1920's Government and Politics | After the Great War: Antiradicalism and the Red Scare

The Palmer Raids.

The xenophobia that underlay immigration restrictions and the revitalization of the Ku Klux Klan was also apparent in the Red Scare of 1920. On 2 January 1920 federal agents under the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer raided pool halls, restaurants, and private homes in thirty-three American cities, arresting more than four thousand alleged radicals or communists, often without proper warrants. Arrested radicals who lacked citizenship papers were held for de portation hearings. Known as the Palmer Raids, this onslaught against civil liberties marked the height of a government campaign begun in 1919 to fight a perceived "red menace" that many believed to be a threat to American democracy.

Fear of Communism.

After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, an unprecedented fear of radicalism gripped the United States. In March 1919 news that the Third Communist International was...