the hysteria of 1918-1922 America, as illustrated by Marion, Indiana

[alyaza]

Alyaza Birze (March 11)

today's reading is Socialism in the Heartland: The Midwestern Experience, 1900-1925 and i'll have a few things to say and chronicle from this book; however, here's a quick and interesting one that stands out: the incredible amount of hysteria that swept even quite homogeneous portions of the United States during and after World War I.

writing about the situation in Marion, Indiana, Errol Wayne Stevens highlights the unusual amount of worry about socialist revolution in the city—he notes the Chronicle's fear in particular, saying:

The Chronicle noted editorially that the Bolsheviks had been a small minority and had been able to seize power primarily because of the disorganization of Russia’s ruling elite. In order to avoid a similar situation in Marion, the Chronicle suggested that a vigilance committee of patriotic citizens should organize and equip a force of at least five hundred men to stand by in case of a possible insurrection: “We do not wish to pose as alarmists. We do feel, however, that we are living in a critical situation, and that there is a need of immediate action of a broad and comprehensive character to insure us against calamity. Under present conditions indifference and inaction are both cowardly and treasonable. We must get busy, and get busy at once.

what makes this fascinating is the nature of Marion in the first place. economically, Marion's importance had waned substantially by the outbreak of World War I. originally a beneficiary of the Indiana gas boom, the waning of this boom left the city mired in a devastating and localized recession throughout the late 1900s and 1910s. factories abandoned the city in substantial numbers, and the city population dropped by several thousand despite a large-scale annexation in 1902 that added nearly 3,000 residents. in terms of demographics, Marion was never a place strongly dependant on immigrant labor. indeed there was a near total absence of non-white or even foreign-born residents, particularly in comparison to other industrial Midwest cities. Stevens observes that in 1910, the census found "84 percent of the city’s residents had been born in the United States and that only 3 percent were of foreign birth. Slightly less than 8 percent of the population were second-generation Americans." the city was—in short—much closer to ethnically homogeneous than culturally diverse.

in the absence of usual sources of anti-socialist hysteria, Marion's case can probably be attributed to the presence of a localized and successful Socialist party which had been very oppositional to the patriotic line on World War I. beginning in 1900—and particularly after 1913—Marion became of the major centers of the Socialist Party of Indiana. Marion's local of the party took a particularly strongly anti-war line which, in 1914, charged that "our fellow citizens who uphold the capitalist party are guilty of murder in that they stand for the system making wholesale murder inevitable." in 1917 with the United States' entry looming, the local continued hold strongly anti-war positions—it sent a delegate to the Socialist Party of America's emergency national convention with instructions to categorically "vote against American entry into the European conflict."

despite this position, the party had been fairly successful in 1917: it elected two city councilors and, although losing to Republican Elkannah Hulley, 30.5% of the vote for mayor. but it seems this success was the impetus for the Chronicle's turn to redbaiting in 1918 and an ominous sign of developments to come. the following year in 1919, Marion was struck by a lengthy and intense labor dispute which reflected many of the anxieties . workers at the Rutenber Motor Company went on strike in August that year for "collective bargaining, [a] forty-eight-hour week, and an increase in wages averaging about 20 percent"; manufacturers subsequently attempted to crush the unions responsible for this organizing and a protracted period of unrest followed. strikebreakers were brought in and repeatedly assaulted. on one such occasion Mayor Hulley used the opportunity to denounce the strike at Rutenber, saying of the workers that "Everyone of you are I.W.W.’s, anarchists and everyone of you ought to be in the penitentiary. You are undesirable citizens." (ironically, this seems to have galvanized the IWW presence in Marion substantially; they had previously been nonexistent in the region.) later still, Hulley sanctified strikebreakers openly carrying firearms and—on several other occasions—allowed special police from the Illinois Glass Company (where a different strike was taking place) to operate in Marion, where they reportedly shot at least one Rutenber striker.

it is unclear from Stevens' account how the strike at Rutenber ended; however, in October 1919 feelings in the community apparently remained so intense that when a police officer assaulted a woman with a billy club, the community nearly lynched him and later burned him in effigy. the Chronicle charged that the incident was caused by IWW members and other radicals. (the paper later admitted only one person in the entire city had any involvement in the union.) antipathy toward socialism continued after this wave of labor unrest, however—in large part it defined the 1921 municipal elections, where both parties took aim at the growing Socialist vote. Republican Party members charged that socialists were morally degenerate and atheistic, and would separate from this scare business away and leave Marion permanently economically deprived. the Democratic Party, meanwhile, ran a vehemently anti-socialist and anti-communist campaign. their candidate for mayor, J. M. Wallace, decried socialists as treasonous for their position on World War I and argued that the recently-established Soviet Union was causing "starvation, sorrow, and suffering exist there as never before."

the extent to which this redbaiting campaign was effective is debatable, although support for direct impact is minimal; the Socialist for mayor, Harry Oatis, took a modestly improved 31% of the vote even though he came third in the election. the Socialist Party retained two city councilors after the municipal elections of 1921. within months of the elections, however, the party became effectively moribund. the primary causes were economic rebound and general dysfunction in the Socialist Party of Indiana; but, undoubtedly, vehement opposition from the major parties eventually took its toll on the party. the redbaiting and worries of Bolshevism also served as fertile ground for the Ku Klux Klan, which apparently recruited hundreds of members in Marion as the party disappeared from the scene. when, in November 1922, an estimated one-thousand Klan members paraded in Marion, it de facto marked a bookend for socialist political strength in the city.