Montana pardons 1918 sedition law victims

2006-05-03 04:00:00 PDT Helena, Mont. -- When Steve Milch found out recently that his great-grandfather, an immigrant from Bavaria, had been convicted of sedition in Montana during World War I, he was amazed. It was something no one in the family had ever talked about.

For the past 88 years, a lot of secrets have been kept in Montana families, especially those of German descent, about a flurry of wartime sedition prosecutions in 1918, when public sentiment against Germany was at a feverish pitch.

Seventy-nine Montanans were convicted under the state law, considered among the harshest in the country, for speaking out in ways deemed critical of the United States. In one instance, a traveling wine and brandy salesman was sentenced to seven to 20 years in prison for calling wartime food regulations a "big joke."

But the silence -- and for some families, the shame -- has ended. The convictions will be undone today when Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a descendant of ethnic Germans who migrated to Montana from Russia in 1909, posthumously pardons 75 men and three women. One man was pardoned shortly after the war.

Forty-one of those convicted, including one woman, went to prison on sentences from one to 20 years and paid fines from $200 to $20,000.

"I'm going to say what Gov. Sam Stewart should have said," Schweitzer said, referring to the man who signed the sedition legislation into law in 1918. "I'm sorry, forgive me, and God bless America, because we can criticize our government."

Dozens of relatives of the convicted seditionists will be at the State Capitol to witness the signing of the pardons, with some traveling from as far as Florida.

Milch said the official acknowledgment, even after so many years, offers comfort and closure to the families. "The whole Milch clan is appreciative of making things right," he said.

The pardon ceremony is the result of a book by Clemens Work, director of graduate studies at the University of Montana School of Journalism, called "Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West" (University of New Mexico Press, 2005). The book chronicled a contentious period in Montana history when people were convicted and jailed for voicing their opinion about the war.

"It was an ugly time," Work said.

The sedition law, which made it a crime to say or publish anything "disloyal, profane, violent, scurrilous, contemptuous or abusive" about the government, soldiers or the American flag, was unanimously passed by the Legislature in February 1918. It expired when the war ended, Work said.

During that time, though Germans were the largest ethnic group in Montana, it was also illegal to speak German, and books written in it were banned. Local groups called third-degree committees were formed to ferret out people not supportive of the war.

Officials encouraged neighbor to inform on neighbor, and one person's accusation was often enough for an arrest.

Twenty-seven states had sedition laws during World War I. Montana's became the template for a federal law, enacted by Congress later in 1918.

Work and other historians believe that the harshness of the Montana law was influenced by the Anaconda Copper Mining Co., which dominated the state economically and viewed the law as a way to deal with labor unrest.

But blame should also be laid at the feet of Stewart, Work said.

"In the last 100 days of his term, he commuted 50 sentences, including 13 murders and seven rapists," he said, "but not a single seditionist."