The cartoon is depicting a Palmer raid, which were led altogether by Attorney General A. Mitchel Palmer. These raids resulted from the growing Red Scare happening in America at this time (the 1920s). In the cartoon, the big men are representing Palmer and his men, and they are captruring men whose Americanism is suspected. One of the suspected men is holding an American flag, which shows that many innocent Americans were arrested and suspected of supporting communism. The bomb in the background represents the chaos that occured during these raids, as even Palmer's own home and Wall Street were both bombed. The man in the center has his foot against a boat of men, depicting the anti-immigrant sentiment that permeated the period of the Red Scare.