Jim's Mailings

Palmer, don't let this country see red!

The Palmer Raids: When FDR learned that "the only thing we need to fear is fear, itself!
From the internet
Sarah Feldman
MC 112
Professor Evans

Seeing Red

Most of us have seen a newspaper before; lots of us read them to
find out about the important events going on in our society. Newspapers
are supposed to give us an unbiased factual report of these events, but
that isn't always the case. Newspapers can make certain events seem
more important and more consequential than other events. This happened
during the Palmer Raids of the early 1920's. Newspapers made the Palmer
Raids more prevalent and Anti-Communist feelings stronger among the
American public during the 1920's.
To understand how the media escalated the Red Scare and Palmer
Raids it helps to have a brief history of them. After World War I there
was a Red Scare among many Americans. There are many explanations for
this: rampant inflation, a tough job market, strikes, race riots, and
the public's need for a scapegoat (Duminel 218). When Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer's home was bombed he immediately believed it was the
Communists and went after all of them. In November of 1919, and
December of 1920 the U.S. Department of Justice under Palmer's direction
conducted raids in a number of prominent cities (Remelgas 3). Many
persons were arrested without warrants, and without being given proper
rights. Over five thousand people were arrested, and a total of two
hundred and forty nine people were deported (Remelgas 4). After these
raids and unlawful arrests, Palmer was called before the House Rules
Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee and convicted of using
Government funds in an improper way causing the end of the first Red Scare.
In journalism there are certain standards used to draw attention to
certain articles. Alexandra Remelgas states:
The standards of responsible journalism are useful in examining the
press coverage of the Palmer Raids. Standards of responsible journalism
are limited by the selection of and emphasis of news items! The position
of a news item on the page the amount of space allotted to the item; the
use of illustrations; prominent heading and type size are factors of
affecting the emphasis of a news item. (18-19)
These 'standards of journalism' were used to draw attention to
articles in the press containing Anti-Communist or Palmer Raid
information. A large headline across the front of The New York Times
reads, in large bold print, "REDS PLOTTED COUNTRY-WIDE STRIKE ARRESTS
EXCEED 5,000, 2,635 HELD; THREE TRANSPORTS READY FOR THEM" (Jan. 1920:
1). Following that large headline there are four different articles
having to do with the Palmer Raids and Anti-communism, each with it's
own individual headline. Talk about trying to draw attention to
something. The Detroit Free Press contributed to the Anti-Communist
craze stating, "CHIEF OF U.S. ANARCH HUNT FINDS REDS HAVE RUN INTO
HOLES" (Jan. 1920: 1). This was also printed in large bold face
letters, but this time with the addition of a photo of a chief of the
red hunts, William J. Davis next to the article. These headlines don't
just report the news, they shout out to us, letting the readers know
what the 'important' stories are. These Headlines call our attention to
the terrors of Communism, and our country's success at defeating it. In
the Detroit Free Press Magazine a story entitled Mopping Up Bolshevism
Major American Red Cross Committee to South Russia (Davis 1) is spread
across the entire first page and accompanied by a large illustration of
Russian soldiers and peasant women. Right next to this terror story of
communism in Russia the is a poem titled Heaven on Earth where the first
verse reads:
Here's the time of mirth and laughter
Not in some far off hereafter,
Here's the land of smiling faces
Not in strange and distant places,
Which perhaps they'll see tomorrow
In a world where there's no sorrow,
Here's the land where men are blest
And where they achieve their best. (Guest 2)
Looking at above standards of journalism it is obvious that his
poem about the wonderful United States was placed next to the article on
Communism in Russia for the purpose of contrasting the terrible
communist Russia to the great democratic United States. The headings,
font size, and placing of articles in a newspaper imply their importance
to the reader. The way this was done with articles on the Palmer Raids
and Anti-Communism causes the reader to believe that these are the most
important topics of the day.
The impact of these articles was not based solely on where they
were placed or their headlines, but the effect they has also had a lot
to do with the content. The papers all seemed to be biased toward our
government and A. Mitchell Palmer. This doesn't come as a big surprise
though considering that anyone who spoke poorly of our government was
being arrested. Newspaper articles all seemed to greatly exaggerate the
horrors of a communist society. When speaking of a newly Communist
controlled hospital in Russia, Robert Davis states:
The new independence demoralized the nurses, particularly the night
shifts. They had the right to receive men visitors in their rooms at
night. Nurses left their duties at will. The dressings of wounded
soldiers were changed only once in three days. (Davis 1-2)
As though communism makes women promiscuous, and notice how they
neglected the patriotic soldiers, the same article describes a group of
communist officers as 'five dirty looking men.'. Again, a very
derogatory and untrue statement, Communists aren't dirtier looking
people than any other political party. An article in The New York Times
warns us that:
Radical Leaders planned to develop the recent steel and coal strikes
into a general strike and ultimately into a revolution to overthrow the
government according to information gathered by federal agents in Friday
nights wholesale round up of members of the Communist and Communist
Labor party. (Jan. 4 1920: 1)
The newspapers would have us believe that members of the Communist
party are evil, promiscuous, and dirty people who are out to ruin our
way of life. It's no wonder that the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids got
so out of hand.
Through placement of articles, headlines, size of print, and even
exaggeration the newspapers helped to convince us that the Palmer Raids
and the Red Scare were the most important events going on in 1919 and
1920. The country would have still had Anti-Communist feelings, and the
Palmer Raids probably would have still occurred without the newspapers,
but they would not have been such strong prevalent issues in our society
if the newspapers hadn't covered them the way they did.
-----------------------------
Anti-communism surfaced again in the 1950's soon after Dwight Eisenhower was inaugurated. The Newspapers published daily the number of subversives, fifth-columnists, communists and symtathizers that had been rooted out of the government, and who had been serving the Truman Administration. This hysteria reached a peak with the Army-McCarthy hearings, the chairman of the Senate Un-American Activities Committee, Sen. Jos. McCarthy (R-Wis)sought to prove large numbers of communist actives were serving and being paid for by the US ARMY. Later, McCarthy was censured by the senate, when his probe got out of hand.
For another view of the Palmer Raids, we consult Samuel Eliot Morrison, the noted historian:(The Oxford History p.883 >>>>>
And so, fighting, the ship went down. On 19 November the Senate took a vote on ratifying the Treaty of Versailles, and the noes won. Brought up for reconsideration next session, it once more failed of two-thirds majority and on 19 March 1920 the Senate returned it to the President with formal notice of inability to ratify. (League of Nations)
In the meantime there were sad doings on the domestic front. President Wilson's third attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, was a Pennsylvania politician with a presidential bee in his bonnet. Appointed alien property custodian in 1917, he sequestered some $600 million worth of German and Austrian property in the United States, and saw to it that his friends got some of the bargains when this property was sold. As attorney general, Palmer decided (like Joseph McCarthy more than thirty years later) that the way to fame and power was to crack down on the "Reds." Pro-Germans were no longer dangerous, but the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia, their provocative and threatening language, and their growing control over all socialist elements everywhere, now made them the chief target of American fears. Wilson, at the first cabinet meeting since his breakdown, in April 1920, said, "Palmer, do not let this country see red!" But Palmer had been doing just that for five months. He instigated a series of lawless raids on homes and labor headquarters, on a single night of January 1920, arresting more than 4000 alleged communists in 33 different cities. In New England, hundreds of people were arrested who had no connection with radicalism of any kind. In Detroit, 300 men were arrested on false charges, held for a week in jail and denied food for 24 hours, only to be found innocent of any involvement in revolutionary movements. The raids yielded almost nothing in the way of arms or revolutionaries, but Palmer emerged from the episode a national hero. And what made his action the more abominable is that he was a practicing Quaker, even using the traditional "thee" instead of "you." In New York, the anti-radical campaign reached its climax when the state legislature expelled five Socialist members of the assembly, although the Socialist party was legally recognized and the members were innocent of any offense. This went too far, even for conservatives; the Chicago Tribune, Senator Raiding, and Charles Evans Hughes denounced their action. In Massachusetts the Sacco and Vanzetti case, though having nothing directly to do with the raids, was an offshoot of the same whipped-up anti-red hysteria.
Early in 1920 a movement against Palmer by the labor department, led by Secretary William B. Wilson and his assistant Louis Post, turned deportation proceedings to a saner direction. Post insisted on giving aliens proper counsel and fair hearings. He canceled action against dozens of them, and by spring released nearly half those arrested in Palmer's January raids. Palmer demanded that Post be fired for his "tender solicitude for social revolution," but when Post was haled before a congressional committee, he made such a convincing presentation that his critics were forced to back down. In the end, although 5000 arrest warrants had been sworn out, only a few more than 600 aliens were actually deported.
Palmer now let his attempts to capitalize on the "Red Menace" get out of hand. He issued a series of warnings of a revolutionary plot which would be launched on i May 1920, to overthrow the United States government. The National Guard was called out, and in New York City the entire police force was put on 24-hour duty. May Day passed without a single shot being fired or bomb exploded. As a result, the country concluded that Palmer had cried wolf once too often.
There was a lot more of this sort of thing going around; more hate literature, more nasty, sour, and angry groups promoting "hundred per cent Americanism" than at any earlier period of our history, or any later one prior to the 19 50*3. Anti-Semitism appeared openly for the first time in America, and was nourished by Henry Ford, of all people. The Dearborn newspaper that he controlled reprinted that hoary fake, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," supposedly proving a Jewish conspiracy to destroy civilization; and Ford either wrote or had compiled for him a book The International Jew (1920), which blamed the war and everything else on that race. There were also anti-Catholic pamphlets accusing the Knights of Columbus of indulging in obscene rites. The Ku Klux Klan was revived and did well, especially in the North and West; the Klan elected governors in Oklahoma and Oregon, and in 192/1 practically took over Indiana. Favorite targets of the Klansmen were alcohol and adultery; but when David Stephenson, "Grand Dragon" of Indiana, who had made millions out of membership fees and selling nightshirts, was convicted of raping a young woman and causing her death, the Klan began to decline.
Another source of trouble, which the peddlers of hate whipped up, was the northward move of many Southern Negroes to work in war industries and better their condition. This, as usual, was resented by white workers, especially recent immigrants, and led to bloody riots. In one at East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1917, forty-seven people, mostly Negroes, were killed and hundreds wounded. In July of 1919, the month that President Wilson returned from Paris and submitted the Treaty to the Senate, there occurred in the pital capital city the most serious race riots in its history between whites and Negroes, not quelled until thousands of troops had been brought in to help the police, and six people killed. In the same month there was a three-day race riot in Chicago in which thirty-six people were killed. There were also major racial disorders that year in New York and Omaha, at least seven in the South, mostly occasioned by Negro veterans of the war having the "impudence" to demand their rights as citizens.
But for his disability, Woodrow Wilson could have been nominated for a third presidential term by the Democratic national convention. Palmer for a time thought he would get it; but he and McAdoo, the President's son-in-law, killed each other off, and Governor James A. Cox of Ohio obtained the nomnination. Cox was little known nationally, like Franklin Pierce, and as unimportant. Reversing the usual procedure, his vice-presidential nominee, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was the man with a future..<<<
NOTE: The German-American Line ended up in a New York House controlled by Herbert Walker, G.H.W.Bush's grandfather, from the Alien Property Custodian.

posted by James E. Opfell @ 11:24 AM