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CHAPTER 7. Seeing Red
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CHAPTER 7 Seeing Red Supporters and opponents of the School Bill put forth very different visions of democracy. Proponents championed the prerogatives of the majority. They envisioned a society where immigrants and minorities assimilated to majority values and where the interests of the community dominated those of the individual. Opponents claimed individual liberties were the cornerstone of democracy. To them, an enlightened government protected minority rights as vigorously as it legislated majority values. While a political and philosophical chasm divided these positions, both sides of the School Bill agreed on one signi‹cant premise: the fate of compulsory public education would in›uence the course of American democracy. In 1922, the greatest perceived threat to democracy came from Bolshevism . Most Americans abhorred the authoritarian, highly centralized government imposed in Russia after the 1917 Russian Revolution. To the adversaries in the School Bill ‹ght, mandatory public schooling evoked a shared trepidation, the in‹ltration of Bolshevik ideas into American society. Both sides stirred fears of radicalism to gain voter support. The School Bill campaign became, in part, a debate over the best way to combat radical in›uences in society. Supporters believed mandatory public schooling essential to instill patriotism and eliminate the risk that private schools would teach un-American values. Opponents equated compelled public schooling with the state monopoly of education found only under communist governments . Only two days before the election, voters reading the Sunday Oregon62 ian encountered a full-page ad warning that “the public school is the SCHOOL OF AMERICA, and the ONLY school,” and that he who “hesitates in his loyalty to THAT school . . . is a traitor.” Several pages later, another full-page ad responded, “Remember that Russia now has state monopoly of schools.”1 Red Scares in Oregon Debates over radicalism were not new in Oregon; they dated back to statehood and the rise of populism. A vigorous labor movement made socialism an issue prior to World War I. Disgruntled workers in newly industrialized businesses ›ocked to the Socialist Party and to militant labor unions like the West Coast Shingle Weavers’Union and the International Union of Shingle Weavers, Sawmill Workers, and Woodsmen. The Oregon ranks of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or “Wobblies”) grew with thousands of dissatis‹ed loggers and mill workers. During the war, newspapers excoriated not only the “Huns”but also paci- ‹sts and socialists. In 1917, the front-runner in the Portland mayoral race, Will Daly, lost the election after, two days before election day, the conservative Oregonian published an editorial exposing Daly, a registered Republican, as a member of the Socialist Party. The paper speculated, “If the people elect Daly, we shall have a socialist for Mayor. . . . There will be encouragement for strikes and countenance of industrial agitation for the sake of agitation.”2 Vigilante squads roamed the state, poking haystacks in search of Germans and radicals. To Portland mayor George Baker, the “Reds” posed a far greater threat, however, than German immigrants. The thousands of workers who descended on Portland to work in the wartime shipyards brought a rowdy, often lawless environment to parts of Portland, but the police often seemed indifferent to these mundane forms of disorder, focusing their attention on tracking down radicals and uncovering “plots” against the government . Floyd Ramp, a respected farmer and Socialist, spent eighteen months in prison for violation of the Espionage Act in telling a group of soldiers that they were “‹ghting to protect John D.’s [Rockefeller] money.”3 The rapid collapse of the burgeoning Portland shipbuilding industry after World War I led to unrest, and Oregonians succumbed readily to fears of a “Red” conspiracy, even blaming the radicals for a virulent ›u epidemic. The IWW wooed returning servicemen by providing basic food, clothing, Seeing Red 63 [44.200.230.43] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:35 GMT) and shelter. “Well, come along with us,” the group encouraged, promising, “Our organization will be very glad to give you a meal or two until you get back on your feet and we will give you a suit of clothes.”4 Such fears prompted Oregon governor James Withycombe, in his January address to the 1919 legislature, to ask for enactment of a law to punish radicals for treason, urging the legislature to act quickly: “Now while poisonous in›uences of sedition and sabotage are fresh in our minds it might be well to set down in the statutes Oregon’s appraisal of I.W.W.ism and other forms...