Sedition Act of 1918

In April of 1917 the United States of America declared war on Germany and entered World War I. According to President Woodrow Wilson, the United States intended to "make the world safe for democracy." One month later, the Selective Service Act reinstated the military draft. Protest erupted almost immediately, with many Americans angered about both about the war and the draft. The Wilson administration, worried that protesters would disrupt the war effort, passed the Sedition Act of 1918.

An amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act made it a felony to:
(1) Convey false statements interfering with American war efforts;
(2) Willfully employ "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the U.S. government, the Constitution, the flag, or U.S. military or naval forces;
(3) Urge the curtailed production of necessary war materials;
(4) Advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any such acts.

According to historian Alice Wexler, the law provided an excuse "for the prosecution of labor activists, dissidents, and radicals -- especially the anarchists, the I.W.W., and left-wing socialists -- who had gained considerable strength during the previous decade." Violators of the law were subject to fines, prison, and deportation. Anarchist Emma Goldman, for example, was imprisoned and later deported for speaking out against the draft.

But the law was most fiercely enacted against the radical anarcho-syndicalst union, the Industrial Workers of the World. The I.W.W. had long been a thorn in the side of big business and government, and the Sedition Act allowed the Wilson administration to legally break the union. All over the United States, federal agents raided I.W.W. meeting houses and offices; the U.S. Postal Service even withheld all I.W.W. mail. Mass arrests soon followed; in one instance, 166 people who were (or had been) members in the I.W.W. were arrested and charged with trying to "cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces" -- in violation of the Espionage Act. One hundred and one defendants were found guilty; they received prison sentences ranging from ten days to twenty years.

The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the Sedition Act as constitutional in the case of Abrams v. United States. But on December 13, 1920 Congress repealed the Sedition Act. By that time however, the war was over, and the United States could return to being a country that claimed to embrace free speech.

Ben Reitman

Ben Reitman (1879-1942) was an American anarchist and physician to the poor. Known as the "hobo doctor," Reitman offered his services to prostitutes, the homeless, and other outcasts of capitalism.

In 1912, Reitman and fellow anarchist Emma Goldman were in San Diego fighting the city's ordinance prohibiting free speech. As the city's jails filled with free speech advocates, violent vigilante groups formed to "re-educate" protesters on what it meant to be "patriotic." Reitman was abducted by one such group and his story was subsequently printed in the New York Times....

REITMAN DESCRIBES HOW HE WAS TARRED

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Emma Goldman’s Manager Tells About Tortures Inflicted by Vigilantes on California Desert.

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RAMMED FLAG IN HIS THROAT

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Beat Him With Clubs, Too, He Says, for His Inability to Sing “Star-Spangled Banner.”

LOS ANGELES, Cal., May 16-Dr. Ben Reitman, Anarchist and manager of Emma Goldman, dictated to-day his account of the tar-and-feather episode at San Diego, of which he was the central figure. He denied himself to newspaper men and sent copies of the following story to the hotel lobby.

“I was taken from the U.S. Grant Hotel Tuesday night by fourteen men and placed in an automobile. When I refused to go, four of them placed revolvers against my body. They were well dressed and, apparently, refined. One clapped his hand over my mouth and the police cleared a path to the waiting machine.

“We drove thirty miles into the lower California desert, followed by another automobile crowded with vigilantes. The torture began at once. Fingers were thrust into my eyes, they tore out hair by the roots, and applied epithets worse than one could hear in the vilest criminal dens in the lowest country on earth.

“At a certain spot more men were awaiting us around a fire. The automobile searchlights illuminated the place. First my clothing was torn off. Then their treatment of me was gross, fiendish, and barbarous.

“Screaming in pain, I begged them to kill me. ‘No,’ they replied; they wanted me to go away and tell how they received advocates of free speech in San Diego. Being unable to sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ I was beaten with a club. I stood unclothed in a yelling circle of white men, who advanced in pairs, their eyes glittering in the searchlights, to inflict pain. I have read of Indians; even they could not devise means of producing suffering than those fourteen Americans. They vied to see who could conceive the most diabolical torture.

“One asked me if I believed in God. I replied that no God could permit such desperate deeds. Each of the fourteen stepped forward and propounded a question. I answered truthfully, and each smashed me in the face as I spoke. Their final scheme before the burning was ‘running the gauntlet.’ I ran through a double row of men, each beating me with a club as I passed. They got that from the Indians.

“Then while six held me on the ground, another slowly traced figures [“I.W.W”] on my back with a lighted cigar, searing the flesh horribly. Their cry was: “We’re Americans, and we’ll teach you to keep away from San Diego.’

“The American flag was rammed into my throat until I was strangled. After enduring two hours of torture, the boiling tar was applied, with desert grasses stuck to it. Then I was chased into the desert, one man following and beating me with my own cane until he stopped from exhaustion. They said they’d treat Miss Goldman the same way if she was captured.

“At dawn I reached a little town called Bernardo and entered it. Before turning me loose, my underclothes, vest, and $20 in money were given to me. I didn’t get my watch or papers. I bought turpentine and the clothes I now have on, washed and dressed as well as I could.

“We cannot prosecute. Gov. Johnson has been appealed to in vain. What are we going to do?”

Published May 17, 1912 in the New York Times