Texas National News
Court Cases
Red scare
Hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. became known as the Red Scare. It is said that there were over 150,000 anarchists or communists in USA in 1920 alone and this represented only 0.1% of the overall population of the USA. Organized labor was badly damaged when employers stopped the opportunity to introduce the open shop, now called the American Plan, which forbid mandatory union membership. Social and economic reformers were thoroughly discredited, and the xenophobia of the era contributed to the anti-immigration laws. The sacrifice of civil liberties in the name of national security also had long-term repercussions, especially in times of war.
Palmer Raids
Palmer Raids, also called Palmer Red Raids, raids conducted by the U.S department of Justice in 1919 and 1920 in an attempt to arrest foreign anarchists, communists, and radical leftists, many of whom were subsequently deported. The raids, fueled by social unrest following WW1, were led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and are viewed as the climax of that era’s so-called Red scared.
Sacco and Vanzetti
At about three o'clock in the afternoon of April 15, 1920, Parmenter, a paymaster, and Berardelli, his guard, were fired upon and killed by two men armed with pistols, as they were carrying two boxes containing the pay roll of the shoe factory of Slater and Morrill, amounting to $15,776.51, from the company's office building to the factory through the main street of South Braintree, Massachusetts.
Schenck vs. United States
When America entered World War I in 1917, Congress passed a law called the Espionage Act. The law said that during wartime obstructing the draft and trying to make soldiers disloyal or disobedient were crimes. Almost 2,000 people were accused of violating this law and were put on trial.
Charles Schenck was against the war. He mailed thousands of pamphlets to men who had been drafted into the armed forces. These pamphlets said that the government had no right to send American citizens to other countries to kill people.