Overman Committee - Expansion of Investigation

Expansion of Investigation

On February 4, 1919, the Senate unanimously passed Senator Thomas J. Walsh's Senate Resolution 439, expanding the Committee's investigations to include "any efforts being made to propagate in this country the principles of any party exercising or claiming to exercise any authority in Russia" and "any effort to incite the overthrow of the Government of this country". This decision followed months of sensational daily press coverage of revolutionary events abroad and Bolshevik meetings and events in the United States, which increased anti-radical public opinion. Reports that some of these meetings were attended by Congressmen caused further outrage. One meeting in particular, held at the Poli Theater in Washington, DC, was widely controversial because of a speech given by Albert Rhys Williams, a popular Congregationalist minister, who allegedly said, "America sooner or later is going to accept the Soviet Government."

Archibald E. Stevenson, a New York attorney with ties to the Justice Department, likely a "volunteer spy", testified on January 22, 1919, during the German phase of the subcommittee's work. He said that anti-war and anti-draft activism during World War I, which he described as "pro-German" activity, had now transformed into propaganda "developing sympathy for the Bolshevik movement.". The United States' wartime enemy, though defeated, had exported an ideology that ruled Russia and threatened America anew. "The Bolsheviki movement is a branch of the revolutionary socialism of Germany. It had its origin in the philosophy of Marx and its leaders were Germans." He cited the propaganda efforts of John Reed and gave many examples from the foreign press. He told the Senators, "We have found money coming into this country from Russia." Stevenson has been described by historian Regin Schmidt as a "driving force" behind the growth of anti-Bolshevism in the United States.

The final catalyst for the expansion of the investigation was the Seattle General Strike, which began the day before the Senate passed Resolution 439. This confluence of events led members of Congress to believe that the alleged German-Bolshevist link and Bolshevist threat to the United States were real.