"The Case against the Reds"

Palmer Raids

Essay

By: A. Mitchell Palmer

Date: February 1920

Source: "The Case Against the 'Reds'" as published in The Forum.

About the Author: A. Mitchell Palmer (1872–1936) became an attorney in Pennsylvania after graduating from Swarthmore College in 1891. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1908 by a large majority, Palmer quickly rose in the ranks of the national Democratic Party. A Progressive, he authored a bill against child labor, supported women's suffrage, and earned a perfect rating by the American Federation of Labor. After losing a bid to enter the U.S. Senate, Palmer became President Woodrow Wilson's attorney general in 1919. In his most controversial action, Palmer led the so-called Palmer Raids against suspected political radicals in 1919 and 1920. After failing to win the 1920 Democratic nomination for president, Palmer retired from public life.

INTRODUCTION

A. Mitchell Palmer became a national political figure because of his support for the rights of workers. After organized labor failed to support his unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate, Palmer turned against labor. As attorney general in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, he obtained injunctions stopping strikes by mine and railroad workers in 1919. His actions led American Federation of Labor president Samuel Gomper to denounce Palmer as an autocrat. When Wilson Administration officials objected to the injunctions, Palmer assured the members of the president's cabinet that his intelligence division had collected proof that the strike was part of a worldwide communist conspiracy.

In 1919, most middle-class Americans feared communism. The Red Scare ("red" refers to the color of the flag used by Bolshevik Russian revolutionaries) had its roots in the post-World War I (1915–1918) recession, labor unrest, and the difficulties of reintegrating millions of returning veterans. Unsettling events overseas also added to American anxieties. In March 1919, leaders of the young Soviet Union created the Comintern, a worldwide association of Communist leaders intent on promoting revolution in capitalist societies.

A Communist revolution in the U.S. was unlikely, but a series of isolated terrorist attacks convinced many nervous Americans that a revolution was imminent. Under pressure from the U.S. Senate, Palmer began to investigate radicals. Advised by J. Edgar Hoover of the Justice Department that radicals planned to overthrow the government, Palmer authorized raids on radical gatherings. In November 1919, the Justice Department with assistance from local police began to make arrests throughout the nation. The raids reached their peak on January 2, 1920 when 7,000 immigrants were arrested. Most arrests were made without warrants. Some of those arrested spent up to four months in prison awaiting trial or a deportation hearing.

PRIMARY SOURCE

In this brief review of the work which the Department of Justice has undertaken, to tear out the radical seeds that have entangled American ideas in their poisonous theories, I desire not merely to explain what the real menace of communism is, but also to tell how we have been compelled to clean up the country almost unaided by any virile legislation. Though I have not been embarrassed by political opposition, I have been materially delayed because the present sweeping processes of arrests and deportation of seditious aliens should have been vigorously pushed by Congress last spring. The failure of this is a matter of record in the Congressional files . . .

Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution of law and order a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the American workmen, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars 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.

Robbery, not war, is the ideal of communism. This has been demonstrated in Russia, Germany, and in America. As a foe, the anarchist is fearless of his own life, for his creed is a fanaticism that admits no respect of any other creed. Obviously it is the creed of any criminal mind, which reasons always from motives impossible to clean thought. Crime is the degenerate factor in society.

Upon these two basic certainties, first that the "Reds" were criminal aliens and secondly that the American Government must prevent crime, it was decided that there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national laws. An assassin may have brilliant intellectuality, he may be able to excuse his murder or robbery with fine oratory, but any theory which excuses crime is not wanted in America. This is no place for the criminal to flourish, nor will he do so long as the rights of common citizenship can be exerted to prevent him . . .

The Government was in jeopardy; our private information of what was being done by the organization known as the Communist Party of America, with headquarters in Chicago, of what was being done by the Communist Internationale under their manifesto planned at Moscow last March by Trotzky, Lenin, and others addressed "To the Proletariats of All Countries," of what strides the Communist Labor Party was making, removed all doubt. In this conclusion we did not ignore the definite standards of personal liberty, of free speech, which is the very temperament and heart of the people. The evidence was examined with the utmost care, with a personal leaning toward freedom of thought and word on all questions.

The whole mass of evidence, accumulated from all parts of the country, was scrupulously scanned, not merely for the written or spoken differences of viewpoint as to the Government of the United States, but, in spite of these things, to see if the hostile declarations might not be sincere in their announced motive to improve our social order. There was no hope of such a thing . . .

Behind, and underneath, my own determination to drive from our midst the agents of Bolshevism with increasing vigor and with greater speed, until there are no more of them left among us, so long as I have the responsible duty of that task, I have discovered the hysterical methods of these revolutionary humans with increasing amazement and suspicion. In the confused information that sometimes reaches the people they are compelled to ask questions which involve the reasons for my acts against the "Reds." I have been asked, for instance, to what extent deportation will check radicalism in this country. Why not ask what will become of the United States Government if these alien radicals are permitted to carry out the principles of the Communist Party as embodied in its so-called laws, aims and regulations?

There wouldn't be any such thing left. In place of the United States Government we should have the horror and terrorism of bolsheviki tyranny such as is destroying Russia now. Every scrap of radical literature demands the overthrow of our existing government. All of it demands obedience to the instincts of criminal minds, that is, to the lower appetites, material and moral. The whole purpose of communism appears to be a mass formation of the criminals of the world to overthrow the decencies of private life, to usurp property that they have not earned, to disrupt the present order of life regardless of health, sex, or religious rights. By a literature that promises the wildest dreams of such low aspirations, that can occur to only the criminal minds, communism distorts our social law. . . .

It has been inferred by the "Reds." that the United States Government, by arresting and deporting them, is returning to the autocracy of Czardom, adopting the system that created the severity of Siberian banishment. My reply to such charges is that in our determination to maintain our government we are treating our alien enemies with extreme consideration. To deny them the privilege of remaining in a country which they have openly deplored as an unenlightened community, unfit for those who prefer the privileges of Bolshevism, should be no hardship . . .

It has been impossible in so short a space to review the entire menace of the internal revolution in this country as I know it, but this may serve to arouse the American citizen to its reality, its danger, and the great need of united effort to stamp it out, under our feet, if needs be. It is being done. The Department of Justice will pursue the attack of these "Reds." upon the Government of the United States with vigilance, and no alien, advocating the overthrow of existing law and order in this country, shall escape arrest and prompt deportation . . .

SIGNIFICANCE

The Palmer Raids constituted, at the time, perhaps the largest reinterpretation of civil liberties in U.S. history. Most constitutional scholars agree that the raids violated First Amendment rights of free assembly and free speech (especially political speech), as well as Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, and Fifth Amendment guards against the deprivation of liberty without due process. Nevertheless, the former critics of Palmer's inactivity now applauded him. The raids crippled such radical organizations as the Communist Party, the Communist Labor Party, and the Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the Wobblies). Palmer was the hero of the hour.

In March 1920, Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson stepped down because of illness to be replaced by Assistant Secretary Louis F. Post. Much more sympathetic to the plight of immigrants and citizens held without good cause or due process, Post investigated each person's case. He released detainees held on evidence seized improperly and those belonging to groups whose leaders had transferred their memberships to the Communist party without their knowledge. He lowered bail for those jailed radicals with jobs and families, despite protests from the Justice Department. By April, Post had decided 1,600 cases, canceling arrests in over 70 percent of them. Only 249 radicals suffered deportation.

The backlash against Palmer began within months. The House Committee on Rules, informed by Palmer that Post was delaying deportations, began impeachment proceedings against the secretary of labor but ultimately took no action. Meanwhile, some of America's most prominent attorneys, including future Supreme Court Justices Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan Fiske Stone, and Felix Frankfurter spoke out against the Palmer Raids and signed a public petition criticizing the arrests.

By mid–1920 public opinion had turned against Palmer. His activities as Alien Property custodian and attorney general gave rise to numerous complaints of improper activity. After investigations by Congress and several grand juries, no indictments were ever brought against Palmer.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Coben, Stanley. A. Mitchell Palmer, Politician. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.

Dunn, Robert W. The Palmer Raids. New York: International Publishers, 1948.

Feuerlicht, Roberta Strass. America's Reign of Terror: World War I, the Red Scare, and the Palmer Raids. New York: Random House, 1971.

McCormick, Charles H. Seeing Reds: Federal Surveillance of Radicals in the Pittsburgh Mill District, 1917–1921. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997.