An American Journey: The “Activist” Lives of Gust Alonen and Carl Paivio

Abstrakti

A central theme throughout the history of the United States has been the preservation and expansion of individual civil liberties. Beginning with the Bill of Rights in 1791 and continuing with the addition of further Amendments to the United States Constitution, the federal government, and later state governments, have enacted legislation and issued judicial rulings that strengthened and expanded America’s tradition of preserving individual liberties.

There have been, however, times during America’s history where the nation and its people have succumbed to events, both actual and perceived, to break with the cherished practice of protecting the civil liberties of its people. One such episode, the Red Scare, occurred at the end of the First World War with two of Finland’s native sons, Gust Alonen and Carl Paivio, engulfed in these tumultuous events. Their lives became a part of the very fabric of America’s history in the first half of the twentieth century.