ANTI-GERMAN HYSTERIA

The entry of the United States into World War I precipitated debate in American society. German-Americans opposed American participation against the Fatherland. Irish-Americans who supported the Irish independence movement opposed US intervention on the side of Great Britain. The Socialists, many of whom were of German descent, opposed the war. And some elements of labor opposed the war. This schism over American participation in World War I polarized society and contributed to a wartime hysteria. In this atmosphere all dissent was stigmatized and labeled and discredited as treason, as disloyalty, as lack of patriotism. And in this atmosphere of wartime hysteria there was serious repression of civil liberties.

With American entry into the war Americans developed a suspicion of German-Americans. Their loyalty was "suspect." Because of their identity, their ethnic background, they were suspected of disloyalty, espionage, subversion, sabotage. It was not necessary for them actually to say or do anything. There was suspicion simply because of WHO they were, because they might have sympathy for Germany. Anything German now became bad. Sauerkraut now became "liberty cabbage." In Jersey City the mayor prevented Fritz Kreisler, the German violinist, from giving concerts (Tindall, America: A Narrative History, p. 1005 and Morison, Commager, Leuchtenburg, The Growth of the American Republic, p. 386). German-Americans were attacked, and their businesses boycotted. They were fired from jobs, their homes were attacked, and they were driven out of neighborhoods. In Missouri, in April 1918, a young man named Robert Prager was attacked. His crime was that he had been born in Germany. he was bound with an American flag, paraded through the town, and lynched. A jury acquitted the members of the mob (America, Past and Present, Robert Divine, T.H. Breen, George Fredrickson, R. Hal Williams, p. 703).

ESPIONAGE ACT

In this climate fear and suspicion of disloyalty ran rampant. The Congress adopted the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act.

President Wilson signed the Espionage Act in June 1917. It established a $10,000 fine and a 20 year prison term for anyone who interfered with the draft or encouraged disloyalty. It also empowered the Postmaster general to deny the use of the mail to any materials that he thought were seditious.

In May 1918 Wilson signed the Sedition Act. it extended the penalties of the earlier Act to anyone who

1. obstructed the sale of US bonds

2. incited insubordination

3. discouraged recruiting or

4. did willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the

a) form of government of the US or

b) the Constitution of the US, or

c) the flag

d) or uniform of the Army or navy, OR

e) did bring the form of government or the Constitution into contempt,

f) or did advocate curtailment of production of anything necessary to the war.(The Growth of the American Republic, Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager, William Leuchtenburg, p. 384).

The Espionage and Sedition Acts led to widespread censorship of the press, and the persecution of pacifists and conscientious objectors. All together, 1,500 people were prosecuted under the Acts.(America, Past and Present, Robert Divine, T.H. Breen, George Fredrickson, R. Hal Williams, p. 703-704).

Victor Berger was a Socialist, and a congressman. Milwaukee was in his district. He was of German background. He wrote editorials condemning the war. He was convicted under the Sedition Act and sentenced to 20 years in prison. His constituents re-elected him in 1918 and 1920 anyway. Both times Congress denied him his seat. Anti-German wartime hysteria now condoned repression and mind control at home. It was against the law to express an anti-war opinion in an editorial in the newspaper.

In 1917 the Wilson White House and the Justice Dept. went after the Socialists and those who opposed the war. In Canton OHIO the Socialist leader Eugene Debs made a speech in which he said "It has become extremely dangerous to exercise the right of free speech in a country fighting to make the world safe for democracy." For this speech, and his opposition to the war, Debs was arrested for treason, convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison (released in 1921 because of his age). Still, Americans were being arrested for stating their beliefs. in 1917, also, most Socialist publications were banned from the mails.

In this time period there were two Supreme Court cases upholding the Espionage and Sedition Acts. In Schenck v. United States, in 1919, the Court upheld the conviction of a man for circulating anti-draft leaflets among members of the armed forces. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote "free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre, and causing a panic." Holmes put forward the "clear and present danger" doctrine. He wrote:

"the question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." (Morison, Commager, Leuchtenburg, The Growth of the American Republic, p. 385).

In the case of Abrams v. United States a majority also upheld the conviction of Jacob Abrams, a man who distributed a pamphlet calling upon the workers of the world to rise up against an American military expedition to Siberia. Holmes (and Louis Brandeis) dissented in this case, and said "the surreptitious publishing of a silly pamphlet by an unknown man" posed no danger to government policy.(Morison, Commager, Leuchtenburg, The Growth of the American Republic, p. 385 and Tindall, America: A Narrative History, p. 1006).