A. Mitchell Palmer wanted the new year to begin with a bang. For the attorney general, 1920 must be the year that he and the Department of Justice, aided by state and local law enforcement agencies, snuffed out the greatest cause of domestic upheaval during 1919.

Reds. Bolsheviks. Communists. Whatever the label used, Palmer was determined to detain and, if possible, deport the radicals blamed for the previous year’s labor strife and bombings, including the one that had wrecked his home in Washington in June 1919. The so-called Palmer Raids began in November, when the Bureau of Investigation (BI) led a round-up of several hundred members and officers of the Union of Russian Workers in twelve cities, but the biggest action occurred on the night of Friday, January 2, 1920. In thirty-three cities spanning the country, Palmer’s agents coordinated the arrests of more than 4,000 people, Americans and immigrants alike, by disrupting meeting halls, social venues, even restaurants. In many cases, BI infiltrators had arranged meetings at the designated zero hour, 9 p.m. local time, to maximize the number of arrests. Boston’s Communist Party had eighteen branches; each was raided simultaneously. Cooperating police in New York had to call twenty-three trucks to transport all the prisoners in that city.