Overman Committee - Initial Investigation

Initial Investigation

The Committee was authorized by Senate Resolution 307 on September 19, 1918 to investigate charges against the United States Brewers Association (USBA) and allied interests. Brewing institutions had been largely founded by German immigrants in the mid-19th century, who brought with them knowledge and techniques for brewing beer. The Committee interpreted this mission to mean a general probe into German propaganda and pro-German activities in the United States. Hearings were mandated after A. Mitchell Palmer, the federal government's Alien Property Custodian responsible for German-owned property in the U.S., testified in September 1918 that the USBA and the rest of the overwhelmingly German liquor industry harbored pro-German sentiments. He stated that "German brewers of America, in association with the United States Brewers' Association" had attempted "to buy a great newspaper" and "control the government of State and Nation", had generally been "unpatriotic", and had "pro-German sympathies".

Hearings began September 27, 1918, shortly before the end of World War I. Nearly four dozen witnesses testified. Many were agents of the Bureau of Investigations (BOI), the predecessor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The agents, controversially and usually erroneously, implicated high-profile American citizens as pro-German, using the fallacy of guilt by association. For example, the Bureau chief labeled some people pro-German because they had insubstantial and non-ideological acquaintance with German agents. Others were accused because their names were discovered in the notebooks of suspected German agents, of whom they had never heard.

Many attacked the BOI's actions. The Committee heard testimony that it had not conducted basic background checks of the accused and had not read source material it presented to the Committee. Committee members criticized its testimony as "purely hearsay".