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In 1919 Woodrow Wilson appointed A. Mitchell Palmer as his attorney general. Palmer had previously been associated with the progressive wing of the party and had supported women's suffrage and trade union rights. However, once in power, Palmer's views on civil rights changed dramatically.

Worried by the revolution that had taken place in Russia, Palmer became convinced that Communist agents were planning to overthrow the American government. His view was reinforced by the discovery of thirty-eight bombs sent to leading politicians and the Italian anarchist who blew himself up outside Palmer's Washington home. Palmer recruited John Edgar Hoover as his special assistant and together they used the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918) to launch a campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations.

A. Mitchell Palmer claimed that Communist agents from Russia were planning to overthrow the American government. On 7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested in what became known as the Palmer Raids. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects were held without trial for a long time. The vast majority were eventually released but Emma Goldman and 247 other people, were deported to Russia.

In January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested and held without trial. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects, many of them members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), continued to be held without trial. When Palmer announced that the communist revolution was likely to take place on 1st May, mass panic took place. In New York, five elected Socialists were expelled from the legislature.

A group of people appalled by the way people were being persecuted for their political beliefs decided in 1920 to establish the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Early members included Roger Baldwin, Norman Thomas, Jane Addams, John Haynes Holmes, Freda Kirchwey, Chrystal Eastman, Florence Kelley, Lillian Wald, Felix Frankfurter, Oswald Garrison Villard, Paul Kellogg, Clarence Darrow, John Dewey, Charles Beard, Abraham Muste, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Upton Sinclair.

The ACLU's main concern was to defend the civil rights that were guaranteed in state and federal constitutions. This included:

(1) First Amendment rights: These include freedom of speech, association and assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, including the strict separation between church and state.

(2) Equal protection of the law: The right to equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, physical handicap, or other such classification. These rights apply to the voting booth, the classroom, the workplace and the courts.

(3) Due process of law: The right to be treated fairly when facing criminal charges or other serious accusations that can result in such penalties as loss of employment, exclusion from school, denial of housing, or cut-off of benefits.

(4) The right of privacy and autonomy which cannot be penetrated by the government or by other institutions, like employers, with substantial influence over the individual's rights.

Roger Baldwin was appointed as the first director of the ACLU and over the next thirty five years was involved in the campaign against, the Espionage Act, the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Law, lynching, Jim Crow, McCarthyism and Racial Segregation.

Roger Baldwin was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on 21st January, 1884. After graduating from Harvard University in 1905, Baldwin taught sociology at Washington University in St. Louis (1906-09).

Baldwin was a pacifist and on the outbreak of the First World War joined with Abraham Muste, Norman Thomas, Scott Nearing and Oswald Garrison Villard to form the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR).

Soon after the outbreak of the First World War Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Paul U. Kellogg and Oswald Garrison Villard established the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM). Wald became the AUAM's president and Eastman its executive director. Over the next couple of years the AUAM lobbied against America's possible involvement in the war. It also campaigned against conscription, the arms trade and American imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Baldwin replaced Crystal Eastman as the AUAM's executive director in 1916. The following year Baldwin, Eastman and Norman Thomas established the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB).

In 1918 Baldwin was imprisoned for his public support of conscientious objectors. While in prison he met fellow radicals, Agnes Smedley and Mollie Steimer. Smedley had charged with diseminating birth control information. Steimer had been imprisoned for circulating leaflets in opposition to United States intervention in the Russian Civil War.

After his release in 1919 Baldwin joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The following year he joined with Norman Thomas, Jane Addams, Chrystal Eastman, Clarence Darrow, John Dewey, Abraham Muste, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Upton Sinclair to form the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Baldwin was appointed as the first director of the ACLU and over the next thirty five years was involved in the campaign against the Palmer Raids, the Espionage Act, the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Law, Jim Crow, McCarthyism and Racial Segregation. Roger Baldwin died on 26th August, 1981.

Mollie Steimer was born in Dunaevtsky, Russia, on 21st November, 1897. When she was fifteen her family emigrated to the United States and settled in New York.

Steimer found work in a garment factory and soon became involved in trade union activities. This led to her reading books on politics including those by August Bebel (Women and Socialism), Mikhail Bakunin (Statehood and Anarchy), Peter Kropotkin (Memoirs of a Revolutionist) and Emma Goldman (Anarchism and Other Essays).

In 1917 Steimer joined the Frayhayt, a group of Jewish anarchists based in New York. Steimer shared a six-room apartment at 5 East 104th Street in Harlem with members of the group. This also became the place where the Frayhayt held its meetings and published its newspaper, Der Shturm (The Storm).

The Frayhayt group were opposed to the United States becoming involved in the First World War. On 23rd August, 1918, six members of the group were arrested for publishing articles that undermined the American war effort. This included criticizing the United States government for invading Russia after the Bolshevik government signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

One of the group, Jacob Schwartz, was so badly beaten by the police when he was arrested that he died soon afterwards. The others, charged under the terms of the Espionage Act, appeared in court and on 25th October, Steimer was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. Three of the men, Samuel Lipman, Hyman Lachowsky and Jacob Abrahams received twenty years.

Many people in the United States were appalled by these sentences. This included people such as Roger Baldwin, Norman Thomas, Felix Frankfurter, Margaret Sanger and Lincoln Steffens. A group, the League of Amnesty of Political Prisoners was formed and it published a leaflet on the case, Is Opinion a Crime? Steimer and the the other three anarchists were released on bail to await the results of their appeal.

Over the next few months Steimer was arrested seven times but after being held in various prisons was always released without charge. On the 30th October, 1919, she was arrested she was taken to Blackwell Island. While in prison the Supreme Court upheld her conviction under the Espionage Act. Steimer was now transferred to the Jefferson City Prison in Missouri.

During this period A. Mitchell Palmer, the attorney general and his special assistant, John Edgar Hoover, used the Sedition Act to launch a campaign against radicals and their organizations. Using this legislation it was decided to deport immigrants from Europe who had been involved in left-wing politics. This included Steimer, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and 245 other people who were deported to Russia.

Deported to Russia on the Estonia, Steimer arrived in Moscow on 15th December, 1921. The Bolshevik government hated anarchists and soon became a target for the Russian Secret Police. On 1st November, 1922 she was arrested with her partner, Senya Fleshin and charged with aiding criminal elements in Russia.

Sentenced to two years in Siberia, Steimer managed to escape and return to Moscow where she worked for the Society to Help Anarchist Prisoners. She was soon arrested and on 27th September she was deported to Germany where she joined Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in Berlin.

With Senya Fleshin Steimer opened a photographic studio in Berlin. Steimer was also active in the Joint Committee for the Defense of Revolutionaries (1923-1926) and the Relief Fund of the International Working Men's Association for Anarchists (1926-32).

When Hitler came to power Steimer and Senya Fleshin were forced to flee to Paris. When France was invaded by the German Army the couple moved to Mexico where they ran a photographic studio. Mollie Steimer died in Cuernava, Mexico, on 23rd July, 1980.