Red Scare in the US: Justified or Hysterical?
Lesson Plan by Brian Krause
TAH Grant 2010-2011
Timetable: 2-3 class periods
Grades: High School
Objectives:Student will explore the two most notable “Red Scares” in the history of the
United States by examining the Palmer Raids conducted by A. Mitchell Palmer, and thirty years later the actions of Joseph McCarthy.Students will examine personal testimony by both individuals and also view documents of opposing viewpoints.With knowledge gained students will create an argument as to whether the actions taken by the United States was justified or hysterical.
Materials Needed: See Below
*Emma Goldman Statement at the Federal hearing in deportation
*I.W.W. Headquarters After Palmer Raid, 1919
*The Case Against the "Reds" – A. Mitchell Palmer
*Instructions Regarding Conduct on Raids Issued By the Dept. of Justice
*Letter from Sen. Joseph McCarthy to the Pres. Truman
*Truman Response to McCarthy
Lesson Description:
1.) Students will work individually, with one, or two classmates
2.) Each individual/group will be given copies of the above primary source documents
3.) Each group will look at the documents by first having each student examine all of
the documents from both the Palmer Raids and from McCarthy and discussing with one another what it is that they read and saw
4.) After students are familiar with all of the information in the documents we will have
an entire class discussion will be held to check for understanding and answer any questions/fill in any gaps in student understanding
5.) Students will then be creating a persuasive essay in which they take a stand on the
Palmer Raids and the actions of Joseph McCarthy.They will be arguing whether the Red Scare was justified or hysterical.
6.) Individuals/groups will conduct an in-class discussion/debate the following class
period defending their points
Assessment: Students will be graded based on a rubric consisting of group participation,
content accuracy, ideas, support for argument, and in-class discussion/debate.
Materials Needed
Statement by Emma Goldman at the Federal hearing in deportation
At the very outset of this hearing I wish to register my protest against these star chamber (any judicial or quasi-judicial action, trial, or hearing which so grossly violates standards of "due process" that a party appearing in the proceedings (hearing or trial) is denied a fair hearing) proceedings, whose very spirit is nothing less than a revival of the ancient days of the Spanish Inquisition or the more recently defunct Third Degree system of Czarist Russia.
This star chamber hearing is, furthermore, a denial of the insistent claim on the part of the Government that in this country we have free speech and a free press, and that every offender against the law--even the lowliest of men--is entitled to his day in open court, and to be heard and judged by a jury of his peers.
If the present proceedings are for the purpose of proving some alleged offense committed by me, some evil or anti-social act, then I protest against the secrecy and third degree methods of this so-called "trial." But if I am not charged with any specific offense or act, if--as I have reason to believe--this is purely an inquiry into my social and political opinions, then I protest still more vigorously against these proceedings, as utterly tyrannical and diametrically opposed to the fundamental guarantees of a true democracy.
Every human being is entitled to hold any opinion that appeals to her or him without making herself or himself liable to persecution. Ever since I have been in this country--and I have lived here practically all my life--it has been dinned into my ears that under the institutions of this alleged Democracy one is entirely free to think and feel as he pleases. What becomes of this sacred guarantee of freedom of thought and conscience when persons are being persecuted and driven out for the very motives and purposes for which the pioneers who built up this country laid down their lives?
And what is the object of this star chamber proceeding, that is admittedly based on the so-called Anti-Anarchist law? Is not the only purpose of this law, and of the deportations en masse, to suppress every symptom of popular discontent now manifesting itself through this country, as well as in all the European lands? It requires no great prophetic gift to foresee that this new Governmental policy of deportation is but the first step towards the introduction into this country of the old Russian system of exile for the high treason of entertaining new ideas of social life and industrial reconstruction. Today so-called aliens are deported, tomorrow native Americans will be banished. Already some patrioteers are suggesting that native American sons to whom Democracy is not a sham but a sacred ideal should be exiled. To be sure, America does not yet possess a suitable place like Siberia to which her exiled sons might be sent, but since she has begun to acquire colonial possessions, in contradiction of the principles she stood for over a century, it will not be difficult to find an American Siberia once the precedent of banishment is established.
The Anti-Anarchist law confuses the most varied social philosophies and isms in order to cover with the same blanket, so to speak, every element of social protest, so that under the guise of this single law, striking steel workers, railroad men, or any other class of workers, may be corralled wholesale and the most active of the strikers hurried out of the country, in order to serve the interests of our industrial kings.
Collective bargaining for the workers is now an admitted right, recognized by the highest officials of the land and accepted by the most reactionary elements. Yet when the steel workers of this country, after a quarter of a century of desperate struggle for the right to bargain collectively, have mustered enough spirit and cohesion to enter into a struggle with the steel barons for that fundamental right, the entire machinery of government, State and Federal, is put in operation to crush that spirit and to undermine the chance of establishing humane conditions in the industry where conditions have been worse than those that existed under the most brutal feudalism. The workers in the steel industry have expressed no particular social philosophy. They are certainly not on strike to "overthrow the government by a force or violence," yet the Anti-Anarchist law is used as a means to reach out for these simple, hard-driven and hard-pressed human beings, who have endangered life and limb to build up this devouring monster--the Steel Trust. A reign of terror has been established in the strike region. American Cossacks, known as the State Constabulary, ride over men, women and children; deputies of the Department of Justice break into the strikers' homes, violating the sacred Anglo-Saxon tradition that a man's home is his castle and may not be entered except by due warrant of law; and to add the finishing touch to this picture of American "freedom," the Immigration authorities, the men of your department, take the strikers off secretly and order them deported by such proceedings as I am being subjected to today, without having committed even the slightest offense against American institutions, save the one that is the greatest crime today--the right of the workers to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--a right that was made in America, and not imported by these hated aliens.
A commission, appointed by your department, finds that eighty per cent of the wealth in this country is produced by these aliens themselves or the sons of these aliens. In return for this, they are hounded and persecuted as criminals and enemies.
Under the mask of the same Anti-Anarchist law every criticism of a corrupt administration, every attack on Governmental abuse, every manifestation of sympathy with the struggle of another country in the pangs of a new birth--in short, every free expression of untrammeled thought may be suppressed utterly, without even the semblance of an unprejudiced hearing or a fair trial. It is for these reasons, chiefly, that I strenuously protest against this despotic law and its star chamber methods of procedure. I protest against the whole spirit underlying it--the spirit of an irresponsible hysteria, the result of the terrible war and of the evil tendencies of bigotry and persecution and violence which are the epilogue of five years of bloodshed.
Under these circumstances it becomes evident that the real purpose of all of these repressive measures--chief among them the Anti-Anarchist law--is to support the capitalist status quo in the United States. Vain is the pretence that the safety of the country or the well-being of the American people demands these drastic Prussian methods. Nay, indeed, the people can only profit by a free discussion of the new ideas now germinating in the minds of thinking men and women in society. The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society. In truth, it is such free expression and discussion alone that can point the most beneficial path for human progress and development. But the object of deportations and of the Anti-Anarchist law, as of all similar repressive measures, is the very opposite. It is to stifle the voice of the people, to muzzle every aspiration of labor. That is the real and terrible menace of the star chamber proceedings and of the tendency of exiling and banishing everyone who does not fit into the scheme of things our industrial lords are so eager to perpetuate.
With all the power and intensity of my being I protest against the conspiracy of imperialist capitalism against the life and the liberty of the American people.
Emma Goldman
New York, October 27, 1919
Instructions Regarding Conduct on Raids
Issued By the Department of Justice
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On June 2, 1919, bombs exploded in eight cities, including one bomb that damaged the home of the Attorney General of the United States, A. Mitchell Palmer. The following November, Palmer launched a series of raids against the radicals (including Communists, socialists, and anarchists) he held responsible for the bombs. On January 2, simultaneous raids in 33 cities led to the arrest of 2,000 alleged radicals. The next morning, the New York Times published the following list of instructions given to arresting officers. By March 1920, thousands of people had been rounded up in “Palmer Raids.” Those arrested were often beaten, held without hearings and deported without trials.
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I N S T R U C T I O N S
Our activities will be directed against the radical organizations known as the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party of America, also known as Communists.The strike will be made promptly and simultaneously at 8:30 P.M. in all districts. The meeting places of the Communists in your territory, and the names and addresses of the officers and heads that you are to arrest, are on the attached lists. You will also arrest all active members where found.Particular efforts should be made to apprehend all the officers irrespective of where they may be, and, with respect to such officers, their residence should be searched and in every instance all literature, membership cards, records and correspondence are to be taken.
When a citizen is arrested as a Communist, he must be present with the officers searching his home at the time of the search.Meeting rooms should be thoroughly searched.Locate and obtain the charter. All records, if not found in the meeting rooms,will probably be found in the home of the Recording Secretary or Financial Secretary, but in every instance, if possible, records should be found and taken.
All literature, books, papers, pictures on the walls of the meeting places, should be gathered together and tagged with tags which will be supplied you, with the name and address of the person by whom obtained and where obtained.In searching meeting places, a thorough search should be made and the walls sounded.
It is an order of the Government that violence to those apprehended should be scrupulously avoided.
Immediately upon the apprehension of the alien, or citizen, search him thoroughly. If found in groups in a meeting room, they should be lined up against the wall and searched. Particular efforts should be made to obtain membership cards on the persons who are taken. Make an absolute search of the individual. No valuables, such as jewelry and moneys, to be taken away from those arrested.After a search has been made of the person arrested you will take all the evidence you have obtained from his person and place in an envelope, which will be furnished you, placing the name, address, contents of the envelope, by whom taken and where, on the outside of the envelope and deliver to me with the alien.
Everybody will remain on duty until relieved, without exception.Flashlights, string, tags and envelopes should be carried, as per instructions.In searching rooms of an alien pay particular attention to everything in the room and make a thorough search thereof. You are also warned to take notice “that no violence is to be used.”You will communicate with me by telephone from your several districts, the number of the telephone herewith given.Attached you will find a list of those to be apprehended in your district, and you will also apprehend all those found arrested with these names at the time of the arrest whom you find to be active members of the Communist Party.
You are also instructed to use reasonable care and good judgment.
Palmer Raid Questions
1.Who was being raided?Why do you think the Attorney General chose that particular group?
2.Why do you think all raids began at the same time?What would be the advantage of that?
3.Why do you think Palmer paid particular attention to arresting the leaders?
4.What types of things were officers directed to look for at the meeting places and homes?Why do you think they looked for those things in particular?
5.Palmer mentions several times that violence is not to be used…is that what actually happened?
6.Palmer mentions the word Alien several times, why do you think he wants to pay particular attention to them?
7.What do the instructions for the raids reveal about Palmer’s attitudes toward Communists?
IWW Headquarters after the Palmer Raids
Letter from Senator Joseph McCarthy to the President of the United States
This letter from Sen. Joseph McCarthy to Pres. Truman was written three days after McCarthy’s famous Wheeling Speech. This speech signaled McCarthy’s rise to influence, as he gained national attention by producing a piece of paper on which he claimed he had listed the names of 205 members of the Communist Party working secretly in the U.S. State Dept. McCarthy was, at the time of this letter, beginning to exploit national concerns about Communist infiltration during the Cold War. This fear of infiltration was intensified by the Soviet Union’s recent development of the atomic bomb and the coming Communist takeover of China. Sen. McCarthy questioned the legitimacy and effectiveness of Truman’s loyalty program, signed into effect by Executive Order 9835 in 1947. This program required the FBI to run checks on almost anyone involved in the U.S. gov’t and subsequently to launch investigations into any gov’t employee with what could be presumed as questionable political associations. The Loyalty Program was not enough to satisfy Senator McCarthy, who suspected that a number of subversives had slipped through the investigation and remained in the State Dept. Truman made it clear that he would not take McCarthy’s accusations seriously and that the Senator was “the best asset the Kremlin has.”
July 12, 1950
The President
The White House
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
Today American boys lie dead in the mud of Korean valleys.Some have their hands tied behind their back, their faces shot away by Communist machine guns.
They are dead today not because they were less brave or had less to fight for than the North Korean Communists who manned those machine guns, but because the program adopted by this Congress to avoid just such a war in Korea, and signed into law by you, Mr. President, was sabotaged.
Last year Congress voted money to fortify South Korea and to help Anti-Communist forces in the entire Asiatic area. One item of $75 million was appropriated; another of $27,600,000; another of $10,300,000.
As you and all of us know the program for military aid to South Korea was sabotaged to the extent that only $52,000 worth of wire out of the above millions appropriated was sent to Korea with which to stem the threatened onslaught of Communist planes, tanks, artillery, etc.
While the Russians were sending to North Korea tanks, artillery and planes, our State Department “experts” on the Far East were sabotaging our programs to militarily aid the Korean Republic, and Sec. of State Dean Acheson was announcing to the world that we would not aid the South Koreans if they were invaded. We can assume that not only were the North Koreans listening, but Stalin as well.
Two of those State Dept. experts, Mr. Jessupand his super-advisor Lattimore,were telling the world that Korea did not count in the Far East defenses of Democracy. Lattimore, as you will recall, Mr. President, publicly stated that our only problem in Korea was to let her fall without having it appear that we pushed her to her doom.
It does not seem improper, Mr. President, to ask at this time why it is that Mr. Acheson could expedite a $60 million order of guns and bullets for Communist Poland, but did the opposite for the anti-Communist forces in South Korea.
Obviously, as President you must rely on the advice of others. Men, both great and small, have been betrayed by advisers in the past. It is understandable that a President can be betrayed by his political friends. But it is not
understandable nor excusable if he keeps those political friends in positions of power after they are exposed as betrayers not only of him but of the nation.
At this time I would like to bring to your attention documented facts showing how your own well-meaning programto clean the subversives out of government, which program was initiated in 1946, was sabotaged by those advisors whom you apparently still trust. In 1946 the attention of Congress was directed to disloyalty in the government when the Carl Marzanicase was broken. As you know, he was one of the top State Department employees convicted of perjury in connection with his Communistic activities. In response to the growing demand in Congress at that time, you ordered, and Congress later approved, a Federal loyalty program. $11 million was appropriated to put that program into effect.
The proof of how this program was sabotaged is attached hereto in the form of photostats (projection photocopier) of signed statements from people who were hired by the State Department to assist in the job – people who now come forward with nothing to gain and at least one of whom has a job to risk by giving this information. One of these individuals now works for the State Dept. Another is third-year student at Georgetown University; a third is in private industry; a fourth is presently an FBI agent.
You will note that the name and other job information contained in the statement of the State Dept. employee has been blocked out in the photostat. This was done because this man gave the statement only on the condition that his name not be used and he get no publicity in connection therewith. However, if you will give me your personal assurance that his job will not [be] endangered thereby, I am sure I can obtain his consent to let his name be given to you.
Three of the four innocently, as far as they were concerned, took part in a file stripping operation fully described in the statements. Their statements refer to the files as personnel files. These files became the present loyalty files after the loyalty program was put into effect. They were hired by the State Department and paid with public funds to destroy files which had been built up at tremendous cost and labor in order to protect the security of this nation.
This information is being brought to your personal attention for two specific reasons.
(1) When I started to expose Communists, etc., in the State Dept., you condemned my methods and stated that if I had brought the information to you, you personally would have taken the necessary steps to correct the situation.
(2) The following sequence of facts prove that it would be worse than useless to present this information to the Tydings-McMahon committeewhich your Administration selected to do the job of exposing Communists in our State Dept.
When I stated that the State Department loyalty files were rifled and that important material was missing, the chairman of the committee held a press conference and answered with a studiously false assertion that the FBI had examined all the files and found them complete and intact.
This was not the truth. With my knowledge of and unlimited respect which I have for the FBI and having knowledge of the extent to which those files had been denuded (material removed), I knew that this statement was not the truth. Mr. Tydings must also have known it.
I attach hereto a photostat of two clippings – one from the New York Times, the other from the New York Herald Tribune, quoting his statements at that time. I could not prove that his statement was false without the document which I now have in my possession. That document is attached hereto. It is a letter from the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover.
I call your attention to paragraph two, which reads as follows: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation has made no such examination and therefore is not in a position to make any statement concerning the completeness or incompleteness of the State Dept. files.”
Certainly under the above circumstances, no one can honestly claim that the majority members of this committee under the leadership of Sen. Tydingsand McMahonare attempting to get the facts. Certainly no one could honestly urge that material as important as that being submitted to you today should be submitted to the Tydings-McMahon committee – unless of course we were willing to follow in the footsteps of that committee and trim the facts to fit the political cloth of men afraid to face the truth.
For those reasons this material is being presented directly to you, Mr. President.
There are those who have made pleas for unity in this time of crisis. I join them in that plea, but I must define that unity to the point where it will have meaning for those we send today to Korea to fight and die.
We must all be unified in our loyalty to this nation. There is no place in a hot war for men with lukewarm loyalty. There was never a place for them in the cold war. But they were there.
Even in normal times, the information given you would be shocking. Today, however, it is doubly shocking because of the disastrous sequence of events in Asia, which today has brought us to the very precipice of defeat by the Communist half of the world. It reveals the groundwork laid for keeping and protecting people in the State Dept. who are unfit to serve this country.
Why would the State Dept. find it necessary to strip the files unless the information, when placed before the loyalty boards, would have caused the removal of those individuals. The stripping was successful to the extent that this nation was and is being betrayed. For proof you need merely look upon the chain of events which have lead to the repeated disaster for the United States and victory for Russia in Asia.
Today Korea is the crisis area. Where will it be tomorrow if the same men act as your advisors and mold your thinking Mr. President?
The magnitude of this file stripping operation is better understood when you realize that it took six months to strip the State Dept. files of information on the disloyal, and bad security risks, the fellow travelers and the traitors, and it took a crew of eight to do the job.
You will note that the statement of one of the young men who took no part in the file stripping job, but who had the task of making out cards on the clean files, shows that he was advised that the State Dept. employees were allowed to inspect and rifle their own files.
If this was an accepted procedure during the cold war, what is now being done in fraud and deceit and [sic] now that the real day for the traitors to do their work is at hand?
Someone in the State Department ordered the files stripped. Who was he? He must be found, Mr. President. And when found you decide how close he is to the top of the list of those who pledge their allegiance to the Soviet Union. You decide whether he is merely a dupe or guilty of high treason.
There are those who say we should not now spend time searching for those responsible for the disasters of the past few years. Common horse sense dictates, however, that in order to protect America in the critical weeks, months and years ahead we must determine who in positions of trust seek to betray us, and then act to get them out of government. If allowed to remain, they will undoubtedly tip the scales for disaster and against victory for this nation.
Respectfully yours,
JOE McCARTHY
Truman's Response to Senator McCarthy