The Palmer Raids: America’s Forgotten Reign of Terror

FEE ^ | January 3, 2020 | Lawrence W. Reed

[gattaca]

One of Hillary Clinton's idols.

[miss marmelstein]

Oh, please. He ran Emma Goldman out of the country and all of the Sacco-Vanzetti gang of Boston murderers and thugs. Emma’s boyfriend nearly stabbed Frick to death. There is not one silent comedy film made during this period that doesn’t have a joke about anarchist bombs! I just wish our modern attorney generals had the balls of Mr. Palmer!

[Openurmind]

But “it could never happen here”. It already has before...

[kearnyirish2]

“They constituted a horrific, shameful episode in American history, one of the lowest moments for liberty since King George III quartered troops in private homes.”

I don’t think the author understood the Quartering Act; troops sent to protect the colonists themselves from Indian raids (and a decade earlier, the French as well) needed somewhere to stay. The colonists eventually tired of it as the last French & Indian War became a memory, but like many of the taxes caused by the war it was a measure which benefited the colonists themselves. A few decades later, the War of 1812 showed how the Indian threat had not disappeared altogether.

I wouldn’t like it (seen through the prism of modern times), but at the time it was an understandable measure.

[kearnyirish2]

Living a century later, it is easy to “Monday morning quarterback”; the fact is communism and anarchism were global threats, and FDR’s later attempts to soften the impact of the Depression indicated that he knew it was a very real threat here.

[texas booster]

I am glad to read this version of history. Much like any leftist inspired drivel, it shows you how much they parrot their own words to become an echo chamber.

One bit of irony, looking back from 2020:

This writer dares to suggest that the sainted FBI might cross any line in trying to get their man.

We now know that Hoover certainly was known to cross a few lines to get his man.

[texas booster]

Please note that this author works for the Foundation for Economic Freedom, whose authors I generally like.

Not sure which history books he was researching from ...

[Openurmind]

Oh I understand, but to comfortably say it can never happen here is a bit ignorant. It can, and it will come from the other side this time around.

[FreedomPoster]

Ping

[grey_whiskers]

Typical leftist: blame other leftists for crimes, and use that to immunize yourself and ratchet up your own power.

"Red scare" was bad.

Yeah, mm-hmm, sure, right.

All leftists are liars, all the time, including the words "the" and "and".

[kearnyirish2]

I understand - but I’ve never said it can’t happen here. I wish our current government would do this today with Muslims living in the US; how many times must Americans be killed by terrorists “on watch lists”?

Besides living a dozen miles west of Ground Zero in Manhattan, closer to home are two sites of saboteur attacks during WWI - Black Tom Island in Jersey City and the Canadian Car & Foundry Company in Lyndhurst (both fairly close together in northeastern NJ). Both were sending munitions to the Triple Entente in violation of our neutrality (and as such, fair game), but they showed we were vulnerable; in my town, they stationed a detachment of troops at a rail bridge over a river connecting to Newark.

I don’t know where we balance our safety with government authority; I certainly don’t trust the government to do it (in light of the last 20 years).

[moovova]

Bkmk

[KeyLargo]

Sound okay until you read the Leftist story, which is just another hit piece against Conservatives by the media.

[Openurmind]

Personally I think it is a bad concept to support. Giving government this much power and control over the citizens is a bad door to open. It very well could be communists rounding up Christians someday soon. I have always said the same of using government to force ANY religious values and ideology on society without choice, once that door is opened it very well could be sharia that is forced on society without choice someday. We already see this with the religious cult of veganism being forced on society as an example of how this can turn out. We should be very very wary and cautious of what we ask for and what doors we open... Once opened they cannot be closed.

[miss marmelstein]

Don’t forget the 1919 Wall St. bombing. Some of the buildings still have visible scars. Committed by Mario Buda, who was up to his neck in anarchist doings with his two pals Nicola Sacco and Bart. Vanzetti. Lucky for him, he escaped to Italy in the aftermath of the bombing only to be murdered by Mussolini.

[caver]

It’s interesting to see that’s where J. Edgar Hoover got his start.

[ConservativeMind]

I saw that your thread on this was pulled as a duplicate. Apparently Free Republic has multiple people with good eyes for relevant history!

[piasa]

Interesting. Speaking of the Palmer deportations:

To: neverdem
The “Red Scare” was justified. Leon Czolgosz was inspired to murder President McKinley by one of those Palmer deported—Emma Goldman.We now know from the Soviet archives John Reed was one of five Americans who received over $1,000,000 from Lenin to foment a revolution in America . Big bucks at that time. Reed was stopped in Finland. The other money got here (and probably lots more, the Bolsheviks laundered the property they stole in, among other places, NYC). We know the code names of those involved but not their actual identities (a good guess however would be some of the founders of the ACLU which had been created as a reaction to the so-called “Red Scare).

12 posted on 11/24/2009, 11:27:30 PM by Brugmansian

[ConservativeMind]

We are doing something like this, minus the “round up” portion, today:

CNN Journalist ‘Governments Pay Us To Fake News’, Shocking Exposé

https://newspunch.com/cnn-journalist-governments-pay-us-to-fake-stories-shocking-expose/

[Rockingham]

Also absent is any mention of the massive Black Tom explosion on July 3, 1916, in New York Harbor. This act of sabotage by German agents was against a then neutral U.S. and destroyed munitions that had been sold to the Allies for use in World War I. The Black Tom explosion was the proximate cause for the establishment of American domestic intelligence agencies and the passage of the Espionage Act.

Investigations soon established that Germany had developed an extensive espionage and sabotage network in the U.S. Moreover, various German ethnic organizations in America actively collaborated with the German government in those activities and in covert propaganda against the Allies.

So confident was the German ambassador in his country's hold on the loyalties of German Americans that he famously warned the American Secretary of State that if America declared war on Germany, a million German Americans would rise in rebellion against the government. The Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, replied that would not deter the government because we had a million and one lamp posts available.

After World War I, America remained on edge due to massive immigration and the growing prominence of anarchism and radical socialist ideologies, and of labor and political disputes and the murders and bombings they spawned. Wall Street itself was bombed on September 16, 1920, at lunch hour, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds wounded. Italian anarchists were suspected, but no one was charged.

America's domestic politics was deeply unsettled by those and many similar events. Critics of the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids ought not to ignore the genuine and well-founded concerns that prompted them.