the light of this context, and to repress that dissent on behalf of those considered potentially subversive, Congress passed some repressive legislations like the Espionage Act of 1917. Although the central purpose of the Espionage Act was to prevent espionage and any interference with the military recruitment, this law prohibited:
“(b)whoever for the purpose aforesaid, and with like intent or reason to believe, copies, takes, makes, or obtains, or attempts, or induces or aids another to copy, take, make, or obtain, any sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blue print, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, document, writing or note of anything connected with the national defence.”
It seems apparent this law made clear the prosecution …show more content…
These restrictions on civil liberties was even intensified after the passage of the 1918 Sedition Act which was actually an amendment to the Espionage Act. The repressive nature of this act manifested clearly when it made it a crime for any individual “by word or act to support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act to oppose the cause of the United States.” Moreover, it banned the use of violence to cause social change. In fact, the passage of these laws led to waging an aggressive police investigation against the suspected subversives, accusing them of being communists or left-wing. As a direct result of these laws, the prisons filled up with anti-war protestors, immigrants and striking labors. This hysteria grew more when the communists came to power after the Bolshevik Revolution. Consequently, Wilson administration conducted an organized surveillance against people whose loyalty was questioned. And arrests exceeded 40,000 people for the War Department. An ironical example of these victims who were arrested just for opposing the war or expressing their opinions was the American …show more content…
It seems clear that preserving the American values and the social order is the US government’s basic purpose. Even after the first World War had ended, the Red Scare and repression continued due to the mounting domestic turmoil and the increasing thread of communism abroad. The sources of this domestic turmoil were the race riots of 1919, the sharp inflation which reduced real income by over 10% in 1919 and also the sharp economic recession of the late1918 which gave birth to numerous strikes (3600 strikes involving more than four million workers in 1919 asking for wage increases). In fact, these economic reasons confirmed again our finding that preserving the social and economic order is the US government fundamental interest. The durability of repression manifested in the longevity of the Espionage Act which continued to be in effect even in peacetime prosecuting a big number of radical organizations, and the creation of other sedition laws in 1920 (although the congress outlawed the 1918 Sedition Act on December 1920). Those radicals were seen as the enemy or the “other” that should be stopped and repressed. To sum up, it is clear that repression continued even after the war in peacetime, confirming further our finding that the wartime context and the fear of