Document A: “The Case Against the "Reds"
U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
A. Mitchell Palmer was the U.S. Attorney General at the end of World War 1. Fearing the spread
of Communism to the United States after the war, Palmer arrested hundreds of people and
deported them in 1919. Palmer wrote this essay in 1920 to justify his anti-Communist raids to
the American people.
Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of communist revolution was sweeping over every American
institution a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the American workmen, its sharp
tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of the churches, leaping into schools,
crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, burning up the foundations of society.
My information showed that thousands of aliens supported communism in this country. The
whole purpose of communism appears to be a mass organization of the criminals of the world
to overthrow the decencies of private life, to usurp property that they have not earned, to
disrupt the present order of life.
The Department of Justice will pursue the attack of these "Reds" upon the Government of the
United States with vigilance, and no alien, advocating the overthrow of existing law and order
in this country, shall escape arrest and prompt deportation.
They have caused irritating strikes and infected our society with their diseased social ideas and
unclean morals. But we can get rid of them! Not until we have done so shall we have removed
the menace of Communism for good.
Vocabulary:
Aliens = Foreigners
Usurp = Take over
Document B: Emma Goldman Deportation Statement
Labor Activist Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman immigrated to the United States from Lithuania as a child. As a labor union
activist, Goldman pushed for safer conditions, higher wages and better treatment for workers in
factories across the country. She was arrested during the Palmer Raids, accused of being a
Communist and deported to her home country of Lithuania. She gave this speech at her
deportation hearing in 1919.
I wish to register my protest against these proceedings. I have not committed any criminal acts.
Instead I have been arrested purely because of my social and political beliefs.
Today so-called aliens are deported. Tomorrow American citizens will be banished. Already
some “patriots” are suggesting that some native-born American citizens should be exiled from
the country.
The free expression of the hopes of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.
The object of these deportations and arrests is to stifle the voice of the people, to muzzle every
aspiration of labor activists.
That is the real and terrible menace of these proceedings. Their real purpose is to support the
capitalists of this country. Their goal is to exile and banish everyone who does not agree with
the lies that these leaders of industry continue to spread.
Vocabulary:
Deported, Banished and Exiled = Kicked out of the country
Aspiration = hope or ambition
Menace = danger, threat