Rise+and+Fall,+1910-1929

Palmer Raids
Named for Wilson Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer.

[[image:Palmer.png]]
From Wikipedia:

In 1919, [|J. Edgar Hoover] was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover's division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding index. Using this information, starting on [|November 7], [|1919] , BOI agents, together with local police, orchestrated a series of well-publicized and violent raids against suspected "radicals" and foreigners, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Palmer and his agents were accused of using torture and other illegal methods of obtaining intelligence,[|[9]] including informers and wiretaps[//[|citation needed]//]. Victor L. Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a charge of [|sedition], although the [|Supreme Court of the United States] later overturned that conviction. The radical anarchist [|Luigi Galleani] and eight of his //Galleanist// adherents were deported in June 1919 under the provisons of the [|Anarchist Exclusion Act], three weeks after the [|June 2] wave of bombings. Although authorities did not have enough evidence to arrest Galleani for the bombings, they could deport him because he was a resident alien who had overtly encouraged the violent overthrow of the government, was a known associate of [|Carlo Valdonoci] and had authored an explicit how-to bomb making manual titled //La Salute é in Voi// (The Health is Within You), used by other //Galleanists// to construct some of their package bombs. In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 citizens and immigrants of Russian origin, 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 [|Industrial Workers of the World] union, a legal labor association. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 individuals were rounded up in a single night. By January 1920, Palmer and the Department of Justice had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals. [|Louis Freeland Post], then Assistant Secretary of Labor,[|[10]] cancelled more than 2000 of these warrants as being illegal.[|[11]] Of the many thousands arrested, 556 people were eventually deported under the 1918 Anarchist Act.[|[12]] For most of 1919 and early 1920, much of the public sided with Palmer, but this soon changed. Palmer announced that an attempted Communist revolution was certain to take place in the U.S. on [|May 1], [|1920] ([|May Day]). No such revolution took place on May 1, leading to criticism of Palmer.[|[13]] However, on September 16 of that year the [|Wall Street bombing] by //Galleanist// anarchists killed thirty-eight persons and wounded 400; it was the deadliest bombing attack to date in the United States. On May 28, 1920, the [|American Civil Liberties Union] published a report entitled //Report of the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice// which carefully documented unlawful Departmental authorization of the arrests of suspected radicals, illegal entrapment by agent provocateurs and unlawful incommunicado detention. The report was signed by prominent lawyers and law professors, including [|Felix Frankfurter], [|Roscoe Pound] and [|Ernst Freund]. Palmer was called before the House Rules Committee and strongly defended his actions and that of his department, saying "I apologize for nothing that the Department of Justice has done in this matter. I glory in it."[|[14]][|[15]] In June 1920, Judge [|George Anderson] effectively ended the raids when he ordered the discharge of twenty aliens, and denounced Department of Justice actions. The discovery of trumped-up charges and the [|Daugherty-Burns] scandal turned public opinion against further large-scale arrests and searches, though [|subsequent bomb attacks] and public clamor to punish the radicals believed responsible did not subside.[|[16]][|[17]] Palmer, once seen as a likely presidential candidate, lost the [|nomination].[|[14]] For their part, the //Galleanists// continued their violent bombing campaign, which would last another twelve years.[|[18]]

1917 Espionage Act
[|Primary Document] [|General Information]

While reading about the Mexican revolution I came across the fact that the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had sent a representative to Choahuila Mexico in 1918 for the labor convention in Saltillo. Upon looking up information regarding this, I found the following information and photo. The link is provided after the information inserted here. The government also sought the cooperation of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and involved its top [|officials] in the war production effort, but very low unemployment emboldened union workers and it became difficult for the leadership to control the rank and file. Many workers connected Wilson’s war goals-democracy and self-determination for nations-to struggles for a voice in their workplaces through union representation. However, the number of striking workers was lower in 1917 and 1918 than in 1916. The government hastily created labor arbitration boards and eventually formed a NATIONAL WAR LABOR BOARD (NWLB) in April 1918. The government had considerable success in resolving disputes and convincing employers to at least temporarily give some ground to the unions. When this novel arbitration framework disappeared along with government contracts in 1919, workers participated in the largest strike wave in the nation’s [|history] -over four million participated in walkouts during that year. []

1918 Sedition Act
Here is a link describing the Sedition Act passed on May 16, 1918. The Sedition Act was an Amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917; the Sedition act dealt with dissent in time of war. The Sedition Act imposed harsh penalties on anyone found guilty of making statements that interfered with the war effort; insulting or abusing the U.S. government, the flag, the Constitution or the military; agitating against the production of necessary war materials; or advocating, teaching or defending any of these acts. Persons found guilty of such actions could be punished by a $10,000 fine or up to twenty years in jail. []