Palmer, A Mitchell

Palmer, A(lexander) Mitchell

(born May 4, 1872, Moosehead, Pa., U.S.—died May 11, 1936, Washington, D.C.) U.S. politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1909 to 1915 and helped secure the Democratic Party presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Appointed U.S. attorney general (1919–21), Palmer used the espionage and sedition acts (1917, 1918) to attack political radicals, dissidents, and aliens in the “Red Scare” period following World War I. The government-led roundup of suspected communists became known as the “Palmer raids.” In 1920 he ran unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.