Press Reaction
The press reveled in the investigation and the final report, referring to the Russians as "assassins and madmen," "human scum," "crime mad," and "beasts." The occasional testimony by some who viewed the Russian Revolution favorably lacked the punch of its critics. One extended headline in February read:
- Says Riffraff, Not the Toilers, Rule in Russia
- American Manager of Great American Plant There Tells Experiences to Senators
- Outsiders Seized Power
- Came Back from Other Countries and are Growing Rich at People's Expense
- Factories Being Ruined
- 60,000,000 Rubles Spent in Three Months at One Plant to Produce 400,000 Worth of Goods
And one day later:
- Bolshevism Bared by R.E. Simmons
- Former Agent in Russia of Commerce Department Concludes his Story to Senators
- Women are 'Nationalized'
- Official Decrees Reveal Depths of Degradation to Which They are Subjected by Reds
- Germans Profit by Chaos
- Factories and Mills are Closed and the Machinery Sold to Them for a Song
On the release of the final report, newspapers printed sensational articles with headlines in capital letters: "Red Peril Here", "Plan Bloody Revolution", and "Want Washington Government Overturned."
Read more about this topic: Overman Committee
Famous quotes containing the words press and/or reaction:
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)