Immigrants and American Flags

How many American flags are in each of these photos? They seem almost as prominent as the people in the photos and they are just as significant. 

The first photo was taken of the ten-year-old Western Slavonic Association, a fraternal insurance organization that provided sick and death benefits for its members. The delegates to this convention in Leadville in 1919 are proud that their society survived and had been growing for a decade. In addition, members of the Western Slavonic wanted to make a strong statement about their loyalty to their new country.

After World War I, Americans sought to distance themselves from the rest of the world and turned inward. The Great War had cost American lives, but had failed to make the world safe for Democracy. The violence and anarchy of the Bolshevik Revolution was the last straw.

While the United States had welcomed and even recruited immigrants from the 1880s to World War I, it seemed time to be much more selective, and Globeville's immigrants received increased scrutiny.

Who were these people anyway? Slovenes? Croats? Their passports said Austria. And German Russians - were they German or Russian? Carpatho-Russians? Are they Bolsheviks?

These groups had large families, were Papists (Catholic) or Orthodox, clannish, and came from regions of the world rife with revolutions and assassinations. They might be anarchists! And they didn't speak English.

Even though many of their sons had served in the U. S. military during World War I, ethnic groups in Globeville were suspect. Aware of the distrust leveled at them, people prominently displayed American flags at church and lodge gatherings. A strong statement to emphasize their loyalty. 

 1919 convention of the Western Slavonic Association

Gathering of Serboban Lodge

Polish National Alliance, May Day parade on Washington Street

Red Scare 1920s

They were misunderstood from the beginning. The newcomers had large families, were Catholic or Orthodox, had come from regions in eastern Europe and Russia that were riddled with anarchists, and didn't speak English. Were the Volga Deutsche German? Or Russian? Why was Holy Transfiguration Church topped with a gold onion dome? Who are the Carpatho-Rusyns? 


Immigrants in Globeville had been recruited by smelters, railroads and the beet industry during the economic boom of the 1880s to supply cheap, abundant labor. After the economic downturn in 1893, they were not welcome and retreated to their enclaves, worshiping in old-world churches, socializing with people from the same region of Europe, and congregating in their ethnic saloons, which increased suspicion and misunderstanding.

The devastation of World War I and Spanish Influenza caused Americans and Coloradans to pull back from foreign entanglements. The war had not made the world "safe for democracy" - Europe was still in turmoil - and the Bolshevik's revolt in Russia resulted in civil war, famine and Communist rule. Anything and anyone associated with Bolsheviks, anarchists, foreign agitators, or radical labor unions were considered dangerous.

In the mind of the public, unions were linked with violence, anarchy and Communism. People remembered that smelter workers in Globeville, members of the Mill and Smeltermen, (a subsidiary of the Western Federation of Miners) had participated in the violent strikes in 1903. Labor unrest after World War I, supposedly incited by Bolsheviks spurred the Colorado legislature to pass a law in 1919 forbidding the display of the “red flag” in public. The headquarters of the International Workers of the World in Pueblo were raided and suspected radicals rounded up; and in Denver an ordinance was passed forbidding any person from speaking in a manner that could incite “rebellion.” The most dramatic example of the “red scare” occurred in the summer of 1920, when unionized employees of the Denver Tramway Company went on strike to protest wage cuts. When the company imported strikebreakers, violence erupted, cars were overturned and burned in downtown Denver. In the public's opinion, unions were violent and dangerous.
 
Residents of Globeville took notice of public opinion. Fraternal organizations displayed large American flags during their gatherings, and many business hung American flags in their windows. Some people left Transfiguration Russian Orthodox Church, while others
“Americanized” their names - Staresinich was shortened to “Star,” Snidersich changed to “Snyder,” Yakin became “Jackson.” 

Gradually the “red scare” subsided, but the negative attitudes toward immigrants remained. Bowing to the growing fear that people from eastern Europe threatened the nation's very existence, Congress passed a law in 1924* that effectively ended immigration from eastern Europe.

* The Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. 

 

1921 Convention WSA, Pueblo

Photo used with written permission from Joseph Skrabec

 

Sjedinjenih "One for All" Orthodox Lodge

used with written permission from Steve Machuga

Polish Constitution Day Parade, 1940

used with written permission from Jan Gisewski Garland