In late February 1954, the employee was working in a clerical capacity as a substitute postal employee. He performed no supervisory duties. His tasks were routine in nature. One year prior to the initiation of proceedings, the employee had resigned from his position as an executive officer of a local union whose parent union had been expelled from the CIO in 1949 as Communist dominated. . . .
[The employee immediately answered the first set of charges against him only to be suspended without pay at the end of March on the following charges.]
3. In January 1948, your name appeared on a general mailing list of the Spanish Refugee Appeal of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee . . .
5. Your wife was a member of the Club of the Young Communist League [a Communist party youth organization from the 1920s to the 1940s]
6. In 1950, Communist literature was observed in the bookshelves and Communist art was seen on the walls of your residence in -------
. . . Before the employee testified, he submitted a nine-page autobiography to the Hearing Board [that] set forth in some detail the employee’s activities as an officer of his local union, and discussed particularly his role therein as an anti-Communist, and his opposition to the pro-Communist policies of the National Organization with which his local was affiliated. . . .
With respect to the third charge against the employee . . . the employee reiterated his denial of any knowledge concerning it, and . . . testified further that he had no recollection of ever having received any mail from the organization involved. . . .
With respect to charge No. 5 . . . He testified that he had no independent recollection that his wife was ever a member of said organization. In addition, the employee testified that he had never lived in the neighborhood in which the organization was alleged to have existed, and that he had never heard of said organization. . .
The Chairman then read charge No. 6 in which it was alleged that Communist literature was observed in the employee’s bookshelves at home and Communist art was seen on the walls of his residence in 1950 . . .Counsel for the employee then questioned him concerning his courses in college, and the books which he was there required to read for those courses. . . .The employee responded that certain books had been recommended by his instructors, that Das Kapital was one, and that he had bought the Modern Library Giant Edition of Das Kapital . . . the employee testified that he had not read Das Kapital in its entirety, that he had been required to read ‘a chapter or two for class work,’ and that ‘he had found it a little dull and tedious.” . . .
Counsel then asked the employee whether, in 1950, he had reproductions of paintings by great painters hanging on the walls of his home, and following the employee’s answer in the affirmative, counsel asked him to name some of the artists whose reproductions were hanging on the walls of the employee’s home. The employee named Picasso, Renoir, and Modigliani.
Counsel then asked the employee whether pictures by those artists were hanging in museums, including in the largest museum in the city in which the employee resides, and following the employee’s answer in the affirmative, counsel asked whether there was ‘any relationship between the art and the Communist Party.’ The employee responded that he had ‘no idea of what any relationship there might be that exists there at all.’ . . .
1914
• June-August: Great Britain, France, and Russia (the Allied powers) go to war against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy (the Central powers); U.S. President Woodrow Wilson proclaims American neutrality.
1915
• May: A German U-Boat (submarine) torpedoes and sinks the British passenger ship Lusitania, killing 1,198 men, women, and children, including 128 U.S. citizens
1917
• March: The Russian Revolution overthrows the rule of Czar Nicholas II and replaces it with a liberal-democratic government led by Alexander Karensky
• April 2: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to approve American entry into the war against Germany
• May: President Wilson signs the Selective Service Act, requiring registration of all males between the ages of twenty and thirty (later changed to eighteen and forty-five)
• June: the Espionage Act bans the sending of treasonous material through the mail; the Post Office uses the Act to shut down socialist publications and others that were critical of U.S. involvement in the war
• November: a second Russian revolution replaces Karensky with a communist government led by Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik party, who vow to lead a worldwide anti-capitalist revolution. Lenin pulls Russia out of the war.
1918
• May: Congress passes the Sedition Act, which makes it a crime to use “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive” language against the government, the Constitution, the flag, and the military uniform. That summer, Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs is sentenced to ten years in prison for delivering a speech against the war and in favor of free speech (He was pardoned and released in 1921.)
• November 11: Germany surrenders, ending World War I
1919
• February 6: 60,000 workers walk off the job in a four-day “General Strike” in Seattle. There is little or no violence, but Mayor Ole Hanson calls in federal troops to patrol and maintain order.
• Spring: In Schenck v. U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Espionage Act, ruling unanimously that the First Amendment can be restricted in time of war if speech creates a “clear and present danger.” “Free speech,” writes Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, “would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing panic.”
• April 28-29: The mayor of Seattle receives a bomb in the mail; he is not hurt. The next day, a mail bomb blows the hands off the maid of a Georgia senator.
• June 2: Bombs go off in eight cities, killing two people. One bomb destroys part of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s home in Washington, D.C. Soon after, Palmer strengthens the Justice Department’s “Bureau of Investigation” (forerunner to the F.B.I.) by creating a new “anti-radical” unit called the General Intelligence Division. The new division is headed by a young man named J. Edgar Hoover.
• September: Boston policemen go on strike, leading to rioting and looting. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge calls out National Guard to restore order and fires the entire police force. Meanwhile, more than 300,000 steel workers go on a nationwide strike. Coal miners also threaten to strike; mine owners claim the strike is being ordered and financed by Soviet Russia.
• October: The U.S. Senate discovers that most of the 54 alien radicals arrested during the Seattle general strike have not been deported. The Senate demands that Attorney General Palmer explain why not.
• December: Attorney General Palmer and the U.S. Justice Department deport 249 illegal aliens to the Soviet Union aboard the Army transport ship Buford, nicknamed the “Soviet Ark.”
1920
• January 2: Directed by Attorney General Palmer and using information gathered by J. Edgar Hoover, federal agents break into the homes and meeting places of thousands of suspected revolutionaries in thirty-three cities. The agents, expecting to find evidence that radicals were arming for revolution, uncover a few pistols and no explosives. Still, they arrest 4,000 people, mostly non-citizens.
• January: The steel strike collapses.
• May: Palmer’s prediction of a May Day radical uprising fails to come true; public approval for his methods declines.
• September: A bomb explodes on Wall Street, killing thirty and injuring over 300; most see it as the work of a lone fanatic rather than a large conspiracy.
Step 1: Have students individually fill out the War, Civil Liberties, and Security Opinion Poll. Then briefly discuss:
• Which questions were hardest to answer and why?
• How do your answers compare with the survey results?
• To what extent should Americans be willing to give up their civil iberties during times of national emergency or war?
Step 2: Have students select one of the images from the year 1919 and fill out the Image Analysis Worksheet.
Step 3: Have students read the Timeline of Key Events of the World War I Era Red Scare.
Step 4: Ask students to pretend they are one of the following characters:
• A character who is pictured or mentioned in their image
• The person who created the image
• A person reading or viewing the image in 1919
Students should use the information in the image and the timeline to write a brief story, diary entry, or letter to the editor from your character's perspective. Make up a name for your character and a date that falls sometime between 1919 and 1920.
Step 5: Have students swap their images and writing with each other and discuss similarities and differences between the images and the perspectives they represent.
Step 6: Relate the Red Scare of 1919-1920 to the Constitution by having students read the first and fourth amendments to the Constitution. Ask students to rephrase the amendments into everyday language to gauge their understanding. Ask students which key words seem most open to interpretation.
Discuss Attorney General Palmer's actions in December 1919 and January 1920 (described on the timeline). Did he violate the Constitution? As a group, decide yes or no, then compile three pieces of evidence (from the images, the timeline, and/or the Constitution) to support your position.
Ask students to think back to their initial discussion about the problems of balancing liberty and security in the current "war on terrorism." What is similar about the situation in the United States in 1919-1920 and in the years since September 11, 2001? What is different? How well have citizens and government officials learned from the past?