Palmer Raids Cartoon
Background: The Palmer Raids were a number of attacks on Socialists and Communists in the United States from 1918 to 1921.
The raids are named after Alexander Mitchell Palmer, United States Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson. Palmer stated his belief that Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and that American Communists were responsible for most of the country's social problems.
The crackdown on dissent had actually begun during World War I, but accelerated significantly after the end of the war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Wall Street bombing of 1920 were background factors. Congress in 1919 refused to seat Socialist representative from Wisconsin, Victor L. Berger, because of his pacifist views concerning the war. With strong support from Congress and the public, in 1919 Palmer clamped down on political dissent. On June 2, 1919 a number of bombs were detonated in eight American cities, including one in Washington that damaged the home of Palmer. Following this, Palmer and his assistant John Edgar Hoover orchestrated a series of well publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Victor Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the charge of sedition. (The Supreme Court of the United States later threw out that conviction.)
Starting on November 7, 1919, Palmer's men smashed labor union offices and the headquarters of Communist and Socialist organizations without search warrants, concentrating on foreigners. They arrested over 10,000 people. In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 of the arrestees, 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 anarcho-syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 Communists were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported.
The public reaction to these raids was favorable, stirring up a storm of anti-communist sentiment. In a murder eerily similar to the lynching of Germans during World War I, a group of young men in Centralia, Washington hanged a radical from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the communist "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes." For most of 1919, the public seemed to side with Palmer.
Palmer announced that a Communist revolution was to take place on May 1 (May Day). Following initial panic, the non-appearance of the revolution led to criticism of Palmer over his disregard for civil rights and accusations that the entire Red Scare was designed to secure him the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.
Picture: The picture depicts Palmer gathering up all the suspects for the sake of America and controlling them. He deports all of the immigrants and is arresting thousands of people. It also shows that there are people hanging, which represents the time a group of young men in Centralia, Washington hung a radical from a railway bridge. All of this was due to the idea that a Communist revolution was taking place on May Day.
The raids are named after Alexander Mitchell Palmer, United States Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson. Palmer stated his belief that Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and that American Communists were responsible for most of the country's social problems.
The crackdown on dissent had actually begun during World War I, but accelerated significantly after the end of the war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Wall Street bombing of 1920 were background factors. Congress in 1919 refused to seat Socialist representative from Wisconsin, Victor L. Berger, because of his pacifist views concerning the war. With strong support from Congress and the public, in 1919 Palmer clamped down on political dissent. On June 2, 1919 a number of bombs were detonated in eight American cities, including one in Washington that damaged the home of Palmer. Following this, Palmer and his assistant John Edgar Hoover orchestrated a series of well publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Victor Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the charge of sedition. (The Supreme Court of the United States later threw out that conviction.)
Starting on November 7, 1919, Palmer's men smashed labor union offices and the headquarters of Communist and Socialist organizations without search warrants, concentrating on foreigners. They arrested over 10,000 people. In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 of the arrestees, 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 anarcho-syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 Communists were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported.
The public reaction to these raids was favorable, stirring up a storm of anti-communist sentiment. In a murder eerily similar to the lynching of Germans during World War I, a group of young men in Centralia, Washington hanged a radical from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the communist "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes." For most of 1919, the public seemed to side with Palmer.
Palmer announced that a Communist revolution was to take place on May 1 (May Day). Following initial panic, the non-appearance of the revolution led to criticism of Palmer over his disregard for civil rights and accusations that the entire Red Scare was designed to secure him the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.
Picture: The picture depicts Palmer gathering up all the suspects for the sake of America and controlling them. He deports all of the immigrants and is arresting thousands of people. It also shows that there are people hanging, which represents the time a group of young men in Centralia, Washington hung a radical from a railway bridge. All of this was due to the idea that a Communist revolution was taking place on May Day.