crack down on anarchists, labour radicals and any other group who were launching propaganda against the government. 24 This resulted in the Espionage Act of 1917, which allowed disloyalty towards the United States to be punished with up to twenty years in prison or a $10,000 fine. 25 The government also introduced a new immigration law in 1918, promoting the deportation of anarchists and similar groups, and Simon highlights that the wartime hatred for Germans transformed into a hatred of radicals following the war, particularly if they were immigrants. 26 Richard Jensen notes that anarchist violence within the United States climaxed with the Wall Street Bombing in 1920, a terror attack which he believes to be the most single deadly anarchist attack in world history. 27 Both Jensen and Simon acknowledge that the Galleanists were likely to be behind the bombings, and Attorney General Palmer believed it to be part of a major plot to overthrow the capitalist system. 28 The Galleanists had already attempted to launch a major terror attack in 1919, through a nationwide package bomb plot that targeted high profile figures within the government, law enforcement and business. 29 Due to miscalculations in their timings, their plan was foiled, but a precedent was set for launching major attacks on both the government and the capitalist structure within America. 30 Wall Street was bombed as it promoted a system which many working class citizens had grown to resent and the anarchists hoped to irradicate it. Brenda and James Lutz note that anarchists wished to end political systems that they believed to be based on privilege and inequality. 31 It could be argued that without sympathy that the working-class and the labour unions held for the anarchists and other radicals, the anti-capitalist mentality would not have been as established within the United States. However, because of the growing resentment towards capitalism within America, it made people more suspectable to support the anarchist message, thus illustrating why terrorism was such a prevalent force between 1906 to 1920. The resentment towards capitalism was not the only factor that contributed towards the sympathy for radicals, as issues surrounding immigration also resulted in indignation from both those who had migrated from Europe and the United States government. As previously noted, Congress passed legislation in 1907 that prevented immigrants from entering America if they held any 24 Simon, p. 198. 25 Simon, p. 198. 26 Simon, p. 198. 27 Richard Jensen, The Battle against Anarchist Terrorism: An International History , 1878–1934 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 359-360.
28 Simon, p. 206. 29 Simon, p. 199. 30 Simon, p. 199. 31 Lutz and Lutz, p. 5.
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