PALMER, Alexander Mitchell

PALMER, Alexander Mitchell
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
1872–1936

Biography

PALMER, Alexander Mitchell, a Representative from Pennsylvania; born near White Haven, Luzerne County, Pa., May 4, 1872; attended the public schools and prepared for college at the Moravian Parochial School, Bethlehem, Pa.; was graduated from Swarthmore (Pa.) College in 1891; appointed offical stenographer of the forty-third judicial district of Pennsylvania in 1892; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1893 and practiced in Stroudsburg, Pa.; director of various banks and public-service corporations; member of the Democratic State executive committee of Pennsylvania; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-first, Sixty-second, and Sixty-third Congresses (March 4, 1909-March 3, 1915); was not a candidate for renomination in 1914, but was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1912 and 1916; member of the Democratic National Committee 1912-1920; appointed Alien Property Custodian October 22, 1917, by President Wilson, and served until March 4, 1919, when he resigned to become Attorney General of the United States, in which capacity he served from March 5, 1919, until March 4, 1921; engaged in the practice of law in Washington, D.C., and Stroudsburg, Pa.; died in Washington, D.C., May 11, 1936; interment in Laurelwood Cemetery, Stroudsburg, Pa.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

Columbia University
Rare Book and Manuscript Library

New York, NY
Papers: 4 official letters (1911-1912) in the Woodrow Wilson collection. Finding aid in repository.

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division

Washington, DC
Papers: 1910-1923. ca. 105 items. Correspondence relating almost entirely to Woodrow Wilson and his administration. Unpublished finding aid in repository.

New-York Historical Society

New York, NY
Papers: May 11, 1914. 1 letter. Finding aid in repository.

University of Iowa Libraries

Iowa City, IA
Papers: In Wilson papers. 540 reels of microfilm. Correspondence with Wilson as Attorney General about World War I and the Red Scare. Originals in Library of Congress. Finding aid in repository.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Coben, Stanley. A. Mitchell Palmer: Politician. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1972.

------. "The Political Career of A. Mitchell Palmer." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1961.

Dunn, Robert Williams, ed. Labor Research Association. The Palmer Raids. New York: International Publishers, 1948.

Johnson, Donald. "The Political Career of A. Mitchell Palmer." Pennsylvania History 25 (October 1958): 345-70.

Palmer, Alexander Mitchell. Aims and purposes of the Chemical Foundation, Incorporated, and the reasons for its organization, as told by A. Mitchell Palmer ... former alien property custodian, in his report to Congress, and by Francis P. Garvan, alien property custodian, in an address to the National Cotton Manufactures' Association. New York: [The De Vinne Press], 1919.

------. "The Case Against the 'Reds.'" Forum 63 (February 1920): 173-85.

U.S. Congress. House. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer on charges made against Department of Justice by Louis F. Post and others. 66th Cong., 1920. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Nomination of A. Mitchell Palmer. 65th Cong., 1919. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1919.

Warth, Robert D. "Palmer Raids." South Atlantic Quarterly 48 (January 1949): 1-23.

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