Speech #900095274

They destroyed defense plants with explosives and fired wheat fields in the West. These were years of violent social unrest. when men preached anarchy. when mysterious bomb explosions spread terror. and when the Communist Party was first formed in America to advocate the overthrow of the government by force and violence. In combating violence. the Bureaus agents were not trained to protect civil liberties in such affairs as the "Palmer Red Raids" of 1919. when alien extremists were rounded up for deportation. Vigilante groups took the law into their hands in many cases. These also were the years when corruption spread through the country and into the government in Washington.