Mrs. Ruland's Advanced Placement United States History Class
Unit 10 — America Comes of Age, 1865-1920
CIVIL LIBERTIES IN WORLD WAR I
On the eve of United States involvement in World War I, Frank Cobb, editor of the New York World, interviewed President Wilson. In referring to the brutal and ruthless fight that lay ahead, the President said that a spirit of ruthless brutality would pervade all areas of American life and that free speech and the right of assembly would be curtailed.
Two months later, in June 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act and in May 1918 added an amendment to it, usually called the Sedition Act. The espionage Act provided for a fine up to $10,000 and a prison term of twenty years for anyone who interfered with the draft or encouraged disloyalty. The Sedition Act provided the same penalty for anyone who interfered with or obstructed the sale of United States bonds, incited insubordination, or discouraged recruiting, or who would "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the American form of government, the flag, or uniform or the services, or who would bring the form of government or the Constitution into contempt, or advocate any curtailment of production in this country of anything necessary or essential to the production of the war.
The passage of these two acts may be attributed mainly to espionage activities. German agents had put bombs in ships, fermented strikes at ammunitions plants, tried to bring on a war with Mexico and the United States, and attempted to blow up the Welland Canal.
Under the Sedition Act, hundreds of people were arrested. A teenage girl was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for criticizing the war. A Californian was sentenced to jail for laughing at rookies drilling on San Francisco's Presidio. A New Yorker received ninety days for spitting on the sidewalk near some Italian officers. Numerous ministers and college professors were dismissed because of their opposition to American entrance into the war. Frederick C. Howe, Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York, related how thousands of Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians were taken without trial from their homes and brought to Ellis Island. When he tried to secure decent treatment for the aliens, he was branded as pro-German.
Two popular leaders who actively opposed United States entry into the war were Eugene Debs, the Socialist, and Tom Watson, the old Populist leader from Georgia. Debs who received 900,000 votes in the 1912 presidential election, made a speech on June 12, 1918, before the Socialist convention in Canton, Ohio, in which he bitterly attacked United States participation in the war and compared American industrialists and financiers with the militaristic Junkers of Germany. For this he was arrested and convicted for violating the Sedition Act, and was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Tom Watson, the powerful Georgia rabble-rouser who had defeated Wilson's supporters in the Georgia primary of 1912, published a paper called the Jeffersonian. In it he denounced the conscription act and actively encouraged resistance to the enlistment of troops for foreign service. The government took action against his paper and denied it the use of the mails. Only by promising to desist from further attacks against the Conscription Act was he able to escape a prison sentence.
Besides the congressional actions which curbed civil rights, A. R. Burleson, the Postmaster General, instituted a censorship which denied mailing privileges to "subversive" publications. A magazine The Masses was denied mailing privileges on the grounds that it contained treasonable passages. But when the publisher offered to delete the passages, Burleson refused to identify them. Judge Learned Hand of the federal court overruled Burleson whereupon the Postmaster General banned the magazine on the grounds that because it had missed an issue during the dispute, it was no longer eligible for second class mailing privileges.
Charles T. Schenck, general secretary of the Socialist Party, mailed out to draftees fifteen thousand leaflets opposing conscription (the draft). When arrested and convicted of violating the Espionage Act, he appealed to the Supreme Court. In defending his case, his lawyers contended that the act was in violation of the First Amendment right of freedom of speech and press, and therefore unconstitutional. In a unanimous decision, however, the Court upheld Schenck's conviction. The Court opinion delivered by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes has become the basis on which the right to freedom of speech and press is now judged. Justice Holmes declared:
We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most, stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing panic. . .The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantial evils that Congress has a right to try to prevent.
While all this was going on, there was no general public outcry against violations of civil liberties. Still many Americans expressed concern, and some formed the American Civil Liberties Union to legally fight what they considered to be violation of the Bill of Rights.
REACTION
1. Considering the acts of sabotage, do you believe the Espionage and Sedition acts, as written, were necessary? Explain the reasons for your opinion.
2. Is it possible to preserve civil liberties in time of war? Explain the reasons for your position.
Return
to Unit Syllabus Return
to Unit Notes
Last updated December 26, 2002
© Marcella Ruland 1998-2011, All rights reserved
