General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Twelve Reasons We Need to Strike Syria Now: [View all]VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Berkman and Goldman were released at the height of the first U.S. Red Scare; the Russian Revolution of 1917, led by the Bolsheviks, combined with anxiety about the war produce a climate of anti-radical and anti-foreign sentiment. The U.S. Department of Justice's General Intelligence Division, headed by J. Edgar Hoover and under the direction of Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, initiated a series of raids to arrest leftists.[42] While they were in prison, Hoover wrote: "Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are, beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and if permitted to return to the community will result in undue harm."[43] Under the 1918 Anarchist Exclusion Act, the government deported Berkman, who had never applied for U.S. citizenship, along with Goldman and over two hundred others, to Russia.[44]
Berkman in 1919, on the eve of his deportation.
At a farewell banquet in Chicago, Berkman and Goldman were told the news of the death of Henry Clay Frick, whom Berkman had tried to kill more than 25 years earlier. Asked for a comment by a reporter, Berkman said Frick had been "deported by God".[45]
Yeah real nice guy....a violent extremist!