CULTURAL CONFLICT
Not everything was rosy in the decade of the 20s, as many different groups within the US came into conflict. Basically, the clash of cultures was one of old vs. new. The brashness of the new woman offended many people, including women. The new cities full of immigrants drew opposition from the rural population. Wets and drys battled over the Prohibition. Fundamentalists opposed new ideas about religion in America. Racial animosity reared its ugly head. It was a decade of friction between various factions in the country.
The Ku Klux Klan, whose members had tormented and killed many African Americans in the south after the Civil War, experienced a resurgence in the US. The "new" Klan extended their bigotry to anyone not American, not protestant, not white, while attempting to stamp out unions and saloons By 1924, it boasted a membership of more than four million members. Although the KKK dominated certain state politics at times during the twenties, its popularity waned after Indiana Klan chieftain, D.C. "Steve" Stevenson, was indicted and jailed for a brutal assault on a female assistant. The resulting scandal and his conviction for second-degree murder signaled the decline of Klan’s political influence and, by the end of the decade, membership had dwindled to only fifty thousand.
The Red Scare made many Americans scared of anarchists and immigrants, leading to huge raids of immigrants and a further restriction of the “new” immigrants from Eastern Europe. The feeling of nativism was crystalized by the famous Sacco and Vanzetti case, in which two immigrants were tried and executed after being accused of robbing and killing a paymaster. Despite only circumstantial evidence, their guilty verdicts demonstrated America's fears of immigrants.
Science and religion clashed in the Scopes Trial, the most famous legal conflict of the decade. Teacher John Scopes of Dayton, Tennessee, was indicted for teaching the theory of evolution, and the resulting court trial captivated the nation. The "Monkey Trial" demonstrated the nations division between the the old (the theory of creation) and the new (evolution). While Scopes was found guilty to the letter of the law, he was only fined $100 - and the fundamental religious view of creationism was taken to task.
