n the other hand, the reactionary forces in the country attempted to cast the blame for the country's problems on aliens and alien ideologies. Every action taken by the socialists and communists was depicted by the reactionary forces, which included most federal government officials, as an attack on traditional American values. Thus, when the Trades and Labor Council (a labor union) called a general strike in 1919 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, American opponents to any rights for organized labor pounced on the action as an illustration of what the Reds would do in the United States given an opportunity (Creighton, 1970). The general public was urged to rally against the Reds, and the federal government was urged to jail the Reds, outlaw communism, and deport aliens sympathetic to socialism or communism (Hoover, 1958).
The Winnipeg General Strike represented, for both its opponents and proponents, a clash of absolutes. The difference in the two conceptions lay in the definition of the absolutes. For the societal elite
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