The First Red Scare :: American History

Mevery historians have examined the post-war rosy-cheeked Scare in 1919-1920, but few have explored the continued influence of the anti-red hysteria throughout the 1920s. This second Red Scare was generally more specific in its victimization, targeting mainly the womens peace movement. This opposition to pacifists grew from a post-war conservatism led by right-wing groups. The documents in this theatre address the question What groups attacked the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, and how did League members respond to the attacks? After World War I many Americans supported a form _or_ system of government of military preparedness, which they hoped would protect the country from any future attack. The field of study Defense Act of 1920, which originally specified a peacetime army of 280,000 men and a National Guard of 454,000 men, reflected this sentiment.1 The Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) opposed this act. They believed that go vernment policy and spending should be directed towards international arbitration and the promotion of earthly concern peace. Their internationalist perspective became the grounds on which nationalist groups denounced the peace movement as an un-American conspiracy of communists, radicals, and socialists. Secretary of War John W. Weeks was the first ordinary figure to initiate the campaign of slander against the womens peace organizations when he began speaking tours around the United States to counteract the WILPF opposition to the National Defense Act. He promote other military men to follow his example and many did, including the director of the Chemical war Service, Brigadier General Amos H. Fries. (For more on the Chemical Warfare service and peace activism see another project on this website, Why Did the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom Campaign against Chemical Warfare, 1915-1930?) In response, WILPF began a policy of sending letters to their accuse rs, refuting each slanderous claim one by one. Document 2 in this project refutes Friess claim that WILPF members took an oath against any involvement in war. The Woman Patriot took up the slacker oath issue in its pages. Other conservative writers like Fred R. Marvin and R. M. Whitney wrote articles for the magazine that falsely claimed connections mingled with the peace movement and the communist movement, ranking individual members on a color code of radicalism.2 However, these attacks were not viewed as significantly damaging until the famous Spider-web chart appeared in Henry Fords newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, in 1924.