The Montana Historical Society's Sedition Project collects the stories of Montanans who were jailed for saying the wrong thing during WWI.
Travis sez, "Montana and other states in the West passed laws against sedition during World War I — laws that were later the template for a federal Sedition Act. Now, Montana's governor Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who I've really come around on, is commuting the sentences of the 78 people convicted under the law. The pardons result from some wonderful historical research done by a journalism professor at the University of Montana. I was particularly moved by looking at the photographs of the convicted and reading what they were convicted for saying.
On April 19, 1918, Johnson said in Missoula that the United States Liberty Bonds were no good. That government would not back them up. That the man that bought them would never get his money back. That he would lose it. That the U.S. government was no good.
Sentence: 2-5 yearsIn March 1918, a third-degree committee in Forsyth grilled Starr about Liberty Bonds and forced him to kiss the flag. "What is this thing anyway?" he asked. "Nothing but a piece of cotton with a little paint on it, and some other marks in the corner there. I will not kiss that thing. It might be covered with microbes."
Sentence: 10-20 years
Update:: Ken Siebert of Yellowstone Public Radio has made a wealth of MP3s and related information on this story available:
YPR News Director Jackie Yamanaka's coverage of the ceremony
Full audio of the clemency ceremony
Jackie Yamanaka's interview with author Clemen Work
book link for Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the
American West
