A. Mitchell Palmer Quotes
The strike is the largest and latest manifestation of the working out of the program of the International Communist Party, whose purpose is to capture the political and economic power, to overthrow the government and to establish a dictatorship on the part of what they call the proletariat, and transport to this country the exact chaotic condition that exists in Russia.
According to Palmer, all labor strikes were a part of the international communist movement to take over America. This quotation is an excellent example of the conflation and the strange logic of the extreme anti-communists of the red scare. It started with a railroad strike. Because some of the strike leaders were socialists and some communists, the strike was communist. And if it was communist, the strike is but one step in capturing the political and economic power of the nation, and the purpose of that was to overthrow the government and substitute the governmental structure of Russia. With such thinking no labor action could be seen as American and patriotic if there were any socialists or communists participating in the strike. Later in the McCarthy era, a strike would be a menace if any participant even had been a communist or was related to one or had friends who were communists or even if not but the Communists morally supported the strikers, then the strike was dangerous. The same thing for civil rights. The Communists loudly opposed racial segregation. Therefore any effort to end segregation was a danger to America and furthers the communist conspiracy. This “logic” can be seen well into the 1960’s by the Southern segregationist leaders.
A. Mitchell Palmer, 1872-1936, U. S. Congressman (Democrat, PA), U. S. Attorney General Report at the Cabinet Meeting, April 29, 1920
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The major problem at the time was not the capitalist in the industrial revolutionary sense of the word as there was little industry. China as an agrarian society but the vast majority of the land was owned by relatively few wealthy families. It was close to a feudal system and that was the target for the Communists and their revolution. There was a very small proletariat. Their methods were brutal, but they executed the landlords and the class warfare ended quickly. Sun Yat-sen was not able to solve the land problem, nor was Chiang Kai-shek as most of his major supporters were landowners of warlords who controlled the landowners.
Hoover’s testimony not withstanding, communism in America never did spread like an epidemic.
This was a great victory for the Victor Berger wing of the party. They purged the violence advocates and communists from the party. Despite this, a few right wingers call any socialist a communist and a revolutionary.
Although he was a Marxist, he was also a democrat. He was one of the first leftists to criticize the Russian Revolution. The letter was widely published. There were few left wing intellectuals who would take Lenin on at the time but Gorter was one.
While Ray was very sympathetic towards the strike, his father’s attitude was typical of that of business men across the nation. A picket line or demonstration was a “mob” and mobs should be broken up before they do physical damage to people or property. “Grape” and “canister” were types of ammunition for cannon that was used against personnel in war. One shell could kill 20-30 men in a crowd.
He was one of the early predictors of the fall of the Soviet Union. See {586209} for part of his reasoning.
And as the leader of the exploited, after his revolution he became a dictator himself, albeit a very popular one amongst most Cubans.
Alexander Mitchell Palmer, was United States Attorney General from 1919 to 1921. He is best known for overseeing the Palmer Raids during the Red Scare of 1919–20.
