The Roaring TwentiesCultural Conflicts

Scopes Trial

Sacco and Vanzetti

Prohibition

KKK

Red Scare

Election of 1928

                                             

Scopes Trial

• Butler Act passed in Tennessee 1925 prohibited “the teaching of any theory that denies the story of divine creation of man as taught in the Bible”.

• ACLU finds a willing challenger-Scopes• Clarence Darrow city lawyer for Scopes• William Jennings Bryant former Populist

joins prosecution as expert on the Bible

Scopes Trial continued

• Turning point was Bryant’s position on literal interpretation of the Bible-”six days”

• Jury finds Scopes guilty• Supreme Court eventually overturns

conviction on a technicality• Fundamentalism the law in Tenn. until 1967• Case shows divide between rural and urban

Sacco and Vanzetti

• Two anarchists accused of robbery and murder

• Trial was characterized by a lack of fairness

• Convicted and sentenced to death

• Committee reviews trial: declares judge acted improperly- “Dagos” commnet

Sacco and Vanzetti continued

• Committee refuses new trial

• Sacco and Vanzetti executed

• Sacco’s last words: “Long live anarchy!”

• Protests in the U.S. and Worldwide

• Convicted for beliefs or evidence?

• Today historians believe: Sacco possibly guilty, Vanzetti probably innocent

Prohibition• Intended as a reform: target was the

working class saloon• Religious motive: WCTU• Anti “German” feelings during WWI• Actually did reduce working class

consumption• Middle Class drank illegally• Bootleggers• Speakeasies

Prohibition continued

• More women drank

• Big City Organized Crime

• Millions in profits

• Fights over turf

• Al Capone and his gang ran Chicago

• Result: disregard for the law

• Cities seen as dens of vice and sin

KKK

• 1920s was peak of Klan membership

• Started in rural areas, eventually spread to cities like Detroit, Indiana and Pittsburgh

• Anti-black, Catholic, Jews, Eastern Europeans, Asians-whatever the minority

• Similar to Fascist Movements in Italy and Germany

                                                     

KKK continued

• Peaked in Indiana with half million members

• Declined when leader David Stephenson convicted for rape and murder of a white woman

• Idea of Pure-American still alive after decline of the Klan

The Red Scare

• Anti-Communism panic sweeps through the United States in 1919-1920

• Communism established in Russia 1917 by Bolsheviks

• Two small parties form in the United States. Total membership 70,000

• .001 percent of the population

• Communist regimes were established in Hungary and Bavaria

• Many believed a communist revolution was brewing in the United States

• Many people begin transferring their hate to anyone born outside the country

• A. Mitchell Palmer directed the Red Scare

• Palmer asks Congress for $500,000 “to tear our the radical seeds that have entangled American ideas in their poisonous theories.”

• General Intelligence established• Russians deported on the “The Soviet Ark”• Arrested 4000 people in one night many of

whom were American citizens

• Public generally approved of Palmer’s raids even though many of the prisoners were released because they had nothing to do with radical politics

• Organized labor and strikes seen as tools of Bolshevism

1928 election: Country v. City

• Republican Hoover: Iowa farm boy• Democrat: Al Smith NY Governor, Catholic• 2/3rds of eligible voters turnout• Hoover wins big• Smith carries the 12 largest cities• Though Hoover’s victory is a vote for more of

the same its:

Another example of the cultural divide!

                                  

Herbert Hoover