A few historical musings from the music director:
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”George Santayana (not to be confused with General Santa Anna the Mexican hero of the Alamo)
It is doubtful that the current occupant of the white house can remember much of his alcohol and drug fogged undergraduate education, so would not recognize himself in the stories below. We have been led these past eight years by fearful men, who can only inspire fear and profit from it. They are small men, with small ideas and hateful methods.
…about Richard Hofstadter, historian.
Hofstadter broke new historiographical ground by exploring sociological structures (perhaps influenced by his friend C. Wright Mills) and by probing unconscious psychological motives, status anxieties, irrational hatreds, and finally paranoia as political motivators. In The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Hofstadter described American society as a whole as extremely provincial, harboring widespread fears of any ideas outside the mainstream. Hofstadter saw a direct lineage from the Salem witch trials in the 17th century down to the McCarthyism of his era.
…about the Palmer Raids.
(A. Mitchell Palmer attorney general) In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover’s division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding index.
Using this information, starting on November 7, 1919, BOI agents, together with local police, orchestrated a series of well-publicized raids against suspected radicals and foreigners, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Palmer and his agents were accused of using torture and other controversial methods of obtaining intelligence and collecting evidence on radicals, including informers and wiretaps.
In December 1919, Palmer’s agents gathered 249 people of Russian origin, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (The Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the Industrial Workers of the World union. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 individuals were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported, with no requirement that there be any evidence against them, under the provisions of the Anarchist Act. All in all, by January 1920, Palmer and Hoover had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals.
Louis F. Post, then Assistant Secretary of Labor, [5] cancelled more than 2000 of these warrants as being illegal.[6] Of the many thousands arrested, 550 people were actually deported.[7] For most of 1919 and early 1920, much of the public sided with Palmer, but this soon changed. Palmer announced that an attempted Communist revolution was certain to take place in the U.S. on May 1, 1920 (May Day). No such revolution took place, leading to widespread derision of Palmer.[8]
…about the Know Nothings.
The Know Nothing movement was a nativist American political movement of the 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to US values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. Mainly active from 1854-56, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, though its efforts met with little success. There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class and entirely Protestant membership fragmented over the issue of slavery. Most ended up joining the Republican Party by the time of the 1860 presidential electionThe platform of the American(Republican) Party called for, among other things:
- Severe limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries Restricting political office to native-born Americans Mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship Restricting public school teachers to Protestants Mandating daily Bible readings in public schools Restricting the sale of liquor
…about the Alien and Sedition Acts.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the United States Congress-who were waging an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War-and signed into law by President John Adams. Proponents claimed the acts were designed to protect the United States from alien citizens of enemy powers and to stop seditious attacks from weakening the government. The Democratic-Republicans, like later historians, attacked them as being both unconstitutional and designed to stifle criticism of the administration, and as infringing on the right of the states to act in these areas. They became a major political issue in the elections of 1798 and 1800. One act - the Alien Enemies Act - is still in force in 2008, and has frequently been enforced in wartime. The others expired or were repealed by 1802. Thomas Jefferson held them all to be unconstitutional and void, then pardoned and ordered the release of all who had been convicted of violating the acts.
1. The Naturalization Act (officially An Act to Establish a Uniform Rule of Naturalization) extended the duration of residence required for aliens to become citizens to 14 years. Enacted June 18, 1798, with no expiration date, it was repealed in 1802.
2. The Alien Friends Act (officially An Act Concerning Aliens) authorized the president to deport any resident alien considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” These acts were created in fear of French sympathizers.[citation needed] At the time, war was considered likely between the U.S. and France.[citation needed] Enacted June 25, 1798, with a two year expiration date.
3. The Alien Enemies Act (officially An Act Respecting Alien Enemies) authorized the president to apprehend and deport resident aliens if their home countries were at war with the United States. Enacted July 6, 1798, with no expiration date, it remains in effect today as 50 U.S.C. § 21-24.
4. The Sedition Act (officially An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States) made it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government or its officials. Enacted July 14, 1798, with an expiration date of March 3, 1801.
