Book Review: Red Scare

Book Review: Red Scare: A Study of National Hysteria 1919-1920 by Robert K. Murray

"Nonetheless, to modern American history the Great Red Scare remains important- important because it provides us with a concrete example of what happens to a democratic nation and its people when faith and reason are supplanted with fear." (Murray ix). After WWI Americans experienced a sense of intense disillusionment, they were grateful to return to a state of peace after war, yet things would never be the same after WWI. "Inevitably, almost two years of war with its uncomfortable restrictions, its tensions, and its killing had sharpened a longing for peacetime 'normalcy'. But this was an illusory 'normalcy' that the nation wanted since it was actually searching for a life completely devoid of either social or political responsibility." (Murray 4).
"In 1919 America's soul was in danger. It was in danger not merely because of the nation's refusal to accept its moral responsibilities, or solve intelligently its economic problems, or shun the pitfalls of unbridled self-interest. Primarily it was in danger because the nation was deserting its most honored principles of freedom-principles which had made it great and which had given it birth." (Murray 11-12). The rise of Bolshevism and the proletariat revolution incited anger and distrust in American society. Americans denounced the Bolshevik reign in Russia as evil and were intolerant toward all forms of liberalism. 1919 was the same year of the Russian and Irish revolution, and was a great epoch of revolutions internationally. "Also there was no endeavor to separate liberals from radicals, progressives from revolutionists, or legitimate reformers from irresponsible crackpots. It was automatically assumed that anyone who was not a 'conservative' was a 'radical,' and hence even those who advocated the mildest reforms were dumped into the 'Red' classification." (Murray 166)
On a political cartoon illustrated in the book there is a farmer plucking fruits with the faces of foreigners and he places them in a basket titled "Deportation of the Reds", while his wife wears an apron with "Americanism" inscribed on it and she plants seeds. This is a violent and intolerant way of seeing Communists. The Communists or plants in the picture are viewed as scary, and America at the time was ridden with fear and hysteria against Communists. "Our Red Scare experience of 1919-20 illustrates clearly that communism cannot be fought effectively by hysteria, or by restrictive legislation, or by mob violence. In the long run we do far more damage to ourselves than to the enemy." (Murray 230)