Compare and Contrast Essay

In History Alive one of the most important social issues in the U.S. in the 1920’s was anti-immigration. The large number of immigrants in the United State had created ethnic conflicts. For example a Jewish factory manager, Leo Frank was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 for a crime he maybe committed. Furthermore, in Howard Zinn’s writing, he agreed with the revival of KKK and said that even the NACCP, association that was suppose to help the immigrants, had no authority when facing the mob violence and ethnic hatred. On the other hand, Larry Schweikart agreed with the existence of the KKK, but said that it was not effective as History Alive and Zinn described. He stated that people should not have to worry about the KKK and its revival because as he mentioned, “Ku Klux Klansmen…organization had plummeted in membership since the 1920s”
Asides from the disagreement, History Alive also mentioned the liberal group, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who are founded to protect the freedom of speech. They fought back to protect immigrants from being deported and defended the right of trade union. It mentioned the ACLU as one of the leading role in opposing censorship. In Zinn’s writing, he also agreed that there were association that was founded to protect the immigrant’s right. For example, NAACP, but he said that they were ineffective in releasing the tension of the violence and prejudice towards immigrants. In Schweikert’s writing he did not believe that organizations like the ACLU and NAACP only appeared to be helping but was secretly agreeing with the majority of the society that immigrants are overcrowding the United States. As he mentioned, “Those northern white elites would enthusiastically and aggressively support the fight for civil rights in the South while carefully segregating their own children at all-white private schools.”
Moreover, in History Alive, it agreed that the United State government was sides with the nativist and agreed on anti-immigration. For example, the quota system, it was used to limit the number of immigrants from each country. By 1924, the quota was reduced to “2 percent of a country’s resident in the United States in 1890.” In Zinn’s writing he gave statistic that showed immigrants are limited severely, this includes “ No African country could send more than 100 people; 100 was the limit for China, for Bulgaria, for Palestine.” Nevertheless, Schweikert kept silence with the stand of the government. He did not mention anything about government being on the nativist’s nor the liberal’s sides.