The (first) 'Red Scare' and the Founding of the ACLU

By Melissa Walsh
A hundred years ago the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was formed as an urgent response to a gross violation of the First Amendment rights of thousands by the US Department of Justice during the Palmer Raids of November 2019 and January 1920. Its first meeting was held on January 19.

​Detroit is part of that story.

When I was a graduate student at Wayne State University in the early 1990s, frequently, while walking around campus, a member of a leftist political organization would hand me a flyer or pamphlet. There were (and perhaps still are) two fairly popular communist/socialist organizations in Detroit active on the WSU campus then: the Workers World Party and the Revolutionary Workers League. Having recently returned from living in Yugoslavia and traveling in other communist countries in East Europe, I would launch an ideological discussion with the person offering me the literature.

“Have you ever been to a communist country?” I would ask.

The answer was always, “No.”

I would smugly pontificate about the negatives of living in the confines of a communist society — of one-party rule, of political corruption generating a black-market economy of corrupt haves and victimized have-nots, of the lack of free speech and free press, etc. I was young and arrogant and probably didn’t give the person much opportunity to express why they were dedicated to the dream of a communist utopia. I felt I already understood the theoretical merits of wanting a society of shared wealth and equality; I knew it was an unrealistic mission.

Before walking away, I’d say, “In theory, your intentions are noble. The problem is humans are greedy and always will be.”

Click on the screen shot above to see the short animation produced by Ford Motor Co. in 1919 - "Uncle Sam and the Bolsheviki-I.W.W. Rat"

“(The detainees) slept on a bare stone floor at night, in the heavy heat that welled sickeningly up to the low roof, just over their heads; they were shoved and jostled by heavy-handed policemen; they were forbidden even the chance to perform a makeshift shave; they were compelled to stand in long lines for access to the solitary drinking fountain and one toilet; they were denied all food for 20 hours; and after they were fed what their families brought in and they were refused all communication with relatives or with attorneys.”
​— Frederick R. Barkley

America’s First Amendment guardians in 1920
What I loved then and now about The United States is exactly this — the healthy pluralism of such encounters as mine on the campus of WSU, the right to have these conversations openly, the rights of leftists, and all of us, to gather and hand out literature. The First Amendment protects these rights. And our First Amendment watchdog is the ACLU, the organization born of the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB), which was organized in 1917 to defend Great War (World War I) protestors and conscientious objectors. Founding members rebranded the mission in 1920 in response to the Palmer raids, viewing the activities of the DoJ as countering founding principles of the United States and in direct violation of the US Constitution, specifically the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

The ACLU’s founding members, per its first meeting minutes January 19, 1920, included Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Helen Keller, Walter Nelles, Morris Ernst, Albert DeSilver, Arthur Garfield Hays, Jane Addams, Felix Frankfurter, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Rose Schneidman.

A hundred years later, the ACLU’s work has benefitted us all across the political spectrum. I can’t help but believe that if it weren’t for the ACLU, the Wayne States leftists I encountered 30 years ago would not have been permitted to discuss their views with me openly. Chances are I might have been persecuted for having studied and traveled in communist countries. Events in the United States — in Detroit — a hundred years ago illustrate how injustice strikes communities without the safeguarding of our First Amendment rights

How did Palmer’s campaign against ‘radicals’ impact Detroit?
The January 3, 1920, Detroit Free Press headline read: “2,800 reds bagged in nation-wide raids, 500 in Detroit.”

​This raid followed the November 1919 round-up and deportation of radicals -- a response to terrorist activity allegedly by leftist radicals and anarchists during the summer of 1919. Scores of bombs were delivered to prominent American owners of capital, including J.D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, and government and law enforcement officials in major US cities.


In 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who also had been targeted with a bomb attack that was unsuccessful,  put J. Edgar Hoover in charge of collecting intelligence on leftists (“bolsheviks”) and anarchists on behalf of the Justice Department. He led a division of the DoJ’s Bureau of Investigation, which would become the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).


The Sedition Act of 1918, which piggy-backed the 1917 Espionage Act, was a paranoid response to the 1917 Russian Revolution by lawmakers fearing revolt by the nation’s immigrant population, which was one-third of the population and more dense in the cities. A Russian civil war was in progress between the Bolsheviks, or the “Reds,” and royalist and capitalist allied forces opposing the Bolsheviks, or the “Whites.” The United States military became involved in operations in support of the Whites.

​In response to the bombings of 1919, AG Palmer lumped together anarchists and leftists with socialist/communist leanings as domestic enemies. Of course, the political ideologies of these groups were varied. Palmer immediately targeted labor organizations as the low-hanging fruit to be prosecuted. Any member of the Industrial Workers of the World labor union became subject to arrest.

On January 2, 1920, 4,000 individuals were sought across the nation, without warrant, by US Department of Justice agents for arrest and detainment with the goal of deportation. A Detroit Free Press  correspondent (no byline) called January 2 raids “the greatest roundup of radicals in the nation’s history.”

The agents detained alleged anti-American radicals in 33 cities across the country. The objective was to detain individuals thought to be leftists or anarchists (dubbed “bolsheviks”) “with the goods on,” according to the Freep, meaning agents were directed also to collect evidence of radicalism, such as communist party or labor union membership cards, linked to those detained, “upon which the department of labor might proceed with the deportation of undesirables.” Those detained were charged with aiming “to overthrow the government by force and violence.”

The Freep correspondent wrote, “Department of justice agents desired most of all to capture incriminating documents, not so much of the literature and propaganda, but papers showing the details of the communists organizations in each city.”

So what evidence did the DoJ collect?
The DoJ presented what it found: information distributed to Detroit’s black communities soliciting their joining the labor and leftist movements; a “manifesto” proposing ending capitalism in favor of founding a “workers’ industrial republic”; and incitement to join the workers of the world in revolution.

The Freep reported that the DoJ’s investigations were aimed to uncover evidence pointing to communist leaders concentrating on taking over labor union leadership. The DoJ concluded that leftist activists directed their recruitment mainly among the nation’s immigrants. Assistant Attorney General Garvin reported that he found evidence to back the claim that major leftist groups in the United States were led by immigrants and that their activities were directed by Soviet Russia.

The Freep correspondent wrote, “It is known that agents of the Allied nations have been working nearly two years among the followers of Lenin and Trotsky and their efforts have resulted in connecting links in the chain of soviet propaganda in this country and the soviet leaders in Russia.”

I’d have to dig deeper to verify the Freep correspondent’s statement. How did he come to the conclusion “it is known…”? Yet that’s how the January 2 raids were covered in the January 3 edition of the Freep.

Who was targeted?
On January 4, the Freep reported that many of the 60 “reds” arrested and detained in Detroit in November will fill “Soviet Ark No. 2,” the Kilpatrick, departing New York on January 10. The Freep also reported that the raids would continue, with an estimated “20,000 revolutionaries” sought in Michigan alone.

Among those arrested January 2 were Wincenty Dmowski, a Russian Pole and Editor of Glas Robotheszy, and Daniel Elbaum, the publications Associate Editor. The Freep called Dmowski “a well-known advocate of bolshevism.”

The Freep initially reported more than 500 arrested in Detroit January 2. Days later, it reported more that 600. Frederick R. Barkley of the Detroit News reported more than 800 detained — a figure today's historians accept.

Barkley contributed an article about the raids in Detroit in the January 31,1920 edition of The Nation. He explained how Chief (DoJ) Agent of Detroit Arthur L. Barkey was directed “to break the back of radicalism” in the city.

More than 800 men, women and teen-aged boys were detained, without warrant, in the Detroit Federal Building for three to six days before many of them were relocated to Detroit's historic Fort Wayne. Testimony discovered by Barkley and others revealed that while housed at Fort Wayne detainees were tortured and that their spouses and children were brought in to witness their assault.

A Freep correspondent described the second night (January 3) of detainment (in the Federal Building) this way, “Dim lights barely penetrated shadows on the fifth floor balcony of the building. From one end of the corridor, it was just possible for a straining eye to see figures of men as they moved about the other. And for anyone seeking to make way along the balcony passageway, it was necessary to walk with caution as prostrate forms of men were sprawled all over the floor. Some of the men lay at full length; others sat with backs propped against a wall. Some slept; others talked in a foreign tongue, and munched on stale sandwiches. Occasionally, a group here and there would burst into singing: the song, more likely than not, would be the revolutionist anthem, “Internationale.” Scores of department and state constabulary stood guard.

“So it was that more than 500 alleged enemies of the government taken in the raids in Detroit spent the night. They were unshaved, and otherwise they showed the lack of care. The dull-featured men, ranging from 18 to 60 years old, were huddled together in unlovely groups, and there appeared little more sympathy among them than was evinced for them. The occasional brave bursts into song lacked spontaneity. There was no “heart” in them.”

Barkley described the detainment in the Federal Building this way: “(The detainees) slept on a bare stone floor at night, in the heavy heat that welled sickeningly up to the low roof, just over their heads; they were shoved and jostled by heavy-handed policemen; they were forbidden even the chance to perform a makeshift shave; they were compelled to stand in long lines for access to the solitary drinking fountain and one toilet; they were denied all food for 20 hours; and after they were fed what their families brought in and they were refused all communication with relatives or with attorneys.”

On January 5, the Freep reported 280 additional Detroit “reds” detained. In another article, the edition included an article about AG Palmer’s efforts toward enacting legislation for prosecuting “American citizens considered dangerous to the nation,” described as “the so-called parlor bolshevists, long-haired men and short-haired women who encourage agitators and promote sedition as a pastime.”

Barkley reported that detainees included, “citizens and aliens, college graduates and laborers, skilled mechanics making $15 a day and boys not yet out of short trousers,” who were “seized without warrant.” He wrote that many at the time of arrest were in a “dance or class” at The Hall of the Masses, which was where Detroit’s Communist party was headquartered. All who happened to be at the building at the time of the January 2 raid were arrested — those having a beverage in the lower-level cafe, a teenaged boy meeting a man about a job, a teacher moonlighting to support his young family. Barkley reported that those arrested were not given a change to defend themselves before their prosecutors and labeled “reds, bolsheviks, or anarchists” and detained without due process.

“Frantic wives and children haunted the lower halls of the Federal Building,” he wrote, “hoping to catch a glimpse of their men through the narrow apertures of the top-floor corridor railing.”

Barkley also reported that DoJ agents arrested 22 from another hall that they believed to be the meeting place of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). They had the wrong building. Only three of these 22 were released three days later. They went straight to Detroit Mayor James Couzens to complain. DoJ agents had seized all documents from the building mistakenly believed to be the IWW meeting place, including lists of 200 sick individuals to whom the three men were in the charge of distributing benefits on behalf of the Workingmen’s Sick Benefit and Educational Society.

During the week following the raids, Rep. Martin Davey (Democrat, Ohio) introduced a bill that would make “acts of sedition” punishable by fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment of 20 years, or both.

The Senate passed the “Sedition Bill” on January 10, making “preaching violence” punishable by 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The bill prohibited written or oral advocation of the overthrow of the United States; hindering agents in investigating seditious acts; and displaying flags, banners, or emblems symbolizing overthrow of the government. Aliens convicted of sedition would first serve a prison term before being deported.

Criticism of Palmer’s campaign against ‘reds’ emerges
On January 7, the Associated Press reported, “A written statement issued to the press here tonight (Jan. 6) by S. Nuorteva, who said he was secretary to Ludwig C. A. K. Martens, the self-styled ambassador to the United States from the Russian soviet government, charged that agents of the department of justice had ‘actively participated’ in the formulation of communist party platform planks ‘which now form the basis of the persecution of thousands of people.’

“The statement also asserted that ‘we can prove that the chief figures in some celebrated bomb plots were agents of a similar nature,’ and that some other radical activities now said to have been instigated by Russians ‘were in reality managed and inspired by secret service agents.’”

The statement also called for a Senate hearing on the matter.

On January 8, the Freep reported that a bill introduced by Rep. Albert Johnson (Republican, Illinois) that would require government employees to report any activity deemed suspicious to rid government departments of “trouble breeders.” The same edition reported that US Secretary of War Newton D. Baker ordered the vacating of Ellis Island facilities to make room for the forthcoming processing of hundreds of so-called radicals arrested over the past week. More than 300 of those arrested in Detroit were slated to be sent to Ellis Island for deportation due to a “manifesto” agents uncovered revealing plans for a massive labor strike in the spring. Dr. P. L. Prentiss, Detroit’s Chief Immigration Inspector, called on Detroit manufacturers to make available any vacant buildings that could be used as detention facilities.

Prentiss was quoted as saying, “We have no place in which to detain these men. For the time being, all of those who have been moved from the fifth floor of the Federal building, following their examinations, are being held at the various precinct police stations. But these are overcrowded, and, besides, their facilities are required for city prisoners.”

On January 9, the Freep reported that the DoJ reduced bail to $1,000. Yet only four of those detained could afford release.

On January 10, the Freep reported that 31 of those arrested during the November raids will leave Detroit for Ellis Island that day. Among the roughly 400 still detained, 48 had not yet been presented with a warrant for their arrest. The Freep also reported that on January 9 W. B. Colver of the DoJ testified to the senate agricultural committee that the raids of “reds” was the result of “frame-ups” by the DoJ. He accused leaders of the Chicago packing industry as being behind the scheme and urged regulating the packing industry.

On January 10, the Freep reported that 36 “radicals” left Detroit for Ellis Island. Accordingly, these 36 were not socialists, but anarchists, and members of the Union of Russian Workers.

“While a sprinkling of curious American citizens were jostled about on the outskirts of the crowd,” the Freep correspondent reported, “a surging mass of allies, all but hysterical in emotion of the moment, claimed as martyrs the dozens of disciples of red rule as they were hustled from the county jail into waiting patrol wagons on Raynor street.”

The 36 were bound for the Soviet Ark II to be deported with another 485 immigrants of Eastern European origin (except for one Frenchman being deported for “importing a woman for immoral purposes”). The initial Soviet Ark, or the USAT Buford, carried away 249 aliens arrested during the November 1919 raids. The ship landed in Helsingfors, Finland January 11.

Defending his campaign of raiding, Palmer, who was seeking the Democratic nomination for US President, contributed an article to The Forum, “The Case Against the Reds.”

Here’s an excerpt: “It has been inferred by the “Reds" that the United States Government, by arresting and deporting them, is returning to the autocracy of Czardom, adopting the system that created the severity of Siberian banishment. My reply to such charges is that in our determination to maintain our government we are treating our alien enemies with extreme consideration. To deny them the privilege of remaining in a country which they have openly deplored as an unenlightened community, unfit for those who prefer the privileges of Bolshevism, should be no hardship. It strikes me as an odd form of reasoning that these Russian Bolsheviks who extol the Bolshevik rule should be so unwilling to return to Russia. The nationality of most of the alien "Reds" is Russian and German. There is almost no other nationality represented among them.”

With the goal to “defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person by the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution and laws of the United States,” the ACLU’s work remains litigious, non-partisan, and exceedingly necessary.

The detentions and deportations generate the ACLU’s founding.
Legal experts mindful of civil rights vigorously opposed Palmer’s DoJ activities. Though the November 1919 raids were generally accepted by the public as an appropriate responsive to bombings committed by domestic terrorists in 1919, the January 1920 raids attracted scrutiny and popular skepticism. When Palmer’s projected armed uprising by leftists on May Day (May 1, 1920) didn’t materialize, he further lost credibility and also lost the Democratic presidential nomination.

Founded on January 19, 1920, the ACLU made the case for First Amendment protection against the unwarranted arrest, detainment, and deportation of those seized by the DoJ early January 1920. Going forward into the 1920s and beyond, the non-partisan organization dedicated service in guarding First Amendment rights in the United States, no matter political or cultural affiliation. The ACLU even advocated free speech rights for Nazi sympathizers demonstrating in 1977 in Skokie, Illinois, where many Jewish holocaust survivors lived.

With the goal to “defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person by the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution and laws of the United States,” the ACLU’s work remains litigious, non-partisan, and exceedingly necessary.

Barkley concluded his The Nation article about the Detroit raids with this thought: “The people, sound at heart and steadfast for the right when they know the truth, will someday come to demand an accounting for this slaughter of Americanism to make a Presidential candidate’s holiday.”

The people who rose to demand this accounting became the members and supporters of the ACLU.
​
​© 2020 Melissa Walsh

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