1919: Chapter Four

The patriotic fervor that had engulfed the nation during World War I fueled the Red Scare.

Anyone seen as being less patriotic than expected was suspected of being a Communist, a Communist sympathizer, or a Socialist—a slight ideological variation of Communism.

Anyone seen as being less patriotic than expected was suspected of being a Communist, a Communist sympathizer, or a Socialist—a slight ideological variation of Communism.

Anyone seen as being less patriotic than expected was suspected of being a Communist, a Communist sympathizer, or a Socialist—a slight ideological variation of Communism.

As far as thousands of private citizens and a large number of government officials were concerned, these strikes were fostered by Communist agitators, eager to throw the United States into turmoil.

Endowed with enormous energy and ambition, Palmer was tall and handsome, completely self-assured, and had a quick, inquisitive mind.

His ultimate aspiration was to be president of the United States, which meant his approach to solving the threat would require precision and shrewd calculation.

By August 1919 he had created a new bureau within the Department of Justice named the General Intelligence Division.

Questioning the right of Communists, Socialists, and anarchists of every persuasion to assemble or to promote their cause either by writing or speaking—sacred freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights—the Salt Lake City Tribune proclaimed that “Free speech has been carried to the point where it is an unrestrained menace.”

“I was shouted at from every editorial sanctum in America from sea to sea,” he later lamented.

“I was preached upon from every pulpit; I was urged to do something and do it now, and do it quick and do it in a way that would bring results.”

By the next day, Palmer, who only a week before had been vilified by the press and had several members of Congress demand his resignation, had become a national hero, “a tower of strength to his countrymen,” according to one newspaper.

They are arrayed in opposition to government, to decency, to justice. They plan to apply their destructive theories by violence in derogation of law.

Aboard the vessel were Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, two of the most famous and influential of all the anarchists who had been charged with inciting revolution in America.

They are a menace to law and order. They hold theories which are antagonistic to the orderly processes of modern civilization....

The Washington Post, which had been highly critical of the November raids, called for the deportation of the new suspects as quickly as possible, stating, “There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over infringement of liberty.”

What no one, most of all Palmer, could have realized at the time was that the accolades the raids received would soon be replaced by pointed criticism.

In it, the committee decried the fact that the abuses of the Palmer Raids went well beyond physical mistreatment.

Called before a congressional committee to answer charges that he had misused his office, Palmer stated, “I apologize for nothing.... I point with pride and enthusiasm to the results of that work…. [If my agents] were a little rough and unkind, or short and curt, with those alien agitators...I think it might well be overlooked in the general good to the country which has come from it.”

By this time, however, it had become increasingly clear that the “general good” had not been served and that the wholesale violation of civil liberties that had taken place during the Palmer Raids was a far greater threat to the nation’s well-being than any perceived Communist takeover.

Despite having lost favor with the public (particularly after it was revealed that four thousand of those arrested in the January raids had to be released through lack of evidence), the resilient Palmer was still not finished.

First in May 1920, and then again two months later, he boldly and unequivocally predicted that a serious Communist revolt was about to take place throughout the country.

When nothing happened, the newspapers, for the first time, began accusing him of being obsessed with an enemy that did not exist. Even that did not stop him from attempting to gain the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. But with his reputation in shambles, he failed.

“Perhaps,” as historian Allan L. Damon has written, “that is the way it should be. For... [A. Mitchell Palmer] very nearly gave it all away in succumbing to the hysteria of the great Red Scare.”

Unlike the United States’ economic system of capitalism in which the country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, Communism is based on a system in which the government owns everything and is responsible for distributing resources to every citizen.

Less than thirty years after the United States experienced the first fears of a Communist takeover, the spread of Communism in Eastern Europe and China following World War II and the fact that the Soviet Union had become a world superpower that possessed nuclear weapons triggered a second Red Scare.

Those who refused to answer were automatically regarded as guilty and were blacklisted, meaning that they were not able to find work for the duration of the second Red Scare.

After being denounced by McCarthy, the highly respected Murrow responded with a profile of the senator that showed him to be the unjust bully and coward that he was.

Soon after the Army-McCarthy hearings were over, the US Senate voted to censure McCarthy for having charged so many people falsely.

Following the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, some 120,000 people of Japanese descent, almost all of whom were loyal American citizens, were placed in “war relocation camps.” Their internment starting in 1942 and spanning the war represented one of the darkest periods in American history.

The ACLU paid a heavy price for its actions when a significant number of its members resigned in protest. But, as the group explains its mission, “We do not defend [people] because we agree with them; rather we defend their right to free expression and free assembly...we work to stop the erosion of civil liberties before it’s too late.”

The dictionary defines “nativism” as a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants. It was this nativist philosophy, bolstered by his fear and distrust of foreigners, that prompted Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to pursue policies that brought the Red Scare in America to a head in 1919.

Most dramatically, building on the anger and fear engendered by terrorist attacks attributed to the militant extremist group ISIS, he issued an executive order denying entrance to refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—who didn’t have close family or business relationships.

The anti-immigrant nativist sentiment that has pervaded the United States in recent years is reflected in statistics kept by organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.

According to the center, in 2016 the number of hate groups in the United States increased from 892 to 917. The number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled from 34 to 101. “The country,” states the center, “saw a resurgence of white nationalism that imperils the racial progress we’ve made.”

They are also the most violent, so much so that between 2000 and 2015, according to the Anti-Defamation League, about 83 percent of the extremist-related murders in America were committed by white supremacists.

1954 MARCH 9: In one of the most famous and effective journalistic attacks, Edward R. Murrow delivers a devastating rebuke of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his methods.

The act also provides for a $20,000 reparation payment to be given to each person who was interned as well as others of Japanese ancestry who had lost property or freedoms at that time as a result of Roosevelt’s order.

SEPTEMBER 20: President George W. Bush invokes the phrase “war on terror,” which leads to the targeting of Muslim communities.

JUNE 20: President Trump rescinds his administration’s earlier policy by signing an executive order stating that migrant families should be detained together.