"Under the guise of dealing with wartime emergencies"


Bolsheviks, Bombs and Babbits

Copyright 1959 by J. P. Chaplin

II


In order to understand the dynamics of the Red menace of 1919-1920 that was responsible for this fantastic plot, we must first turn to certain domestic and foreign developments which had grown out of World War I; for the roots of the postwar hysteria were deeply imbedded in the emotionalism of the war years and were well-nourished by the superpatriotism created by the barrage of patriotism put out by the Wilson administration. A study of this scope cannot, of course, attempt to provide a complete history of this phase of the war. Rather, its purpose will be to survey the highlights of those consequences of the conflict which provided a receptive environment for what was to come.

To begin with, various official and semiofficial patriotic organizations mushroomed into existence during the 1914-1918 era. Their purpose was to whip up a white heat of anti-German prejudice and at the same time to encourage super-Americanism. Such was the aim of the National Security League, a group of virulent patriots whose great contribution to the war effort was to invade motion picture houses and harangue their captive audiences with four-minute speeches designed to arouse anti-German passions and sell Liberty Bonds. The American Protective League, working under the Department of Justice, made its mission the ferreting of "spies" and "German agents." Virtually everyone with a name that smacked of teutonic antecedents was investigated and sometimes harassed to the verge of suicide. One of their suspected traitors was H. L. Mencken, who was denounced as a cohort of the "German monster, Nitzsky." Through a subterfuge, Mencken himself wrote the report that was sent to the League's headquarters in Washington. Needless to say he was completely exonerated of subversive activities.

To insure "right thinking," a Commitee on Public Information was set up by the Wilson administration. Among its functions were those of censoring the mails, getting the German language thrown out of college and university curricula, and proving (with the help of hired historians) that American and British propaganda ought to be taken as literally as the Gospel of St. John the Evangelist. Finally, there were the Vigilantes, who made a specialty out of smearing yellow paint on the houses of those suspected of less than two hundred percent patriotism or of anyone of military age who failed to rush off to France fast enough to suit members of the organization. Occasionally these patriots engaged in bodily assault to bring home their message to reluctant citizens. The temper of the times was such that even women were under suspicion if they failed to knit socks and sweaters for the boys at the front.

In addition to the stimulus provided by such Ku Kluxer organizations, good Americanism was also encouraged by various laws enacted by Congress between 1917-1920. These statutes not only favored the tactics just enumerated, but also resulted in the first real break in the American tradition of freedom of speech. In effect, the legislation meant that for the first time opinions per se were labeled objectionable. The severest penalties were provided for minor crimes--sometimes nothing more than the advocacy of such crimes. A censorship of the press and mails was established, and the time-honored privileges of the soapbox orator were suspended. In short, the Bill of Rights was put in grave jeopardy by oppressive legislation under the guise of dealing with wartime emergencies.

While such extreme, totalitarian measures were being taken in the United States, Nikolai Lenin brought off his Bolshevik coup d'etat in Russia in November of 1917, and centuries of Czarist rule were brought to an end in a bath of blood. Naturally, Americans were revolted by the whole Russian mess, and, in the United States, the Russian name "Bolshevik" ( meaning originally the "larger" or "majority" party), came to stand for all the pentup hate, prejudice and frustration generated by the organizations described above and by the war itself. After the war, "Bolshevik" became the symbol of everything sinister, un-American and revolutionary. The overwrought emotionalism of the war years had no opportunity to dissipate itself, since the United States was an active particiapant for a relatively short time and even this contribution was more disillusioning than cathartic. The transition from anti-German to anti-Bolshevik was, therefore, an easy one. Moreover, the American brand of Bolsheviks, Reds, Radicals, or Socialists--the name really made no difference--became scapegoats for the disillusionment, economic upsets, labor troubles, and other domestic upheavals that follow in the wake of any war. Eventually things became so bad that the most innocent departure from conventionalism was suspect, and anyone advocating the slightest change from oppressive legislation or intolerable labor conditions was looked upon as an anarchist with a bomb in one hand and a dagger in the other. The Republic, in short, was hagridden by the specter of Bolshevik anarchism.



A. Mitchell Palmer


When the bomb plot described in the opening paragraphs came to light, the antiradical element found a Fuhrer in the person of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, one of the intended targets of the would-be assassins. The bomb outrage set Palmer off like a jolt of lightning. He became the knight-errant of the forces of righteousness and the avowed enemy of anyone who was not a native-born, one hundred percent Babbitt. He turned his legal talents and high intelligence to formulating programs of hate and propaganda which rivaled anything Goebbels was able to conjure up two decades later.

Palmer was a Pennsylvania Puritan driven by overwhelming ambition; he had designs on the Presidency and had made an unsuccessful bid for nomination on the Democratic ticket in 1920. He was undoubtedly a brilliant man (he had been graduated from Swarthmore with the highest honors ever received), but his emotions and his ambitions ran away with his intellect. He was, of course, aided and abetted by all sorts of hangers-on who sensed a golden opportunity to cash in on the hysteria for their own personal advantage by following his lead.

Palmer launched a two-fold attack: as Attorney General he had the unquestioned right to recommend legislation for coping with any domestic dangers not covered by existing federal laws. He chose to ignore the fact that there were already adequate codes in existence to deal with criminals who sent dynamite through the mails or who were disloyal to the United States and suggested instead the most sweeping legislative enactments, which, if put into effect, would have abridged the Constitution. He became terrified--not only of bombings--but of the soapbox orators, propagandists, professors of economics, strikers, and above all else, aliens. He thought he detected dangerous loopholes in the federal laws, since there was no provision for the punishments of single persons who hired a hall and made a speech against the government. Such individuals could not be prosecuted for the simple reason that no conspiracy was involved. Moreover, there was no way to stop the insidious perils of pamphleteering. Again, unless conspiracy could be proved, radicals could not be arrested for handing out inflammatory literature on the streets. Palmer, in fact, wanted legislation broad enough to allow him to deal with long-haired men and short-haired women--anything from the avowed anarchists to parlor Reds. As a result of Palmer agitation, Congress had no less than 70 bills under consideration in 1919-1920 which dealt with unlawful discussion, the deportation of aliens, the denaturalization of naturalized citizens, and a proposal by one enterprising Senator from Tennessee that an American Devil's Island be established on Guam for the transportation of radicals.

But Palmer was not content with restricting his efforts to legislative proposals. He hired spies and agents provocateurs whose orders were to secretly join labor unions and the Socialist and Communist* parties. Once entrenched, their mission was to become leaders in the movements so that Palmer could be privy to their organizations' secrets and revolutionary plans. He was careful to to warn his henchmen never to incite to violence, but only to appear to encourage the Reds to the point where they would either be lulled or provoked into doing something illegal. As Judge Anderson of Boston noted later, the United States was put into the doubly curious position of encouraging its own downfall and actually owning part of the Communist Party which was striving to bring about that unwelcome event.

Making good use of his spies, Palmer rounded up radical leaders in a series of raids largely directed at the alien population.Those caught in his dragnets were deported to Russia by way of Finland on a ship originally commissioned the Buford, but which came to be known during Palmer's reign as the "Soviet Ark." None of those deported committed any known crime. Palmer also obtained illegal injunctions against strikers, and loosed devastating propaganda blasts against radicals of every description. He told a women's political league in New York that the people of that city would be treated to the edifying spectacle of the "second, third and fourth Soviet Arks sailing down their beautiful harbor."

Nor was the Attorney General without support. Public opinion, the last court of appeal in all matters political, supported and applauded him. To quote Palmer: "I was shouted at from every editorial sanctum in America from sea to sea; I was preached upon from every pulpit; I was urged--I could feel it dinned into my ears--throughout the country to do something and do it now, do it quick, and do it in a way that would bring results to stop this sort of thing in the United States."

That summer Mr. Palmer's house was bombed, and after this counterattack on the part of the radicals the Attorney General's hysteria knew no bounds.


*At that time the Communist Party was legal.


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