OPINION:
It’s good that after more than five years, Eric Holder Jr. is resigning his post. He may be the most infamous attorney general of the United States since A. Mitchell Palmer held sway at the Department of Justice from 1919 to 1921. Both men served under Democratic presidents (Woodrow Wilson for Palmer, Barack Obama for Mr. Holder). Both presidents came from states known for party bosses and corruption (New Jersey for Wilson, Illinois for Mr. Obama). Both presidents were academics (Wilson at Princeton University, Mr. Obama at the University of Chicago). Both Palmer and Mr. Holder played key roles in the election of their bosses — and both had unfettered power over the civil rights of Americans.
Palmer, a lawyer from Pennsylvania who also served in Congress, was first offered by Wilson the post of secretary of war in 1913. He demurred on the grounds that, as a Quaker, he was a pacifist, “and the United States,” Palmer added, “requires not a man of peace for a war secretary, but one who can think war.” No matter his religious views, however, Palmer made war on radicals during his tenure as head of the Justice Department (he was nicknamed the “Fighting Quaker”) just as Mr. Holder has made war on conservatives.
The fear engendered after World War I, during the years when Wilson was ill and executive power was in abeyance, was Bolshevism spreading from Europe to America. The reality, however, was that the number of radicals dubbing themselves communists, socialists or other revolutionary names was limited, constituting a fraction of a percent of the entire U.S. population. This so-called Red Scare era found a receptive American population, frustrated by a war’s end that didn’t seem to bode well for a return to normalcy.
Unlike today, when Mr. Holder’s authority has been challenged by one house of Congress (which issued a contempt citation against him, the first in AG history), there was no outcry from Capitol Hill over Palmer’s invasion of civil rights. Although Congress did not pass a sedition bill Palmer wanted in order to deport radical aliens and jail suspect American citizens, he did so without authority. Hundreds were illegally deported, and on Jan. 2, 1920, the wholesale arrest, often without warrants, of 4,000 suspected radicals, many legal citizens, across 33 cities in 23 states, captured the nation’s attention. The suspects were often held in chains and jailed without adequate heat, food and bathrooms. There was little media outcry. Opined The Washington Post on Jan. 4, 1920: “There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over infringement of liberty … .”
Congress had already determined that it would follow Palmer’s lead instead of holding him accountable, as illustrated by the treatment of Victor Berger by the House of Representatives. A socialist from Wisconsin, Berger was no newcomer to the House. He had been first elected in 1910 and reelected in 1912 and 1914 and occasioned little notice. However, in February 1918, he was indicted for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for criticizing America’s entry into war. Before his trial, he ran again for his old seat, easily winning in November 1918.
His trial in January 1919 resulted in a conviction and sentence of 20 years in Fort Leavenworth. Immediately appealing the decision, Berger went to Congress in April 1919 to take his seat, but the House refused to seat him. So the Wisconsin governor called a special election, Berger ran again and won, and again the House voted 330 to 6 to exclude him.
After the Supreme Court threw out his conviction in 1921, Berger ran again for his old seat in 1922, winning and serving until 1929.
Palmer’s running roughshod on civil rights bore him no lasting infamy among Americans. He was a major contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1920, finally releasing his delegates only after 37 ballots. He went on to practice law in the nation’s capital and Pennsylvania and worked hard on behalf of Democratic presidential candidates Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt, serving on the platform committee at the 1932 Democratic Convention. On Palmer’s death in May 1936, FDR’s first attorney general, H.S. Cummings, called him “a great lawyer, a distinguished public servant and an outstanding citizen.” His hometown of Stroudsburg, Pa., upped the hallelujah ante on Oct. 13, 2007, when it dedicated a historical marker in Palmer’s honor that read, in part: “As Attorney General, led ’Palmer Raids’ during the ’Red Scare,’ prosecuting those suspected of being anti-American.” The marker was placed — you guessed it — near one of the entrances to the town’s courthouse.
The moral of the Red Scare is clear. Without a functioning president and a vigilant press and Congress, collective nonsense and hysteria are the result. One final point: There was no divided Capitol Hill during the peak of the Red Scare from 1919 to 1921. The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.
Thomas V. DiBacco is professor emeritus at American University.
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