Episode 151
The First Red Scare - Bombings, The Palmer Raids, Eugene Debs, and J. Edgar Hoover
“1 Dead, Many Hurt in Cleveland Riot. Soldiers, Sailors, and Civilians Aid Police Quell May Day Outbreaks. Disorder in Other Places. Radicals Battle with Police in Boston Streets – Many Strikes Called.” The New York Times. (New York, NY) May 2, 1919. Accessed at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/05/02/98284620.html.
“200 Caught in New York. Federal Agents Act on Second Anniversary of Soviet Revolution. Many Will be Deported. Russian People’s House Raided and Tons of Literature Carried Away. Red Fla Waved in Bronx. Speaker at Bolshevist Celebration There Threatens a Revolution in America.” The New York Times. (New York, NY) November 8, 1919. Accessed at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/11/08/issue.html.
“200 Reds Caught Here.” The New York Times. (New York, NY) November 8, 1919. Accessed at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/11/08/112643601.html?pageNumber=2.
Ackerman, Kenneth D. Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2007.
“Address at the Coliseum in Des Moines, Iowa.” The American Presidency Project. Accessed at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-coliseum-des-moines-iowa-0.
Brinkley, George. Review of Leninism: What It Was and What It Was Not, by Neil Harding and Richard Pipes. The Review of Politics 60, no. 1 (1998): 151. Accessed at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1408333.
Bomboy, Scott. “The Espionage Act’s Constitutional Legacy.” National Constitution Center. August 17, 2023. Accessed at: https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-espionage-acts-constitutional-legacy.
Burns, Eric. 1920: The Year that Made the Decade Roar. New York: Pegasus Books, 2015.
“Food Cart Factoids, Then and Now.” CityFood Research Group. Accessed at: http://cityfoodresearch.org/2018/11/25/food-cart-factoids-then-and-now/.
“Charges Refuted.” The Pittsburgh Post. (Pittsburgh, PA) June 21, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/87692461/.
Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.
Coben, Stanley. A. Mitchell Palmer: Politician. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.
“Senate Holds Up Palmer O.K.” The Los Angeles Times. (Los Angeles, CA) June 3, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/380525277/.
Congressional Record—Senate. 1923. Accessed at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1923-pt3-v64/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1923-pt3-v64-13-1.pdf.
Cronon, E. David, editor. The Cabinet Diaries of Josephus Daniels: 1913 - 1921. Lincoln: NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1963.
Daniels, Josephus. The Wilson Era: Years of War and After, 1917 - 1923. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1946.
Debs, Eugene V. Writings and Speeches of Eugene V. Debs. New York: Hermitage Press, 1948.
“Debs Federal Court Trial.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Accessed at: https://case.edu/ech/articles/d/debs-federal-court-trial.
“Deport Radical Agitators is Decision of Government; Hundreds Captured in Raids. Attorney General Palmer Announces That Men Found Guilty of ‘Red’ Activities in America Will be Sent to Their Home Countries – Most of Them are Russians – Raids by U.S. Agents in Many Cities Result From Evidence Obtained in Last Two Months.” Elmira Star-Gazette. (Elmira, NY) November 8, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/276361649/?terms=counterfeit&match=1.
Eastman, Max. The Trial of Eugene Debs: With Debs’ Address to the Court on Receiving Sentence. New York: The Liberator Publishing Co., 1918. Accessed at: https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/eb08b059-1d9b-4643-a5f1-a9e2d6f81da2/content.
“Eugene Debs, Canton Trial Argument.” The Rhetorical Goddess Wiki. Accessed at: http://rhetoricalgoddess.wikidot.com/text:debs-trial-argument.
“Everett Massacre (Bloody Sunday, November 5, 1916.” IWW History Project. Accessed at: https://depts.washington.edu/iww/everett_intro.shtml.
Ferraton, Matthew. “May Day Riot.” Cleveland Historical. Accessed at: https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/28.
Freeberg, Ernest. Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, The Great War, and the Right to Dissent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Friedheim, Robert L. The Seattle General Strike. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018.
Gage, Beverly. G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. New York: Viking, 2022.
Gage, Beverly. The Day Wall Street Exploded : A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Gold, Roberta. “The Seattle General Strike of 1919.” Seattle General Strike Project. Accessed at: https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/gold.shtml.
Hagedorn, Ann. Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.
“Hall of Secretaries: William B. Wilson.” U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed at: https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/wilson.
Hochschild, Adam. American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis. New York: Mariner Books, 2022.
Houston, David F. Eight Years with Wilson’s Cabinet: 1913 to 1920, with a Personal Estimate of the President. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1926.
“Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse, Cleveland, OH.” U.S. General Services Administration. https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/historic-preservation/explore-historic-buildings/find-a-building/all-historic-buildings/howard-m-metzenbaum-us-courthouse-cleveland-oh.
“IWW and Russian People’s House raided: Men are Clubbed Without Mercy; 52 held for Exile: Officials Shroud Brutal Plots in Mystery – One Talks of ‘Plot’ for ‘Revolution’ Today – Caminetti Issued Warrants – Many of the Victims Released. [events of Nov. 7, 1919].” New York Call 12, no. 313. (Nov. 8, 1919). Accessed at: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/russian/1919/1108-nycall-peopleshouse.pdf.
“J. Edgar Hoover, May 10, 1924 - May 2, 1972.” FBI. Accessed at: https://www.fbi.gov/history/directors/j-edgar-hoover.
Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. The FBI: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
Karsner, David. Talks with Debs in Terre Haute (and Letters from Lindlahr). New York: The New York Call, 1922.
Lonacre, Glenn V. “Free Speech on Trial.” National Archives. Winter 2017-18. Vol. 49, no. 4. Accessed at: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2017/winter/debs-canton.
“Louis Freeland Post.” Typographical Journal, Volume 44. 160. Accessed at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Typographical_Journal/y5kuAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=louis+freeland+post+hackettstown&pg=PA160&printsec=frontcover.
“Mary Dixon Palmer.” FamilySearch. Accessed at: https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L2D1-NKQ/mary-dixon-palmer-1909-1994.
“Mary Dixon Palmer.” Photograph. Alamy. Accessed at: https://www.alamy.com/mary-dixon-palmer-image398814826.html.
“Mary Dixon Palmer.” Photograph. Library of Congress. Accessed at: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016819676/.
“May Day Riots.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Accessed at: https://case.edu/ech/articles/m/may-day-riots.
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present, 2nd Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
“Mrs. A. Mitchell Palmer & Mary Dixon Palmer.” Photograph. Library of Congress. Accessed at: https://loc.getarchive.net/media/mrs-a-mitchell-palmer-and-mary-dixon-palmer.
Murray, Robert K. “THE OUTER WORLD AND THE INNER LIGHT: A CASE STUDY.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 36, no. 3 (1969): 266. Accessed at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27771791.
“Palmer’s Riot Predictions Fail; Nobody Murdered Yet. Life of No Prominent Personage is Menagced; Attorney General’s Aids Assert His Warning Operated to Prevent Perpetration of Anticipated Outrages.” The New York Tribune. (New York, NY) May 2, 1920. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/470047423/.
“Palmer and Family Safe. On Second Floor When Explosion Wrecked Lower Part of House. Two Men Blown to Bits. Parts ofBodies of Bombers or Passerby Projected Through Windows Across the Street. Defiance of Authority and Acclaim of the Social Revolution Voiced.” The New York Times. (New York, NY) June 3, 1919. Accessed at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/06/03/issue.html.
“Palmer O.K. is Held Up.” The Los Angeles Times. (Los Angeles, CA) June 3, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/380525232/.
“Palmer Gets Evidence on May Day Outbreaks; Will Act Against Speakers Urging Revolution.” The New York Times. (New York, NY) May 2, 1919. Accessed at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/05/02/issue.html.
Pfannestiel, Todd J., "Rethinking the Red Scare: The Lusk Committee and New York State's fight against radicalism, 1919--1923" Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. William & Mary. Paper 1539623388. 2001. Accessed at: https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-xgk0-2q70.
“Police Round Up 200 Bolsheviki in East Side Raid. Bomb Squad Arrives at 133 East 15th St. While Meeting is in Progress. Find Radical Leaflets. ‘Red Book’ Discovered at Headquarters of Union of Russian Peasant Workers. Move Carefully Planned. Entire Band Detained at Criminal Courts Building for Examination Early in Morning.” The New York Times. (New York, NY) March 13, 1919. Accessed at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/03/13/issue.html.
Popkin, Jeremy D. A History of Modern France, 5th Edition. New York: Routledge, 2020.
“Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World.” Industrial Workers of the World. Accessed at: https://www.iww.org/preamble/.
“Presidential Election of 1920.” Library of Congress. Accessed at: https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-i-and-1920-election-recordings/articles-and-essays/from-war-to-normalcy/presidential-election-of-1920/.
“Red Parades Not to Take Place Today. Chicago is prepared to Enforce Ruling Given Radical Elements. Socialist Makes Threat. Police Detail and Guards are on Duty Throughout Entire City.” The Dayton Herald. (Dayton, OH) May 1, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/391929493/.
“Red Riots Now On in Cleveland. 20,000 Cleveland Socialists Parade in Sympathy for Debs Overstep Bounds Flaunting Red Flag and Attacking Victory Loan Workers.” The Bucyrus Evening Telegraph. (Bucyrus, OH) May 1, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/600967731/.
“Reds Directing Seattle Strike. ‘Shoot to Kill,’ Order Given Men Upholding Laws in the City; Trouble Believed Bolshevik Movement to Test Chance for Revolution.” The Los Angeles Times. (Los Angeles, CA) February 8, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/380558969/?terms=%22Reds%20directing%20Seattle%20strike%E2%80%93to%20test%20chance%20for%20revolution&match=1.
“Report Upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice.” Washington, D.C.: National Popular Government League, 1920. Accessed at: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:4895262$20i.
Richardson, John G. “Millowners and Wobblies: An Event Structure Analysis of the Everett Massacre of 1916.” Conference Papers - American Sociological Association, August, 1–20, 2004. Accessed at: https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.uvu.edu/linkprocessor/plink?id=4268d926-056a-3a73-b684-4610f79bc947.
Ruthenberg, C. E. “The Cleveland May Day Demonstration.” The Revolutionary Age. May 10, 1919. Page 4. Accessed at: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/revolutionaryage/v1n30-may-10-1919.pdf.
S. Res. 307,, Senate Resolution Establishing the Overman Committee, September 19, 1918, Investigating ‘Un-American’ Activities and Restricting Immigration.” Accessed at: https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/artifact/s-res-307-senate-resolution-establishing-overman-committee-september-19-1918.
Schmidt, Regin. Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919-1943. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000.
“Seattle General Strike Project.” Seattle General Strike Project. Accessed at: https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/.
“‘Shouting ‘Fire’ in a Theater’: The Life and Times of Constitutional Law’s Most Enduring Analogy.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 24, Issue 1 (2015): 181 - 212. Accessed at: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1748&context=wmborj.
“Statement of the Experience of George A. Evans, a Former Teacher at the People’s House, 133 East 15th Street, Telling of the Brutal Treatment of the Police in the Raid Made Ther November 7, 1919.” Accessed at: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/lfed/russian/1919/1107-evans-accountofurwraid.pdf.
Sterling, David L. “In Defense of Debs: The Lawyers and the Espionage Act Case.” Indiana Magazine of History 83, no. 1 (1987): 17–42. Accessed at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27791041.
“Terrific Explosion Outside Morgan’s Office. Explosion at 12:01 P.M. Kills Fifteen and Injures Several Hundred People in Financial District.” The Wall Street Journal. (New York, NY) September 17, 1920. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-wall-street-journal-terrific-explosi/69472018/.
“The Everett Massacre.” Everett Public Library. Accessed at: https://www.epls.org/251/The-Everett-Massacre.
“The Industrial Works of the World.” American Experience. PBS. Accessed at: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldman-industrial-workers-world/.
“The Lusk Committee: A Guide to the Records of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities: A Guide to the Records Held in the New York State Archives.” 1992. Accessed at: https://www.archives.nysed.gov/sites/archives/files/res_topics_bus_lusk.pdf.
The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, Volume. III. Oxford: Oxford University Press, originally published 1786.
“The Palmer Raids 1919.” Records of Right. National Archives. Accessed at: http://recordsofrights.org/events/69/the-palmer-raids.
“The United States of America v. Eugene V. Debs.” National Archives Catalog. Accessed at: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/2765897.
“The Voyage of the Buford: Political Deportations and the Making and Unmaking of America’s First Red Scare” in Deportation in the Americas: Histories of Exclusion and Resistance, Kenyon Zimmer and Christina Salinas, editors. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2018.
Trickey, Erick. “When America’s Most Prominent Socialist Was Jailed for Speaking Out Against World War I.” Smithsonian Magazine. June 15, 2018. Accessed at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fiery-socialist-challenged-nations-role-wwi-180969386/.
“Trio May Die as Result of May Day Riot. Quiet Prevails in Cleveland After Day and Night of Terror. 200 Are Under Arrest. Every Known Red Meetings Place in Sixth City is Demolished by Police.” Akron Beacon Journal. (Akron, OH) May 2, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/228284127/.
United States Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Brewing and Liquor Interests and German Propaganda. Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Sixty-fifth Congress, Second and Third Sessions, Pursuant to S. Res. 307, a Resolution Authorizing and Directing the Committee on the Judiciary to Call for Certain Evidence and Documents Relating to Charges Made Against the United States Brewers’ Association and Allied Interests and to Submit a Report of Their Investigation to the Senate, Volume 2. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919. Accessed at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Brewing_and_Liquor_Interests_and_German/cqwTAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1.
United States Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Charges of Illegal Practices of the Department of Justice: hearings before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Sixty-Sixth Congress, third session, on Jan. 19, 25, 27, Feb. 1, Mar. 3, 1921. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1921. Accessed at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951p006792054&seq=584&q1=Palmer.
“Wall Street Bombing 1920.” FBI. Accessed at: https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/wall-street-bombing-1920.
“Wall Street Explosion Kills 30, Injures 300; Morgan Office Hit, Bomb Pieces Found; Toronto Fugitive Sent Warnings Here.” The New York Times. (New York, NY) September 17, 1920. Accessed at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/09/17/issue.html.
Zimmer, Kenyon and Cristina Salinas, editors. Deportation in the Americas: Histories of Exclusion and Resistance. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2018.