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First Red Scare

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Political cartoon of the era depicting an anarchist attempting to destroy the Statue of Liberty.

In American history, the First Red Scare took place in the period 1917–1920, and was marked by a widespread fear of anarchism and communism, as well as the effects of radical political agitation in American society. Fueled by anarchist bombings and spurred on by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, it was characterized by illegal search and seizures, unwarranted arrests and detainments, and deportation of hundreds of suspected communists and anarchists.

The First Red Scare began during World War I in which the United States fought during 1917-1918. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the ensuing Russian Civil War (1917–1923) inspired a widespread campaign of violence in the U.S. by various anti-government groups. It effectively ended when A. Mitchell Palmer said that there was going to be a massive communist uprising on May Day of 1920, but no such uprising came about.[1]

Origins

The First Red Scare's origins lie in the subversive actions (both real and alleged) of foreign and leftist elements in the United States, especially militant followers of Luigi Galleani, and in the attempts of the U.S. government to quell protest and gain favorable public views of America's entering World War I. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information to circulate and distribute anti-German and pro-Allied propaganda and other news. To add to the effectiveness of the Committee, the Bureau of Investigation (the early name for the Federal Bureau of Investigation until 1935) disrupted the work of German-American, union, and leftist organizations through the use of raids, arrests, agent provocateurs, and legal prosecution. Revolutionary and pacifist groups, such as the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW; its members were known as Wobblies), strongly opposed the war. Many leaders of these groups, most notably Eugene V. Debs, were prosecuted for giving speeches urging resistance to the draft. Members of the Ghadar Party were also put on trial in the Hindu German Conspiracy Trial.

The effort was also helped by the United States Congress, with the passing of the Espionage Act in 1917 and its sister act the Sedition Act of 1918. The Espionage Act made it a crime to interfere with the operation or success of the military, and the Sedition Act forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, flag, or armed forces of the United States during war.[2]

U.S. postal inspectors refused to distribute materials they deemed as subversive to the war effort. Many foreign language and radical or anarchist publications were disrupted or closed as a consequence. One of the most notorious was Luigi Galleani's Cronaca Sovversiva (Subversive Chronicle), an Italian anarchist newsletter, which not only advocated the overthrow of the government, but also advertised a booklet innocuously titled Health is in You!, actually an explicit bomb-making manual[3].

After the war officially ended, the government investigations abated for a few months but did not cease. They soon resumed in the context of Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War, and the Red Terror. To some Americans, this was a time of uncertainty and fear over the prospects of an anarchist, socialist or communist revolution in the United States.

Anarchist actions

Attacks

Damage done by the bomb on Attorney-General A Mitchell Palmer's house

After years of inefficient responses to violent acts by various anarchist and radical labor groups, the Federal government was finally moved to action by a series of bombings on June 1919 (later traced to militant followers of anarchist Luigi Galleani). The wide list of prominent official targets selected by the Galleanists sparked the Federal government's Bureau of Investigation (BOI) to investigate the crimes. The mayor of Seattle received a homemade bomb in the mail on April 28, which was defused. Senator Thomas W. Hardwick received a bomb the next day, which blew off the hands of his servant who had discovered it, severely burning him and his wife. The following morning, a New York City postal worker discovered sixteen similar packages, each holding enough nitroglycerin to kill a man, addressed to well-known people of the time, including oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. There were 30 bombs in all, sent to prominent politicians, judges, businessmen, and a BOI agent who was assigned to tracking down Galleanist fugitives.

On June 2, a new series of much more powerful bombs were left at the homes of prominent politicians, judges, and law enforcement officials, and even a church. A bomb partially destroyed the front of Attorney-General Alexander Mitchell Palmer's house. The bomber, Carlo Valdinoci, a Galleanist militant, blew himself up when the bomb prematurely exploded. Palmer had previously been the target of a prior Galleanist mail bomb. On June 3, 1919, New York City night watchman William Boehner was killed by a bomb which had been placed at a judge's house. See [4]

In the Wall Street bombing on September 16, 1920, 100 pounds (45 kg) of dynamite with 500 pounds (230 kg) of fragmented steel exploded in front of the offices of the J. P. Morgan Company, killing 38 people and injuring 400 others. Anarchists had long been suspected as initiating the attack, which followed numerous letter bombs that had targeted Morgan. The identity of the bomber was undetermined at the time, but he has since been linked to the Galleanists.[5]

Reactions

In response to the bombings, the press, public, and prominent men of business and politics flared up in a surge of patriotism, often involving violent hatred of communists, radicals, and foreigners. U.S. Senator Kenneth McKellar proposed sending radicals to a penal colony in Guam [citation needed]; U.S. Army General Leonard Wood approved a call to put them on "ships of stone with sails of lead"; evangelist Billy Sunday clamored to "stand [radicals] up before a firing squad and save space on our ships".[6] In Centralia, Washington, a Wobblie, Wesley Everest, was dragged from a town jail and lynched.

The largest government actions of the Red Scare were the Palmer Raids against anarchist, socialist, and communist groups. Left-wing activists, such as five-time Socialist presidential nominee Eugene V. Debs, were jailed by government officials using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Section Four of the Sedition Act empowered the Postmaster General, (at the time, Albert S. Burleson) to slow or confiscate all Socialist material in the mail, a task that he took on readily.

The radical anarchist Luigi Galleani, and eight of his adherents were deported in June 1919, three weeks after the June 2 wave of bombings. Although authorities did not have enough evidence to arrest Galleani for the bombings, they could deport him because he was a resident alien who had overtly encouraged the violent overthrow of the government; was a known associate of Carlo Valdonoci; and had authored an explicit how-to bomb-making manual, covertly titled La Salute é in Voi (The Health is Within You), used by other Galleanists to construct some of their large package bombs[7].

In a spectacle that exposed the paranoia, xenophobia, and fear of anarchism which much of the United States was experiencing, Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian Galleanist anarchists, were executed for murder in a trial seen by many as unfair. Prior to their death, both men called for retaliation against the government, and a wreath left at the funeral parlor where their caskets were exhibited bore the ominous message Aspetando l'ora di vendetta (Awaiting the hour of vengeance).[8]

Retaliations

Radical retaliation was not long in coming. For their part, the Galleanists did not cease their bombing campaign, despite the Palmer raids.

After the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Galleanists continued their attacks for another five years, culminating in an attempt to assassinate their trial judge Webster Thayer by bombing his home in 1932.[9]

Labor unions, strikes, and marches

The first major strike at the end of the war was the Seattle shipyard strike in 1919. On January 21, 35,000 shipyard workers in Seattle went on strike. A general strike resulted when 60,000 workers in the Seattle area went on strike on February 6. Despite the absence of any violence or arrests, the strikers were immediately labeled as "communists," and charges that they were trying to incite revolution were leveled against them. Hysteria struck the city as department stores, grocery stores, and pharmacies were flooded by frightened customers trying to ensure that they would be able to survive a prolonged strike. National newspapers told of the threat of Seattle falling to the "Reds" [citation needed]. Mayor Ole Hanson, a longtime opponent of the Wobblies, publicly announced that fifteen hundred policemen and as many National Guard troops were ready to be dispatched at his orders to break up the strike. On February 10, realizing that resistance would only hurt the movement, labor leaders ordered the strike to stop. Mayor Hansen took credit for the termination of the strike, proclaimed a victory for Americanism, quit his job, and became a national expert and lecturer on anti-communism.

On May 1, 1919, a May Day parade in Cleveland, Ohio, protesting the imprisonment of Eugene Debs erupted into the violent May Day Riots of 1919. Charles Ruthenberg, a prominent Socialist leader who organized the march, was arrested for "assault with intent to kill" [citation needed].

Other labor actions, such as the Boston Police Strike, the Steel strike of 1919, and the organizing efforts of the Industrial Workers of the World, seemed to demonstrate the rise of radical labor unions. Furthermore, many of the organizations that supported the unions were associated with socialism or communism and had already been persecuted for opposing World War I.

See also

References

  • Avrich, Paul, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University Press, 1991
  • Leuchtenburg, William E., The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-32, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958
  • Manning, Lona, 9/16/20: Terrorists Bomb Wall Street, Crime Magazine, January 15, 2006
  • Stanley Coben, A. Mitchell Palmer: Politician (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972), 203-04; quoted in the Moynihan Secrecy in Government Commission Report, The Encounter with Communism

Further reading

  1. ^ Murray, Robert K. (1955), The Red Scare, Westport: University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0313226733
  2. ^ Laws of the United States, Espionage Act of 1917 (Act of June 15, 1917), ch. 30, title I, §3, 40 Stat. 219,amended by Act of May 16, 1918, ch. 75, 40 Stat. 553-54, reenacted by Act of Mar. 3, 1921, ch. 136, 41 Stat. 1359, (codified at 18 U.S.C. §2388); Laws of the United States, Sedition Act of 1918, (1918 Amendments to §3 OF The Espionage Act of 1917), Act of May 16, 1918, ch. 75, 40 Stat. 553-54, (repealed by Act of Mar. 3, 1921, ch. 136, 41 Stat. 1359)
  3. ^ Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background
  4. ^ [[1]]
  5. ^ Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background
  6. ^ Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-32, 66.
  7. ^ Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background
  8. ^ Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background
  9. ^ Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background
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