1919: Chapter Five

In 1919, the Red Scare permeated almost every area of American life, especially the efforts of the labor movement, where even before most Americans had ever heard the term “Bolshevism,” workers had become increasingly vocal in demanding higher wages and better working conditions.

One of the most frightening assessments came from the Baltimore Sun, which called the strike “an attempted Bolshevik revolution—an attempt to start a conflagration which...could bring the United States to the condition of Russia where anarchy, assassination, starvation, and every calamity that can oppress a people is [taking place].”

After mobilizing the soldiers, he then hired one thousand extra police, proclaimed he was ready to hire ten thousand more, and warned the unions that “any man who attempts to take over control of municipal government functions here will be shot on sight.”

Hanson’s aggressive actions made him an overnight hero, hailed by newspapers across the country as “the man of the hour.”

The fact that all the Boston police stations were crowded and filthy added to the discontent.

On August 11, 1919, the AFL granted a charter to the Boston Social Club, designating it as Boston Police Union No. 16,807.

An outraged Curtis wasted no time in charging the eight new officers heading up the union with insubordination.

The reconciliation that the Committee of Thirty-Four suggested would have allowed the police to organize and stated that if the police called off the strike, there would be no disciplinary action taken against their leaders.

Finally, the compromise called for a special impartial committee to be created to hear the policemen’s grievances.

Finally, the compromise called for a special impartial committee to be created to hear the policemen’s grievances.

But Curtis refused to even listen to their offer, stating that he would not accept any plan “that might be construed as a pardon of the men on trial.”

Merchandise—coats, shirts, neckties, shoes, hardware—lay strewn along the streets where it had fallen out of the arms of looters already loaded down with more than they could carry.

“A night of disgrace,” his editorial would read. “Somebody blundered. Boston should not have been left defenseless last night...it was a sickening scene and no hand was available to arrest the unlawfulness.”

It was then Mayor Peters somehow received an infusion of courage to use the power he had been assiduously neglecting.

When they arrived on the streets, they were greeted by angry crowds who yelled “Scab!” and spat at them.

And in defiance of Mayor Peters, he reinstated Police Commissioner Curtis and ordered him back on the job immediately.

In my judgment the obligation of a policeman is as sacred and direct as the obligation of a soldier.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, he declared the Boston Police Strike was “one of the most dastardly acts of infamy that has ever occurred in this country since the act of Benedict Arnold.”

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, he declared the Boston Police Strike was “one of the most dastardly acts of infamy that has ever occurred in this country since the act of Benedict Arnold.”

So much so that when union leaders conducted a poll, they found that 98 percent of the men were in favor of “stopping work should the companies refuse to concede...higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions.”

By “steel barons,” the strikers meant the owners and top executives of the steel companies, many of whom were among the richest men in America.

Their opulent homes (most of them had more than one), their luxurious automobiles and yachts, and their extravagant lifestyles were in sharp contrast to that of their workers, whose demands for at least a living wage were met with deaf ears.

Their opulent homes (most of them had more than one), their luxurious automobiles and yachts, and their extravagant lifestyles were in sharp contrast to that of their workers, whose demands for at least a living wage were met with deaf ears.

Given the climate that had produced the Red Scare, it was not surprising that many company owners and legions of American citizens regarded the strike as yet another attempt by the Bolsheviks to launch a social revolution in the United States.

The strikes would open the public’s and the press’s eyes to the plight of America’s laborers.

The many strikes that characterized the year 1919 came at a time when American industry stood at the threshold of a long period of unprecedented growth and prosperity.

Although there are many doubters and naysayers, today there is widespread agreement among scientists that the environmental crises threatening the planet are climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and degraded water quality.

And there is broad consensus that the greatest of these threats is climate change, or, more specifically, global warming.

Just as the experts are almost unanimous in their assessment of today’s environmental crisis, so too are they almost fully in agreement that the only solution, the one way to save the planet, is once again innovation.

The hopeful news is these sources of renewable energy, including to a lesser degree biomass (burning wood and other organic matter) and geothermal (tapping into underground sources of heat), have the potential to provide all the electricity the United States needs many times over.

Even more heartening is the fact that once the wind and solar energy projects that were begun in Australia in 2017 are completed, 90 percent of the homes in the country will be run by renewable energy.

More than 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln stated, “The wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of the wind.”

The greatest test of the airplane’s new prowess—a nonstop flight through the turbulent skies over the Atlantic Ocean—remained to be achieved, though.

It would be the most harrowing flight imaginable for the two airmen. F

1947: The Taft-Hartley Act, formally known as the Labor-Management Relations Act, curtailing labor organizing and bargaining rights as well as the right to strike, is vetoed by President Harry Truman.