Louis F. Post

Louis Freeland Post (November 15, 1849 – January 11, 1928) was a prominent American Georgist lawyer and newspaper editor who was appointed the first Assistant United States Secretary of Labor by President Woodrow Wilson, serving from 1913 to 1921. His tenure coincided with the period of the Palmer Raids and the First Red Scare, where he had responsibility for the Bureau of Immigration. Post considered the raids to be unjust and he is credited with preventing many deportations and freeing many innocent people.

Early life

Post was born in Hackettstown, New Jersey. His father was a "New York merchant." His mother was a member of the prominent Freeland family. He quit school at fourteen, opting for four years in a newspaper office and then entered law school. By the age of 25, he had a lucrative law practice in New York City in an office on Broadway across from City Hall. He fell back into the newspaper business, becoming associate and then editor of the "New York Truth." From there he followed his interest in social reform and ran for Congress in 1882 with the backing of the Central Labor Union.

Career

Post opposed immigration restrictions and emphatically supported free speech and Henry George's single-tax movement. He once called George's political philosophy "my kind of radicalism...which regards the social values of natural resources as in their nature public property." He became chairman of George's United Labor Party in 1887, and was appointed Assistant Secretary of Labor by Woodrow Wilson in 1913, a position he held until the end of the Wilson administration in March, 1921.