Louis F. Post was 70 years old. He had once been an assistant United States Attorney in New York City, but he had turned to journalism and had for 15 years edited The Public, a weekly journal devoted to the single tax politics of Henry George. He had come to the Department of Labor in 1913 at the request of Secretary Wilson, a friend of many years. When Secretary Wilson became sick, responsibility for the Department of Labor fell to the veteran Assistant Secretary, Louis F. Post. As a supporter of George, he was no socialist but he invariably took the side of the poor and downtrodden. He looked like Leon Trotsky. Placed in command of the Department of Labor, he wreaked havoc on the program. He worked night and day, seven days a week, reviewing individual cases. He ordered the release of aliens held on illegally obtained evidence, or against whom the only evidence was their membership in an organization that had been folded into the Communist Party without their consent. He also released those whose only offense was membership in the Communist Labor Party. By April 7, he had released over a thousand persons, almost three-quarters of those whose files he had reviewed.

The Department of Justice was enraged and Congressman Hoch of Kansas moved the impeachment of Post. Because of his appearance, many “profiled” Post as a Communist sympathizer. When the Rules Committee conducted a hearing on Hoch’s impeachment motion, Post came to justify his decisions. His appearance was dazzling. He demonstrated with elegance and humor that neither the people clamoring for deportations, nor the Department of Justice, nor indeed the members of the committee, knew the difference between Marx and Tolstoi. Certainly, the lawyers in Justice knew nothing of immigration laws, or the Fourth Amendment, or Due Process. He noted that their searches of thousands of homes turned up three weapons capable of being fired, all of them .22 pistols. At the end of the day, the Rules Committee looked “very much like a person who had picked up a hot poker and was trying to find a place to put it.” It resolved to conduct no further investigations of Post. President Wilson and Secretary Wilson belatedly expressed support for Post.

Much of what had happened in January occurred without Palmer’s knowledge. When later questioned, he left it to Hoover to explain and justify the events.
Nevertheless, in April he dismissed Post’s testimony and warned that the coming May Day would be the occasion for a general strike by American workers. Daily bulletins from the Department announced forthcoming assassinations.

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