Palmer Raids

The emotional pitch of World War I did not abate with the armistice. Dislocation caused by a return to the peacetime economy, rampant inflation, unemployment, massive and violent strikes, exaggerated and hysterical headlines, and brutal race riots contributed to a sense of fear and foreboding in 1919. A mail bomb plot consisting of 36 explosive packages and designed to coincide with May Day 1919 triggered a grave fear that a Bolshevik conspiracy directed by Moscow sought the overthrow of the United States. Public pressure mounted for action against the radical agitators. On June 2, 1919, a second series of bombings took place, destroying the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

Palmer was a latecomer to the anti-communist cause and had had a history of supporting civil liberties. On the other hand, he was ambitious to obtain the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1920, and he believed he could establish himself as the law-and-order candidate. Palmer created the General Intelligence Division, under J. Edgar Hoover, in the Bureau of Investigation and secured an increase in funds from Congress to devote to anti-communist activities by the Justice Department.

On November 7, 1919, the anniversary of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, 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, 1919, a second raid on the Union of Russian Workers headquarters unveiled a false wall and a bomb factory, confirming suspicions that the union harbored revolutionary intentions. Palmer believed the way to deal with the radicals was to deport the immigrants. On December 21, 1919, 249 radicals, including 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 5,000 individuals were arrested in more than 30 cities. The following day, federal, state, and local agents conducted further raids. As in all the other Palmer raids, arrests greatly exceeded the number of warrants that had been obtained from the courts.

Palmer declared the raids a smashing 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 Immigration Bureau for deportation. Acting secretary of labor Louis Post, however, did not share Palmer's fear of radical aliens and reversed more than 70% of the 1,600 deportation warrants.

Meantime, American public opinion shifted under Palmer's feet. 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, ending the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids.