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| On this day in history, Jan. 2, 1920, thousands detained by DOJ in nationwide 'Palmer Raids' |
| 2023-01-03 |
| [FoxNews] Violent dragnet marked height of Red Scare, flagrant abuse of constitutional restrictions on government. The Department of Justice unleashed a shocking and often violent unconstitutional nationwide dragnet — detaining as many as 10,000 people — on this day in history, Jan. 2, 1920. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, appointed to the office 10 months earlier by President Woodrow Wilson, led the sweep against suspected communists and anarchists, as well as their sympathizers. The action was soon dubbed the Palmer Raids. "The raids constituted a horrific, shameful episode in American history, one of the lowest moments for liberty since King George III quartered troops in private homes," writes the Foundation for Economic Education. The foundation calls the effort under President Wilson "America's reign of terror." The Wilson administration also targeted political opponents. "Even simple criticism of the government was enough to send you to jail," according to Christopher Finan, author of the 2007 book "From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America." The Palmer Raids marked the height of the nation's first Red Scare, a response to the Bolshevik Revolution and communist takeover of Russia. The radical ideology soon spread across Europe and the United States after the tectonic social upheaval caused by World War I. The era of fear was further fueled by widespread postwar labor discontent and the deadly influenza pandemic of 1919, which killed about 675,000 Americans, many of them children, in just a year-and-a-half. "The Constitution faced a major test on this day in 1920 when raids ordered by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer saw thousands of people detained without warrants merely upon general suspicion," the National Constitution Center wrote last year. "Facilitated by a young Justice Department official, J. Edgar Hoover, what became known as the Palmer Raids peaked on the night of Jan. 2, 1920, when between 3,000 and 10,000 people in 35 cities were detained." |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #3 So Jan 6 was just another day for the DOLJ... |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2023-01-03 12:29 |
| #2 Wilson was a democrats democrat. The start of the progressive left. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2023-01-03 11:10 |
| #1 when between 3,000 and 10,000 people in 35 cities were detained Yep. That would about do it. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2023-01-03 00:15 |