In today’s New York Times, Jim Robbins offers an interesting story that one could imagine as a plot in the CBS television show, Cold Case. It seems that, during a time of war, with tensions running high, the powers-that-be became increasingly intolerant of anything smacking of dissent or disloyalty and enacted legislation cracking down on such. Sound familiar? (I imagine Cindy Sheehan and the ACLU would say so.) Though these events could have been ripped from today’s headlines—to borrow a phrase from another television show, Law & Order—they, in fact, occurred some 88 years ago in the state of Montana (as opposed to the state of chaos and corruption we now find ourselves in). For more on the story, read on…

Pardons Granted 88 Years After Crimes of Sedition

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 7 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 on Wednesday when Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a descendant of ethnic Germans who migrated here 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 1 to 20 years and paid fines from $200 to $20,000.

“I’m going to say what Gov. Sam Stewart should have said,â€? Mr. 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.â€?

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….The pardon ceremony is a result of a book by Clemens P. 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….

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, Mr. 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, especially those who did not buy Liberty Bonds….

Mr. Work, who was conducting research for the book when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, said he had found the similarities between 2001 and 1918 to be eerie. “The hair on the back of my neck stood up,â€? Mr. Work said. “The rhetoric was so similar, from the demonization of the enemy to saying ‘either you’re with us or against us’ to the hasty passage of laws.â€?

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. More than 30 Montanans were arrested under the federal law, though none were convicted, according to the Montana Sedition Project, which Mr. Work directs.

Mr. Work and other historians believe that the harshness of the Montana law was influenced by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, which dominated the state economically and viewed the law as a way to deal with labor unrest. Many of those charged with sedition were immigrant laborers. But blame should also be laid at the feet of Governor Stewart, Mr. Work said. “In the last 100 days of his term, he commuted 50 sentences, including 13 murderers and 7 rapists,� he said, “but not a single seditionist.� [full text]