Social Tensions In The 1920s

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The conservatives resisted the change of the decade by the police and courts cracking down on radicals: prohibition outlawed liquor, the Klu Klux Klan attacked immigrants and radical minorities, and fundamentalist Christians decried the changing code of morality and the teaching of evolution in schools, while congress drastically restricted immigration. The shift of population from rural to urban led to heightened social tensions in the 1920’s. Intent on pressuring traditional social values, rural Americans saw in the city all that was evil in contemporary life. Saloons, whorehouses, little Italys, little Polands, communist cells, free love, and atheism; these were all identified within the city. The countryside struck back. They aimed…show more content…
Only native born white gentile Americans were allowed to join. Everywhere across the nation Anglo-Saxon Protestant men flocked into the newly formed chapters seeking to relieve their anxiety over a changing society by embracing the KKK's unusual rituals and by demonstrating their hatred against blacks, Jews, and Catholics. The Klan attributed much of the tension and conflict in society to the prewar flood of immigrants; foreigners spoke different languages or worshipped in strange churches and lived in distant threatening cities. They punished blacks who did not know their place, women who practiced the new morality, and aliens who refused to conform. Being, flogging, burning with acid, even murder was condemned. It's more violent activities included kidnapping, lynching, setting fire to synagogues and Catholic churches, and murdering a priest began to offend the nation's conscience. Misuse of funds and sexual scandals among leaders brought down their control. By the end of the ‘20s, the Klan had virtually…show more content…
In 1917 Congress enacted a literacy test that reduced the number of immigrants allowed into the country. In 1921 Congress passed an immigration act. The new quota system restricted immigration from Europe to 3% of the number of nationals from each country living in the United States in 1910. In 1924, Congress adopted the National Origins Quota Act, which limited immigration from Europe to 150,000 a year, allocated most of the available slots to immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland, Germany and Scandinavia, and banned all Asian immigrants. The measure passed Congress with overwhelming rural support. Another challenge to the new urban culture was rooted in the traditional religious beliefs of millions of Americans who felt alienated from city life, from science and much of what modernization entailed. When Christian fundamentalists campaign against the teaching of evolution in public schools, the Christian fundamentalists touched off a court battle in Tennessee; the Scopes trial, also called the “monkey trial.” The 1924 trial was a contest between modern liberalism and religious fundamentalism. John T Scopes was on trial for teaching Darwinian evolution, in defiance of a Tennessee state law. He was found guilty and fined $100. On appeal, Scopes’ conviction was set aside on a technicality. The rural counterattack, while challenged by the city
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