WILSON'S
APPOINTMENT OF U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL A. MITCHELL PALMER,
WHOSE TENURE WOULD BE MARKED BY
A SHARP CONFLICT BETWEEN NATIONAL SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
WOODROW
WILSON. Partly Printed Document Signed as President, Washington,
DC, 5 March 1919. Countersigned by Acting Secretary of State FRANK
L. POLK. 1 page, 22½" x 18½".
In this
important document, with very contemporary overtones, President Woodrow
Wilson names A. Mitchell Palmer as the Attorney General of the United
States. Palmer, who was a progressive Democrat for most of his political
career, became highly controversial during his two years as Attorney
General for his famous campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations.
When
Palmer took office in 1919, a combination of events - the Russian Revolution
and other Communist uprisings in Europe, several bombings and a series
of dramatic strikes at home, and the support of Bolshevism by many American
radicals - all served to create widespread fear of an imminent revolution
in the U.S. During this "Red Scare", Palmer set up a new Radical
Division in the Justice Department, whose head, J. Edgar Hoover, reported
that domestic radicals posed a serious threat to the U.S. government.
Amid growing national concern, Palmer secured injunctions to end strikes
by mine and railroad workers. He also authorized the use of wartime
legislation for mass roundups of radicals. In the "Palmer Raids"
of November 1919 and January 1920, Justice Department agents, aided
by local police, arrested thousands of suspects, many without any warrants.
Those detained, both U.S. citizens and aliens, were held for periods
of up to several months without hearings; some were denied counsel and
fair trials. Although Palmer was initially hailed as a hero, the raids
and their aftermath were soon being criticized as serious violations
of civil liberties. Among those who spoke out were future Supreme Court
Justices Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan Fiske Stone, and Felix Frankfurter.
The controversy over national security and civil liberties gradually
died out as no radical uprising materialized and a period of greater
calm and normalcy emerged.
This
attractively-printed document appointing Palmer as the U.S. Attorney
General is signed by Woodrow Wilson at the lower right, and his signature
is dark and clear. There is a fine, intact seal of the U.S. in white
paper over wax at the lower left. The piece has a few slight creases,
and there is some marginal toning and soiling from prior framing which
could easily be matted out.
Cabinet
appointments by any President are extremely scarce, all the more so
for an official as controversial and significant as Palmer. $7500.00
This
image omits the blank outer margins of the document.
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