Palmer Raids Lesson Plan

Central Historical Question:

What caused the Palmer Raids?

Materials:
• Palmer Raids Timeline
• Palmer Raids PowerPoint
• Documents A-G
• Guiding Questions
• Final Writing Prompt

This lesson assumes students have an understanding of how WWI affected the
United States and the major issues of post-war America (1918-1919), including
labor strife, racial conflict, and nativism. It also assumes they are familiar with
capitalism, communism, socialism, and anarchism. You may want to provide
additional support to students if you have not covered these topics.

Plan of Instruction:

1. Establish Context: Use the Palmer Raids Timeline to review relevant

events and establish context for the lesson.

2. Brief Lecture: Use the Palmer Raids PowerPoint to provide background

information about the Palmer Raids.

a. Slide 2: A. Mitchell Palmer. A. Mitchell Palmer was appointed Attorney

General by President Woodrow Wilson in March of 1919. Palmer was
trained as an attorney and served as a congressperson from
Pennsylvania from 1909-1915. He was a member of the Progressive
wing of the Democratic Party, promoting child labor reform and
women’s suffrage.

Palmer took office amid turbulent times in the United States. 1919 saw
violent labor strikes, deadly race riots, and anarchist bombings.
Furthermore, the xenophobia that had grown during World War I
continued into the postwar years, and many Americans feared that
foreign radicals posed a threat to the United States.

b. Slide 3: Palmer Raids. On November 7, 1919 – which marked the two-

year anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia – Palmer
ordered raids on the headquarters of the Union of Russian Workers, a
Russian anarchist group, and arrested hundreds of its members. In
January 1920, the Department of Justice launched violent raids against
suspected anarchists, socialists, and communists. At least 3,000

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 people were arrested in raids across country, and over 500 were
deported without due process.

c. Slide 4: Resistance and Aftermath. Not everyone supported Palmer’s

actions at the time, and some argued that the raids were
unconstitutional. One of his most fierce opponents was assistant
secretary of labor Louis F. Post. He believed that the raids were
illegitimate and used his position to block 1,500 planned deportations.
Palmer’s raids also led concerned citizens to form the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) to challenge what they saw as a dangerous
abuse of power by the federal government.

Palmer’s reputation was tarnished in the spring of 1920, when he

incorrectly predicted that radicals would launch a massive uprising on
May Day. Palmer was mocked in the press and support for his actions
against political subversives dwindled.

Today the Palmer Raids are typically seen as an illegal abuse of power
by a government law enforcement agency, and they are often cited as
a cautionary tale about what can happen when individuals’
constitutional rights are ignored in times of fear or hysteria.

d. Slide 5: Central Historical Question. Today we are going to examine

seven historical sources to try to figure out: What caused the Palmer
Raids?

3. Students examine Documents A-C, answer the corresponding Guiding

Questions, and draft a hypothesis to the Central Historical Question.

4. Have students share their responses to the Guiding Questions and

discuss as a class.

In Document A, Palmer claims that anarchists posed an imminent threat,

and the raids were necessary to protect the welfare of the nation and
prevent revolution. Students should note that Palmer was writing to defend
his own actions as Attorney General. He was in an unparalleled position to
know what caused the Palmer Raids, but also had reason to portray the
raids in a positive light.

Document B corroborates Palmer’s claim that radical groups were

planning a revolution and that the government’s actions had prevented a
dangerous situation. The fact that this was printed in a legitimate
newspaper lends it credibility, but we don’t know where the newspaper got
its information. It’s possible that the newspaper was merely reporting what
government officials, like Palmer, had told them. We also know that
newspapers could be motivated to run sensational stories to sell more

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 papers. Dramatic stories like this may have helped create a climate of fear
that encouraged the Department of Justice to take action against the
perceived threat.

Document C supports Palmer’s assertions about the threats that radicals

posed. On the other hand, it’s also possible that front page stories about
bombings may have fueled fears that were out of proportion to the actual
threat. Students may also note that Palmer’s home was attacked, which
may have affected his decision making and motivations.

After discussing the documents, ask students to share out their

hypotheses about what caused the Palmer Raids.

5. Students examine documents D-G, answer the Guiding Questions, and

draft a revised hypothesis.

NOTE: Document G is an optional video. You will need to either project

the video or share the link with students to view on their devices. Link:
https://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/clips/uncle-sam-and-the-
bolsheviki-i-w-w-rat-ca-1919

6. Students share out responses to the Guiding Questions for documents D-

G and discuss as a class.

Document D suggests that the Palmer Raids were caused, in part, by

residual xenophobic fervor that had been ginned up during World War I.
Doc D also lays some blame at the feet of Palmer, suggesting that he had
overreached and overreacted. Students may note that this article was
written later than the others, about a year after the Palmer Raids had
ended. The passage of time may have affected their perspective on
events. Palmer’s actions had also come under fire in the intervening year,
which may have emboldened the critique.

Document E provides evidence that some were concerned that communist

supporters may recruit African Americans to their cause by promoting
racial equality and justice. You may need to help students infer that some
may have supported the arrest and deportation of communists, socialists,
and anarchists because they posed a threat to the status quo of racial
inequality.

In her deportation statement (Doc F), Emma Goldman suggests that the
Palmer Raids were intended to protect the interests of wealthy capitalists
and suppress workers’ demands for better working conditions. Given the
context of the statement, Goldman would have reason to portray the raids
negatively and to dismiss the notion that the raids resulted from a
legitimate concern over the safety of the country.

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 The Ford Motor Company propaganda video (Doc G, optional) provides
evidence that Ford attempted to convince the public that there was a link
between radical labor unions like the I.W.W. and communism and that
they posed a threat to American prosperity, which provides some
contextual support for Goldman’s claims (Doc F).

Have students share revised hypotheses, checking for understanding of

the causes of the Palmer Raids.

7. Final writing prompt (optional): Have students complete the final writing
prompt, using evidence from the documents to support their second
hypothesis.

Citations:

Document A
A. Mitchell Palmer, "The Case Against the ‘Reds,'” 1920.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/hist409/palmer.html

Document B
The Evening Missourian, 4,500 Radicals Held in National Raid, January 3, 1920.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89066315/1920-01-03/ed-1/seq-1/

Document C
New York Tribune, The Trail of Terrorist Bombs, June 4, 1919.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1919-06-04/ed-1/seq-1/

Document D
The Evening World, Palmer Under Fire, January 19, 1921.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1921-01-19/ed-1/seq-26/

Document E
Phoenix Tribune, Bolshevism and the Negro, February 1, 1919.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn96060881/1919-02-01/ed-1/seq-4/

Document F
Emma Goldman, Deportation Statement, New York, October 27, 1919.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/pdfs/StatementbyEmmaGoldmanattheFeder
alHearingREdeportation.pdf

Document G (Optional)
https://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/clips/uncle-sam-and-the-
bolsheviki-i-w-w-rat-ca-1919

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Palmer Raids
A. Mitchell Palmer

2
Palmer Raids

3
Resistance and Aftermath

Louis F. Post (1929) 4

Central Historical Question:
What caused the Palmer
Raids?
 Palmer Raids Timeline

April 1917- The U.S. entered World War I, which resulted in a spike in
patriotism, nationalism, and nativism.

June 1917 - Congress passed the Espionage Act, which made it illegal
to convey information that hurt the war effort or aided the enemy.

November 1917- Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin launch a revolution in

Russia that would lead to the establishment of the Soviet Union.

May 1918 – The Sedition Act made it illegal to say negative things about
the U.S. government or the war effort.

October 1918- The Immigration Act of 1918 authorized the exclusion of

and deportation of “aliens who are members of the anarchistic and
similar classes.”

November 1918 – Armistice signed to end fighting in WWI.

January 1919 – War Industries Board, which regulated industry and

managed labor disputes during WWI, is decommissioned.

1919 – Violent labor strikes took place in cities across the country,
including Seattle, Chicago, and Boston.

March 1919 – A. Mitchell Palmer appointed U.S. Attorney General.

April, June 1919 – Homes of prominent Americans are bombed by

supporters of Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani.

1919 – Deadly race riots occur in cities across the country; the largest,
in Chicago, lasted 13 days and left more than 50 dead.

November 1919 – The U.S. Department of Justice launches the first of

the Palmer Raids.

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 Document A: Case Against the "Reds" (Modified)

Excerpt from an article written by U.S. attorney general A. Mitchell

Palmer for The Forum, a popular American magazine. It was
published in February 1920, after the Palmer Raids.

… revolution was sweeping over every American institution a year

ago… My information showed that thousands of aliens supported
communism in this country.

The whole purpose of communism appears to be a mass

organization of the criminals of the world to overthrow the decencies
of private life, to usurp property that they have not earned, to disrupt
the present order of life…

The Department of Justice will pursue the attack of these "Reds"

upon the Government of the United States with vigilance, and no
alien, advocating the overthrow of existing law and order in this
country, shall escape arrest and prompt deportation.

Vocabulary

aliens: foreigners
usurp: take over

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 Document B: Evening Missourian

This article was written by United Press, a national news agency. It

appeared on January 3, 1920 in The Evening Missourian, a
newspaper in Columbia, Missouri.

REVOLUTION IS PREVENTED

Radical Elements Were on the Verge of Fusion, Intending to

Elect Bolshevist Candidate Next President and Set Up Soviet
Government

Forty-five hundred radicals, both men and women, most of them

members of the communist and communist labor parties were
arrested last night and early today in a nation-wide roundup by
federal authorities.

The raids, according to the Department of Justice agents, averted a

move to establish a soviet government in the United States.

Vocabulary

fusion: join together, make one

bolshevist: Russian communist
averted: prevented
soviet government: communist government like the Soviet Union

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 Document C: New York Tribune

These images appeared on the front page of the New York Tribune, a
popular New York City newspaper, on June 4, 1919. The photos
show three homes bombed by members of an anarchist organization.
The home in the middle belonged to Attorney General Palmer.
Overall, 36 bombs were mailed to prominent Americans in the Spring
of 1919. Two people were killed by and two severely injured by the
bombs.

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 Document D: Evening World (Modified)

Excerpt from an article in The Evening World, a New York City

newspaper, reporting on criticism of Attorney General Palmer and his
actions during the Palmer Raids. The article was printed in January of
1921, about a year following the last of the arrests.

Palmer Under Fire

The Attorney General’s proceedings against so-called “Reds” is also

scathingly criticized in a report prepared by twelve lawyers last year.

Mr. Palmer’s high-handed policies toward aliens have made it

certain that he would sooner or later be overtaken by concerted
efforts to call him to account.

It is only just to recall, however, that large sections of the American

public were stirred by events during the war into abnormal states of
distrust and intolerance toward aliens and toward “free speech” in the
mouths of aliens.

Such abnormal states of the public mind do not justify an Attorney

General of the United States in losing his head … But the country
should remind itself that its own nerves and balance were sorely
tried.

Vocabulary

reds: a term for leftist groups, especially communists

scathingly: harshly, intensely
high-handed: showing no concern for the rights or feelings of others
alien: term used at the time for an immigrant or foreigner
sorely tried: burdened, stressed

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 Document E: Phoenix Tribune (Modified)

This article originally appeared in the Baltimore Daily Herald. The

Phoenix Tribune re-printed it on February 1, 1919. The end of World
War I saw a spike in racial conflict as African Americans fought for
rights and equality, and deadly race riots broke out in several cities
across the country in the summer of 1919.

BOLSHEVISM AND THE NEGRO

The success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia will likely arouse

the ambition of daring spirits in America who will try to rally the
working classes under the banner of Bolshevism. Their scheme of
government is impractical, but it appeals with great force to the
masses. They offer absolute justice and equality of opportunity to all
and especially those who have suffered from injustice or class or race
restriction and oppression.

There are ten million negroes in the United States, more than eight
million of whom are deprived the right of self-determination. A
people in a democracy that is shut out from the rights of citizenship
and restricted by unjust legislation and inequitable enforcement of the
laws cannot be blamed for turning to anyone that offers promise of
relief from the oppressor.

It would be the policy of wisdom for the dominant race, in the South
especially, to give thoughtful consideration to the Negro and extend
to him the privileges and rights of citizenship and good government
so that the forces of anarchy and destruction will not be appealing. All
he wants is justice and will accept it from any source from which it
may come.

Vocabulary

Bolshevism – Russian communism

self-determination – ability to determine your own fate and to
make your own political and economic choices

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 Document F: Emma Goldman Deportation Statement (Modified)

Emma Goldman, an influential anarchist and socialist, made the

following statement just before she was deported to her native Russia
in 1919. Goldman was a labor activist, an advocate for women’s
access to birth control, and a critic of U.S. participation in World War
I. In 1917, she was arrested for encouraging resistance to the military
draft, which was a violation of the Espionage Act.

I wish to protest these proceedings, whose very spirit is nothing less

than a revival of the ancient days of the Spanish Inquisition or Czarist
Russia [when anyone who disagreed with the government was
deported, imprisoned, or killed]. Today so-called aliens are deported.
Tomorrow American citizens will be banished.

These measures confuse different social philosophies in order to

group together every type of social protest, so all classes of workers
may be locked up and the most active of the strikers hurried out of
the country, in order to serve the interests of the leaders of industry.

The real purpose of all of these repressive measures is to support the

current capitalistic conditions in the United States. It is deceiving to
say that the safety of the country or the well-being of the American
people demands these drastic methods.

Vocabulary

alien: term used at the time for a foreigner

banish: send away, deport
strikers: employees who are on strike

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Guiding Questions Name_____________

Document A: Case Against the Reds

1. (Sourcing) Who wrote this document? And how does this affect the reliability of
the document?

2. (Close Reading) According to Palmer, why were the raids conducted?

Document B: Evening Missourian

3. (Close Reading) What does Doc B suggest about the causes of the Palmer
Raids?

4. (Corroboration) How does this document compare with Document A?

5. (Sourcing) Newspapers frequently ran articles about anarchists and the threats
posed by “radicals” in 1919 and 1920. Why might newspapers be interested in
running these kinds of stories? How might this have influenced the Palmer
Raids?

Document C: New York Tribune

6. (Close Reading) What does Doc C suggest about the causes of the Palmer
Raids?

7. (Corroboration) Does this document support or refute the evidence in

Documents A or B? How?

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 Hypothesis 1: What caused the Palmer Raids?

Document D: Evening World

8. (Close Reading) When was this article published? What does the author believe
caused the Palmer Raids?

9. (Corroboration) How does the author’s explanation of the causes of the raids differ
from Palmer’s explanation in Document A?

10. (Corroboration) Even though Document A and Document D differ, how might the
discussion of “aliens” in both documents support a similar conclusion about the
cause of the Palmer Raids?

Document E: Phoenix Tribune

11. (Close Reading) What is the author’s argument in this passage?

12. (Contextualization) What events of 1919 likely made this a pressing issue?

13. How might the issues discussed in this article have motivated the Palmer Raids?

14. (Corroboration) How does this account compare to Palmer’s account in

Document A?

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15. (Contextualization) Both this article and Doc B mention “Bolshevism”. What might
this suggest about how events abroad helped cause the Palmer Raids?

Document F: Emma Goldman

16. (Sourcing) Who wrote the statement? And how does this affect its reliability?

17. (Close Reading) What does Goldman think motivated the Palmer Raids?

18. (Corroboration) How does Goldman’s account compare to Palmer’s account in

Document A?

Document G: Ford Motor Company

19. (Close Reading) What is the Uncle Sam figure protecting? What is he protecting
it from? What is the message of the video?

20. (Close Reading) Who created the video? How would that influence the film’s
message?

21. (Corroboration) How might this video corroborate Goldman’s statement?

Hypothesis 2: What caused the Palmer Raids? (Revise your hypothesis from
Documents A-C based on the evidence in Documents D-G.)

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 Final Writing Prompt

Why did the U.S. Department of Justice arrest and deport hundreds of suspected
anarchists and socialists in 1919-20? Start your response with your second hypothesis
and support your argument with evidence from at least four documents.

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Document A: “The Case Against the "Reds" (ORIGINAL)

In this brief review of the work which the Department of Justice has undertaken,
to tear out the radical seeds that have entangled American ideas in their
poisonous theories, I desire not merely to explain what the real menace of
communism is, but also to tell how we have been compelled to clean up the
country almost unaided by any virile legislation. Though I have not been
embarrassed by political opposition, I have been materially delayed because the
present sweeping processes of arrests and deportation of seditious aliens should
have been vigorously pushed by Congress last spring. The failure of this is a
matter of record in the Congressional files.

The anxiety of that period in our responsibility when Congress, ignoring the
seriousness of these vast organizations that were plotting to overthrow the
Government, failed to act, has passed. The time came when it was obviously
hopeless to expect the hearty cooperation of Congress in the only way to stamp
out these seditious societies in their open defiance of law by various forms of
propaganda.

Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American
institution of law and order a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the
American workmen, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars
of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred
corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine
laws, burning up the foundations of society.

Robbery, not war, is the ideal of communism. This has been demonstrated in
Russia, Germany, and in America. As a foe, the anarchist is fearless of his own
life, for his creed is a fanaticism that admits no respect of any other creed.
Obviously it is the creed of any criminal mind, which reasons always from
motives impossible to clean thought. Crime is the degenerate factor in society.

Upon these two basic certainties, first that the "Reds" were criminal aliens and
secondly that the American Government must prevent crime, it was decided that
there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the
radicals and their actual violations of our national laws. An assassin may have
brilliant intellectuality, he may be able to excuse his murder or robbery with fine
oratory, but any theory which excuses crime is not wanted in America. This is no
place for the criminal to flourish, nor will he do so so long as the rights of
common citizenship can be exerted to prevent him.

OUR GOVERNMENT IN JEOPARDY

It has always been plain to me that when American citizens unite upon any
national issue they are generally right, but it is sometimes difficult to make the
issue clear to them. If the Department of Justice could succeed in attracting the
attention of our optimistic citizens to the issue of internal revolution in this
country, we felt sure there would be no revolution. The Government was in
jeopardy; our private information of what was being done by the organization
known as the Communist Party of America, with headquarters in Chicago, of
what was being done by the Communist Internationale under their manifesto
planned at Moscow last March by Trotzky, Lenin and others addressed "To the
Proletariats of All Countries," of what strides the Communist Labor Party was
making, removed all doubt. In this conclusion we did not ignore the definite
standards of personal liberty, of free speech, which is the very temperament and
heart of the people. The evidence was examined with the utmost care, with a
personal leaning toward freedom of thought and word on all questions.

The whole mass of evidence, accumulated from all parts of the country, was
scrupulously scanned, not merely for the written or spoken differences of
viewpoint as to the Government of the United States, but, in spite of these things,
to see if the hostile declarations might not be sincere in their announced motive
to improve our social order. There was no hope of such a thing.

By stealing, murder and lies, Bolshevism has looted Russia not only of its
material strength but of its moral force. A small clique of outcasts from the East
Side of New York has attempted this, with what success we all know. Because a
disreputable alien ‹Leon Bronstein, the man who now calls himself Trotzky‹can
inaugurate a reign of terror from his throne room in the Kremlin, because this
lowest of all types known to New York can sleep in the Czar's bed, while
hundreds of thousands in Russia are without food or shelter, should Americans
be swayed by such doctrines?

Such a question, it would seem, should receive but one answer from America.

My information showed that communism in this country was an organization of

thousands of aliens who were direct allies of Trotzky. Aliens of the same
misshapen caste of mind and indecencies of character, and it showed that they
were making the same glittering promises of lawlessness, of criminal autocracy
to Americans, that they had made to the Russian peasants. How the Department
of Justice discovered upwards of 60,000 of these organized agitators of the
Trotzky doctrine in the United States is the confidential information upon which
the Government is now sweeping the nation clean of such alien filth....

WILL DEPORTATION CHECK BOLSHEVISM?

Behind, and underneath, my own determination to drive from our midst the
agents of Bolshevism with increasing vigor and with greater speed, until there are
no more of them left among us, so long as I have the responsible duty of that
task, I have discovered the hysterical methods of these revolutionary humans
with increasing amazement and suspicion. In the confused information that
sometimes reaches the people they are compelled to ask questions which
involve the reasons for my acts against the "Reds." I have been asked, for
instance, to what extent deportation will check radicalism in this country. Why not
ask what will become of the United States Government if these alien radicals are
permitted to carry out the principles of the Communist Party as embodied in its
so-called laws, aims and regulations?

There wouldn't be any such thing left. In place of the United States Government
we should have the horror and terrorism of bolsheviki tyranny such as is
destroying Russia now. Every scrap of radical literature demands the overthrow
of our existing government. All of it demands obedience to the instincts of
criminal minds, that is, to the lower appetites, material and moral. The whole
purpose of communism appears to be a mass formation of the criminals of the
world to overthrow the decencies of private life, to usurp property that they have
not earned, to disrupt the present order of life regardless of health, sex or
religious rights. By a literature that promises the wildest dreams of such low
aspirations, that can occur to only the criminal minds,, communism distorts our
social law....

It has been inferred by the "Reds" that the United States Government, by
arresting and deporting them, is returning to the autocracy of Czardom, adopting
the system that created the severity of Siberian banishment. My reply to such
charges is that in our determination to maintain our government we are treating
our alien enemies with extreme consideration. To deny them the privilege of
remaining in a country which they have openly deplored as an unenlightened
community, unfit for those who prefer the privileges of Bolshevism, should be no
hardship. It strikes me as an odd form of reasoning that these Russian
Bolsheviks who extol the Bolshevik rule should be so unwilling to return to
Russia. The nationality of most of the alien "Reds" is Russian and German.
There is almost no other nationality represented among them.

It has been impossible in so short a space to review the entire menace of the
internal revolution in this country as I know it, but this may serve to arouse the
American citizen to its reality, its danger, and the great need of united effort to
stamp it out, under our feet, if needs be. It is being done. The Department of
Justice will pursue the attack of these "Reds" upon the Government of the United
States with vigilance, and no alien, advocating the overthrow of existing law and
order in this country, shall escape arrest and prompt deportation.

It is my belief that while they have stirred discontent in our midst, while they
have caused irritating strikes, and while they have infected our social ideas with
the disease of their own minds and their unclean morals we can get rid of them!
and not until we have done so shall we have removed the menace of Bolshevism
for good.

Source: Excerpt from an essay written by A. Mitchell Palmer called "The Case
Against the ‘Reds,'” 1920.
Document B: Evening Missourian (ORIGINAL)

REVOLUTION IS PREVENTED

Radical Elements Were on the Verge of Fusion, Intending to Elect Bolshevist

Candidate Next President and Set Up Soviet Government – Headquarters Were
Maintained in Moscow.

Forty-five hundred radicals, both men and women, most of them members of the
communist and communist labor parties were arrested last night and early today
in a nation-wide roundup by federal authorities.

The raids, according to the Department of Justice agents, averted a move to

establish a soviet government in the United States.

Deportation hearings of the aliens among those arrested were begun at Ellis
Island at once. The American citizens arrested will be turned over to the state
authorities, it was understood.

Source: This article was written by United Press and appeared in The Evening
Missourian on January 3, 1920.
Document D: Evening World (ORIGINAL)

Palmer Under Fire

The Attorney General Palmer’s administration of the sedition laws, the Alien
Property Custodian Act and the internment of enemy aliens was bitterly arraigned
by Samuel Untermyer last night at the Nathan Hirsch dinner.

The Attorney General’s proceedings against so-called “Reds” is also scathingly

criticized in a brief which the National Popular Government League has
submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee- the brief having been prepared by
the twelve lawyers who signed a “report upon the illegal practices of the United
States Department of Justice” last year.

Mr. Palmer’s high-handed policies toward aliens have made it certain that he
would sooner or later be overtaken by concerted efforts to call him to account.

It is only just to recall, however, that large sections of the American public were
stirred by events during the war into abnormal states of distrust and intolerance
toward aliens and toward “free speech” in the mouths of aliens.

Such abnormal states of the public mind do not justify an Attorney General of the
United States in losing his head and Russianizing the Federal Department of
Justice.

But the country should remind itself that its own nerves and balance were sorely
tried.

Source: The article appeared in The Evening World on January 19, 1921.
Document E: Phoenix Tribune (ORIGINAL)

BOLSHEVISM AND THE NEGRO

The shadow of Bolshevism has fallen across the United States. As the end of the
world war recedes further and the four millions of soldiers withdrawn from
industrial pursuits to follow the fortunes of war and as the great plants created by
the necessities of war, but now no longer useful, are dismantled and the minds of
the laboring masses are turning towards the manner of earning their daily bread
the menace of Bolshevism grows larger, more forbidding and more dangerous.
The white working classes of this country are watching with interest the
assumption of control of the government of Russia by the Bolshevists and the
alarming spread of Bolshevism to other countries of Europe.

Success in Russia which now seems likely will arouse the ambition of daring
spirits in America who will try to rally the working classes under the banner of
Bolshevism – by whatever name it may be called – and give untold trouble. Their
doctrines are attractive, even seductive, their scheme government although
impractical appeals with great force to the masses.

Like all zealots for what they regard as a holy cause they offer absolute justice
and equality of opportunity to all and especially those who have suffered from
injustice or class or race restriction and oppression.

Theirs is the open door to equality and fraternity; they would abolish all class and
race distinctions and by a process of reducing and elevating, place all on the
same level.

There are ten million negroes in the United States, more than eight million of
whom are deprived the right of self-determination. They are outcasts in the social
structure of America with every (white) man’s hand against them and, in all
human probability, ready to be influenced to turn their hands against their
oppressors.

Shall this great body of people, one tenth of the population of the country,
continue to be cut adrift and left to be used by those whose principles if carried
out may undermine the foundation of the Republic? A drowning man will catch at
a straw; and a people in a democracy yet shut out from the rights of citizenship
and restricted and hampered on every side by unjust legislation and inequitable
enforcement of the laws cannot be blamed for turning to any sect or party that
offers promise of relief from the oppressor.

The Negro is by nature conservative and believes the forces that make for law
and order and would not except to secure life and liberty align himself with the
forces which destroy. And it would be the policy of wisdom for the dominant race,
in the South especially, to give thoughtful consideration to the Negro and extend
to him the privileges and rights of citizenship and good government in order that
the forces of anarchy and destruction will appeal in vain for his support. All he
wants is justice and, humanly, will accept it from any source from which it may
come.

Source: This article originally appeared in the Baltimore Daily Herald and was re-
printed by Phoenix Tribune on February 1, 1919.
Document F: Emma Goldman Deportation Statement (ORIGINAL)

At the very outset of this hearing I wish to register my protest against these star
chamber proceedings, whose very spirit is nothing less than a revival of the
ancient days of the Spanish Inquisition or the more recently defunct Third Degree
system of Czarist Russia.

This star chamber hearing is, furthermore, a denial of the insistent claim on the
part of the Government that in this country we have free speech and a free press,
and that every offender against the law--even the lowliest of men--is entitled to
his day in open court, and to be heard and judged by a jury of his peers.

If the present proceedings are for the purpose of proving some alleged offense
committed by me, some evil or anti-social act, then I protest against the secrecy
and third degree methods of this so-called "trial." But if I am not charged with any
specific offense or act, if--as I have reason to believe--this is purely an inquiry
into my social and political opinions, then I protest still more vigorously against
these proceedings, as utterly tyrannical and diametrically opposed to the
fundamental guarantees of a true democracy.

Every human being is entitled to hold any opinion that appeals to her or him
without making herself or himself liable to persecution. Ever since I have been in
this country--and I have lived here practically all my life--it has been dinned into
my ears that under the institutions of this alleged Democracy one is entirely free
to think and feel as he pleases. What becomes of this sacred guarantee of
freedom of thought and conscience when persons are being persecuted and
driven out for the very motives and purposes for which the pioneers who built up
this country laid down their lives?

And what is the object of this star chamber proceeding, that is admittedly based
on the so-called Anti-Anarchist law? Is not the only purpose of this law, and of
the deportations en masse, to suppress every symptom of popular discontent
now manifesting itself through this country, as well as in all the European lands?
It requires no great prophetic gift to foresee that this new Governmental policy of
deportation is but the first step towards the introduction into this country of the old
Russian system of exile for the high treason of entertaining new ideas of social
life and industrial reconstruction. Today so-called aliens are deported, tomorrow
native Americans will be banished. Already some patrioteers are suggesting that
native American sons to whom Democracy is not a sham but a sacred ideal
should be exiled. To be sure, America does not yet possess a suitable place like
Siberia to which her exiled sons might be sent, but since she has begun to
acquire colonial possessions, in contradiction of the principles she stood for over
a century, it will not be difficult to find an American Siberia once the precedent of
banishment is established.
The Anti-Anarchist law confuses the most varied social philosophies and isms in
order to cover with the same blanket, so to speak, every element of social
protest, so that under the guise of this single law, striking steel workers, railroad
men, or any other class of workers, may be corralled wholesale and the most
active of the strikers hurried out of the country, in order to serve the interests of
our industrial kings.

Collective bargaining for the workers is now an admitted right, recognized by the
highest officials of the land and accepted by the most reactionary elements. Yet
when the steel workers of this country, after a quarter of a century of desperate
struggle for the right to bargain collectively, have mustered enough spirit and
cohesion to enter into a struggle with the steel barons for that fundamental right,
the entire machinery of government, State and Federal, is put in operation to
crush that spirit and to undermine the chance of establishing humane conditions
in the industry where conditions have been worse than those that existed under
the most brutal feudalism. The workers in the steel industry have expressed no
particular social philosophy. They are certainly not on strike to "overthrow the
government by a force or violence," yet the Anti-Anarchist law is used as a
means to reach out for these simple, hard-driven and hard-pressed human
beings, who have endangered life and limb to build up this devouring monster--
the Steel Trust. A reign of terror has been established in the strike region.
American Cossacks, known as the State Constabulary, ride over men, women
and children; deputies of the Department of Justice break into the strikers'
homes, violating the sacred Anglo-Saxon tradition that a man's home is his castle
and may not be entered except by due warrant of law; and to add the finishing
touch to this picture of American "freedom," the Immigration authorities, the men
of your department, take the strikers off secretly and order them deported by
such proceedings as I am being subjected to today, without having committed
even the slightest offense against American institutions, save the one that is the
greatest crime today--the right of the workers to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness--a right that was made in America, and not imported by these hated
aliens.

A commission, appointed by your department, finds that eighty per cent of the
wealth in this country is produced by these aliens themselves or the sons of
these aliens. In return for this, they are hounded and persecuted as criminals and
enemies.

Under the mask of the same Anti-Anarchist law every criticism of a corrupt
administration, every attack on Governmental abuse, every manifestation of
sympathy with the struggle of another country in the pangs of a new birth--in
short, every free expression of untrammeled thought may be suppressed utterly,
without even the semblance of an unprejudiced hearing or a fair trial. It is for
these reasons, chiefly, that I strenuously protest against this despotic law and its
star chamber methods of procedure. I protest against the whole spirit underlying
it--the spirit of an irresponsible hysteria, the result of the terrible war and of the
evil tendencies of bigotry and persecution and violence which are the epilogue of
five years of bloodshed.

Under these circumstances it becomes evident that the real purpose of all of
these repressive measures--chief among them the Anti-Anarchist law--is to
support the capitalist status quo in the United States. Vain is the pretence that
the safety of the country or the well-being of the American people demands these
drastic Prussian methods. Nay, indeed, the people can only profit by a free
discussion of the new ideas now germinating in the minds of thinking men and
women in society. The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people
is the greatest and only safety in a sane society. In truth, it is such free
expression and discussion alone that can point the most beneficial path for
human progress and development. But the object of deportations and of the Anti-
Anarchist law, as of all similar repressive measures, is the very opposite. It is to
stifle the voice of the people, to muzzle every aspiration of labor. That is the real
and terrible menace of the star chamber proceedings and of the tendency of
exiling and banishing everyone who does not fit into the scheme of things our
industrial lords are so eager to perpetuate.

With all the power and intensity of my being I protest against the conspiracy of
imperialist capitalism against the life and the liberty of the American people.

Emma Goldman
New York, October 27, 1919

Source: Excerpt from the statement Emma Goldman gave at her deportation
hearings.