From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act

Book excerpt: 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 postndash;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 Chris Finan is the president of the American Booksell