.

Following World War I, race riots broke out in several cities, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Omaha, Tulsa, and Knoxville. Hundreds of lives were lost. In addition, the number of blacks lynched rose from thirty-six in 1917 to seventy-seven in 1919. The meteoric revival of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s symbolized and embodied this increased nativism and racism.. The new Klan defended white against black, gentile against Jew, and Protestant against Catholic.

The agonies and sacrifices of the First World War and its aftermath along with the threat of a communist conspiracy, had elicited from Americans strong feelings of superpatriotism and xenophobia. This nationalistic and nativistic emotion triggered increasing intolerance of political dissidents, prejudice towards minorities and a flagrant disregard for human rights. Confronted with a mounting concern over radicalism, labor strikes, runaway inflation, and high unemployment, American society capitulated to the postwar Red Scare.

Chapter 2: The Nevada ExperienceThe Red Scare contagion which plagued American society in 1919 also infected Nevada. Nevadans had experienced the emotional trauma of World War I and responded with nationalistic fervor and increased intolerance. Reading daily reports of Bolshevik atrocities, Nevadans also came to fear a Communist revolution. High inflation, labor unrest and widespread unemployment disrupted the local economy and intensified the social dislocations and growing public apprehensions. Finally, the press heightened local fears and frustrations by warning of a pervasive "spirit of lawlessness" and devoting extensive coverage to labor problems, radical bombings, and mob violence at the national level.

A fear of Bolshevism mingled with the war's leftover emotions to dominate the minds of most Nevadans during the Red Scare. The state's "yellow press" reported extensively on the advance of this "menace of the world," and devoted considerable space to the growing hysteria at home. Even though the U.S. Justice Department reported in January 1919 that Bolshevism showed "no promise of reaching a stage of open disorder" in the United States, many Nevadans remained terrified. Newspapers utilized scare tactics in an effort to arouse citizens and prevent "anarchy" from destroying Nevada's "free institutions." Publication of the so-called "Cardinal Principles of

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Bolshevism" further reinforced everyone's worst fears that Bolshevism advocated high wages, no work, no punishment, no taxation and the confiscation of personal property.

The editor of the Battle Mountain Scout, Mrs. Alice L. Haworth, reduced the sources of the Bolshevik danger in America to "the over-educated college theorist and the under-educated toiler who takes his ideas form the soapboxer." "Neither of then," Haworth continued, "is a taxpayer." Her solution to the Bolshevik problem was to make these people go "out into the open and (do) some real work."

Others, such as William W. Booth, editor of the Tonopah Daily Bonanza had more "effective" remedies: "The proper punishment for every fellow who says he's a bolshevik, (should be) to make him go and live right among 'em." By the Fall of 1919 many Nevadans agreed with Booth that "there is no place in the United States for . . . enemies of the government." Hence, the only practical solution became, in the popular expression of the day, "ship or shoot."

Like most Americans, Nevadans became caught up in the emotional rhetoric and they clamored for the deportation of "Red." They believed as the Nevada State Journal put it, that "if Boshevism is as good as it is cracked up to be," why not deport the American Bolsheviks to Russia? This irrational and narrow-minded rhetoric typified the mood of Nevadans during the Red Scare. They assumed that everyone with non-conforming or nontraditional political beliefs was "un-American" and therefore a "menace."

Consequently, they felt the sooner "Bolsheviks" and "traitors" could be either imprisoned or deported, the sooner the welfare of the United States would be ensured. Some Nevadans expressed concern that Communist Russia would unite with Germany and rise against the world. Nevadans wanted to preserve and protect their investment in the war effort; almost five thousand Nevada boys had served in the armed forces and 120 had been killed.

(NOTE: an epidemic of Spanish influenza swept across the United States during the winter of 1918-1919. By February over 125 thousand Americans perished from the disease, more lives lost in the war. The flu killed over 600 Nevadans. Certainly, these deaths along with the casualties of war further aggravated the emotional instability of postwar Nevada.)

The weekly casualty lists in the newspapers and perennial Victory Bond drives only fanned the flames of hatred toward the Germans and prolonged the sadness and tragedy of the war. While stories of the stalled peace negotiations and the German atrocities filled Nevada's newspapers, advertisements and posters urged Nevadans: "Don't Be A Slacker - - Buy Victory Bonds." Editorials depicted the German "Hun" as subhuman, militaristic and cunning. A typical column described the "Hun" as "the world's real yellow peril." As in other states, hostility toward the German "Beast" turned inward and Nevadans directed their bigotry toward the alien immigrants and "slackers" who refused to support America's crusade against Germany. Indeed, citizens

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branded anyone criticizing the U.S. as "German" or "un-American." Patriotic groups appealed to all loyal Americans and "hun killers" to prevent "slackers" from spreading anti-American propaganda.

The case of Tony Denati of Dayton provides an excellent example of the prevailing intolerance toward "slackers." Federal officials has arrested Denati in June 1918 on the charge of "obstructing the sale of war stamps," a direct violation of the Espionage Act of 1918. Witnesses at the trial in March 1919 testified that Denati believed "Germany did right in sinking the Lusitania." Furthermore, Denati had declared that the war was a "rich man's war." Given the intolerant postwar mood in Nevada, certainly Denati's statements as much as his actions led to his conviction, although he had posed no threat to America's war effort in Europe.

Nevada's irregular postwar economy and soaring inflation prompted citizens to search for scapegoats to hold responsible for the high cost of living. The editors of the Reno Evening Gazette and the Battle Mountain Scout blamed "profiteers" and "hoarders" for the economic woes, and labeled them as "Judas," although one editor did note that "Judas had the grace to hang himself." To combat rising prices, citizens appointed committees to investigate profiteering by local merchants, and wore home-made overalls, the "common rainment for the common people," at work and social events. Nevada's rampant inflation had actually resulted from the war. The conflict had brought an artificial prosperity to the state by increasing the demand for copper, silver and other metals. By 1918 Nevada's annual mineral production had reached $48 million, nearly two million dollars more than the heyday of Virginia City's Comstock lode during the 1870s. World War I had also stimulated agriculture in Nevada. Sugar and honey production, for instance, became increasingly profitable, as Nevada farmers shipped more overseas. The state's ranchers sent meat and horses to American soldiers and European allies, while sheepherders supplied wool for uniforms and clothing. Although the war had greatly increased the demand for Nevada's agricultural and mining products, this ceased with the armistice in 1918.

President Wilson's chaotic national demobilization abruptly cut mining activity in Nevada and also brought sharp declines in livestock and farm prices. Because the economies of the state's small towns relied heavily on these industries, many people suffered. Nevadans felt betrayed. They had fought and sacrificed to make the "world safe for Democracy," only to see their own well-being seemingly threatened. One returning doughboy in New York City remarked, "We fought for democracy, and what we got was prohibition and influenza." In his message to the 1919 Nevada legislature, Governor Emmett Boyle warned that postwar economic readjustments would be necessary if Nevadans wished to preserve their way of life, and he pointed out the the "greatest immediate problem" of the postwar period would be unemployment.

While falling prices and unemployment helped create a wave of intolerance in the state, the enactment of prohibition laws contributed to the rising social problem of "lawless and disorderly

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defense of law and order." Prohibition measures were passed primarily to conserve grain during the war, but with the patriotic necessity eliminated these statutes became difficult to enforce. Many Nevadans refused to obey them, thereby creating a postwar atmosphere of disobedience in the the state. The war's end had also produced a significant transient population which contributed to the climate of restlessness and turmoil. Thousands of unemployed workers and ex-soldiers wandered from town to town, some searching for jobs, others seeking excitement. Tonopah represented a typical postwar Nevada mining community. Many of the drifters, vagrants and con-artists who took up temporary residence committed burglary, vandalism, petty larceny and other crimes.

Opposition to prohibition and the general social dislocation produced a clamor for social control in the state. The threat of Bolshevism and the occurrence of national strikes, riots and bombings, made people increasingly intolerant of criminal behavior in Nevada. In response to the rising crime and "anarchy," Nevadans demanded law and order, and organized vigilante committees and "law and order" campaigns. They urged public officials to declare war on bootleggers, gamblers and prostitutes. Looking for scapegoats, Nevadans blamed criminal activity on the IWWs, agitators and other "troublemakers." Reno police escorted employed drifters out of town while Elko citizens called for an "anti-loafing" law similar to New York's. In an effort to reduce fatal accidents and crime, a small minority of Nevadans supported legislation to stop the private sale of guns.

In Tonopah, one newspaper launched a law and order campaign, reporting all unsolved crimes and urging citizens' hel to combat the crime wave. This action provoked a violent response, not from Tonopah's "lawless" element, but ironically from the police force. Indeed, Police Chief Jack Grant assaulted the paper's editor after ordering him to "cut it out." During Grant's trial, defense witnesses asserted that he was right to assail the editor, especially since the newspaper had called Tonopah's police force "slackers." Sympathizing with Grant's indignation, the jury acquitted him. Despite the verdict, Tonopah's law and order crusade continued. Eventually, the town's business community intervened and organized the Tonopah Law Enforcement League to crack down on bootleggers and illegal gamblers. The "law and order" frenzy became a key political issue throughout the 1920s.

The Nevada press' coverage of national events contributed significantly to the state's heightened fear and apprehension during the postwar period. Accounts of mob violence and labor unrest expressed in highly emotional rhetoric convinced many Nevadans that "radicalism" would soon spread to their state.

In early 1919 the state's newspapers alerted citizens to what looked like a revolutionary takeover by radical labor in Seattle, Washington. On February 6, sixty thousand Seattle workers paralyzed the city by calling a general strike. Although the laborers had struck for higher wages, shorter hours, and the right to bargain collectively, Nevada's press labeled Seattle's walkout "an

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experiment in Russian Bolshevism," declared it "without much merit," and believed it had "no place in the history of the American people." After Seattle mayor Ole Hanson mobilized the national guard to "crush the reds," Nevada's newspapers praised his "courageous" efforts to protect the city from the "enemies of society" and prevent it from becoming "a battlefied for IWWs or Bolshevists."

Nevadans were further warned of the danger of radical domination in the West by reports of the Centralia, Washington episode in November 1919. Centralia's Armistice Day parade erupted into a clash between American Legionnaires and members of the IWW when the marching veterans and rerouted their parade to purposely pass the IWW headquarters. Anticipating this move Wobbly leaders had stationed armed members inside the hall and on rooftops overlooking the street. When paraders arrived, a group of Legionnaires rushed the hall door. They were met with a flurry of bullets leaving four Legionnaires and several Wobblies dead. After the bloody melee, officials arrested the IWWs. That night an enraged mob hauled one Wobbly agitator, a veteran himself, out of jail ad castrated him. They then dragged him behind a car, hanged him from a bridge, and shot him full of holes. Later, the coroner determined that cause of death to be "suicide."

The Centralia Massacre triggered a violent reaction from Nevada's press, which labeled the "wholesale murder of citizens" as a "cowardly plot . . . executed by a lot of fools." Editors endorsed the "lynch law" and believed that "no regret" could be expressed; the shots fired at Centralia "have been heard over the entire country," and should "awaken Americans to take steps to end IWW-ism . . . whenever and wherever it shoves its snaky head above ground." According to the press, "The spirit of IWW-ism, of Bolshevism, or anarchy, is in the air," and they predicted that "blood may flow in our streets." After Centralia, the press and patriotic groups in Nevada clamored for the arrest and deportation of all "un-American, disloyal, disturbing, radical, or destructive individuals." In December 1919 the U.S. Justice Department began to arrest and deport "alien reds." Newspapers praised the government's action: "Uncle Sam is doing the right thing in sending undesirable citizens back to Russia"; these radicals "should be deported in a leaky boat with the pumps clogged." When 249 radicals left on the "Soviet Ark," Nevadans bid them "Good Riddance." In a particularly bewildering Christmas message the Sparks Tribune wrote: "The Justice Department is cleaning the Nation of the citizens of other climes who teach and preach against our government and the best ideals of Christianity . . . Let greed, envy, malice, and hatred be cast into the junk pile for the day, at least."

As Nevada's press also fueled passions with irrational denunciations of Socialists and other political nonconformists, Nevadans freely denounced all Socialists as "Bolshevists" or "traitors." One "traitor" who provoked the wrath of citizens was the Socialist, Congressman-elect Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin. In early 1919 Congress refused to seat this duly elected representative from Milwaukee. Although the House's decision violated the principle of representative government,

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the vast majority of Nevadans supported the ruling. The press' attack on Berger's radical beliefs reveals the inflammatory role of the third estate within Nevada. The Sparks Tribune insisted that Berger "should never be allowed to again participate in the benefits of liberty, let alone be mentioned in the same breath with Congress." Reno's Evening Gazette called Berger's election a "disgrace," and denounced Berger as one "who speaks English with the gutteral accent of the enemy."

The Gazette urged the federal government to deport Berger along with "all other offensively active alien born citizens." The paper also declared: "Victor L. Berger, felon, is no more eligible to a seat in Congress than a yellow dog would be."

In a special election to choose a replacement, Milwaukee voters again selected the controversial Socialist. Nevada's press was outraged, denouncing the voters as "a menace to the nation." In fact the Nevada State Journal 's editor called for the disenfranchisement of Berger's supporters: "The country should know each man who voted for Berger, then it would be possible to disenfranchise those who deliberately put into jeopardy the welfare of the country by . . . casting a ballot (for) an avowed enemy of American institutions." After Congress again refused to seat Berger, Wisconsin's governor declined to call another election. In response, the Yerington Times congratulated the Governor "for refusing to waste money by returning to Congress a man wasteful to that body." Milwaukee voters went unrepresented in Congress until the 1920 election.

Another Socialist, Eugene V. Debs, also provoked Nevada's reactionary press. Following his conviction in 1918 for violation of the Espionage Act, Debs and his supporters sought a presidential pardon from President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson refused, forcing Debs to remain in the federal penitentiary at Atlanta. Nevada's Republican newspapers labeled Debs an "avowed revolutionist," and believed his sympathizers should be forced to join him in prison, so they too could "study the difference between 100 percent Americanism and rotten pretensions."

The press' treatment of former Nevadan Louise Bryant, the wife of American Communist leader John Reed, further illustrates Nevada's hostility toward political nonconformists. Ms. Bryant, after a trip to Bolshevik Russia, wrote a book entitled Six Red Months in Russia . (NOTE: Ms. Bryant was raised in Wadsworth, Nevada and spent her first two college years at the University of Nevada in Reno. In 1919 her stepfather, Sheridan Bryant, was a conductor for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Ms. Bryant's relationship with John Reed was depicted in Warren Beatty's film "Reds.") The press immediately branded the former University of Nevada student a "revolutionary." In response to this criticism, Ms. Bryant, in a letter to the Reno Evening Gazette wrote, "I have never written a revolutionary pamphlet in my life." Bryant's opposition to American intervention in Russia and claim that the Bolshevik Revolution was "like the American civil war," infuriated people. To many Nevadans, radicals like Bryant, Berger, and Debs symbolized the foreign "plot" to overthrow democracy.

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Most of the factors that had produced the Red Scare on the national scene were also present in Nevada. Economic and social dislocations combined with pent up wartime emotions to produce anxiety and frustration. Disoriented and apprehensive, Nevadans viewed Bolshevik activities with a wary eye. When the press fanned the flames of this mounting hysteria with sensational accounts of national events, Nevadans began to last out at the "un-American" groups in their midst.

Chapter 3: Response to Immigrants and SocialistsImmigrants and Socialists were two of the principal groups on whom many Nevadans focused their intolerance during the Red Scare. In fact the attacks on Wobblies, Socialists and other political radicals, developed in part from older patterns of prejudice and hostility toward immigrants and minorities. Since the 1880s Americans had worried about immigration, especially the new tide flowing in from Southern and Eastern Europe. Westerners, including Nevadans, also had grave concerns over the influx of Asians. Native-born citizens considered these "new immigrants" racially and culturally inferior, and believed they would never make "good and loyal Americans." Thus, a major problem arose over how to rid the country of unassimilated and supposedly unassimilable foreigners.

Immigrants migrated to the United States hoping to escape overcrowded cities, industrial and agricultural depressions, and religious and political persecution. With hopes of obtaining high paying jobs, buying land, and eventually improving their social and economic status, they settled in ethnic ghettos with others from their homeland. Like most American cities, Nevada's communities had their own "Austrian Town," "Greek Town," and "Jap Town."

In 1919 over one-third of Nevada's population had foreign backgrounds. Nevadans, like most Americans, made sharp distinctions between the original Anglo-Saxon settlers and the "new immigrants" from Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, other Slavic countries, and Asia. The newcomers had generally darker complexions and spoke little or no English; they remained isolated from Nevada's general population, established their own newspapers and ethnic societies, and practiced Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Jewish faiths. Proud of their heritage, they celebrated their national and religious holidays in hopes of preserving the Old World traditions for their children.

Hostility toward the foreign-born arose for a variety of reasons. Nevadans disliked the perpetuation of Old World customs and traditions, believing the United States to be "superior to . . . any nation." They also felt the newcomers instigated labor strikes, violated prohibition laws, and helped create the postwar atmosphere of radicalism and lawlessness. Furthermore, since most immigrants worked for lower wages, Nevadans believed the American laborer would be reduced to the level of the European or Asian peasant. The Las Vegas Age declared, "Our men

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should not be required to work with and compete with the alien element," and citizens agreed that jobs in Nevada were meant for "Americans only."

In early 1919 the Sparks Tribune declared, "One Hundred Percent Americanism . . . should be the slogan of the times. . . . The man who cannot register one hundred percent Americanism is not a desirable citizen at any time." The chief purveyor of "100% Americanism" in Nevada was the American Legion, which also vowed to "uphold and defend the Constitution, . . . maintain law and order, . . . (and) combat the autocracy of both the classes and the masses." Formed in 1919 by World War veterans, this organizations preached the virtues of "courage, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood," and adopted Theodore Roosevelt's racist rhetoric condemning "hyphenated-Americans." Legionnaires also demanded "unquestioned loyalty" to America's flag and institutions, and embarked on a campaign to eradicate foreign influence on American life.

Nevada's Legion played an instrumental role in suppressing radical activity in Nevada. For their efforts, the Nevada press proclaimed the state's 1,590 Legionnaires the "backbone of the nation," and expected "all men eligible (to become) members . . . of this patriotic organization." The Legion's determination to "hit IWW hard" and "purge" organized labor's ranks of the "Bolshevik menace," made the group immensely popular in Nevada. Citizens and the press adopted the Legion's patriotic rhetoric and supported their campaign for "100% Americanism." The Reno Evening Gazette declared, "If a man is loyal to any other flag . . . he is disloyal to the Stars and Stripes," while the Nevada State Journal exclaimed, "The citizens of this country must be all Americans or nothing." People suspected of not placing "America First" in their hearts and thoughts were labeled "slackers" or "un-American."

The concept of "un-American" is a strange phenomenon arising from the intolerance of World War I and the Red Scare. As historian David Shannon observed, there is no such thing as "un-Norwegian," and the "idea that something is un-French would seem as strange to the ear of a Parisian as the idea of un-Americanism." Nevertheless, Nevadans and the press branded picketing, ethnic societies, "aliens," critics, and reformers as "un-American." The editors of Nevada's newspapers emphatically supported the divisions between patriots and traitors: "Let us respect the one and destroy the other." The Reno Evening Gazette, in a precursor to the 1960s "America Love It or Leave It" slogan, announced: "If these noisy aliens do not like the way Americans run America, let them go back to the countries whence they came."

Nevadans were particularly disturbed with German-Americans, considering them "enemy aliens" who had maintained dual loyalties during the war. Confident that these Germans had upheld their allegiance to their native land during the War, the press branded them "cowardly, disgraceful and un-patriotic" and believed the United States should forever bar "those aliens who . . . neither (fought) for their mother country nor fought for this country . . . (and) bar from citizenship every man who evaded the service." Nevada ridiculed the Germans for keeping their Old World ideas, prejudices, and "Kultur," and suspected that the only solutions was to "get rid of them."

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Nevadans' hostility was not limited to "Huns." Eight Spanish and Mexican "aliens" who refused to join America's army were "forever barred" from becoming citizens of the U.S. by a judge in March 1919.

Nevadans like most Americans advocated three solutions to the "alien problem": deportation, restriction, and "Americanization." Although citizens urged the government to deport foreigners who were not "100% American" and other "un-American" citizens, Nevadans realized deportation would never work on a large scale.

Therefore, they advocated immigration restriction and "Americanizing" those foreigners who remained. The Goldfield Daily Tribune wrote, "Let us keep this country pure . . . . We are more than a spawning ground for the insane and the defectives of the world . . . . We do not want the demoralized elements of Europe . . . . Let us keep America free and let us purify it rather than to further befoul it with those who at heart despise us and our institutions." Other newspapers joined the cry that the United States cannot afford to be made "the dumping ground for Europe's human wreckage" or "the pauperized element of other nations." Advocating restrictions on further immigration to the U.S., the Reno Evening Gazette wished to halt the onslaught of new immigrants who it considered "ignorant" and "mentally untrained for Americanism," and "too much for the melting pot." The Reese River Revielle stated that now was the time to "dam the stream of cheap labor, before it damns us."

Patriotic groups like the American Legion, the United War Veterans, and Reno's United Americans led the clamor for barring the immigration door. All three groups prohibited all "aliens," even veterans, from joining their ranks, advocated deporting non-citizens, anarchists, Bolshevists, and "other undesirables," and believed the United States did not need a dangerous alien population that refused to go through the "melting pot" process. They urged Congress to close the immigration door, to give America time to "digest the mass" it had swallowed.

One Hundred Percenters were dedicated to preserving "the American way of life," maintaining the status quo, and fostering a spirit of conformity. They had little toleration for "hare-brained" reforms, and agreed with one stalwart patriot who remarked, "Individualism? Down with all Isms." One Hundred Percenters attempted to eliminate all remnants of the immigrants' Old World culture, and melt them into the monolithic mold labeled "100% Americanism." To accomplish this task, patriotic organizations established "Americanization" programs to teach American ideals to both foreigners and citizens. The Battle Mountain Scout confidently declared, "The best preventative and cure of Bolshevism is education in American citizenship. A boy or girl who is reared under the influence . . . (of) Americanism . . . will never be a revolutionist." (Our Founding Fathers would have been proud.) Great pressure was exerted on the newcomer to adopt native customs and develop an appreciation for American institutions. Nevada's courts ordered prospective citizens to enroll in "Americanization" classes.

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One objective of the "Americanization" movement was to emphasize the teaching of English. Many Nevadans believed enforcing the instruction of English along with a "doctrine of true Americanism" would eliminate radicalism. The editor of the Winnemucca Silver State wrote, "Find a radical and nine times out of ten he can't speak good English." Public officials and editors advocated other "solutions" to the "melting pot" problem, the Bolshevik threat, and labor unrest: mandatory education, industrial training, instilling "thrift," saluting the flag, and teaching the Constitution.

As the teaching of English was the One Hundred Percenters' primary goal, the state legislature in 1919 passed a law prohibiting the instruction of German or other languages in Nevada's elementary schools. This measure appealed to advocates of "no frills education." The legislature also banned the employment of non-citizens on public works, barred foreigners from filing mining claims and holding water and grazing rights, outlawed interracial marriages, illegal cohabitation, and boxing matches between whites and members of "colored" races. Nevada's "anti-alien" laws produced the desired effect; immigrants either became "Americanized" by filing for citizenship or left the state. Editors rejoiced at the "exodus" of Austrian, Italian, Greek and Oriental immigrants. Ironically, this exodus created a severe shortage of "menial laborers," farmhands, mechanics, and road construction workers throughout the state. The exodus of immigrants from the state was in part due to the strict enforcement of prohibition laws. The Nevada State Journal wrote, "If national prohibition will keep foreigners . . . from coming here . . . it is a good law if for no other reason."

The Japanese were the one significant immigrant group not given the option of Americanization. Nevada's hostility toward the Japanese went far beyond any fears warranted by their number: in 1919 only 754 lived in the state. Japanese had resided in Nevada since the 1890s, and from the beginning had the distinct disadvantage of being neither European or Caucasian. Like most newcomers, they worked for low wages. In January 1919 when Nevada Consolidated Copper Company laid off white workers, they hired several Japanese at lower pay. Nevada's miners were enraged and claimed they could not compete with "coolie" labor. The Tonopah Daily Bonanza labeled the Japanese "a pest of the worst kind" and a "cootie" who "propagates like rabbitry." The Sparks Tribune agreed, declaring, "We don't want the Jap for our neighbor and we don't want the Jap for the associate of our children. . . . (In three years) he will probably be occupying the house adjacent to yours and his friends will live on the other side of you." Other papers condemned the "yellow menace," stating that the Japanese "are not the racial equal of the white man and never will be. Nevadans seized upon the fact that U.S. law prohibited the Japanese and other Orientals from becoming citizens as still another justification to "get rid of the Jap."

Nevadans urged Congress to close the door on the "Japs," while the state's attorney general recommended legislation barring them from owning or leasing land. Churchill County's Commercial Club demanded that the "colored people" should not "let the sunshine on (their)

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yellow hides here," and refused to allow the "little yellow men" to step off the train. In Las Vegas and Sparks, union members barred the Japanese from membership and urged employers to hire "white men only." Many communities closed Japanese laundries and drove their Oriental populations out of town. This fervent "anti-Jap" clamor eventually led to a law in 1921 prohibiting the purchase of land in Nevada by persons "ineligible for citizenship."

The state's growing hostility toward immigrants also colored its attitudes of "foreign" political ideologies, such as socialism. Nevadans like most Americans viewed socialism as an "un-American" Eastern European political philosophy. Many foreigners who had been socialists in Europe brought socialism with them to the United States. As David Shannon has observed, "The circumstances of living in a strange new land did not necessarily change the . . . immigrant's social and economic ideas and attitudes." Like the ethnic society and the church, the Socialist Party represented another way in which Nevada's newcomers maintained their Old World identity and traditions. Given the state's fanatical intolerance of "aliens" and foreign institutions, Nevada's Socialist Party became the chief political victim of the post war Red Scare.

Entering Nevada politics with the 1906 Election, the Socialist party thereafter profited from the reactionary behavior of both major parties. In 1908 Democratic governor John Sparks used federal troops to quell a Goldfield labor strike, and in 1912 Republican governor Tasker L. Oddie sent state troops to McGill during a labor dispute. Both incidents enraged Nevada's immigrant miners, and thousands of them joined the new Socialist party.

Nevada's Socialist party gained most of its new members from the Democrats. Socialist clubs sprang up in traditional Democratic strongholds throughout the state, with one of the strongest in Tonopah. In 1912 at the height of the party's popularity, Tonopah miners elected Socialist candidate Martin J. Scanlon to the state Senate and J. F. Lewis to the state Assembly. In that same election, Nevadans gave the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs, substantial support. Debs ran third behind Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, polling more votes than President Taft. Although Nevada's Socialists failed to win state elections after 1912, several were elected sheriff, justice of the peace and county assessor. If America had not entered the World War, the Socialist party might well have become a major force in Nevada politics. In 1914 the Socialist candidate for the United States Senate, A. Grant Miller, received over 20 percent of the vote, and in 1916 he polled almost a third of the vote in a race against Samuel Platt and the popular Key Pittman. However, the outbreak of World War severely damaged Socialist influence in Nevada.

In May 1916 socialists had founded a colony in Churchill County, four miles of Fallon. The community, called Nevada City, was located on land reclaimed by the Newlands Reclamation project. The colony's physical isolation made it an excellent place to preserve traditional socialist ideals and to create a socialist utopia. The strong anti-war stand of Nevada's Socialists helped the group politically and coincided with the Democratic party's attitude toward the war. During the

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election of 1916, thousands of American Socialists deserted their party's standard bearer to vote for the Democratic "peace" candidate, Woodrow Wilson.

With the outbreak of war, the Socialist party's persistent antimilitarism ceased to be a political asset. Nevada City's newspaper denounced Wilson's war and recommended Nevada as a haven for antiwar agitators and draft evaders. The colony became a refuge for pacifists, and the Draft Board listed one of the colony's members, Paul Walters, as a draft "dodger," and ordered Sheriff Mark Wildes of Fallon to arrest him. While attempting to do so, Sheriff Wildes was killed. A manhunt for Walters ensued, resulting in the killing of the young evader by bounty hunter "Skinny" Pascal. The antagonism toward the colony after the incident caused most the residents to leave. By 1918 only a few families remained at Nevada City, and a year later, the Socialist's Nevada Colony Corporation sold its 320 acres of farm land, officially ending Nevada's socialist utopia.

The general animosity toward "slackers" during the war, doomed Nevada's Socialist party. After the United States entered the war, many Socialists demonstrated a preference for patriotism over socialism. Several members of the colony left to join the army while others, such as Grant Miller took government positions. Miller, the Socialist party leader in Nevada, joined the Republican party in 1917 and turned to ferreting out subversive elements as the head of Nevada's wartime Defense Council. The Socialist party's decline was particularly evident in the elections of 1918 and 1920. In 1918 Martin J. Scanlon, the Socialist candidate for the Senate, received only 710 votes, less than three percent of the total. In the party's last election in 1920, the Socialist candidate received less than two percent of the vote.

By the outbreak of the Red Scare in 1919, a combination of outside pressures and internal dissension had dissolved the Socialist party's influence in Nevada. Nevada's antagonism toward local Socialists in the state was reinforced by radical activities on the national scene. Socialist leaders who preached pacifism and other "un-American" beliefs, like Eugene V. Debs and Victor L. Berger, provoked the public's wrath. To Nevadans, radicals like Debs and Burger, along with local Socialists, symbolized the Communist conspiracy to overthrow the United States. Citizens condemned all Socialists, and demanded that they renounce their radical philosophies and join traditional political parties. Those rejecting this option were told to leave the state, or suffer the consequences.

Although by 1919 Nevada Socialists played no active role in state elections, they remained active in local politics. In Tonopah, the Socialist candidates ran as independents and continued winning at least one office every election. Most of their support came from immigrants, miners and other members of the laboring class. This growth of "independent" support threatened the power of the conservative business community and the tradition of two-party politics in the town. Nevada's reactionary press struggled to undermine support for "independents" by equating the local Socialists with radicals and Bolsheviks. Editors branded the Socialists and their

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sympathizers "un-American" and denounced the party as "the greatest menace this country has to face." Obviously feeling the pressures of the anti-radical sentiment, the more moderate Tonopah Daily Times declared that the Socialist party had sprouted "an ultra radical" left wing which had drifted "far from their original ideals." In short, the Times believed the Socialist party had gone to the "bow-wows."

In January 1919 a Nye County state senate seat became vacant with the death of Tonopah's Senator James Wesley Stewart. County Republicans urged Governor Boyle to appoint Mrs. Oline Stewart to finish her husband's term. Boyle, a Democrat, ordered a special election. Fearing a contest against Harry Dunseath, a popular Socialist, the Republicans urged the Nye County Taxpayers Association to protest Boyle's decision as "too costly." Ignoring the protest, the state attorney issued a statement setting Tonopah's special election for January 17. While the Socialist party nominated Dunseath, a former Justice of the Peace, the Democrats joined the Republicans in supporting Mrs. Stewart. The Bonanza decried Dunseath's candidacy as "sinister," and an attempt "to thwart the wishes of the representative voters by foisting an interloper on the Nevada Senate."

The "budget-conscious" Taxpayers Association sought a temporary restraining order halting election preparations. The petition, filed by one George Christian, an ex-soldier, claimed he would lose his vote because military service prevented his registration in the last election. Judge Mark Averill of Tonopah agreed and granted a temporary injunction. Averill, who had been an outspoken critic of the special election, then disqualifies himself, leaving further decisions to Judge J. Emmett Walsh of Goldfield. On January 16, after hearing Christian's petition, Judge Walsh ordered a permanent injunction barring the special election in Nye County. Most citizens in Tonopah approved the decision. Nevertheless, the reactionary Bonanza, once in favor of the injunction, now disapproved, characterizing Walsh's ruling a "sinister plot" framed by "Bolshevists and IWWs." It was never clear if William W. Booth, the editor of the Bonanza, aimed his "sinister plot" label at the judge or the Socialists. In any event, the Bonanza's rival paper called Booth the "laughingstock" of Tonopah, and urged Judge Walsh to hold Booth in contempt for his remarks. When confronted with this perceived Socialist threat, Nevadans proved willing to suspend the electoral process.

In November 1920 the Socialist party entered its last Nevada election, nominating candidates for the United States Senate, Congress, three state Assembly seats and various county offices. Tonopah's Socialists ran Harry Dunseath for district attorney, William Thomas for sheriff, and four others as "independents." From the campaign's beginning the Socialists posed a serious problem for Tonopah's Republicans and Democrats. The Reno Evening Gazette gave the Socialists a good chance of winning. To exclude the popular independents from the November ballot, the state filed a petition with Judge E. T. Lunsford of Reno on behalf of Nye County's political parties questioning the legality of the Socialists' nominating petitions. Judge Lunsford barred the six independents from the election, causing the Bonanza to exclaim, "Had they filed as

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Socialists . . . instead of attempting to use the camouflage of independents, this question of law evasion would not have come up." The Bonanza concluded that the candidates were trying to escape the Socialist "stigma."Dunseath and Thomas appealed Lunsford's ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court which overturned the decision, stating the move was only to bar Socialists from the ballot. After a vicious campaign, Dunseath lost in a close election, while Thomas won by just nineteen votes. Other Socialist candidates in the state lost by substantial margins. This poor showing enabled the state attorney general, as prescribed by Nevada's election laws, to permanently remove the Socialist party from the ballot and ban its recognition as a distinct political party.

The experience of 1919-1920 of Nevada's immigrant population and Socialist party clearly illustrates the problems of those the state defined "un-American." The treatment of these groups ran the gamut from strident denunciation to repressive legislation and judicial harassment. However, their problems stopped short of the violence that occurred in other pasts of the country. While both groups were seen as undesirable when they refused to conform, neither was numerous enough to warrant physical attack. More extreme was the treatment Nevada reserved the group it perceived as most threatening: the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

Chapter 4: Labor and the Industrial Workers of the WorldAmerica's postwar recession and high cost of living thrust Nevada’s wage earners into economic chaos. Wartime "no strike" pledges and government controls had prevented wages from keeping pace with inflation. Nevada's workers toiled ten- to twelve-hour days under perilous working conditions, and received pay not much higher than during the 1870s. Laborers, becoming increasingly frustrated and disillusioned, formed unions to represent them. Most Nevadans were sympathetic to the workingman's plight, and urged employers to grant wage increases and upgrade working conditions.

However, Nevadans did distrust one union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Swept up in the national hysteria, Nevadans became obsessed with "communists" and plots to overthrow the country. Perceiving the IWW, or Wobblies as they were called, as a grave radical threat, citizens adamantly opposed IWW unions in the state. Ironically, minimal “Wobbly” activity existed in Nevada. Even so, its few IWW members were harassed, and small incidents were frequently distorted and exaggerated. Nevada's intolerance toward radicals contributed greatly to this harassment and eventually led to repressive measures, unbridled, eliminating Wobbly agitators in the state. Founded in 1905 by a group of prominent socialists, the Industrial (or International) Workers of the World was an effectively organized union challenging "the American way of life." Influenced by Marxian ideology, the Wobblies encouraged workers to overthrow the government, destroy capitalism, and seize the means of production. They preached the organization of all skilled and unskilled laborers into "One Big Union," and were especially attractive to poorly paid, badly treated, unskilled immigrant laborers. Primarily a western

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movement, the IWW gained much of its support from miners, lumberjacks, construction gangs and migratory farm hands. The unjust and oppressive working conditions these groups encountered made the I.W.W.'s unconventional methods highly attractive.

By espousing Marxist philosophies and advocating radical, social and political reform, Wobblies aroused many Americans' worst suspicions and fears. The union hoped to abolish the wage system, gain a six- hour workday and better working conditions, but their strong-arm tactics offended most Americans and alienated traditional organized labor. Wherever I.W.W.s attempted to mobilize workers, slowdown tactics, boycotts and general strikes resulted. Talk of revolution, along with scorn for the church and flag, symbols of the "unjust status quo," provoked the public's wrath. During World War I, anti-Wobbly employers associated the militant union with pro-Germanism and later radicalism and Bolshevism. Americans accused "Imperial Wilhelm's Warriors" of disrupting war production by spiking logs, wrecking machinery, burning haystacks, and carrying on widespread acts of subversion and violence.

Throughout the West, I.W.W.s suffered severe physical abuse from irate citizens for their lack of wartime patriotism and disruptive labor strikes. Tar and feathering of Wobbly members as well as flogging were common. State and federal officials raided IWW union halls, destroyed radical, literature and arrested hundreds as "enemy aliens." "Loyal" Americans even resorted to deporting and murdering Wobbly agitators. In 1917 the Bisbee (Arizona) Loyalty League rounded up 1,200 IWW and American Federation of Labor organizers and strikers at gunpoint, tried them by a "kangaroo court," and exiled them on a cattle train to the New Mexico desert. After being beaten and deprived of food and water for several days, the men were transported to a federal stockade. That same year, in Montana, the Butte copper companies' "hired guns" dragged a Wobbly agitator behind a car for several miles and hung him from a railroad trestle.

In December 1918 and January 1919 Nevada's newspapers reported extensively on IWW activity in neighboring states, convincing local citizens that a radical takeover was imminent. The Sacramento trial of forty-six Wobblies for violation of the Sabotage Act elicited widespread comment. The Reno Gazette's editor denounced these agitators as cowards who "attack in the dark, . . . stab in the back, and . . . murder from ambush." The Carson City Morning News advocated a "few legal hangings" to eliminate "murderers, bomb throwers, and sabotage followers"; the Daily Appeal asked, "Why not begin at home?" The press also reported strike activity in Jerome, Arizona, where IWW laborers closed down the town's mines and in Seattle where sixty thousand workmen, including 3,500 I.W.W.s, called a general strike. Nevada's newspapers also denounced the Butte, Omaha, San Francisco, Kansas City, Winnipeg, and New York City Wobblies, labeling them an "un-American bunch of reptiles" and "rattlesnakes," and "one big union -- of idlers." In 1919, Nevada's newspapers contain numerous descriptions of the Wobblies as "rattlesnakes," "vipers," and "reptiles."

The Reese River Reveille urged, "Now that we have a big army fully equipped and spoiling for a fight, wouldn't it be a good time to test out this Bolshevic (sic) IWW crowd and see . . . how far they will go." Other Nevadans suggested that the ultimate solution to the Wobbly problem was to "line them up against solid walls and perforate their hides with lead.'' As Nevadans became

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increasingly intolerant of America's two radical movements, the Socialist party and the Industrial Workers of the World, many Nevadans demanded drastic measures to combat "the red flag of anarchy and Bolshevism" and to destroy "IWWism."

Nevadans had experienced difficulties with the turbulent Industrial Workers of the World prior to World War I. At Goldfield between 1906-1908 and at McGill in 1912 clashes had erupted between IWW-led miners and the mine operators' "guards." Several deaths resulted, leaving a residue of extreme bitterness. The state's citizens also remembered Idaho Governor Frank Stuenenberg's assassination in 1907, the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times building in 1911, and the bombing deaths of ten people during a San Francisco parade in 1916. These three incidents were blamed on IWW agitators; Nevadans, like most Americans, were appalled by the radical union's flagrant acts of violence.

In January 1919 emotions ran high, and Nevadans feared Wobbly violence would soon spread to their state. Legislators responded by preparing punitive legislation designed to stifle Wobbly activity in the State. In early January a "Red Flag" bill was introduced to prohibit the "wearing or displaying of a red flag." Samuel Platt, a prominent politician, noted, "The only place for a red flag . . . is over a sewer." (By 1921, thirty-three states had enacted "Red Flag" laws.) Two weeks later the Senate proposed a Criminal Syndicalism bill, which declared any "doctrine which advocates or teaches crime, sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism, as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform," a felony punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment.

Although Nevada's organized labor opposed the Criminal Syndicalism bill, there was virtually no opposition from legislators or newspapers. Indeed, the press hailed it as "a very drastic measure'' that would "squelch any attempts to spread IWW Bolshevism in Nevada . . . and make hard going for the adherents of the red flag." The Reese River Reveille believed the law would "curb the activities of the violent dynamiting, barn burning lawbreakers," and purge the "evil doers" from organized labor's ranks. The Criminal Syndicalism Law passed both houses of the legislature with only one dissenting vote; the Senate tabled the "Red Flag" bill. (During the Red Scare, twenty-three states enacted criminal syndicalism laws.)

Legislators also introduced a compulsory Labor Arbitration bill, outlawing employer lockouts and employee strikes; a three-member investigation board would mediate labor disputes. The press endorsed the bill "to protect the public from exploitation by both selfish employers and dangerous agitators." It was, however, doomed from the start. "Big Business" resented forced negotiations with workers, and organized laborers wanted to retain their right to strike. In a rare example of agreement, Nevada's large mine companies and labor unions soundly defeated the Labor Arbitration bill in the Senate.

The last punitive measure designed "to curb the activities of Bolsheviks in Nevada" was the death penalty. Citizens fully expected the radical Wobblies to commit heinous crimes, and capital punishment would provide Nevadans appropriate retribution. Governor Emmett Boyle vetoed the bill in January, and although the legislators sustained his veto, they reintroduced the measure the following month. The bill was again passed, and the governor, bowing to public pressure,

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allowed capital punishment to become law. Ironically, in January 1919 little IWW activity existed in Nevada. Wartime repression had driven most IWW members "underground," and no significant Wobbly directed conflicts had occurred since an Ely strike in 1917.

Several minor labor incidents occurred in early January 1919. Although the IWW did not initiate these disputes, Nevadans, keenly aware of the IWWs disruptive potential, feared Wobbly infiltration and domination of the strikes. When Nevada Consolidated Copper Company laid off one thousand mine workers at Ruth, Ely, and McGill, and reduced wages, over a hundred employees walked off the job in protest. The miners subsequently agreed to return, but Nevada Consolidated managers flatly refused to reinstate the higher wages. The dispute remained unresolved months. Ely's Nevada Northern Railroad employees simultaneously demanded an increase of their four to five dollars daily wage, which was not much higher than that paid the Comstock miners during the 1870s. The railroad officials refused to meet the union representatives and continued laying off workers and reducing wages.

The corporations' uncompromising attitude produced much criticism from Nevada's press. The Tonopah Daily Bonanza believed the operators were helping "to breed a generation of anarchists and invited a reign of Bolshevism" in the state. Many Nevadans were hostile toward the state's large mining and railroad industries, considering them "outsiders" who had shown little social concern for the local community. They believed "Big Business'' was basically anti-union, suppressing the workingman's attempts to organize and strike by utilizing scabs, state police and federal troops. Many newspapers observed that the majority of Nevada's workers were "honest men," "steadfastly on the side of law and order," who had every right to strike for higher wages or better working conditions.

In fact, unlike most western states, Nevada supported traditional labor unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. Realizing that law-abiding workers who desired fair wages and improved working conditions initiated most walkouts, local citizens supported many legitimate strikes. A typical case was the successful strike of Reno Traction Company employees who wanted increased pay and a reduction in their twelve-hour work shift. Another involved the Reno Bell Telephone operators who, in addition to work- ing long hours, had not received a wage increase since 1917. Both occurred in June 1919 and enjoyed widespread public support, even though they paralyzed city services for a month. Las Vegas citizens demonstrated their pro-labor sentiments during a nationwide railroad tie-up by detaining a trainload of "strikebreakers" headed for Los Angeles. No violence resulted but union members did taunt the "strikebreakers" and parade them through the downtown streets.

To combat the state's pro-union posture, "Big Business" branded all labor activity and strikes as Wobbly inspired. Newspapers sympathetic to the capitalists' cause also attempted to convince citizens that labor agitation in Nevada was the work of the IWW or Bolshevists. The conservative press labeled anyone who undermined industrial conditions in Nevada a "yellow dog," and felt that in times of economic crisis workers should take pay cuts. They also compared strikes to "a small revolution." Nevadans, reading daily national accounts of "looting,

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destruction, and devastation, began expecting the state's labor tensions to explode into "bloodshed."

In reaction to the corporations' anti-IWW campaign, unions did everything possible to divorce themselves from the Wobbly stigma. The Reno and Sparks Labor and Trade Councils and the Sparks Railroad Brotherhoods resolved to "fight IWWism and Bolshevism" in Nevada. Since over seventy-five percent of the states labor force were non-union workers and highly susceptible to IWW agitation, labor leaders struggled to quickly organize as many industries as possible. Unions were formed to represent miners, cooks, waitresses, carpenters, and cowpunchers, and their representatives established a State Federation of Labor. By 1921 Nevada had one hundred non-IWW labor organizations with 6,337 members.

While Ely's mining and railroad conflicts remained unresolved, other disputes erupted involving sheep shearers, electricians, waitresses, and newsboys who demanded higher wages and an eight-hour day. Their requests were far from "radical"; still, Nevada's paranoia increased with each disturbance. Furthermore, after the nationwide radical bombing and "Red" riot frenzy during the spring of 1919, many citizens quickly equated the state's industrial strife with the worldwide Bolshevik conspiracy. For many Nevadans in 1919, the words "Wobbly" and "radical" automatically carried the implication of dynamite, and conjured visions of a person with "wild-eyes, bushy unkempt hair, and tattered clothes, holding a smoking bomb in his hands.'' Nevadans condemned this use of the "cowardly assassin's bomb" to gain drastic social and economic reform, and advocated swift punishment for these "enemies of society" who "conspire to murder and to overthrow the best government in the world." Newspaper editors seemed to agree that tossing them "back into the sea" was one way to rid the country of agitators with "mishapen [sic] heads and . . . distorted morals." Having fought to make the world safe for democracy, Nevadans now had "to make it unsafe for criminal conspirators who . . . undo the good work" of America's soldiers. The bombings made Nevadans suspicious of all reforms and retarded organized labor's cause in the state.

Their nerves tightly drawn, Nevadans envisioned "anarchy spooks" in every shadow and concluded that the IWW represented Bolshevism in Nevada and was attempting to takeover the state. During the summer of 1919 local law enforcement officials made the Wobblies the chief target of an anti-radical purge. Elko's constable expelled fifteen Wobbly "agitators" from the county, with an order not to "come back." He sentenced several others who refused employment to fifty days in jail. Reno's police invited "all Anarchists, I.W.W.s, Bolshevists, Radicals, Government Destroyers, Cooties, and Murderers" to "go to hell where you belong," and arrested one agitator for admitting he was a card-carrying Wobbly and "proud of it." In Goldfield, state police apprehended their first "Criminal Syndicalism" violators after searching the residences of eight alleged Wobbly organizers and uncovering "radical" literature. No IWW membership cards were found however, and after a week the district attorney ordered the charges dismissed. Nevadans perceived the Wobblies as a threat to "the American way of life," and with the occurrence of each turbulent national event, their intolerance and harassment of this "un-American bunch of rascals" increased. Skepticism of IWWs eventually crystallized when a rash

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of labor strikes erupted throughout the state. Conditioned by the tumultuous national scene, many Nevadans became convinced that "I.W.W.ism in short . . . must be crushed. "

Through the summer and fall of 1919 Nevadans witnessed still further labor-management conflicts. Ely's Nevada Consolidated Copper and Nevada Northern Railroad employees finally walked off the job in July, protesting repeated wage cuts, layoffs, and the high cost of living. In August, miners at Virginia City, Goldhill, and Tonopah demanded six dollars a day and an eight-hour shift. In a ten-day strike at Battle Mountain, copper miners demanded a fifty-cent daily increase. In each case company officials threatened to close down their operations and leave the state. They also attempted to discredit the strikers by branding the disputes the work of the IWW. While the miners repeatedly stated that "there is no Bolshevism in our action," the press denounced the strikes as "abominations," "unreasonable," and "serious social disturbances credited to . . . greed. "

The state's most serious strike occurred at Tonopah in August 1919 and triggered a fervent anti-Wobbly campaign. On August 17 Tonopah and Divide miners walked off the job, demanding a dollar per shift increase plus an eight-hour day. A power struggle developed between the mainstream "conservative" miners and a minority of Wobblies; both groups presented different wage demands and disagreed over strike strategy. Tonopah and Divide mine operators feared any slowdown would impede the silver boom prosperity and discourage shareholders' investment. To combat the IWW influence they enlisted the help of Governor Boyle and the state police. In the first days of the strike, state police deported three Wobbly agitators and arrested several others for syndicalism violations. Governor Boyle also played an integral part in settling the dispute by convincing the majority of the miners to oust the Wobblies and compromise with company officials.

Several times the "conservative" miners called off the strike, only to have IWW picketing prevent the workers from returning to the mines. Finally, to prevent Wobbly picketing, the governor secured a court injunction from Judge Mark Averill prohibiting "all persons from publishing the statement that a strike exists, or that Tonopah or Divide camps are unfair or circulating any libelous or false statements concerning Tonopah or Divide." Wobblies who continued to intimidate or coerce returning miners by picket lines were arrested; as a result, miners returned to work in November. The judge's action had infringed upon the IWW's right to freedom of speech and assembly. Averill justified his actions by declaring that "the right of free speech and free assembly guaranteed American citizens by the Constitution does not apply to unnaturalized foreigners." Tonopah's press praised Judge Averill's "patriotic stand" and declared that "no un-American gathering can fall back on the Constitution" when attempting "to foist soviet rule on the land.'' Nevada's editors and civic leaders had repeatedly warned against" unbridled and absolute freedom of speech," and "unwarranted" criticism. (Tonopah's press, like most Nevada newspapers, suppressed reports of IWW activity in the state. The Bonanza's editor also wanted to suppress reports of national events to prevent his readers from getting "all riled up" and spoiling their digestion. Civic leaders denounced all criticism of Nevada and the United States as "harmful" and "inexcusable," believing that "Defamers of Old Glory" and "knockers" of

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the state could not be punished "too severely." Certainly many Nevadans agreed with one paper's inculcation that "the right of free speech is assured but speech must be 'right'.")

Tonopah's agitation infuriated Nevadans, and the Carson City Appeal press labeled the actions of the IWWs "second only to treason," declaring, "It is our duty if we are American . . . to resist this domination by the One Big Union, of our government and institutions and stand for Americanism.'' Tonopah's Wobbly problem heightened public awareness of potential IWW "invasions" in other Nevada communities. Patriotic organizations like the American Legion demanded that Governor Boyle call a special legislative session to enact stronger anti-IWW measures as well as "prohibit for all time the use of foreign language in any and all public, private, and secret gatherings within the State of Nevada." Many Nevadans, however, saw the futility of such action and urged Boyle to disregard the suggestion.

While the United States Justice Department in December 1919 rounded up domestic radicals for deportation, Nevada's law enforcement officials with the assistance of the American Legion managed to find their own "alien reds." On a tip from an Episcopal minister and Legionnaire, Reno police arrested Thomas Degan after finding four suitcases full "of the reddest books and pamphlets in existence" in his hotel room. This "veritable IWW nest" also contained a Bible and Mormon Church brochure. During Degan's trial, Reno postal officials discovered a package- "bomb" addressed to the Episcopal minister. A test, however, proved the "infernal machine" harmless, but it was an ironic twist for Degan's charges were eventually dismissed, prompting the Reno Evening Gazette to remark, "Degan's a harmless old man," and Nevada "is not in the least endangered by the fanciful doctrines of a few . . . hare-brained lunatics." Reno authorities also arrested a Mexican laborer, Miguel Lopez, who had just stepped off the train wearing an IWW button. A confused Lopez told the judge he thought the button was for "goodluck." The skeptical judge replied with a three-month sentence in the city jail, advising Lopez to thereafter wear "a good American flag." In Tonopah, state police raided the cabins of three Wobbly leaders, and after discovering radical literature arrested two for violating the Criminal Syndicalism Act. The Wobblies' trial lingered on for months, and Judge Averill finally dismissed the charges and ordered the agitators to leave town.

Strikes in 1919 alone had cost Nevada over four million dollars. Nevada continued experiencing numerous strikes throughout 1920 and into 1921. These labor disputes involved painters, barbers, copper and silver miners, railroad switchmen, and other workers, who were still concerned about the rising cost of living and demanded higher wages and reduced hours. IWWs played a significant role in a strike at Elko and another at Tonopah. Tonopah's Wobblies successfully closed down the mines twice in 1920. The town's mine operators and business community responded by organizing the "Committee of 100," a "patriotic" vigilante group headed by former state policeman private detective William J. Otts. After much fanfare and widespread publicity "Billy" Otts launched a "Wobbly wrecking program" and declared war on Tonopah's IWWs. The "Committee of 100" branded all strike activity as "un-American," and with the help of the American Legion, set Tonopah as well as Nevada on the road to permanently eliminating the Industrial Workers of the World.

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Compared with other western states such as Washington or California, Nevada experienced minimal IWW agitation during America's postwar Red Scare. Nevada's support of mainstream labor and the fact that few Wobblies resided in the state explain why Nevadans never resorted to wholesale arrest and deportation of IWWs, radicals and "Huns." But even given these factors, Nevadans harshly denounced IWW activity in the state or nation, and passed repressive legislation to combat the IWW "menace." Moreover, citizens had occasionally allowed their anti-radical passions to color their attitudes toward all labor and denounced legitimate strikes as Wobbly-directed or "un-American." Nevada's IWW, and any labor groups that could be associated with it, had suffered the fate common to immigrants, Socialists and all those branded "un-American."

(For treatment of Wobblies in other western states see: William Preston, Aliens and Dissenters; Robert Murray, Red Scare; Patrick Renshaw, The Wobblies; Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All; Robert L. Friedheim, The Seattle General Strike; Roger Sale, "Seattle's Crisis, 1914-1919," Hugh T. Lovin, "Idaho and the 'Reds', 1919-1926," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, July 1978; Philip L. Cook, "Red Scare In Denver," The Colorado Magazine, Fall 1966.)

Chapter 5: 1920s: Decline and Legacy of the Red ScareAmerica's Red Scare of 1919-1920 subsided almost as quickly as it had erupted, and although the scars remained, the nation rapidly regained its composure. Several factors explain the decline of the postwar frenzy. First, the nation's economy slowly stabilized, relieving citizens of the pressures of inflation and unemployment. As Americans regained prosperity, they no longer needed "scapegoats" for the postwar turmoil. Second, the labor conflicts of 1919 also subsided with business' successful repression of labor and its demands. By 1920, industry and business actively favored an end to the Red Scare hysteria; they feared the loss of cheap immigrant labor and wanted to eliminate the confining governmental controls. Third, time diminished the fervent emotions created by the Creel Committee, leaving Americans with a clearer perspective on their wartime experience. Finally, the Bolshevik revolutions in Europe, which had instilled terror in most Americans, ended; Americans now realized that the communist conspiracy to overthrow the world was no longer a threat. Believing that communism would remain confined to Russia, Americans tired of reports of the "Bolshevik menace" and began to focus their attention on other issues. Purging radicals from America was no longer a necessary prescription and with many of the postwar traumas alleviated, citizens looked forward to "normalcy."

Many factors operating on the national level also explain the decline of the postwar turbulence in Nevada. By mid- 1920 the state's wartime fever had passed, and Nevadans became less concerned with the "red menace." The Silver State's legislative and judicial proscriptions had eliminated the bulk of the IWWs, Socia!ists, and other perceived threats, and had driven a few foreign born immigrants from the state. By 1920 heavy demands for silver and copper, along with increased construction, relieved the state's unemployment, eased labor problems, and ensured prosperity for the rest of the decade. Improvement of the economy helped restore

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confidence. Even so, Nevadans remained cautious, and continued to pass repressive legislation and demanded "law and order."

Two national events, the May Day "revolution" and the September Wall Street bombing, indicated that the hysteria was ebbing in 1920. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer attempted to forestall intense criticism for his "inept" handling of January's "Red Raids" by instigating the May Day scare of 1920. With his eye on the Democratic presidential nomination, Palmer warned citizens to guard against a May Day "plot" to overthrow the United States. Americans, frightened by Palmer's prediction, began to mobilize for the coming "revolution." In Nevada, state and local police officials placed all officers on alert and "detained" suspected radicals. Yet, when May Day arrived, not a single disturbance occurred in the entire nation,, leaving Palmer's credibility and his political future severely damaged. The Tonopah Daily Bonanza spoke for Nevada when it condemned Palmer and his department for warning against "mythical dangers'' and creating "a state of hysteria." The Flay Day incident, concluded the Bonanza, disparagingly, was simply a "burlesque."

The reaction of the Nevada press to the Wall Street explosion in September further indicates that Nevadans were becoming tired, of Palmer's cry of "wolf" over the "Bolshevik menace." Nevada papers gave little coverage to the explosion that killed thirty-eight people, and they ignored Palmer's claims that the bombing was part of a gigantic plot to overthrow capitalism. The press gave greater attention to the Chicago White Sox gambling scandal than the Wall Street bombing; it preferred to keep Nevadans well informed on the heroics of the nation's new sports idols, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth, rather than report more stories of "creeping Bolshevisim."

The 1920 election confirmed the end of the Red Scare hysteria. During the campaign, both Republicans and Democrats downplayed the issue of radicalism and urged the nation to return to the ordinary business of living. Republican Presidential candidate Warren G. Harding typified the mood of the time when he stated that "too much has been said about Bolshevism in America." Nevada politicians also minimized the importance of the "red menace" during the campaign. The chief concern of local office seekers in the 1920 election was "the encroachment of the yellow· races," and a desire to protect Nevada from cheap foreign goods and low-paid "coolie" laborers. Nevadans like most Americans believed the answer to these problems was a change in leadership and the election of Republican candidates who supported high protective tariffs, immigration restriction, and oriental exclusion. Thus, Nevadans supported the Republican ticket in November i920, and voted into office a Republican Senator and Congressman, as well as a Republican majority in both houses of the state's legislature. The 1920 election signaled the end to Nevada's Red Scare.

Although America's anti-radical crusade halted after this election, intolerance toward immigrants, minorities and nonconformists continued unabated, while racism, suspicion of organized labor, and the clamor for "100% Americanism" also endured, permeating American society through the 1920s. In Nevada, the continuing discrimination against immigrants, and the pressure for conformity and "Americanism," was reflected in a series of laws passed in the early 1920s. In January 1921 the state legislature introduced a constitutional amendment prohibiting Japanese

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from owning or leasing land in the state. In support of this measure, citizens in several communities organized anti-Japanese societies and instigated boycotts to drive out the "yellow menace." Nevada's voters eventually approved the amendment in 1924. The legislators also introduced bills "to prohibit aliens from carrying or possessing firearms," and to amend the 1919 anti-Alien work act outlawing all foreign employment by the state. Local leaders proceeded in their effort to instill patriotism and conformity in all citizens by enacting laws "to promote Americanism in the schools," require the teaching of "thrift," and ordering the American flag flown over schools and on Mother's Day. In 1923 the state legislature persisted in its attempts to combat "radical" labor activity and reemphasized the virtues of "I00% Americanism" by passing measures barring strikes by non-residents, and mandating the teaching of the federal and state constitutions in all Nevada schools.

The hysteria's ugliest legacy in the state was the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. Posing as the guardians of Christian morality and "100% Americanism," the Ku Klux Klan defended the maintenance of white supremacy, preaching hatred for Jews, "Japs," "Chinks," and other "undesirables." This racist organization served as an excellent vehicle for ex-"red hunters" and super-patriots in their purge of all "un-Americanisms." (For the story of Ku Klux Klan activity in Nevada see Craig Swallow's M.A. thesis, "The Ku Klux Klan in Nevada During the 1920s," University of Nevada at Las Vegas, 1978.)

Brief though it was, the Red Scare had revealed some of the uglier aspects of American society and politics. Nevadans had joined the nation in this irrational frenzy. While Nevada had escaped the violence and unrest which plagued many western states, the Red Scare hysteria contributed significantly to the decline of the Socialist party, and the demise of the Industrial Workers of the World. Nevadans had passed repressive legislation to prevent radical infiltration, and demanded conformity in an effort to "Americanize" foreigners. That Nevada's reaction was more moderate than many of its Western neighbors resulted from the state's support of mainstream labor, the presence of a high percentage of resident immigrants, and the absence of any serious violence or disorder. The impact of America's Red Scare of 1919-1920 had been severe at the time and left permanent scars on Nevada as well as the nation in the form of intensified nativism, racism, and intolerance.

All Rights Reserved, 1979, 2011 by Ted DeCorte.