A People's History of the United States

In 1914, Europe was plunged into the most brutal and bloody war then ever fought. But the United States, being removed geographically and politically from the crisis, enjoyed a unique position on the sidelines. But in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson decided to reverse course. When Germany declared that it would begin sinking American ships bound for Britain, Wilson responded by saying that he had to protect the rights of Americans to travel. Behind the scenes, many American businessmen were increasingly concerned that the war was dislocating their trade with Europe and Europe’s colonies, both of which had become increasingly lucrative in the years after the Spanish-American War (362). When Congress declared war, the Socialist party met in St. Louis and dubbed the declaration a “crime against the people of the United States” (364). In response, Congress and the Wilson administration passed the Espionage Act, which threatened prison sentences against anyone who attempted to undermine the war effort. The act was almost immediately mobilized against Socialist party leaders. Charles Schneck was the first activist arrested under the act. When his case reached the US Supreme Court, he argued the First Amendment protected his right to criticize the war effort and oppose the draft. In the Court’s unanimous decision, Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that First Amendment would “not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic,” and so Schneck was similarly not protected (366). These legal restrictions were paired with extrajudicial groups, such as the American Protective League, which organized to attack union headquarters, remove street orators, and generally eliminate anti-war activity. In combination with local police, these groups arrested the majority of the IWW’s leadership and virtually destroyed the organization (373). 

After the end of World War I, there appeared briefly to be the threat of renewed striking and a return to worker agitation. But with so many labor leaders in prison, the strikes were easily broken. Owners and police had also learned from their wartime crackdowns how to mobilize the law and extrajudicial violence against organizers. In the 1920s, Congress banned most forms of immigration to the US, and a major constituent for unions disappeared. And across many states, the Ku Klux Klan, thought destroyed at the end of Grant’s presidency, returned and took action against not just Black people but immigrants and activists as well (382). Prosperity and the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, also seemed to be a release for wartime tensions. Why strike, after all, when so much seemed to be going well. Pushing back against this situation was a new organization, the Communist Party of the United States. The IWW never recovered its former strength even after several members were released from jail, and the AFL was never interested in direct action to begin with. But when the Wobblies had fallen, the Communists picked up the banner of worker agitation. While their activities were limited, and many would be arrested and deported to the Soviet Union, strikes backed by the party produced the same kind of durable success which had become a hallmark of the Wobblies (386).  

The death of American prosperity in 1929 changed everything. Where prosperity had reduced class consciousness, the Great Depression inflamed it and the country became a powder keg. Wherever people became unemployed, they turned out in masses to demonstrate and protest a system that seemed indifferent to their suffering. The biggest of these protests was the 1932 march of the Bonus Army, which traveled to Washington in the summer of that year. The Bonus Army was a group of unemployed World War I veterans who had traveled to Washington to pressure Congress into paying out their promised pensions and service bonuses early as a form of unemployment insurance. After Congress rejected their demands, the 20,000-strong group set up a camp in a park. Congress found this situation intolerable. The army was called, and over the course of an afternoon tanks and horses crushed the encampment. Crowds were broken up using tear gas, most of which had been made for the war and could cause permanent blindness. By the end of the day, two veterans had been shot and killed, a baby had died, and several children were permanently blinded. Thousands more had broken bones and gas poisoning (391).

This situation led Americans to look for change at the ballot box and, in the same year as the Bonus March, Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was elected president. His New Deal seemed to be the remedy America needed. But despite the popularity and enthusiasm for his programs, they were limited in that they tried to restore the pre-Depression status quo. In industries with a strong legacy of trade unionism, the Roosevelt administration was willing to negotiate with workers on an equal basis to avoid strikes and disruptions. But in industries where bosses remained dominant, Roosevelt supported them. This basic tendency was reinforced in 1935 when the Supreme Court declared his cornerstone legislation, the National Recovery Act, unconstitutional. After that, Roosevelt increasingly ignored workers in favor of business owners. The most successful method of aid was informal networks of organization and mutual support. Across the country, groups of self-help organizations ameliorated the hardship and starvation faced by millions of Americans. The legacy of the Roosevelt administration was thus mixed. On the one hand, it passed legislation and created institutions which had an impact on the lives of working Americans, but this was often done in defense of the old order not to improve the lot of the lower class.

World War II did to the Depression-era labor movement what the Spanish-American War, the Civil War, and the Revolution had previously done to their burgeoning labor movements. Zinn points out that rhetorically the war was fought with the best of intentions. Americans claimed to be fighting against Japanese imperialism, Nazi racism, and the tide of totalitarianism and militarism that it seemed had engulfed the world. But in practice, American policy was pragmatic and conservative. Prior to the war American policy was driven by a quest for stability rather than a drive for democracy (410). Zinn argues that the US policy against Japan was designed to destroy the country economically as punishment for Japanese imperialism in the Pacific (411). Indeed, policy seemed to focus on saving western imperialism and Anglo-American capitalism abroad rather than spreading democracy (413).

As with other American wars, socialist and labor activists attempted to oppose the war and American policy abroad. Millions of Americans were drafted, but the majority of those who were forced to serve were working-class Americans. Thousands of Americans refused to submit to the draft and were then arrested, fined, and compelled to serve anyway (418). And these trends were even more prevalent in the African American community, which was asked to defend the system of Jim Crow and a Southern society that was actively murdering Black Americans. In 1940, when Socialist Workers Party members began demonstrating in favor of peace and isolationism, Congress extended the Espionage Act to cover peace-time opposition to the draft. By 1943, most of the party’s leadership had been arrested (420).

World War II ended much like it began, with a focus on reaping the maximum gain for America’s investment (423). In a departure from tradition, where wartime controls were removed and Americans returned to peacetime activities, after World War II the US maintained a large standing army and pivoted from a struggle against Nazism towards a Cold War with the Soviet Union. At home, wartime patriotism transitioned into a pervasive fear of Communism that would enable large military expenditures, aggressive policies abroad, and tighter social control at home. Abroad, this meant combating Communist insurgent movements. This ideology gave the sitting administration ample cause to start and stop wars to suit their needs (428). And at home, fears of Communist subversion and infiltration turned into the persecution of anyone who had in the 1930s been associated with labor activism, the Communist Party, or left-wing agitation. Organizations like the House Un-American Activities Committee set to work destroying the reputations and prospects of anyone either suspected or accused of being a Communist (435). All the while, American businesses profited from the chaos (439).