Background
See also: First Red ScareWorld War I, in which the United States and its allies fought - among other Central Powers - the German Empire, raised concern about the German threat to the United States. The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 were passed in response.
In the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian monarchy and instituted Marxism-Leninism. Many Americans were worried about the revolution's ideas infiltrating the United States, a phenomenon later named the Red Scare of 1919-20.
The Overman Committee was formally an ad-hoc subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, but had no formal name. It was chaired by Senator Lee Slater Overman and also included Senators Knute Nelson of Minnesota, Thomas Sterling of South Dakota, William H. King of Utah, and Josiah O. Wolcott of Delaware.
Read more about this topic: Overman Committee
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“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
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