Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Today's Classic is a request from listener Amy,
Speaker 1: who asked us to replay it because of how applicable
Speaker 1: it is to current events. This is our episode on
Speaker 1: the Palmer Raids, which originally came out in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: This is a two part episode, and we haven't been
Speaker 1: rerunning two parters of Saturday Classics lately unless the original
Speaker 1: episodes are so short, like from an earlier time when
Speaker 1: our episodes tended to run a little shorter that they
Speaker 1: could add up into one regular length episode today, but
Speaker 1: that's not really the case with these, so we're running
Speaker 1: the two parts on separate Saturdays. These episodes also each
Speaker 1: have their own arc, so today's involves some historical context
Speaker 1: and a series of bombings that were carried out in
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, and then next week, part two on Saturday
Speaker 1: will cover the federal response to those bombings. So this
Speaker 1: first part of the Palmer Raids originally came out December fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. So after
Speaker 1: World War One, the United States was in the midst
Speaker 1: of a lot of social unrest. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of financial issues facing the nation in the form of
Speaker 1: inflation and unemployment and labor strikes. In nineteen seventeen, the
Speaker 1: Bolshevik Revolution, which established the world's first communist nation, terrified Americans,
Speaker 1: and after the war ended in November of nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: there was a very pervasive fear, which came to be
Speaker 1: known as the Red scare, that radicals in the United
Speaker 1: States would try to stage a similar revolution. Additional, the
Speaker 1: Spanish flu pandemic that had started in nineteen eighteen also
Speaker 1: had people on edge. Additionally, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: racism that was blowing up in the form of violence.
Speaker 1: In short, the US was in this state of feeling
Speaker 1: helpless and uncertain and uneasy all the time. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of the setting of what we were talking
Speaker 1: about today, which is the Palmer Raids. And this is
Speaker 1: going to be a two part episode, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of moving parts to it, Like we're kind
Speaker 1: of jumping around a little bit where we'll talk about
Speaker 1: one thing for a moment, and then another thing for
Speaker 1: a moment, and then another they're sort of in separate sections,
Speaker 1: but they eventually all become part of this bigger picture.
Speaker 1: And so the first thing that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about is actually the Sedition Act of nineteen eighteen. On
Speaker 1: May sixteenth, nineteen eighteen, the Sedition Act was passed by
Speaker 1: the US Congress, and this act expanded on the previously
Speaker 1: existing Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen. The Espionage Act had
Speaker 1: made a crime to traffic and information with the intention
Speaker 1: that that sharing would harm the United States and the
Speaker 1: war effort, or assist any enemies of the United States,
Speaker 1: and the Sedition Act was both more expansive and more focused.
Speaker 1: Anti war activists, pacifists, and socialists were all targeted in
Speaker 1: its wording, and under the Sedition Act, it became illegal
Speaker 1: to make false statements that interfered with the war effort.
Speaker 1: It was illegal to insult or in any way abuse
Speaker 1: the US government or its representative, flag, military, or the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Agitating against the production of war materials was also covered,
Speaker 1: as well as teaching or defending any of the actions
Speaker 1: that were made illegal in the language of the Act.
Speaker 1: The punishments outlined in the Sedition Act were the same
Speaker 1: as those described in the Espionage Act. If anyone was
Speaker 1: found guilty of the crimes described, they could be fined
Speaker 1: up to ten thousand dollars jailed for twenty years, and
Speaker 1: both of these punishments could be sentenced at the same time.
Speaker 1: So keep the Sedition Act and the Espionage Act in mind.
Speaker 1: But next we are going to hop to a different thing,
Speaker 1: and we are going to talk briefly about a postal clerk.
Speaker 1: And that man was named Charles Kaplan, and he was
Speaker 1: a postal clerk working in New York City's main post
Speaker 1: office in nineteen nineteen. And on April twenty seventh of
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, over the course of his normal work, he
Speaker 1: encountered sixteen small parcels, and they were all virtually identical,
Speaker 1: both visually and in the fact that they all had
Speaker 1: insufficient postage. And Kaplan set these parcels aside to be
Speaker 1: returned to the sender at the return address on the package,
Speaker 1: which was an address that was Gimbal Brothers, thirty second
Speaker 1: Street in Broadway, New York City, and they were marked
Speaker 1: novelty samples. A few days later, while riding the train
Speaker 1: home from work in the wee hours of April thirtieth
Speaker 1: nightnineteen nineteen, Caplan read the paper and one of the
Speaker 1: stories he read detailed a small parcel, and the description
Speaker 1: of this parcel was almost identical to these he had
Speaker 1: set aside. On the twenty seventh, this parcel was delivered
Speaker 1: to former US Senator Thomas Hardwick in Atlanta, Georgia, and
Speaker 1: when Hardwick's maid open the package, it exploded. Both the
Speaker 1: maid and Hardwick had survived, although the maid had been
Speaker 1: really injured by the blast and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of property damage. Yeah, descriptions of her injuries very a
Speaker 1: little bit. They're pretty brief. Some will say that her
Speaker 1: hands were actually blown off, Others will say that they
Speaker 1: were crippled in some way, but she was very, very injured.
Speaker 1: Kaplan immediately exited the train. He jumped off at the
Speaker 1: next stop, and he ran back to the post office
Speaker 1: and those sixteen brown paper wrapped parcels that were in
Speaker 1: the storeroom that he had set aside. The parcels, which
Speaker 1: indeed matched the description that Kaplan had just read in
Speaker 1: the paper, had not moved on to their next step
Speaker 1: in the of being returned, so Caplan notified Postal Inspector W. E. Cochran,
Speaker 1: and the authorities were immediately called. The New York City
Speaker 1: Bureau of Combustibles, which is sort of a fabulous name
Speaker 1: and no longer exists in that particular nomenclature, opened some
Speaker 1: of the parcels along with Cochrane because he was extremely
Speaker 1: good at this. Apparently, upon examination by the Combustibles Bureau,
Speaker 1: these parcels were deemed infernal machines, another kind of great
Speaker 1: name for something really terrible they were. Today they would
Speaker 1: be labeled as incendiary devices. They were addressed to J. P.
Speaker 1: Morgan Junior, John D. Rockefeller, Mayor John F. Hyland, Police
Speaker 1: Commissioner Richard Enwright, and a number of other well known businessmen,
Speaker 1: politician and judges. So Caplan had unwittingly discovered a serial bombing.
Speaker 1: So after receiving all of this information, Postmaster General Albert
Speaker 1: Burlison's out an alert to all postal offices describing these
Speaker 1: bomb parcels with instructions to be on the lookout for
Speaker 1: similar packages. The next day, one turned up in Salisbury,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, addressed to State Senator Lee Slater Overman. Additional
Speaker 1: parcels that all were identical, were identified in Nebraska and Utah.
Speaker 1: In total, three dozen mail bombs were eventually found and identified.
Speaker 1: When the bombs are taken apart. They were all identical
Speaker 1: in construction, and experts were unable to find a single
Speaker 1: fingerprint on any of the components. Manufacturers of the type
Speaker 1: of paper that was used to wrap the boxes shared
Speaker 1: a list of all the dealers who had been sold
Speaker 1: that type of paper in the preceding twelve months, and
Speaker 1: the government authorities followed up on all of those leads
Speaker 1: in an effort to identify who ultimately bought the paper
Speaker 1: from the dealers, and it was determined as well that
Speaker 1: an Oliver brand typewriter with a misaligned lowercase W key
Speaker 1: and a defective lowercase K key was used to type
Speaker 1: the address labels on the boxes. The labels with the
Speaker 1: Novelty samples Gimbal Brothers Return Address were determined to be
Speaker 1: forgeries and not the actual stationery of that company. The
Speaker 1: investigation next led to a house on West forty fifth Street,
Speaker 1: where a number of other explosives were cached, but what
Speaker 1: wasn't clear was who was collecting all this material, Although
Speaker 1: investigations continued. We'll talk more about the mail bombs and
Speaker 1: they're coverage in the press in just a moment, but
Speaker 1: first we are going to pause for a word from
Speaker 1: a sponsor. The discovery of those bomb parcels, which came
Speaker 1: to be known as the May Day bomb plot, led
Speaker 1: to a panic. A front page story in the New
Speaker 1: York Times on May fourth read quote, there are more
Speaker 1: than two thousand radical agitators in New York City who
Speaker 1: have been preaching bullism and the overthrow of the United
Speaker 1: States government, and every one of these persons is now
Speaker 1: under investigation by federal and local authorities. According to that
Speaker 1: same news article, more than seventy five percent of those
Speaker 1: two thousand people were quote, citizens or subjects of foreign nations.
Speaker 1: Many were expected to be deported with the process described
Speaker 1: in the following manner. Quote. It is generally understood that
Speaker 1: a large number of them are now being considered for
Speaker 1: deportation as persons whose presence in this country is undesirable.
Speaker 1: All persons recommended for deportation have to be passed upon
Speaker 1: by the Attorney General and Secretary of Labor in Washington
Speaker 1: before the recommendation can be carried into effect. An official
Speaker 1: from the Department of Justice gave statements to the press
Speaker 1: that it was believed that Bolshevik and Industrial Workers in
Speaker 1: the World IWW papers were not only circulating in abundance
Speaker 1: in the United States, but that the Bolshevik movement in
Speaker 1: North America was being funded directly from the Lenin Trotsky government.
Speaker 1: The IWW for Information was and still is a labor
Speaker 1: union that was founded in nineteen oh six in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and the IWW was believed by the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: to have a large reserve fund of its own to
Speaker 1: promote an agenda of government sabotage. This brings us around
Speaker 1: to the Attorney General at the time, Attorney General Alexander
Speaker 1: Mitchell Palmer or A. Mitchell Palmer, and He was born
Speaker 1: on May fourth, eighteen seventy two in Moosehead, Pennsylvania. He
Speaker 1: grew up a Quaker, first attending public schools and then
Speaker 1: Moravian Parochial School before moving on to Swathmore College in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: He graduated summa cum laude in eighteen ninety one and
Speaker 1: went on to study law at Lafayette College and George
Speaker 1: Washington University. Although he didn't finish his law degree, he
Speaker 1: did pass the bar exam in Pennsylvania and started his
Speaker 1: law career in eighteen ninety three in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Early
Speaker 1: on in his professional career, he also became involved in politics.
Speaker 1: Palmer was elected to the US House of Representatives in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh five, and he held that role for a
Speaker 1: number of years. His last reelection bid that he won
Speaker 1: was nineteen twelve, and during that period that he served
Speaker 1: as a representative, he was instrumental as a steady supporter
Speaker 1: and campaigner in securing the nineteen twelve Democratic presidential nomination
Speaker 1: for Woodrow Wilson. Once Wilson was in office, Palmer made
Speaker 1: the move to run for a seat in the Senate
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen, but he lost the election. Although he
Speaker 1: lost that race, he was soon given a different sort
Speaker 1: of promotion by appointment, because Woodrow Wilson appointed him to
Speaker 1: the US Court of Claims as a judge. But only
Speaker 1: a few months into that appointment, Palmer changed his mind
Speaker 1: about the job and decided that instead he wanted to
Speaker 1: go back into private law practice. Later, Woodrow Wilson offered
Speaker 1: him another position, that of Secretary of War, but Palmer
Speaker 1: turned it down, citing his Quaker beliefs is the reason
Speaker 1: that he could not take that job. Since the United
Speaker 1: States entered World War One, Palmer was named Alien Property
Speaker 1: Custodian by President Wilson and he did take that job.
Speaker 1: That office was established on October twelfth, nineteen seventeen, under
Speaker 1: authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act to assume
Speaker 1: control and dispose of enemy owned property in the United
Speaker 1: States and its possessions. So President Wilson ultimately put Palmer
Speaker 1: into an even higher position in nineteen nineteen when he
Speaker 1: named him Attorney General of the United States, and Palmer
Speaker 1: started that job on March fifth of nineteen nineteen. And
Speaker 1: initially there was criticism from Republicans that Palmer wasn't aggressive
Speaker 1: enough in pursuing subversives who might wish to take down
Speaker 1: the US government, But Palmer, eager to gain favor as
Speaker 1: he had plans for a presidential bid, would eventually earn
Speaker 1: the nickname the Fighting Quaker for the fervor with which
Speaker 1: he carried out his duties. On the night of June second,
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, just a few months into Palmer's time as
Speaker 1: a turney in General, a man named Carlo Valdinocci approached
Speaker 1: Attorney General Palmer's Washington, d c. Home. He had a
Speaker 1: parcel with him, and the parcel contained a bomb. Palmer
Speaker 1: himself had gone upstairs to retire for the evening about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes earlier, but Valdenochi's in sundiary device went off
Speaker 1: while he was carrying it, and the front and a
Speaker 1: significant portion of the bottom level of Palmer's home was damaged.
Speaker 1: This also killed Valdinocci. Yeah, Palmer had been in office
Speaker 1: during that made a plot uncovery, but people thought he
Speaker 1: was not very strong about it about following up on it. However,
Speaker 1: this suddenly came to his own door and things changed significantly.
Speaker 1: That bomb had been quite powerful, so it had, in
Speaker 1: addition to blowing up the bottom floor of his house,
Speaker 1: it had blown out the windows of the home across
Speaker 1: the street as well, which was where Franklin and Eleanor
Speaker 1: Roosevelt were living at the time. And it was Roosevelt
Speaker 1: who had run across the street to offer assistance and
Speaker 1: Palmer who had run downstairs who found the remains of
Speaker 1: Valdanocci's body and anarchist literature that he had been carrying,
Speaker 1: which led to the conclusion that this had been a
Speaker 1: terrorist plot gone wrong. Also, this bomb at Palmer's home
Speaker 1: was not an isolated incident. In the ninety minutes that
Speaker 1: followed Valdinoci's explosions. Seven other bombs exploded in New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and Patterson, New Jersey, and among the targets were three judges,
Speaker 1: a mayor, a state legislator, legislator, a Catholic priest, and
Speaker 1: a prominent police officer, along with two businessmen. The coordinated
Speaker 1: bombings had resulted in the death of a night watchman
Speaker 1: named William Bayner in New York, although he had not
Speaker 1: been one of the targets. Yeah, none of the actual
Speaker 1: targets were killed in those bombings. There are also some
Speaker 1: accounts that suggest there were some other bystanders that were injured,
Speaker 1: and some will even say they were killed, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't verify any of those. The night watchmen is the
Speaker 1: only one that consistently comes up over and over. So
Speaker 1: along with each bomb that had been delivered, there were
Speaker 1: also several copies of flyers with the title Plain Words,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to read part of it. It's quite long,
Speaker 1: but I'm taking excerpts, and it reads, the powers that
Speaker 1: be make no secret of their will to stop here
Speaker 1: in America the worldwide spread of revolution. The powers that
Speaker 1: be must reckon that they will have to accept the
Speaker 1: fight that they have provoked. Do not expect us to
Speaker 1: sit down and pray and cry. We accept your challenge
Speaker 1: and mean to stick to our war duties. We know
Speaker 1: that all you do is for your defense as a class.
Speaker 1: We know also that the proletariat has the same right
Speaker 1: to protect itself. Since their press has been suffocated, their
Speaker 1: mouths muzzled, we mean to speak for them the voice
Speaker 1: of dynamite through the mouth of guns. Do not say
Speaker 1: that we are acting cowardly because we keep hiding. Do
Speaker 1: not say it is abominable. It is war, class war,
Speaker 1: and you were the first to wage it under cover
Speaker 1: of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness
Speaker 1: of your laws, behind the guns of your boneheaded slave.
Speaker 1: Our mutual position is pretty clear. What has been done
Speaker 1: by us so far is only a warning that there
Speaker 1: are friends of popular liberties still living. Only now are
Speaker 1: we getting into the fight, and you will have a
Speaker 1: chance to see what liberty loving people can do. Do
Speaker 1: not seek to believe that we are the Germans or
Speaker 1: the devil's paid agents. You know well we are class
Speaker 1: conscious men with strong determination and no vulgar liability. And
Speaker 1: never hope that your cops and your hounds will ever
Speaker 1: succeed in ridding the country of the anarchistic germ that
Speaker 1: pulses in our veins. We know how we stand with
Speaker 1: you and how to take care of ourselves. Besides, you
Speaker 1: will never get all of us, and we multiply nowadays.
Speaker 1: Just wait and resign to your fate, since privilege and
Speaker 1: riches have turned your heads. Long live social revolution, Down
Speaker 1: with tyranny, and it is Sun the anarchist fighters. So
Speaker 1: next up we will detail the bombs in the second
Speaker 1: attack as compared to those from the earlier incidents we
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, tying those together. And before we do,
Speaker 1: we will take a quick break to talk about one
Speaker 1: of our fantastic sponsors. The June bombs were significantly more
Speaker 1: powerful than the bombs that had been discovered in the
Speaker 1: late Spring. They contained approximately twenty five pounds that's eleven
Speaker 1: point three kilograms of dynamite wrapped in a package, each
Speaker 1: of them with metal slugs to create destructive shrapnel. As
Speaker 1: you may recall, one of those springtime bombs maimed but
Speaker 1: did not kill the woman who opened it, whereas this
Speaker 1: bomb that went off while Valdenocci was carrying it killed him.
Speaker 1: Presumably instantly blew out a significant amount of the building
Speaker 1: he was in front of and caused minor damage to
Speaker 1: other structures on that same street, so a significant increase
Speaker 1: in power. The pink flyers and the plain words writing
Speaker 1: were traced to a print shop run by two men,
Speaker 1: typesetter Andrea Salcedo and compositor Roberto Alia. Both men were
Speaker 1: followers of an anarchist named Luigi Galliani and Carlo Valdanocci.
Speaker 1: The man who had his bomb go off as he
Speaker 1: approached Palmer's residence, had been an editor of one of
Speaker 1: Galliani's publications, which advocated the use of violence to affect change.
Speaker 1: One of the addresses in the Mayday bomb plot had
Speaker 1: been Raimi Weston Finch, who was an FBI agent who
Speaker 1: had been investigating Galliani and his followers. So at this
Speaker 1: point Galliani was heavily implicated in these bombings. For an
Speaker 1: incredibly brief overview, just to try to contextualize this connection
Speaker 1: to Luigi Galliani's tempestuous life, he was from Vircelli, Italy,
Speaker 1: and studied law at the University of Turin. During his
Speaker 1: time in school, he became increasingly in politics, and eventually
Speaker 1: his anarchist beliefs made him a wanted man in Italy,
Speaker 1: so he fled his home country in eighteen eighty before
Speaker 1: he was able to finish his degree. He ended up
Speaker 1: living in France on and off for the next twenty years.
Speaker 1: He then moved briefly to Switzerland but was deported. He
Speaker 1: once again went to France, but then was deported back
Speaker 1: to Italy and was ultimately imprisoned. After an escape from
Speaker 1: confinement on the island pantell Pentelliera, which I may or
Speaker 1: may not be butchering, he went to England and then
Speaker 1: he emigrated from there to the United States, and he
Speaker 1: lived in Patterson, New Jersey, and until an indictment for
Speaker 1: inciting a riot when he tried to flee to Canada,
Speaker 1: but he was refused entry. Allegedly he was literally just
Speaker 1: pushed back across the border. He found a group of
Speaker 1: like minded people eventually in Vermont, and from there he
Speaker 1: began publishing an anarchist periodical in nineteen oh three, which
Speaker 1: ran for fifteen years from various locations before the US
Speaker 1: government shut it down. You have probably as a listener,
Speaker 1: heard of the more well known anarchists Sacho and Vanzetti,
Speaker 1: Galiani and his circle had ties to them, as well
Speaker 1: as for the men who had made the flyers. Salsado
Speaker 1: jumped or fell from the window of his cell in
Speaker 1: the DJ's building on Park Row in New York. He
Speaker 1: had been held there secretly for eight weeks, and there
Speaker 1: were rumors that he died by suicide. To keep himself
Speaker 1: from giving up names of collaborators, Alio was offered a
Speaker 1: deal where his deportation would be canceled if you testified
Speaker 1: about the anarchists and their organization, but he refused, so
Speaker 1: two days after Salsado's death, Ali was given up to
Speaker 1: the Department of Labor and moved to Ellis Island. The
Speaker 1: Department of Justice contended that the men had both turned
Speaker 1: state's evidence and then had been held secretly for their
Speaker 1: own protection. The investigation into this second set of bombings
Speaker 1: was led by Todd Daniel, who was a special Agent
Speaker 1: of the FBI, as well as the acting head of
Speaker 1: the FBI, William Flynn. Flynn, who had been Chief of
Speaker 1: the Secret Service, was lauded by Attorney General Palmer as
Speaker 1: quote the leading organizing detective in America. Flynn is an
Speaker 1: anarchist chaser, the greatest anarchist expert in the United States,
Speaker 1: but just days after the June second bombings, a number
Speaker 1: of people were being tracked as suspects an active participation
Speaker 1: in the attacks. Over the next several months, Palmer invoked
Speaker 1: both the Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen and the Sedition
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen eighteen that we talked about at the
Speaker 1: top of the show to assemble a special team led
Speaker 1: by a lawyer from the Justice Department named Jay Edgar Hoover.
Speaker 1: This team would go on to work closely with the
Speaker 1: Immigration Bureau, both to investigate existing suspects and identify others.
Speaker 1: Hoover and his team went after every possible scrap of
Speaker 1: intelligence they could find to identify persons that they felt
Speaker 1: were the most likely to take violent action. So at
Speaker 1: this point they were not just tracking who possibly participated
Speaker 1: in this bombing act, but anyone that they thought might
Speaker 1: one day think that doing something similar was a course
Speaker 1: of action they would try so. When all of their
Speaker 1: research was collected, Palmer was utterly convinced that there was
Speaker 1: a communist plot to overthrow the US government and that
Speaker 1: there were tens of thousands of people in the US
Speaker 1: working to that end, and he had compiled a list
Speaker 1: of them that he was going to go after. In
Speaker 1: the next episode, we will talk about the steps that
Speaker 1: Palmer and his team took to address this perceived communist threat,
Speaker 1: But for now, this is where we are going to
Speaker 1: leave the story. Yeah, so at this point, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of fear that there are communists literally lurking everywhere
Speaker 1: in your neighborhoods, trying to slowly overtake the entire US
Speaker 1: way of life. Like these two bombing plots are legitimately
Speaker 1: casts for concern. To be very clear, we're not saying yes,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not saying they shouldn't have investigated the
Speaker 1: bomb plots. Obviously that was a big deal. But like
Speaker 1: this took on a much much greater scope for sure.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it really did transition to I think
Speaker 1: you might be shady onto the list you go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's an episode in the archive already about McCarthy
Speaker 1: and the Red Scare and how that ties together. I
Speaker 1: feel like this this part is not as well known
Speaker 1: as that. Like today, I feel like the McCarthy era
Speaker 1: is a lot better known than the Palmer raids that
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. Yeah, and part of that
Speaker 1: is just a matter of documentation, Like there is a
Speaker 1: lot of documentation on the Palmer Raids, but then the
Speaker 1: McCarthy era stuff was later enough that there were more
Speaker 1: forms of communication that were more common, so more people
Speaker 1: knew about it instantly. Yeah, the Palmer Raids are one
Speaker 1: of those points in history that does not often get
Speaker 1: a lot of attention. Yes, thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us
Speaker 1: a note, our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.