The recent mailing of package bombs sent to political opponents of President Donald Trump brings back memories of another politically motivated series of bomb-plantings nearly a century ago.

Just as the recent episode did, the events in 1919 also put the nation on high alert and was responsible for what became known as the “Palmer raids” and the “Red Scare.”

A. Mitchell Palmer, who was born in Moosehead, a tiny village near White Haven, became a well-known lawyer in Stroudsburg and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for three terms. Palmer made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 1920 but lost to James M. Cox, who was defeated in the general election by Warren G. Harding.

President Woodrow Wilson appointed Palmer Attorney General in 1919. In April, several months after he was sworn in, mail bombs were received by a number of prominent industrialists and politicians.

It started with Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson, who was viewed as an enemy of the growing labor movement in the United States. A total of 36 bombs were mailed to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, industry leaders J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, Palmer himself and dozens more, including Pennsylvania Gov. William C. Sproul and state Attorney General William I. Schaffer. The bomb directed at Palmer was intercepted and detonated.

As in the current case, most of the bombs did not go off, but one did and seriously injured a maid working for a U.S. senator.

The bombs were sent in identical packaging, just as the current ones were, and had the same return address — Gimbels Department Store in New York City. The current bomb mailings also had the same return address — the office of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, former Democratic National chairwoman, who had nothing to do with the explosives.

The main difference between the two is that a lone wolf was arrested in connection with this month’s episode, while the one in 1919 was attributed to members of an anarchist group.

A century ago, after World War I and the Communist takeover of Russia, the United States was caught up in political turmoil, much as it is today. Back then, many Americans were concerned that their beloved nation was “ripping apart,” not unlike the sentiments of many concerned citizens now who point to the political polarization in the country.

Two months later, on June 2, 1919, these fears heightened when explosives were placed in eight major Americans cities, killing several people and injuring several others. One bomb exploded on the front porch of the Palmers’ home in Washington, D.C. Although shaken, the Palmers were not injured, but their home was demolished.

The panicked public of a century ago feared that anarchists and Communists were behind the bombings. Many were convinced that a concentrated campaign of death and destruction was imminent.

Palmer, who maintained an “America First” mentality, was determined to get to the bottom of these bombings and launched what became known as the “Palmer raids.”

Federal agents rounded up large groups of suspected radicals, based largely on their political affiliation rather than probable cause. Civil rights advocates screamed bloody murder and accused Palmer of trampling citizens’ rights.

At first, the public supported the Palmer raids, but because of the lack of success or convictions of the suspected terrorists and anarchists, the public cooled to Palmer’s efforts, then blamed him for usurping individuals’ constitutional rights.

Time magazine once observed that the Palmer Raids “made McCarthyism in the 1950s seem like a model of tolerance.”

The last straw came when Palmer warned of a potential May Day (May 1) 1920 simultaneous attack on a list of targeted people, assassinations, bombings and general strikes. Headlines blared the alert of a nationwide uprising.

Because of Palmer’s dire warning, some states mobilized their militias, New York City’s police force worked for 32 consecutive hours, and Boston police armed automobiles around the city with machine guns. When the day came and went without incident, Palmer was almost uniformly mocked for his “scare tactics.”

Palmer biographer Stanley Coben characterized Palmer as paranoid and a product of his Monroe County upbringing. In his 1963 biography of Palmer, Coben referred to Monroe County as a “hotbed of nativism” and that Palmer acquired his nativistic attitudes from his Monroe heritage.

In research for his book, Coben did an intensive study of Monroe’s characteristics. He found the population “somewhat ingrown, wary of strangers and of new ideas.”

At that time, there were fewer than 40,000 people in the county. Since then, there was a population explosion that brought a much more diverse and cosmopolitan population, especially from those seeking life away from New York City and its suburbs. Today, Monroe’s population is about 170,000.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com