When the Government Came for 10,000 Americans - January 2, 1920

On January 2, 1920, federal agents arrested between 3,000 and 10,000 people in 33 cities in a single night the largest mass arrest in American history. The threat was real, the fear was genuine, and the response violated nearly every constitutional protection Americans claimed to hold sacred. Attorney General Palmer was pursuing both presidential ambitions and revolutionaries. Only 556 people were ultimately deported. The episode that led to the founding of the ACLU teaches us about the dangerous intersection of fear, power, and ambition.