Pubspeaks

Lessons From History: Kenneth D. Ackerman’s Pubspeak

In the midst of the on-going current debate regarding national security and civil rights, Kenneth D. Ackerman explores another era in United States’ history when fear and panic over national security threats also resulted in actions that placed civil liberties at risk. His new book, Young J. Edgar Hoover, the Red Scare and the Assault on Civil Liberties, “reaches the heart of our current debate on personal freedoms in a time of war and fear.”

The novel, Young J. Edgar Hoover, describes the rise of J. Edgar Hoover from an attorney in the Department of Justice to director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and considers how the political, economic, and social uncertainties of that time shaped Hoover’s legacy.
Publishers Weekly describes the book as “a compelling story that features demagogues; terrorists; a gullible, xenophobic public; rogue law enforcement officials; and good guys, both in and out of government, who discredit the raids. Ackerman captures well the pathological character of the young Hoover and argues effectively that there is a cautionary tale in the corrosive effect of the denial of civil liberties and extralegal measures employed in the red scare raids.”

On May 22, at a WIW pubspeak, Ackerman spoke to a small group at a restaurant in Ballston about his book.

Hoover served as the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for five decades. His presence and position was so powerful and well known in America, he was an American household name. Yet, later a truth came out that showed a darker side to Hoover. This was what interested Ackerman. “How does someone get to be that way?” said Ackerman. “One doesn’t pop out of the womb and step out into the world as an autocratic bully.”

Hoover came to power during a time when the United States was experiencing violence and upheaval, economic uncertainties in the form of labor strikes, increasing immigration, and political clashes. The tension peaked in the spring of 1919 when two waves of bombing occurred, one that began in the home of then-Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

Although the actual bomber couldn’t be found or identified, Palmer decided to act first, ordering a massive pre-emptive strike to round up as many people as possible. “Get them off the streets,” explained Ackerman. For this job, he picked his best man, J. Edgar Hoover, to run the Radical Division.

With Palmer’s leadership and Hoover’s management, they launched the great notorious Palmer Raids. Between November 1919 and January 1920, federal agents with local police and vigilantes arrested 10,000 people, accused of being Communist Party members or related groups.

“Abuses abounded,” said Ackerman. Searches were made with no warrants. Prisoners were interrogated secretly with no lawyers permitted, and bail was held at $5,000-$10,000—at a time where wages were $1 and people had no savings or credit. Most people were held for weeks in cramped, makeshift prisons, beaten and brutalized, and denied lawyers or access to friends and family. Some were released without ever being charged a crime.

Despite the violations of civil liberties, Palmer emerged as a very popular figure. “The country rallied around what they saw as a strong man with a backbone confronting the enemy,” said Ackerman. In 1920, Palmer was the leading presidential candidate.

Thankfully, level heads and better judgment ultimately prevailed. A small circle of lawyers, namely Felix Frankfurter, Clarence Darrow, and Louis Post, defended the accused and canceled deportation orders. Although Palmer’s popularity and reputation was destroyed in the aftermath, Hoover survived, and 4 years after the raid, he was asked to head the FBI in 1924. He was 29 years old.

“Hoover’s survival was a masterpiece of bureaucracy dexterity,” said Ackerman. As a result of his “coming of age adventure,” he had a lifelong distrust of communism and liberals—anyone who defends criminals or subversives behind a veneer of free speech of civil liberties and had a lifelong sense of empowerment, which allowed him to bend rules to protect his country and to protect himself.

Ackerman ended his talk with a little bit of advice. “Hopefully, today we as a country can come away with different lessons,” said Ackerman. “As we address our modern war on terror, we can expect our government to do its best to protect us, but we also expect it not to throw away the constitution in the process. We look back at the Red Scare generation as engaging in abusive, hysterical overreaction. We should conduct ourselves so future generations will not judge us, the way that we judge them.”

For more information on Kenneth Ackerman and Young J. Edgar, visit www.kennethackerman.com.

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