Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on March 22, 1951.

Hysteria of 1919-20

Are we ridden by hysteria over suspected communist plots? There are some signs of it, and a few unscrupulous officeholders and commentators have done their best to whip it up. On the whole most Americans are willing to leave spy work to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and do not try to do it themselves or through untrained lawmakers.

Certainly today’s uneasiness does not begin to compare with the hysteria that followed World War I. President Wilson was lying crippled by his stroke, and the government was virtually without a head. Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer thought this a good time to proclaim a Bolshevik plot that threatened the government. Partly through the FBI and partly through his own special agents he staged a series of raids on supposed communist headquarters. Arrests totaled 2,000 in 56 cities on the single day of Jan. 2, 1920, and may have reached 5,000 altogether.

Nothing came of it. Some unnaturalized persons were departed, and some local labor leaders were beaten up; that could conceivably have been part of the purpose of the raids. Such cases as came to court did not stand up. And Palmer, though strongly supported, failed to get the democratic presidential nomination later in 1920, which went instead to Gov. James M. Cox of Ohio.

There were a few discreditable local supplements, notably in New York, where five duly elected socialist (not communist, but socialist) representatives were barred from the state legislature, despite the protests of the future chief justice, Charles E. Hughes.

Beware of communism, but beware also of self-seekers trying to capitalize the fear of communism.