Posted on 10/02/2002 7:15:37 AM PDT by TroutStalker
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:47:13 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"It is possible for us to gain access to any house, on the grounds of checking their gas and electric service," boasted a Wichita, Kansas, member of the American Protective League in 1918.
The league was the Operation TIPS of the early 20th century -- a corps of ordinary citizens, bankers, lawyers, judges, accountants, teachers and utility workers, who volunteered to keep an eye on their colleagues and neighbors and report suspicious behavior to the Justice Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
People should be very wary of this program; it's not just a simple Crime Stoppers Program and pushes the envelope for civil rights violations.
Cleaned of what? Unfortunately, the author doesn't
see fit to tell us just what it was that needed cleaning.
It's easier to leave the impression that the Red Scare
was a figment (pigment?) of postwar imagnation.
In truth, the bombs killing people on their doorsteps,
the Wall Street bombing that shredded horse and man
alike, and the radical infested union movement that
gave birth to the Wobblies and the One Big Union
that was trying it's best to shut the country down
were more than background shadows of ignorant
superstition.
What a pathetic article to be in the Wall Street Journal.
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