Department of Justice

Standard Oil-IG Farben Cartel Exposed, Senator Truman Calls It Treason

| Importance: 9/10

Senate hearings expose Standard Oil of New Jersey’s secret cartel agreements with IG Farben, the German chemical conglomerate that produces Zyklon B for Nazi concentration camps and uses slave labor from Auschwitz. Senator Harry Truman’s investigative committee reveals that Standard Oil …

Standard Oil of New Jersey IG Farben Harry Truman Thurman Arnold Walter Teagle +1 more corporate-treason war-profiteering cartel regulatory-capture antitrust-evasion +1 more
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Smith Act Criminalizes Advocacy of Government Overthrow, Enables Political Persecution

| Importance: 9/10

Congress passes the Alien Registration Act, commonly known as the Smith Act after its sponsor Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia, on June 28, 1940. The law makes it a criminal offense to “knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or …

Howard W. Smith Congress Department of Justice Franklin D. Roosevelt civil-liberties first-amendment political-persecution red-scare labor-suppression +1 more
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Sacco and Vanzetti Arrested in Red Scare Climate of Anti-Immigrant Hysteria

| Importance: 8/10

Italian immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested in Brockton, Massachusetts, on streetcar robbery charges that will be escalated to murder charges in connection with a payroll robbery in South Braintree that left two men dead. The arrests occur at the height of the …

Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti Frederick Katzmann Webster Thayer Department of Justice civil-liberties labor-suppression xenophobia judicial-capture red-scare +1 more
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Palmer Raids Escalate with Coordinated Mass Arrests Across 33 Cities

| Importance: 8/10

On January 2, 1920, the Palmer Raids reached their peak with coordinated mass arrests in 33 cities across the United States, targeting alleged radicals, communists, and anarchists. Under the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the Justice …

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer J. Edgar Hoover Department of Justice Acting Secretary of Labor Louis Post political-repression civil-liberties red-scare deportation
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