- 20 Jul 2004 13:31
#386787
Notice some parrells today??
The climate of repression established during World War One continued after the war ended: this time, government interest focused on communists, Bolsheviks and "reds" generally. The climactic phase of this anti communist crusade occurred during the "Palmer Raids" of 1918-1921. A. Mitchell Palmer, Wilson's Attorney General, believed communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman." In his essay "The Case Against the Reds," Palmer charged that "tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the alters of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society." With a broad base of popular support, in 1919 Palmer intensified the attacks on political dissent that had begun during the war.
The year 1919 saw a great deal of social conflict--a wave of strikes, the passage of both Prohibition and Woman Suffrage, and the Chicago race riot. A series of bombings by suspected anarchists began in Summer 1919; on June 2, bombs went off in eight cities, including Washington DC, where Palmer's home was partially destroyed. Just who set the bombs remained unclear. Although there were only about 70, 000 self professed Communists in the United States in 1919, Palmer viewed them as responsible for a wide range of social ills, including the bombings. Encouraged by Congress, which had refused to seat the duly elected socialist from Wisconsin, Victor Berger, Mitchell began a series of showy and well publicized raids against radicals and leftists. Striking without warning and without warrants, Palmer's men smashed union offices and the headquarters' of Communist and Socialist organizations. They concentrated whenever possible on aliens rather than citizens, because aliens had fewer rights. In December of 1919, in their most famous act, Palmer's agents seized 249 resident aliens. Those seized were placed on board a ship, the Buford, bound for the Soviet Union. Deportees included Emma Goldman, the feminist, anarchist and writer who later recalled the deportation in her autobiography, excerpted here
The "Red Scare" reflected the same anxiety about free speech and obsession with consensus that had characterized the war years. Two documents included here point to the absurdity of some of these fears. In the case of "The Most Brainiest Man," a Connecticut clothing salesmen was sentenced to sixth months in jail simply for saying Lenin was smart. A story that same year in the Washington Post noted with approval how in Chicago, a sailor shot another man merely for failing to rise during the national anthem. Finally, a satirical essay by the humorist Robert Benchley mocks the public's hunger for enemies, invented enemies if necessary. The Red Scare suggests how quickly legal rights can succumb to hysterical rhetoric and public fear.
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In April of 1919, a bomb blew off the hands of a maid opening the mail of the Georgia senator. Over the course of the next several days, Manhattan postal officials discovered and intercepted 34 more identical mail bombs which targeted influential figures such as J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Anarchy seemed to be on the loose. When another bomb (one of several directed at legislators and businessmen across the East Coast) later blasted the front of his Washington home in June, A. Mitchell Palmer, newly appointed Attorney General, took action.
Palmer, spurred by public outcry against the perceived "Bolshevik menace" emerging from the new Soviet Union, assembled a new division at the U.S. Department of Justice specifically to hunt down anarchists. Invoking the wartime Espionage Act of 1917 and the 1918 Sedition Act, Palmer sought to flush out "Reds" and socialist supporters remotely capable of carrying out terrorist acts. In the next few months his officials conducted raids on "anarchist" organizations, schools, and gathering places in over 30 cities nationwide. Often without warrants, they rounded up some 5,000 mostly innocent resident aliens, incarcerated many and deported some back to the Soviet Union, including feminist Emma Goldman. "Not for at least half a century," wrote William Leuchtenburg, "had there been such a wholesale violation of civil liberties."
In the face of the mounting Red Scare, the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Louis F. Post, took a bold step and canceled more than 1,500 deportations. He saw not a Bolshevik menace but Palmer's power unchecked by law. Palmer angrily demanded that Post be fired for his "tender solicitude for social revolution." The House of Representatives tried to impeach Post, but his eloquent indictment of the "Palmer Raids" during the trial swayed Congress and calmed the nation.
The public lost interest by spring of 1920 as one Palmer- predicted terrorist attack after another failed to occur. When Wall Street was bombed in September 1920, most Americans considered it an assault by a deranged individual rather than a socialist conspiracy. Palmer, once considered a rising Presidential candidate, was largely forgotten.
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The Palmer Raids were a number of attacks on Socialists and Communists in the United States from 1918 to 1921.
The raids are named after Alexander Mitchell Palmer, United States Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson. Palmer stated his belief that Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and that American Communists were responsible for most of the country's social problems.
The crackdown on dissent had actually begun during World War I, but had accelerated significantly after the end of the war. Congress in 1919 refused to seat Socialist representative from Wisconsin, Victor L. Berger, because of his pacifist views concerning the war. With strong support from Congress and the public, in 1919 Palmer clamped down on political dissent. On June 2, 1919 a number of bombs were detonated in eight American cities, including one in Washington that damaged the home of Palmer. Following this, Palmer and his assistant John Edgar Hoover orchestrated a series of well publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Victor Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the charge of sedition (the Supreme Court of the United States later threw out that conviction).
Starting on November 7, 1919, Palmer's men smashed union offices and the headquarters of Communist and Socialist organizations without warrants, concentrating on foreigners. They arrested over 10,000 people. In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 of the arrestees, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (the Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the anarcho-syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 Communists were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported.
The public reaction to these raids was favorable, stirring up a storm of anti-communist sentiment. In a murder eerily similar to the lynching of Germans during World War I, a group of young men in Centralia, Washington hanged a radical from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the communist "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes." For most of 1919, the public seemed to side with Palmer.
Palmer announced that a Communist revolution was to take place on May 1 (May Day). Following initial panic, the non-appearance of the revolution led to criticism of Palmer over his disregard for civil rights and accusations that the entire Red Scare was designed to secure him the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
The climate of repression established during World War One continued after the war ended: this time, government interest focused on communists, Bolsheviks and "reds" generally. The climactic phase of this anti communist crusade occurred during the "Palmer Raids" of 1918-1921. A. Mitchell Palmer, Wilson's Attorney General, believed communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman." In his essay "The Case Against the Reds," Palmer charged that "tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the alters of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society." With a broad base of popular support, in 1919 Palmer intensified the attacks on political dissent that had begun during the war.
The year 1919 saw a great deal of social conflict--a wave of strikes, the passage of both Prohibition and Woman Suffrage, and the Chicago race riot. A series of bombings by suspected anarchists began in Summer 1919; on June 2, bombs went off in eight cities, including Washington DC, where Palmer's home was partially destroyed. Just who set the bombs remained unclear. Although there were only about 70, 000 self professed Communists in the United States in 1919, Palmer viewed them as responsible for a wide range of social ills, including the bombings. Encouraged by Congress, which had refused to seat the duly elected socialist from Wisconsin, Victor Berger, Mitchell began a series of showy and well publicized raids against radicals and leftists. Striking without warning and without warrants, Palmer's men smashed union offices and the headquarters' of Communist and Socialist organizations. They concentrated whenever possible on aliens rather than citizens, because aliens had fewer rights. In December of 1919, in their most famous act, Palmer's agents seized 249 resident aliens. Those seized were placed on board a ship, the Buford, bound for the Soviet Union. Deportees included Emma Goldman, the feminist, anarchist and writer who later recalled the deportation in her autobiography, excerpted here
The "Red Scare" reflected the same anxiety about free speech and obsession with consensus that had characterized the war years. Two documents included here point to the absurdity of some of these fears. In the case of "The Most Brainiest Man," a Connecticut clothing salesmen was sentenced to sixth months in jail simply for saying Lenin was smart. A story that same year in the Washington Post noted with approval how in Chicago, a sailor shot another man merely for failing to rise during the national anthem. Finally, a satirical essay by the humorist Robert Benchley mocks the public's hunger for enemies, invented enemies if necessary. The Red Scare suggests how quickly legal rights can succumb to hysterical rhetoric and public fear.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In April of 1919, a bomb blew off the hands of a maid opening the mail of the Georgia senator. Over the course of the next several days, Manhattan postal officials discovered and intercepted 34 more identical mail bombs which targeted influential figures such as J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Anarchy seemed to be on the loose. When another bomb (one of several directed at legislators and businessmen across the East Coast) later blasted the front of his Washington home in June, A. Mitchell Palmer, newly appointed Attorney General, took action.
Palmer, spurred by public outcry against the perceived "Bolshevik menace" emerging from the new Soviet Union, assembled a new division at the U.S. Department of Justice specifically to hunt down anarchists. Invoking the wartime Espionage Act of 1917 and the 1918 Sedition Act, Palmer sought to flush out "Reds" and socialist supporters remotely capable of carrying out terrorist acts. In the next few months his officials conducted raids on "anarchist" organizations, schools, and gathering places in over 30 cities nationwide. Often without warrants, they rounded up some 5,000 mostly innocent resident aliens, incarcerated many and deported some back to the Soviet Union, including feminist Emma Goldman. "Not for at least half a century," wrote William Leuchtenburg, "had there been such a wholesale violation of civil liberties."
In the face of the mounting Red Scare, the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Louis F. Post, took a bold step and canceled more than 1,500 deportations. He saw not a Bolshevik menace but Palmer's power unchecked by law. Palmer angrily demanded that Post be fired for his "tender solicitude for social revolution." The House of Representatives tried to impeach Post, but his eloquent indictment of the "Palmer Raids" during the trial swayed Congress and calmed the nation.
The public lost interest by spring of 1920 as one Palmer- predicted terrorist attack after another failed to occur. When Wall Street was bombed in September 1920, most Americans considered it an assault by a deranged individual rather than a socialist conspiracy. Palmer, once considered a rising Presidential candidate, was largely forgotten.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Palmer Raids were a number of attacks on Socialists and Communists in the United States from 1918 to 1921.
The raids are named after Alexander Mitchell Palmer, United States Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson. Palmer stated his belief that Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and that American Communists were responsible for most of the country's social problems.
The crackdown on dissent had actually begun during World War I, but had accelerated significantly after the end of the war. Congress in 1919 refused to seat Socialist representative from Wisconsin, Victor L. Berger, because of his pacifist views concerning the war. With strong support from Congress and the public, in 1919 Palmer clamped down on political dissent. On June 2, 1919 a number of bombs were detonated in eight American cities, including one in Washington that damaged the home of Palmer. Following this, Palmer and his assistant John Edgar Hoover orchestrated a series of well publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Victor Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the charge of sedition (the Supreme Court of the United States later threw out that conviction).
Starting on November 7, 1919, Palmer's men smashed union offices and the headquarters of Communist and Socialist organizations without warrants, concentrating on foreigners. They arrested over 10,000 people. In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 of the arrestees, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (the Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the anarcho-syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 Communists were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported.
The public reaction to these raids was favorable, stirring up a storm of anti-communist sentiment. In a murder eerily similar to the lynching of Germans during World War I, a group of young men in Centralia, Washington hanged a radical from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the communist "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes." For most of 1919, the public seemed to side with Palmer.
Palmer announced that a Communist revolution was to take place on May 1 (May Day). Following initial panic, the non-appearance of the revolution led to criticism of Palmer over his disregard for civil rights and accusations that the entire Red Scare was designed to secure him the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
- By ingliz
- By annatar1914
- By Unthinking Majority
- By Godstud