Thread by @M_feeney

This sort of news is shocking. Fortunately, the incompetence of whoever is sending these packages means that no one has been hurt.

The news reminds me of other bomb threats, which I sometimes discuss with students (1/12).

#bombscare

cnn.com/politics/live-…

In April and June 1919 anarchists sent a string of bombs to current and former high-ranking U.S. officials. None of the intended targets were killed, but a nightwatchman outside the home of New York judge Charles Cooper Nott was killed. (2/12) medium.com/cato-institute…

One of the bombs blew the hands off a maid working for ex-senator Thomas Hardwick. Anarchists sent dozens of these bombs. One of these bombs detonated early, killing the wannabe assassin killing Carlo Valdinoci outside Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s home. (3/12)

One of Palmer's neighbors, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt, rushed to Palmer's house (2132 R Street, N.W) to check on the Palmer family. (4/12)

At a meeting only two weeks after the June bombings Palmer, assistant AG Francis Garvan, and Bureau of Investigation director William Flynn decided on a course of mass deportation. (5/12)

There was already a pronounced fear of Bolshevism, communism, anarchism, and socialism. (6/12)

Palmer, Flynn, and Garvan made plans to establish the General Intelligence Division, initially called the Anti-Radical Division. Garvan knew someone who would be ideal to run General Intelligence Division: a twenty-four year old named J. Edgar Hoover. (7/12)

Hoover, a former librarian, establishing an index card database of “radicals.” By 1921 the database included about 450,000 names. Hoover’s library of radicals was used assist the “Palmer Raids.” (8/12)

The first of these raids took place on Nov. 7, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution. BI agents and local police targeted the Union of Russian Workers in twelve cities. As a result of the “Palmer Raids” 556 people were deported and around 10,000 arrested. (9/12)

There would have been more deportations if Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Freeland Post had not stepped in. Post opened an investigation into the raids. In April 1920 Post canceled 1,141 of the remaining 1,600 deportation orders. (10/12)

Here's a picture of some of the suspected radicals awaiting deportation on Ellis Island. (11/12)

Anyway, I don't think there's any chance that the current parcel bomb threats will prompt a Palmer Raid-style crackdown, but we should be away of how similar and unoriginal a lot of current threats are. (12/12)

Ok, “any chance” is too strong, but I do think it’s unlikely. 🤞