SOVFOTO/UIG/GETTY IMAGES; NY DAILY NEWS/GETTY IMAGES; CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES; GAMMA-KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGESLeader of the
Russian Revolution
Vladimir Lenin—and
America’s staunch
anticommunist
attorney general
A. Mitchell Palmer.The First Red Scare:
March 22, 1919
SIGN OF THE TIMES
Clothes for GI Joes
One of Midtown Manhattan’s most
popular spots was the Reclamation
Shop, where “our sturdy, bronzed
boys in khaki and blue”—unemployed
veterans newly returned home—“can
buy at small cost slightly worn civilian
suits.” Finding a job became an even
tougher task for former doughboys
when the 1921 recession raised
unemployment to 11.9%, at the time
the highest in American history.64 | FORBES ASIA MAY 2018ALMOST 30 YEARS before Sena-
tor Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare
witch hunts, a similar hysteria
gripped America. A year and a half ater the fall of
czarist Russia to the Bolsheviks, a Senate subcommit-
tee investigating communists in the U.S. was whipping
up fury and angst—emotions echoed in B.C. Forbes’
opening column. “A re you aware that two or three
hundred Soviets have already been organized in the
United States?” he asked. “Did you ever suspect that
there are thousands upon thousands of revolutionaries
who are daily and nightly planning and plotting to set
a torch to this country?” His solution to the problem:
“Spread enlightenment... [if] any of your workers or
your associates have misconceptions concerning what
Bolshevism really is, take the time to explain matters.”
he panic subsided only ater the Palmer Raids, a
series of extrajudicial roundups of supposed anarchists
and communists. hey were led by Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer, who hoped to use the detentions
to position himself as a law-and-order presidential
candidate. he raids climaxed in January 1920, when
the government arrested thousands of people across
the country in a single day and held 1,600 for deporta-
tion. Less than 30% of them were actually expelled.
Public opinion shited against Palmer soon ater, and
fears of communist iniltration abated further when
his prediction of violent May Day activities didn’t
come to pass. Later that year, he lost his bid for the
Democratic presidential nomination.PLUS ÇA CHANGE...
Business Barriers
Democrats in Washington had lowered tarifs in the previous decade, and
Forbes bristled at the idea of the high levies’ return: “Any nation which
seeks to take undue advantage of any other nation must in future reckon
upon retaliation.” Sure enough, Republicans returned to protectionist
tarifs after fully reclaiming power in 1920, setting the stage for a period of
dramatically reduced world trade and increased global political tensions.
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The Big Citi
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FROM THE VAULTBY ABRAM BROWN