“They were definitely concerned that folks who were against American participation in the war could influence drafted men. “The whole reason behind the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act was the fact that the government understood that words matter, words had influence,” says Lon Strauss, an assistant professor of military history and war studies at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. That led to investigations and prosecutions of everyone from unknown street pamphleteers to Eugene Debs, America’s most prominent socialist and labor organizer.Īs the war rolled on and more American soldiers died, Congress doubled down on disloyal speech and passed the Sedition Act of 1918, which amended and expanded on the Espionage Act to target any speech that could be interpreted as criticizing the war effort, the draft, the U.S. Postmaster General the authority to block the mailing of any letter, pamphlet or book seen as opposing or questioning America’s military involvement in World War I. But federal prosecutors and judges, following Wilson’s lead, fixated on Section 3 of the Espionage Act, which targeted individuals who “willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty” in the military. The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed just two months after America entered World War I and was primarily intended by Congress to combat actual espionage on behalf of America’s enemies, like publishing secret U.S. READ MORE: When the US Used Propaganda to Sell Americans on WWI Wilson publicly stated that disloyalty to the war effort “must be crushed out” and that disloyal individuals had “sacrificed their right to civil liberties” like free speech and expression. entry into World War I, so it launched a sweeping propaganda campaign to instill hatred of both the German enemy abroad and disloyalty at home. The Wilson administration knew that many Americans were conflicted about the U.S. WATCH: The Last Day of World War I on HISTORY Vault At War with 'Disloyal' SpeechĪ propaganda poster from the US intelligence office during WWI, depicting Kaiser Wilhelm II as a spider. One famous decision penned by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes introduced the “clear and present danger” test, which he compared to shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater. They were written in an environment of wartime panic and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of more than 2,000 Americans, some of whom were sentenced to 20 years in prison for sedition.Ī handful of those convictions were appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts as constitutional limits on free speech in a time of war. The two broadly worded laws of 19 ultimately came to be viewed as some of the most egregious violations of the Constitution’s free speech protections. WATCH: Full episodes of The American Presidency with Bill Clinton online now. government or military, or any speech intended to “incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty.” (These were different and separate from the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in 1798 that were mostly repealed or expired by 1802.) The most vocal dissent came from pacifists, anarchists and socialists, many of whom were Irish, German and Russian immigrants and whose loyalty to America was openly questioned.įearing that anti-war speeches and street pamphlets would undermine the war effort, President Woodrow Wilson and Congress passed two laws, the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, that criminalized any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the U.S. When the United States finally decided to enter World War I in 1917, there was opposition at home by those who wanted America to remain neutral in the European conflict and groups who actively opposed the draft, the first of its kind in the country.
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