Classroom Discussion:
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and the Palmer Raids

I.W.W. Headquarters in New York City after November 15, 1919 Raid
Source: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Exhibition/deportation.html

Synopsis:

The 1920's was a period of great prosperity offset with insecurities on the future of the Nation.  With the Close of World War I placing the US firmly in its position as a significant international power, the political landscape reflected a greater concern for foreign influences on the country's population.  However, changes facilitated by the Russian Revolution and the spread of Communist ideas throughout the West fed a paranoia that American progress was in jeopardy.   In the US, a series of bombings and attempted bombings targeting prominent US officials further increased the national paranoia over the dangerous influence of radicals within the country's borders.

A. Mitchell Palmer served as Attorney General under Woordow Wilson’s presidency after 1919, during this period of relative unrest. Palmer, believed to be a proponent of Progressivism soon turned to the right.  Believing that Communism was influencing the American working classes, Palmer became convinced that radical influences must be eradicated from the American political and social landscape.   These fears, which Palmer elaborated in "A Case Against the Reds" resulted in a mass-scale crackdown on political groups across the country beginning with arrests of over 10,000 suspected Communists and anarchists on November 7, 1919.  Together with the young J. Edgar Hoover, who was appointed head of the General Intelligence Division in 1919, Palmer initiated a comprehensive program to rout out radicals, especially those of foreign birth.  Dubbed the "Palmer Raids" in honor of their instigator, the break-ins, deportations, and arrests faced mixed responses.  Some, believing that radicalism was fraying the fabric of the American Dream, supported Palmer and the elimination of dissidents.  Others criticized the raids as a threat to Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and assembly and argued that the raids were a method by which to destroy the labor movement. 

Suspected radicals were often held without trial for extended periods, while others were deported. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, two radicals of international renown among the deported, were returned to their mother country, Russia on a ship with 249 others. Some of the most notable and damaging attacks were aimed at the Industrial Workers of the World, who as an organization never fully recovered from the raids.  Although the raids themselves only occurred in 1919-1920, their influence extended into the next decade.
 

Palmer and the Reds in Documents and Images

Sources:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USApalmerA.htm
 Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas, eds.  Encyclopedia of the American Left.  New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.

Questions to Consider:

What factors influenced the raids?
What effects did the raids have on American radicals?

Links of Importance:

Between the Wars: The Red Scare
The Lawless Decade: The Red Raids
The Red Scare in Political Cartoons
Digital History: The Post-War Red Scare
Red Scare Image Database
 

Recommended Reading:

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

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