[R-G] WALKING NORTH ON A SOUTHBOUND TRAIN

[Nicholas Morcinek]

I grew up in the UK in the 50's and 60's so I was vague on the Palmer
raids...

I guess those guys made it pretty clear who they feared the most... and
thanks for making me dig it up and read it through!

Needless to say, similar things were happening in the UK - the General
Strikes and workers direct action and more. All brutally repressed...

Nicholas

>And how is it that "progressive" now means all those things progressives 
>despised and launched the Palmer raids to extirpate?
>CJ

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. 
  

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