The Overman Committee was a special subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary chaired by North Carolina Democrat Lee Slater Overman. Between September 1918 and June 1919, it investigated German and Bolshevik elements in the United States. It was an early forerunner of the better known House Un-American Activities Committee, and represented the first congressional committee investigation of communism.
The committee's final report was released in June 1919. It reported on German propaganda, Bolshevism, and other "un-American activities" in the United States and on likely effects of communism's implementation in the United States. It described German, but not communist, propaganda efforts. The committee's report and hearings were instrumental in fostering anti-Bolshevik opinion.
Background
World 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.
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".
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."