Speech #670383641

It was done to protect the Governments interests In the matter. If there was a statute under which men had to be arrestedand there were large numbers. as the Government believed. that violated that statute--obviously we could not go and arrest one or two men and give all the rest of those men notice of what the Government was going to do. and get anywhere near the enforcement of the statute. So that the plan of simultaneous arrests was adopted. and several hundred of the members of this Union of Russian Workers were arrested and turned over to the inspectors of immigration and went through to the Department of Labor. and many of them were eventually deported under the statute. " During the fall the formation and activities of the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party proceeded. and by the end of the year 1919 we were convinced. and the Department of Labor agreed. that the Communist Party was an organization membership In which made an alien subject to deportation under the statute. and we organized our people for the purpose of making simultaneous arrests of the members of that party n38 cities of the United States. Of course larger numbers were involved. and the arrests. for the reasons I stated a moment ago. had to he simultaneous." (Hearings. pp. 7 and 8.) It is evident from the foregoing that both the public and Congress must have known of the activities of the Department of Justlc in connection with deportation cases or in r1lids made for the purpose of apprehending criminals and aliens subject to deportation under the statute already quoted. But it Is also to be observed that according to the uncontradieted testimony all examinations of parties arrested and all hearings were before an inimigration agent or Inspector. who alone could hold an alien for deportation. Attorney General Palmer in his statement before the House Appropriations Committee. when considering the sundry civil appropriation bill. March. 1920. gave a detailed account showing the number of warrants Issued. arrests made. including the arrests of leaders of the Communist and Communist Labor Parties. and the deportations ordered. tie also discusses the form of deportation proceedings. The statement of Attorney General Palmer before the House committee will be found at pages 614630 of the hearings before this committee. In addition to the statement made by the Attorney General to the Appropriations Committee in connection with anarchist and similar activities. attention is called to the fact that in the spring of 1919 there were great and prolonged strikes in many of the Industrial centers of the country. and that in these strikes foreign agitators and ?ropagandists were prominent.