« Stuff You Missed in History Class

The Palmer Raids, Part 2

2016-12-07 | 🔗

After a bombing attack on his home, Attorney General Palmer launched a series of raids on perceived threats to national security. Thousands of people were rounded up, many without cause or warrant, and kept in horrifying conditions.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Here's the thing: saving money with Geico was almost better than playing pick up basketball, because there's always that guy who joined your game He never passes the rock he constantly bricks theories and who completely you and then put his hands up and say no foul, no foul with Geico it's easy to switch. Save on car insurance, no need to fake an ankle sprain because you're absolutely exhausted, so Which, in save with Geiger it's almost better than sports killings? Episode of stuff you missed history class has brought you buy Carnivore Club can escape the curse of being the person who gives mediocre Christmas presents. Give the gift that everyone will be Talking about the gift of unforgettable cured meets Carnivore club is the world's first subscription service dedicated to delivering premium cured meets right to your door. They are wishes. Carnivore club has both one time gift orders in long term subscriptions available. If you gotta carnivore club dot co,
now in place your order using promo code history, you will get fifteen percent off a unjust, and I'm Josh and where the host of stuff, you should know the podcast that's right, and if you the understanding, cool and unusual and seemingly ordinary, even boring things that are made interesting. You should check up please and thank you were on Itunes. Father Google play music anywhere. You get podcast welcomes stuff. You missed in history from hast upward, stuck her color in London, the Comcast I'm happy for you and I'm crazy bewilderment. So at our last episode we talked about me fear and unrest that gripped the United States at the conclusion of a new one still certainly did not put an end to these stresses of financial problems and racial divide and labour strikes that were happening throughout the country and there was a girl
fear that a revolution incited by foreign, anarchists or communists was going to change America forever and after rising through the political thanks to become attorney general and after a series of coordinated bomb attacks on prominent. U S, citizens a Mitchell Palmer made it his mission to root out what he believed to be a revolutionary threat to national security. So we highly recommend you listen to part one of this two part episode before this one, so that you have a fuller context for the events that were about to talk about, because, while there were some legitimate concerning events that happen, this quickly spread and became about one man's hunt, to basically get rid of as many immigrants as he could, starting on November. Seventh, nineteen nineteen two years after Russia's Bolshevik Revolution, locations and twelve different city hounds- were raided by Palmer's assembled forces and a coordinated effort.
One of the rated locations, was the russian people's house at one thirty three east fifteen street. In New York and this building how's the office of the read it Unions of russian workers, as well as a cavity area and classrooms. When the agents from the Department of Justice arrived, they had warrants for a few suspects that they launched a scale attack on the entire building and everyone in it, furniture and property were destroyed and students from classrooms were violently herded into stairwells and in many cases shoves, so that they fell downstairs. Several hundred people in total were beaten with quota black Jack's and stare whales. Those same several hundred people were taken to a nearby department of Justice Office and questioned. Only estimated one fifth of those initially taken into custody, were held. The rest
were released, but many of them were seriously injured. The treatment of the group at the hands of the Department of Justice led to a protest and Madison Square Garden, the following night, led by attorney and activists We field Malone and a letter was written to the attorney general by the New York BAR Association that demand to know if the rate had indeed been under the direction of the Department of Justice, and also requested an investigation into the events that letter never acknowledged by Palmer's office. The same night of that protest. On November, eight, a group of men had gathered to discuss purchasing of vehicles so that every one of the community to learn how to drive that meeting and Bridgeport Connecticut was rated and sixty three rests were made. Sixteen people were released over the following two days, but after three days of being held in cramped quarters the local police station with little to no food, the remaining forty seven
move to the Hartford jail under the direction of the Department of Justice in one. They were in the heart for jail. There additional arrest being made in those individuals were added to the numbers and people who live for visitation to the earth The men were also often jailed until the Hartford group number. Ninety seven they were questioned. They were threatened with suffocation and hanging and they beaten the Department of Labour and the Department of Justice worked in conjunction to file arrest, warrants aft fact for all of the men were held there. They were all kept alone in their cells, with agents of the Department of Justice as their only visitors, they were allowed no reading materials. Many
men had no idea what they were even being held for and when they question that their jailers got no information, most had no idea. If there was bail set for them and if there was how much it was, they were given two to five minutes per day at a sink outside their cells to wash their face and hands, and they were allowed five minutes of tub time per month to wash their bodies. Food was often insufficient and also fowl, and family and friends are not allowed any contact with these men in the prison punished in the heart for jail took place in for identical rooms. Each of them were fifty one inches. One hundred and six inches that's about one point: three meters by two point: seven metres in there they are floor, size, and these rooms were situated over a boiler room and consequently they would become unbearably hot men suspected holding, anarchist or communist ideologies were put into
rooms for thirty six to sixty hours at a time with one guy of water and one piece of bread given to them every twelve hours, most unconscious when their time in a punishment, room had ended, to a later investigation. Only one person in the five months that they were using these rooms was actually able to walk back to his regular cell without help situation and Hartford lasted, as we just mentioned for five months until April. Nineteen. Twenty at that point a lawyer. Finally, and thence to get into the veil, and the conditions were immediately deemed unacceptable, which we will talk about more. In a moment. In December, a number of the detainees were were deported to Russia by ship, which was nicknamed the Red ARC and soviet art in press reports. Although this really was done rather quietly and quickly,
clear if there was sufficient paperwork for all of the people put on that boat, yet often with a an event as old as this one is like it is all love that typically, I can find a lot of photos that might be in the public domain and its its recent enough that there are a lot of photo photos is not so old that there are no pictures, not a lot of pictures of this. No, the response to these initial ray, had been largely positive. Emboldened by the November successes amiable Parmalat Palmer made even bigger plans. On January second, nineteen, twenty, a second mass raid effort, was launched and approximately three thousand people were arrested over the course of several days and thirty different he's in towns. On the second, a chief agent, the Department of Justice in Detroit named Arthur L Bar He received an order from Palmer to raid. These suspected headquarters of the Communist Party.
Eight hundred men were captured as they attended classes and dances in the building, and then they were held for three to six days in a corridor in the cities federal building in the dark, the captive men had no beds, they slept on the floor. All eight hundred of them had to wait in lines for access to the one drinking fountain and one toilet available No food was given to them until family members started, showing up with provisions about twenty hours into their captivity. They were not allowed to speak to family or legal counsel, and law enforcement eventually started moving them in groups to precinct police stations with actual hole cells between one hundred thirty and one hundred. Forty of these men were moved to the police bullpen, which was intended for keeping people arrested for petty crimes for a few hours, the time it was a seller room with one window. Twenty four by thirty feet that seven point three by
point one metres in length in width and those man again, Hundred and thirty two hundred and forty men were held in that cramp space for a week with no beds, relying primarily on food that was brought in by relatives to survive tat. Of the men estimated that approximately three hundred fifty of them were american citizens or aliens who could prove They were in no way connected to any sort of radicalism eight hundred men initially seized? There were eventually warrants issued for four hundred forty of them. Ten days after they had actually been arrested, one hundred forty of them got out on bond and the other three hundred were moved to an army for it for a longer term holding and they remained there for several months, actually going to discuss something. You may not expect in just a moment which is paperwork but before we do, let's pause for just a moment, take a break from the Palmer AIDS because it is little bit heavy and talk about one of her sponsors
the keeps the lights on in the studio. So we can talk about these heavy topics. So the holidays are almost hear that causes a great deal of stress every time I say it, but We want to say this and give a shout out to the people that work at my post office. I love them, but what I don't love is dealing with angry people who are also there to male parcels. I dont want a beer and all of those crabby people and I'm already struggling with my own, like fight against crabbedness. So instead stamps that come to the rescue, so withstands outcome
you can avoid all of that hassle of going to the post office, you don't have to find parking, you, the walk. You dont have to carry things. Just do everything you do at the Post office, but do it right there at your own desk? You can buy in print officially. U S posted using your own computer, an printer. We can print posted for any letter package, the instant that Unita, and then you hand that off to your mail carrier, making it easy inconvenient and not dealing with stress, crabby people right now. You can sign up for stamps that common use, our promo code, which is stuff to get a special offer which includes a for weak trial plus a one hundred and ten dollar bonus offer. That's gonna, get you some postage as well as a digital scale, to calculate everything perfectly. So don't wait but the stamps dot com and before you do anything else, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in stuff that stamps dot com and enter stuff.
So if you're wondering how in the world, they got the manpower to issue all these warrants for all these arrests, the answer is they didn't most of the people. Were we were rounded up without warrants and with no formal paperwork to document the arrests about five thousand people were taken into custody. Most of these people being completely innocent. And when you consider that these conditions that we talked about and in these two instances there were many more than those two instances with their we just talk about, they were being captains Where conditions completely innocent for weeks and sometimes months at a time bomb The other thing that was interesting was that not all of the people who were accused of anti american sentiment during this time were captured in raids, some have lives ruined in more subtle, but no less damning ways, and one of these was an art teacher named Julia Print and she had been sent
did from her teaching job abruptly and when the School Board held a hearing to review her case a man. Hold ups named Herman Bernard and he testified TAT. He had been under cover agent of the Department of Justice and that in his under ever role. He became a secretary of the Buffalo Communist Party, and events but he knew and have records of Miss Pratt as a member of that party and the dates on which she paid her dues, but that our teacher told a very different story in her testimony she's that underlie eighteenth nineteen nineteen Miss Harris invited me into her home to meet some quite interesting intellectual friends of hers. Ass. She put it. I went out the Kenmore Herman Bernard came in with two women friends of his he constantly. Checked. It overdrawn statements against the government into the conversation and outline and glowing terms the work. The communist party would perform
A man supporting the oppressed unexploited Bernard later came to my house with others of the same group aid at my table. My played the harp Wareham. It is only on the testimony of this agent provocateur that the board has done to me again that's one example, but there were others where people had basically sort of like baited, situation, where they would go in and talk about, communism and people would sort of politely and then they would be like that's a communist licked. There were some very squarely things going on pressure. That's called entrapment. It is indeed still other people from Hoover's lists were apprehended Palmer's orders, often beaten and sometimes taken from their homes where they weren't raving, like big group gatherings, but they were just going to individual people's homes and taking them out often without warrant, and with no cause that they stated
in at least some cases, fake testimonies were typed up and signed with forge signatures. There's a report, we're gonna die in a moment that has one of these instances where it is clearly a forged signature There were many many instances of poor treatment at the hands of Palmer's agents, so, as I said a couple times now, what we have selected here to detail is just a sampling. There have been some unease about the November raids by the public. The January raids caused real concern, not fear of communist or anarchists, but fear that the attorney general had far overstepped his bounds. In part, in response to this rash of raids that were happening without cause. On January nineteenth, nineteen twenty, the American Civil Liberties Union was formed, and this was an f on the part of a number of concerns. Citizens, many of had already been working in the national Civil Civil Liberties Bureau to shift the focus away from that group
litigation only approach to one that was more action, oriented and focused on educate, as well as fighting legal battles in the spring of nineteen. Twenty. The tide continued to turn against Palmer assistant Secretary of labour. Louis F post saw the Palmer raids as one man's ambitions being rapidly out of control, with nothing limiting the actions that were being taken when Post found, about the men being held at Hartford prison in April of that year. He had them all transport, immediately to the immigration station at Dear Island Boston, where their conditions were better and their cases can be avoided. Waited and properly documented. Post: women want to cancel more than fifteen hundred deportations, which was a slap in the face to Palmer and an act that something that were really behind. Palmer's moves thought which was treasonous
there was actually an attempt to impeach Louis Post, but the assistant secretary gave extremely persuasive and powerful testimony during his appearance before Congress, which, how's the various politicians that have been calling for his impeachment to back off and some of them actually start You see that civil liberties had been outright abused during these raids, one of the truly heartbreaking effects of the Palmer raids very real, immediate and long lasting effects that they had on the lives of innocent people who were taking in the custody. Often they struggled to find work after their confinement, because even if they were released without charges, they were still there was a shadow of bolshevism. My mom and employers were unwilling to hire them and poverty ten to warn the public. The terrorist attacks were coming. He was making predictions about like on this day. This will happen. It's my intelligence tells me this, but none of those pretty
and were materializing in his credibility really suffered for it on May twenty Eightth nineteen. Twenty twelve lawyers issue issued a report on the Palmer rates. They were Archie Brown of Memphis Tennessee, Zacharias, Chappie, Junior of Cambridge Massachusetts, Felix Frankfurter of Cambridge Massachusetts, Ernst, Freud of Chicago Illinois, Swinburne, hail of New York City Frances Fisher came of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Alfred S, miles of Baltimore, Maryland Roscoe, pound of Cambridge Massachusetts, Jackson, H, Ralston of Washington, Dc David Weiler, sign of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Frankie walls of New York City
and Serene Williams of Saint Louis Missouri, and this report details all of these instances of the Palmer raids. How literally thousands of alleged radicals had been arrested with no warrants held in substandard conditions and had been denied contact with family members and legal counsel? in this document, was jointly published by the ACL you and the national Popular government League does report was I mean, perhaps surprisingly, based on the political climate that we maintain the amount in these two episodes well received. It appeared that, in the face of the brutal and illegal behaviour of the Department of Justice under the guidance of joy of attorney general, a mental Palmer public attitudes are shifting away from this fervent, blinding fear of the other. We're going to go into details about the contents of that report, but before we do others pretty good place to pause and have a word from one of our sponsors our sponsor. Today,
blue apron and holly, and I are both big fans. Blue apron delivers high quality ingredients that make a real difference to the deliciousness and freshness of the food that you're serving at home for less than ten dollars per person Neil Blue Apron delivers seasonal recipes along with pre portion ingredients. The let you make Delicious home cooked meals, one of the things that really important me as they try to source from farms where, the meat is humanely raised for the meat based dishes or if you are not into eating meat, they have a vegetarian selection that is delicious, even though my husband and I both do eat meat. We often switch totally to the vegetarian menu because the vegetarian options are often just so good. Blue apron knows that when you could incredible ingredients. You can make incredible food and also, as you doing it, you are learning awesome, cooking techniques that you can apply to your life when you are not cooking. Your blue apron meals check
this week's menu and get your first three meals of free with free shipping. By going to blue apron dot com, flash history, we will love how good it feels and taste to create incredible home, cooked meals with blue apron. So don't wait that is blue apron dot. Com, slow history, blue, apron, it's a better way to cook. So this opening of the report that we talked about before we went to break, is a letter to the people of the United States, and it is lengthy, but I want to read a significant portion of this introductory letter here. It reads to the american people:
more than six months. We, the undersigned lawyers who sworn duty it is to uphold the constitution and laws. The United States have seen with growing apprehension the continued violation of that constitution and breaking of those laws by the Department of Justice of the United States government, under the guise of a campaign for the suppression of radical activities, the office of the attorney general, acting by its local agents throughout the country, and giving express instructions from Washington has committed. Continued illegal acts quote wholesale arrests of both aliens and citizens have been made without warrant or any process of law. Men and women have been jailed in held incommunicado without access of friends or council homes have been entered without search warrant and property seized and removed. Other property, has been wantonly destroyed working
and working women suspected of radical views have been shamefully abused and maltreated. Agents of the Department of Justice had been introduced into radical organisations for the purpose of informed upon their members or inciting them to activities. These agents have even been instructed from Washington to arrange meetings upon certain dates for the express object of facilitating wholesale raids and arrests in support of these illegal acts and to create sentiment in its favour. The department of Justice has also constituted itself a propaganda bureau and has set you newspapers and magazines of this country. Quantities of material designed to excite public opinion against radicals at the expense of the government and outside the scope of the attorney general's duties. We make no argument in favour of any radical doctrine. Is such weather, socialist, communist or anarchist? No one belongs to any of those schools of thought, nor,
We now raise any question as the as to the constitutional protection of free speech and a free press. We are concerned solely with bringing to the attention of the american people the utterly illegal acts which have been committed by those charged with the highest duty of enforcing the laws, acts which have caused widespread ring and unrest has struck at the foundation of American Free institutions and have brought the name of our country into disrepute disrepute. The report grouped the various acts of Palmer's effort six categories cruel and unusual punishments, arrests without warrant unreasonable searches and Caesar's provocative agents, basically entrapment operatives compelling persons to witness against themselves and propaganda
By the Department of Justice and by the numbers, the report offers a pretty damning assessment of the effectiveness of Palmer's methods as of November fourteen nineteen nineteen Turning general had assembled a list of sixty thousand people by name that were suspected radicalism of one kind or another. As of January, first, nineteen, twenty two hundred sixty three of these sixty thousand people had been deported from January. First to the report's release, it might may there had been eighteen, more people deported with another five hundred twenty nine ordered to deport by Palmer another one thousand. Five hundred forty seven warrants for deportation were cancelled during that time by post of those sixty thousand suspects. The attorney general had only deport at eight hundred and ten and, as the report points out, that left more than fifty one thousand people to be dealt with by Palmer's own records,
when inflating the numbers of potential dangers. He basically stacks. The Beck gets them against his own forces because they wound up looking pretty an ineffective and in concluding that introduction to the report. The lawyers who were wrote quote. It is a fallacy to suppose that any more than in the past, any servant of the people can safely arrogate to himself unlimited authority. To proceed upon such a supposition is to deny the fundamental american theory of the consent of the governed. Here is no question of a vague threatened menace, but a present assault upon the most sacred principles of our constitutional liberty. One of testimonies in this report is from an at an emigrant named Alexander, bigger, wet ski. He would come to the United States from Russia and had been captured in the November raids. One section of his statement reads quote when I came to Amerika. I came with the thought that I was coming to a free country, a place of freedom and happiness, and I was anxious to come to get away from us.
Stick form of government with matters. I was anxious to come here to America, I'm a hundred times more anxious to run, from Americanism and return to soviet Russia, where I will at least be able to live, Berkowitz Geese testimony, so mentions the fact that, while he and men like him were confined for months on end, their families really suffer thereof, wives and children often went hungry. They had to depend on the kindness of other people in their communities just to survive. Another statement included in the report As from bicker wets he's twelve year old daughter violet, he witnessed Herman being beaten by prison officials when the family attempted to visit her father. Her father jumped in front of his wife to shield her and was also beaten badly for doing so. Shots were fired
one of the guards hitting another imprisoned man in the me. Mrs Bukovsky, was deeply shaken by this incident and confined to her bed for an extended period of time diagnosed by her doctor as having a nervous breakdown. In August of nineteen twenty, the ACL you published and informational pamphlet about the red scare titled, seeing red civil liberty and the law in the period following the war, and it really outlined for people the conditions of fear and governmental. Overstepping that led to the climax of the red scare, the Palmer raids in the pamphlets conclusion. It reads civil liberty is more important today than it was in the stagnant period when we had it, because no one troubled to a Brigitte, the world is right upon one of the periodic waves which curious onward toward civilized adjustment for human welfare, despite all of them
press around the raids. Palmer still ran for the democratic parties, presidential nomination of nineteen twenty as he had planned, and he lost in March nineteen twenty one. He return once again to private practice. As a lawyer, Paul for his part, was never remorseful about what had taken place in any public statement, at least that he made in nineteen twenty one. He testified to the native Senate Committee, all the raids and he defended the entire enterprise. Saying quote I apologize for nothing. The department of Justice has done I glory in it. I point with pride and enthusiasm to the results of that work and if agent, The department of Labour were a little rough in unkind with these alien agitators. I think it might well be overlooked in the general good to the country
that timber nineteen. Twenty one FBI director, William safely abruptly resigned, claiming a need to attend to a private business matter, the very troubling time in american history that we don't talk. Very much. I had not heard much about it at all before you brought up wanting to do it as an episode. Yet I mean you see how fear can really lake emboldened situations like that in it is troubling. I want to see a lot more, but it will not be cool so so, once again, if you listen to the last absurd you heard our listener. Real was not really listener. Male we're doing the same thing again. This time is the thing that we're talking about happens next week, and I want to make sure people have this information, so we mention.
For when we talked about this, that many many people have asked us to cover the interment of japanese Americans during World WAR, two as an episode and also other people, but is especially especially happenings american. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and in parts d you know continued rise of awareness of that incident is because George Decay has been so outspoken about his experience as a child living in in one of those interment camps, and he wrote allows some clever eaters. A play called allegiance, which is a musical that ran on Broadway in the twenty. Sixteen twenty sixteen season, two great critical acclaim now for those of us than missed it or you know, just Didn'T- did manage to know it happened until later. There is an opportunity to see it in your local syn.
So it was filmed while it was running on Broadway its being distributed as a fathom event for one night and one need only on December thirteenth, which is a Tuesday at seven. Thirty, p m. This is really his passion project and he is inviting elected officials to go to local screenings and really see what this piece of history was lake, and you can also go to to get tickets to it. You just need to go to fathom events, dot com and also participating theatre. She can buy them directly at their at your local box office, but you will have to make sure that they are running the show again. It distorts the case allegiance the Broadway musical on the big screen is the official name of the event. So I encourage you go learn about this piece of history from the perspective of someone that lived through its. As I said before, we don't get alot of chances to see history kind of told in this way, so it's a unique opportunity that everybody should should do if they can. If you
to write to us about what you thought of seeing allegiance or the poverty AIDS or anything else you can do so at history, Pon cast a host of works dot com. You can also find us across the spectrum of social media as at missed in history. We are on Twitter as amnesty history, Facebook, our comes lash missed in history, on Instagram, as at least in history missed in history that tumblr com pinterest accomplishments in history, get the idea were everywhere every he would like to go to our parents site. You can search in the search bar for almost anything that you are interested in, and probably we have some cool content around it. That is how it works. Dot com. You can also visit us at missed in history. Dot com- for this episode, all of our previous episodes going all the way back to the years when it is a very short and we were not. The hosts You can also find showed for any the episodes that Tracy and I have worked together as well as occasional other blog posts or announcements
and now we actually have a little bit of video- that is going on. That's a new sort of venture for stuff. You missed in history, glass that were hoping to do more of us come and visit us amiss in history,
have the more on this and thousands of other topics because it has to work stock. I am Bobby Round welcome type hard has beyond the baby, so from I hurt radio, I'm gonna be sitting down different people each week that I think we can all learn from. I hurt radio is number one prepared, but don't take our word for listen to beyond the beauty and the I hurt radio up about hard cash or ever you get your podcast, because we all have something to learn about the real me
Transcript generated on 2020-01-28.