Alexander Mitchell Palmer

Alexander Mitchell Palmer

Alexander Mitchell Palmer (born May 4, 1872 in White Haven , Luzerne County , Pennsylvania , †  May 11, 1936 in Washington DC ) was an American lawyer and politician . Nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker," he was responsible for the Palmer raids named after him in 1919 and 1920 .

Palmer was born in Pennsylvania. He attended public school in his residential district and was preparing for college at the Moravian Parochial School in Bethlehem . He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1891 and was appointed Official Stenographer for the 43rd Justice District in Pennsylvania in 1892.

He studied law, became a lawyer in 1893 and practiced in Stroudsburg (PA). Palmer became a director of several banks and a member of the Democratic State executive committee of Pennsylvania . He was a member of the Democrats in the United States House of Representatives voted, of which he was on 4 March 1909 to 3 March 1915th Palmer was also a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1912 and 1916 and a member of the Democratic National Committee from 1912 to 1920.

President Woodrow Wilson offered him the post of Secretary of War , but Palmer declined because of his pacifist beliefs. Instead, he was appointed Alien Property Custodian by Wilson on October 22, 1917 and held this office until March 4, 1919. He resigned to become Secretary of Justice of the United States, a position he held from March 5, 1919 to March 4, 1921, when the term of the Wilson cabinet ended.

Palmer was a staunch anti-communist . In his effective public speeches against socialists , Bolsheviks , anarchists and immigrants whom he accused of wanting to subvert the American trade union movement, he often used the word "red". The first wave of anti-communist fears that he helped trigger in the United States is therefore called Red Fear . On June 2, 1919, Luigi Galleani's anarchists carried out a series of letter bomb attacks in eight American cities, including Palmer's house in Washington. The bomber died and Palmer's house was slightly damaged. Before the Congress , Palmer argued that it was necessary to deport foreigners deemed dangerous without due process . As a result, he organized a series of mass arrests , the Palmer raids, in which thousands of real or alleged left-wing radicals were arrested, including the Russian anarchist Emma Goldman . However, only a small number of these were actually deported, as the arrests were accompanied by such massive civil rights violations that most of the charges were thrown out in court. The Palmer raids were a personal defeat for the Attorney General. Palmer also claimed the Communists would attempt to overthrow the United States government on May 1, 1920. Nothing happened and Palmer's star dropped.

His attitude as Justice Minister led to his candidacy for the Democratic National Convention in 1920 . Neither he nor William Gibbs McAdoo , finance minister in the Cabinet Wilson could break the deadlock and the nomination went to an outsider traded governor of Ohio , James M. Cox .

Palmer then became involved in the field of law in Washington and Stroudsburg. He died on May 11, 1936 and was buried in Laurelwood Cemetery in Stroudsburg.

Web links

Wikisource: Alexander Mitchell Palmer  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Alexander Mitchell Palmer in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• A. Mitchell Palmer in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.fbi.gov: Palmer Raids
2. ↑ Jan Vogel: Red Scare. In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 2, p. 611.