Palmer Raids (The Raids of the 1920’s) UNITED STATES HISTORY WRITTEN BY: Gregory Dehler See Article History Alternative Title: Palmer Red Raids BRITANNICA STORIES Palmer Raids, also called Palmer Red Raids, raids conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1919 and 1920 in an attempt to arrest foreign anarchists, communists, and radical leftists, many of whom were subsequently deported. The raids, fueled by social unrest following World War I, were led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and are viewed as the climax of that era’s so-called Red Scare. A. Mitchell Palmer. Harris and Ewing Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. LC-DIG-hec-16294) The emotional pitch of World War I did not abate with the armistice, and rampant inflation, unemployment, massive and violent strikes, and brutal race riots in the United States contributed to a sense of fear and foreboding in 1919. A mail bomb plot, consisting of 36 explosive packages designed to go off on May Day, 1919, triggered a grave fear that a Bolshevik conspiracy sought the overthrow of the United States. On June 2, 1919, a second series of bombings took place, destroying Palmer’s home and leading to increased public pressure for action against the radical agitators. Palmer was a latecomer to the anticommunist cause and had a history of supporting civil liberties. However, he was ambitious to obtain the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1920 and believed that he could establish himself as the law-and-order candidate. Together with J. Edgar Hoover, Palmer created the General Intelligence Division in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and secured an increase in funds from Congress to devote to anticommunist activities by the Justice Department. On November 7, 1919 (the second anniversary of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia), U.S. federal and local authorities raided the headquarters of the Union of Russian Workers in New York City and arrested more than 200 individuals. On November 25 a second raid on the Union of Russian Workers headquarters unveiled a false wall and a bomb factory, confirming suspicions that the union harboured revolutionary intentions. Palmer believed that the way to deal with the radicals was to deport the immigrants. On December 21, 249 radicals, including anarchist Emma Goldman, were packed aboard the USS Buford, which the press dubbed the Soviet Ark, and deported to Russia. On January 2, 1920, the most spectacular of the Palmer Raids took place, when thousands of individuals (estimates vary between 3,000 and 10,000) were arrested in more than 30 cities. The following day, federal, state, and local agents conducted further raids. In all the Palmer Raids, arrests greatly exceeded the number of warrants that had been obtained from the courts, and many of those arrested were guilty of nothing more than having a foreign accent. Palmer declared the raids a success but announced that the work was far from done. He claimed that there were still more than 300,000 dangerous communists inside the United States. Local authorities lacked the facilities to hold the arrestees from the January raids, and Palmer sent a large number of suspected radicals to the Bureau of Immigration for deportation. Acting Secretary of Labor Louis Post, however, did not share Palmer’s fear of radical aliens and reversed more than 70 percent of the 1,600 deportation warrants. Meantime, American public opinion shifted under Palmer’s feet. As news of the brutality of the raids became public and the constitutionality of the actions was brought into question, many, including the National Civil Liberties Bureau, publicly challenged Palmer’s actions. Palmer’s unfulfilled dire predictions of a May Day 1920 revolution destroyed his credibility with the public, diminishing the Red Scare and ending the Palmer Raids. Fearing a communist revolutionary takeover of the U.S., Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer set in motion a hunt for conspirators, called the Palmer Raids. Read about these raids and test your understanding with a quiz. The Red Scare Though the U.S. and the Allies won World War I in 1918, there was still fear in the air. Influential journalist Walter Lippman wrote, 'We seem to be the most frightened victors the world ever saw.' So what were Americans so scared of? In 1917 the Bolsheviks (nicknamed the 'Reds') took control of Russia and created the world's first communist state. They declared their goal of fomenting a worldwide communist revolution. Many Americans were sympathetic to the Bolshevik's anti-capitalist views: socialists were elected as mayors and council members in many U.S. cities, and the socialist candidate for president Eugene V. Debs, languishing in federal prison for criticizing America's role in World War I, received almost 1 million votes in the 1920 election. Radical labor unions challenged their employers with a series of strikes and violent confrontations. And anarchists triggered bombs in courthouses and police stations, killing dozens. This set off the Red Scare: a fear of revolutionary violence in the United States. Many Americans feared revolutionary violence during the Red Scare When a bomb destroyed the front of the U.S. Attorney General's house in June, 1919, he vowed to stop the pending anti-capitalist revolution in America. The Attorney General, a man named A. Mitchell Palmer, proclaimed that a 'blaze of revolution' was 'sweeping over every American institution of law and order.' The aftermath of the bombing of the house of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer The Palmer Raids Beginning in 1918 and continuing through 1920, Palmer spearheaded a nationwide hunt for potential revolutionaries. He argued that anyone who might harbor ideas that could lead to violence should be detained and deported, even if they hadn't committed an actual crime. Palmer set up a Radical Division within the Justice Department, and the new division's sole aim was to seek out revolutionaries. The Palmer Raids targeted radical labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World and the Union of Russian Workers. Federal officials also roughed up and arrested immigrants, socialists, and communists. The largest of the Palmer Raids occurred in January, 1920, when Palmer's henchmen broke down doors in over 30 cities. Almost 6,000 people were arrested, many taken from their homes without arrest warrants. Though Palmer claimed to have captured a variety of conspirators and subversives, the truth was something different. Most of the 500 people that were deported as result of the raids were nothing more than intellectual radicals who had committed no crime nor participated in anything illegal. But Americans were scared, so they allowed Palmer to act with impunity. Fear-mongers like A. Mitchell Palmer usually go too far. And Palmer did when he announced that he had uncovered a revolutionary conspiracy set to be unleashed on May 1, 1920. Palmer predicted an orgy of violence and destruction. Heeding his warning, states sent out militias, bomb squads, and police en masse. A Byte Out of History The Palmer Raids 12/28/07 The bomb hit home, both literally and figuratively. On June 2, 1919, a militant anarchist named Carlo Valdinoci blew up the front of newly appointed Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s home in Washington, D.C.—and himself up in the process when the bomb exploded too early. A young Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived across the street, were also shaken by the blast. The bombing was just one in a series of coordinated attacks that day on judges, politicians, law enforcement officials, and others in eight cities nationwide. About a month earlier, radicals had also mailed bombs to the mayor of Seattle and a U.S. Senator, blowing the hands The destruction caused by the bombing off the senator’s domestic worker. The next day, a postal worker in of Attorney General Palmer’s home. New York City intercepted 16 more packages addressed to political and business leaders, including John D. Rockefeller. It was already a time of high anxiety in America—driven by a deadly wave of the pandemic flu, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and ensuing over-hyped “Red Scare,” and sometimes violent labor strikes across the country. The nation demanded a response to the bombings, and the Attorney General—who had his eye on the White House in 1920—was ready to oblige. He created a small division to gather intelligence on the radical threat and placed a young Justice Department lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover in charge. Hoover collected and organized every scrap of intelligence gathered by the Bureau of Investigation (the FBI’s predecessor) and by other agencies to identify anarchists most likely involved in violent activity. The young Bureau, meanwhile, continued to investigate those responsible for the bombings. Later that fall, the Department of Justice began arresting, under recently passed laws like the Sedition Act, suspected radicals and foreigners identified by Hoover’s group, including well-known leaders Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. In December, with much public fanfare, a number of radicals were put on a ship dubbed the “Red Ark” or “Soviet Ark” by the press and deported to Russia. At this point, though, politics, inexperience, and overreaction got the better of Attorney General Palmer and his department. Hoover—with the encouragement of Palmer and the help of the Department of Labor— started planning a massive roundup of radicals. By early January 1920, the plans were ready. The department Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer organized simultaneous raids in major cities, with local police called on to arrest thousands of suspected anarchists. But the ensuing “Palmer Raids” turned into a nightmare, marked by poor communications, planning, and intelligence about who should be targeted and how many arrest warrants would be needed.