Explanation:The Red Scare of 1919-1920 has been presented as a wave of anti-Radical hysteria that
swept post WWI America; a hysteria to which the state reluctantly capitulated to by arresting
Radicals and deporting those alien Radicals they deemed most threatening. This presentation,
however, is ludicrous when the motivations of the state and its conservative allies are examined.
The truth of the matter was that almost all of the people targeted by the Red Scare represented no
significant threat to the institutions of the United States and were merely targeted for holding
Left wing ideas, or being connected to a group that did. This work examines how the Red Scare
deportations were used as a performance to gain power and funding for the Bureau of
Investigation and how the Bureau sought to use this performance to set itself up as the premier
anti-Radical agency in the United States.
While the topic of the Red Scare of 1919-1920 has been thoroughly covered, most works
on the subject attempt to cover the whole affair or even address it as part of a larger study of