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Selection taken from the forthcoming CD Rom
Who Built America,v. II
The 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.
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