DOJ Raids Communist Meeting in Bridgman, Michigan
U.S. Justice Department officials, aided by local police, raided a secret meeting of the Communist Party of America being held in Bridgman, Michigan, on this day.
The Communists were apparently tipped off, however, and the top leaders escape before the raid. Several were subsequently prosecuted under the Michigan Criminal Syndicalism law. One of the problems with the raid was that there was no federal law that applied to the people attending the meeting. (The Smith Act, which made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of the government, was not passed until June 29, 1940.)
The ACLU subsequently issued a report condemning the raid and other violations of civil liberties by the U.S. Justice Department: The Nationwide Spy System Centering in the Department of Justice (1924).
Learn about the history of Communism in America: Theodore Draper, The Roots of American Communism (1957)
Original documents in the history of the Communist Party: http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/
Learn more: Larry Ceplair, Anti-Communism in the Twentieth Century America: A Critical History (2011)
On criminal syndicalism laws and other laws suppressing political speech, read: Geoffrey Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004)