Red Scare :: essays research papers

Analysis of the Red Scare "The tumult and the shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart." -Kipling, The Recessional Mr. Kipling was wrong. War does not always end with the last cry on the battlefield. World War I certainly did not. After the war formally ended on November 18, 1918, there was an ideological war still going on in the US. An ideological war which prompted mass paranoia and caused, among many other things, what would be known as the Red Scare, which began in 1919 and ended in 1921. Red Scare was the label given to the actions of legislation, the race riots, and the hatred and persecution of "subversives" and conscientious objectors during that period of time. It is this hysteria which would find itself repeated several decades later in history when Senator Joeseph R. Macarthy accused high government officials and high standing military officers of being communist. Undoubtedly the most important topic of an investigation into a historical occurrence is its inception. What caused the Red Scare? At the heart of the Red Scare was the conscription law of May 18, 1917, which was put in place during World War I for the armed forces to be able to conscript more Americans. This law caused many problems for the conscientious objector to WWI, because for one to claim that status, one had to be a member of a "well-recognized" religious organization which forbade their members to participation in war. did Quaker relief work in Europe. 500 suffered court-martial, and out As a result of such unyeilding legislation, 20,000 conscientious objectors were inducted into the armed forces. Out of these 20,000, 16,000 changed their minds when they reached military camps, 1300 went to non-combat units, 1200 gained furloughs to do farm work, and 100 of these, 450 went to prison. However, these numbers are small in comparison with the 170,000 draft dodgers and 2,810,296 men who were inducted into the armed forces. Nevertheless, the conscientious objectors were targeted in the Red Scare after the war. They were condemned as cowards, pro-German socialists, although that was not everything. They were also accused of spreading propaganda throughout the United States. Very few conscientious objectors stood up for themselves. Roderick Siedenberg, who was a conscientious objector, wrote that "to steal, rape, or murder" are standard peacetime causes for imprisonment, but in time of war "too firm a belief in the words of Christ", and "too ardent a faith in the brotherhood of man" are more acceptable.