Full transcript
0:01The Dillingham Commission did a lot
0:06between 1907 and 1911 to undercut
0:10America's support of Americanization or
0:13the idea that immigrants could become
0:18Americans by acting American once they
0:21got to the United States.
0:24The Dillingham Commission was a
0:26bipartisan
0:28joint committee between House members
0:31and Senate members in Congress.
0:33And over a couple of years, they
0:35confirmed nativists worst fears.
0:40The commission conducted a study and let
0:42me just say on the side
0:44that the research they used, the
0:46information they used was was not good.
0:49It was tainted and it didn't give a true
0:52picture of who immigrants really were,
0:54but
0:55the Dillingham Commission used this
0:57information to confirm what nativists
1:00were worried about. They argued that new
1:02immigrants were the least skilled
1:05workers when they came to the United
1:07States, so they weren't really
1:08contributing anything new to the
1:10workplace. They were just cogs in a
1:12wheel.
1:13Uh they argued that immigrants tended to
1:15be transient men
1:18who populated urban areas with high
1:21crime and disease. So essentially, the
1:24Dillingham Commission said
1:26overwhelmingly
1:28the people who were coming to the United
1:30States aren't just people who
1:34can't contribute to the United States,
1:37but they are an outright threat to the
1:41American way of life. They're a threat
1:43to national progress, they're a threat
1:46to public safety, they're a threat to
1:49your kids,
1:51that immigrants were a danger to the
1:54United States.
1:56Now the Dillingham Commission's findings
2:00sort of really eroded a lot of American
2:03support for the idea that the federal
2:07government and that state and local
2:09government should be working to help
2:11immigrants become American. So, a lot of
2:13the programs that were meant to help
2:16immigrants assimilate into the United
2:18States began fading away as a result.
2:23Then, a couple of years later
2:27the first Red Scare of the post-World
2:30War I era seemed to confirm what the
2:33Dillingham Commission had said earlier,
2:36right? Uh the Red Scare
2:40uh emerged right after the First World
2:42War and uh it starts really in 1919 and
2:47it reflected a growing sense
2:50that progressives who had supported
2:52assimilation back in the 1890s and early
2:551900s had let dangerous people into the
2:59United States and encouraged them
3:03to continue being outsiders even once
3:07they lived here. And the the evidence
3:08for that
3:10for a lot of Americans was
3:13the supposed growth
3:16in dangerous ideas, what Americans of
3:201919 saw as dangerous ideas tied to
3:25the growth of the Communist Party and
3:27the Communist Labor Party in the United
3:29States. Now,
3:32the Communist Party and Communist Labor
3:35Party and also Socialist thinkers had
3:39been in the United States for decades
3:41since the 1840s, so they were not a new
3:44problem.
3:45But, in 1919 people like A. Mitchell
3:48Palmer, who was the Attorney General of
3:50the United States,
3:51began saying that these
3:54thinkers could be defined as dangerous
3:57to the American economy, dangerous to
3:59American society, and that they were
4:01brand new immigrants. They had in fact
4:03not been around for decades. They were
4:05brand new immigrants to the United
4:06States let in by progressives. Now,
4:10A. Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney
4:12General, so the top federal lawyer,
4:15was a Wilson progressive himself.
4:18But, he sensed that the political tides
4:22were shifting in the United States
4:24towards a more conservative outlook,
4:26towards a nativist outlook, and towards
4:29the Republican Party. Now, the Attorney
4:31General, you may or may not know, serves
4:33at the pleasure of the President. It's
4:34an appointment. So, A. Mitchell Palmer
4:37wants to save his job. And so, he begins
4:39refashioning himself into somebody
4:42who is going to one,
4:45gin up the Red Scare, gin up this fear
4:47of dangerous communist outsiders, and
4:50then position himself as somebody who's
4:52going to protect Americans from these
4:55dangerous outsiders in an attempt to
4:57save his job and save his power.
5:00So,
5:03in the spring of 1919, the White House
5:06increased the Attorney General's budget
5:08to seek out dangerous radicals, people
5:10who were seen as anti-American and as a
5:12threat to peace in the wake of the First
5:15World War.
5:16>> [sighs and gasps]
5:17>> Palmer oversaw a series of raids during
5:20the fall and winter of 1919 and 1920.
5:25These raids, which were manned in part
5:29by US Marshals with a little bit of help
5:32from the FBI, but overwhelmingly
5:35conducted by local law enforcement,
5:38by local gun clubs,
5:41by local chapters of the American
5:43Legion, so nobody who's actually in the
5:46law enforcement community,
5:48a lot of people who were just guys with
5:51guns who were scared of outsiders
5:54help round up
5:56people that A. Mitchell Palmer said were
5:58threat to their prosperity and way of
6:00life.
6:03The
6:04Palmer Raids, ultimately, would net
6:077,000 alien members of Communist Party
6:11or the Communist Labor Party. So,
6:12there's 7,000 people born somewhere else
6:14who have joined this party in the United
6:17States.
6:18The raiders invaded homes. They went
6:21into union headquarters without
6:23warrants.
6:24They arrested
6:26union members, chained them, and marched
6:28them through towns. These people were
6:31given kangaroo trials.
6:34The raids
6:36yielded almost no guns,
6:39no plans for overthrowing the
6:41government, which is one of the things
6:42Mitchell Palmer argued. He argued that
6:45these dangerous outsiders were
6:47anarchists. They wanted to overthrow the
6:48government. They turned up no evidence
6:50of that, no no weapon stores that there
6:53was some kind of civil war coming
6:54whatsoever.
6:56And so, the Mitchell you know, the the
6:59Mitchell Palmer Raids make a lot of
7:01noise, but at the end of the day,
7:05they don't really turn up any real
7:07problems.
7:08People began speaking out against Palmer
7:11saying, "Hey, you know, this guy seems
7:13like he's in this for his own good." Um
7:16but a lot of people applauded Palmer and
7:19made him into a national hero as well.
7:22You know, in the end,
7:24they only managed to deport 600 people
7:27out of the 7,000 that they arrested,
7:30which then begged the question, was
7:32there ever really a problem
7:34of anarchists in the United States?
7:37I think really,
7:39what Palmer did was not make America
7:43feel safer. He actually made them feel
7:46more unsafe by ginning up this red scare
7:49of dangerous outsiders, and it helped
7:52create a general fear of immigrants as
7:56well.
7:57Another thing that the Palmer Raids did
7:59was demonstrate
8:01that
8:02nativist ideas and fears [clears throat]
8:04of immigrants
8:06could be used for personal gain, that
8:09one could advance their own careers.
8:11Now, in some ways the Palmer Raids were
8:13a bit of a purgatory. Like they they
8:15they helped people get over this fear to
8:17some extent. For instance,
8:19in September of of 1920, just a couple
8:23months after the raids stopped and and
8:25Palmer loses his position,
8:27um the House of Morgan was bombed. The
8:29House of Morgan was a bank. It was one
8:31of the most important um you know,
8:34investment banks in the United States on
8:37Wall Street. So, what happened
8:40was that
8:42um a group of anarchists, who did
8:46actually exist in the United States,
8:47right? Um
8:50got a couple of horses and a wagon and
8:53loaded it with explosives and a bunch of
8:55nails, right? Uh and they rolled this up
8:59outside of the the House of Morgan, and
9:01they put a timer on it.
9:03And the timer was supposed to go off
9:04like just after noon, so just after
9:06lunch starts and everybody comes flowing
9:09out of this these banks and busy Wall
9:11Street, this thing's supposed to blow up
9:13and and kill all these bankers, who
9:15these fringe radicals see as a threat to
9:18personal liberty.
9:21The bomb goes off a little early.
9:22Um it kills 33 people, uh and then it
9:26ends up injuring another 200. So, it it
9:30does happen,
9:32but it doesn't have the
9:34intended effect that it's supposed to
9:36have.
9:37A lot of Americans were outraged by
9:40this.
9:41But,
9:42they don't see it as part of a larger
9:44communist plot to overthrow the
9:46government. They look at the House of
9:48Morgan bomb and they say, "A small group
9:51of really crazy people got together and
9:53managed to pull off a half-cooked idea."
9:57In fact, the House of Morgan
10:00didn't actually repair the damage that
10:04the bomb did to their building. Like,
10:05the the building's made out of like
10:06marble, and so it's like it takes some
10:08some pieces out, it takes some chinks
10:11out of the building, but Morgan himself,
10:14right? James Morgan, the banker, decided
10:16to leave the building scarred
10:19as a sign that not even fringe radicals
10:22could keep him from making money, could
10:24keep the bank from operating.
10:27So, by the time the 1920s open up, the
10:30communist wave in Europe has basically
10:33faded. Right? There had been this sort
10:35of wave of communist governments rising
10:38between 1915 and 1920. Right? The fall
10:41of Russia, the rise of Soviet Unions is
10:42one of the famous examples of that.
10:45That that wave kind of dies out. So, a
10:48lot of Americans begin to feel like
10:50maybe the threats from outside aren't as
10:53big, and that maybe domestic threats
10:56were a little exaggerated. But,
10:59the Red Scare, and the Palmer Raids, and
11:01the House of Morgan bombing did leave a
11:04sort of legacy of suspicion towards
11:07aliens.