From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America

After Upton Sinclair, famed author of The Jungle, was arrested for reading the First Amendment on Liberty Hill in 1923, The Nation commented: “When we contemplate the antics of the chief of police of Los Angeles, we are deterred from characterizing him as an ass only through fear that such a comparison would lay us open to damages from every self-respecting donkey.” In this lively history of our most fundamental and perhaps most vulnerable right, Chris Finan traces the lifeline of free speech from the War on Terror back to the turn of the last century.

During the YMCA’s 1892 Suppression of Vice campaign, muttonchopped moralist Anthony Comstock railed against writings by that “Irish smut dealer” George Bernard Shaw. In the midst of the country’s first Red Scare, the government rounded up thousands of Russian Americans for deportation during the Palmer raids. Decades later, a second Red Scare gripped the country as Senator Joseph McCarthy spearheaded a witch-hunt for “egg-sucking liberals” who defended “Communists and queers.”

Finan’s dramatic review of such touchstones as the Scopes trial and Edward R. Murrow’s challenge to Joseph McCarthy are revelatory; many of his narratives are entirely fresh and have as much relevance to our post–PATRIOT Act world as his final chapter on the twenty-first century. The story of the fight for free speech, in times of war and peace—when writers, publishers, booksellers, and librarians are often on the front lines—is essential reading.

"Christopher Finan has given us a marvelously readable account of the struggle for free speech in the United States. Beginning with the birth of the American civil liberties movement during World War I, Finan traces the often grueling battles over free speech in wartime, book censorhip, McCarthyism, and freedom of the press that have marked the gradual evolution of American freedom. It is a story every American should know, for it is our nation's greatest achievement." —Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from The Sedition Act of 1798 to The War on Terrorism

"The Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment, but we have had to fight for free speech. Radicals, reactionaries, feminists, religious zealots, African Americans, Klansmen, college students, even schoolchildren, have played a role in expanding free speech. They are all present in Chris Finan's colorful narrative, which shows how much progress we have made-and how far we have to go." —Nadine Strossen, President of the American Civil Liberties Union and Professor of Law, New York Law School

“In this masterful work, Chris Finan deftly chronicles the challenges to free speech in the twentieth century; an accessible, thought provoking history that not only informs, but also engages the reader.” —Joyce Meskis, Owner, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver

"Concisely detailed and researched, From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act reads like high powered fiction. Characters as diverse as Roger Baldwin, Bernie Sanders, Allen Ginsberg, Fatty Arbuckle, Jane Russell, Anthony Comstock, John Ashcroft and Dwight Eisenhower share the stage to tell the tale of a nation at odds with its Puritan heritage. A timely addition to bookshelves as the United States wrestles with issues of privacy and personal freedoms in an age of terrorism tied to an unpopular war." —Kenton Oliver, Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair, the American Library Association

“American history is marred by recurrent episodes of hate—Red scares, super-patriotism, fear of sexual expression. Christopher Finan brilliantly paints that record, and shows how courageous Americans have fought for freedom.” —Anthony Lewis, author of Gideon's Trumpet and Make No Law

"At a time when America’s freedoms and liberties are under attack in Washington, Finan’s book is a powerful reminder of why we must carry on the fight to preserve the central underpinning of the American democratic system—the right to free andd uncensored discourse." —Senator Bernie Sanders

“Unlike many commentators, Finan treats the villains fairly, presenting them not as wild-eyed fanatics but as people who thought they were doing what was right. The book is a welcome and much-needed change from the simplistic good-versus-evil treatment this subject often gets. Could be the definitive study of a perpetually complex, contentious issue.” —Booklist, starred review

“This is one of the most important—and readable—books written about the price of freedom in a democracy. Do we want to pay for our freedom and security with our free speech? Timely and urgent, this is an essential book for citizens, politicians, and government officials to read and embrace.” —Alicia Greene, Olsson's Books & Records, Washington, DC

“From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act is a nicely paced history with a list of fascinating characters…a well-researched and analytical study oof the persistent arguments Americans have had regarding the Firsssst Amendment.” —Dennis Lythgoe, Deseret Morning News

“Finan’s engaging book is a work of many well-told stories, all true… Christopher Finan does an admirable job in revealing how America’s most fundamental freedom has too often become its most vulnerable one. From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act is a book to be read and discussed by freedom-loving Americans and by teachers, too. For there—in the classroom—is where Finan’s free-speech stories most need to be read ... and remembered.” —Ronald K.L. Collins, www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Chris Finan is the president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the chair of the National Coalition Against Censorship. He is also the author of Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior. Finan lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Chris Finan is the president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the chair of the National Coalition Against Censorship. He is also the author of Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior. Finan lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Finan (president, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression) begins his sad tale of modern attacks on the First Amendment with the pre-World War I campaigns against the Wobblies and other labor activists, which expanded into the prosecution of antiwar activists, ethnics, pacifists, and Socialists and culminated in the 1919 Palmer raids. At the same time, leading civil libertarians organized the first of several groups that became the American Civil Liberties Union. Finan shows that the primary focus of government and social repression has always been the "enemy" of the day—Socialists and pacifists in World War I, Communists and foreigners during the first Red Scare, Communists and all those left of center in the McCarthy years, and antiwar protestors during Vietnam and post-9/11. Along the way, unionists, writers condemned as obscene, teachers with unpopular views, and librarians could all become ensnared in the net of oppression. Finan examines the steady expansion of our concept of freedom of speech, as underpinned by the ACLU, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Supreme Court. He defines the battle to protect free speech as an ongoing one in which today's antiterrorism laws are of a piece with earlier suppressions. Based on original research as well as secondary sources, this timely book will be of interest both to general and academic readers. Highly recommended.—Duncan Stewart, Univ. of Iowa Lib., Iowa City

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Finan (Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior ), president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, provides an insightful history of the long struggle for free speech in America. The book is especially apropos for our own age, when, confronted by the Patriot Act, otherwise mild-mannered librarians have morphed into tenacious guardians of civil liberty, refusing to open client records to the FBI. The government has more than once tried to suppress the First Amendment right to free expression of suspected radicals, antiwar activists and labor unionists. In November 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launched raids during which 4,000 Americans, mostly immigrants, were rounded up because they were suspected of being Communists. In 1923, Upton Sinclair went to jail for the brazen act of reading the First Amendment aloud on Liberty Hill in San Pedro, Calif. Thirty-four years later, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and a City Lights bookstore clerk faced trial in San Francisco for selling Allen Ginsberg's "obscene" book Howl. Finan's tome is chock-full of would-be tyrants eager to tell others what they might say and think. But it's also chock-full of heroes (from the ACLU to those brave librarians) who have refused to be silenced. (May)

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