Espionage and Sedition Act
On June 5, 1917, just two months after the United States entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson enacted the Espionage Act, duly passed by Congress, into law. This act was intended to catch and punish spies, in particular German spies, and to stop the subversive activities of foreign enemies.
Debates over the bill demonstrated that many members of Congress feared that Germans in the country were spies and believed this bill was necessary to safeguard and protect the nation’s defense secrets.But this statute went far beyond outlawing behavior such as spying for the enemy, willfully sabotaging war production, and promoting the success of the enemy. It also gave the government the tools to silence people who expressed opposition to the administration’s efforts to fight a war that aimed to make the world safe for democracy. The most negative paragraph of the Espionage Act stated that anyone who made “false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces” or caused or attempted to cause “insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service” could receive a “fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years or both” (40 Stat. 217 [1917]). Prosecutors and the courts used this section of the Espionage Act to charge and convict individuals suspected of committing disloyal activities and making subversive statements.
Article 12 of the Espionage Act prohibited the sending through the mails of any material “advocating or urging treason, insurrection, or forcible resistance to any law of the United States.” This gave Postmaster General Albert Burleson the authority to determine what were mailable and what were treasonous publications and to ban such subversive material from the mails.
In effect, the Espionage Act allowed one government official to silence the foreign-language press, in particular the German-language papers, and to coerce it to change its position on the war. Most German-language newspapers had opposed U.S. entry into World War I, but not all had supported Germany. However, the threat of loosing mailing privileges convinced most papers to rapidly change their editorial policy, to become more patriotic, and to conform to the national position on the war or to suspend publication.By the spring of 1918, in response to growing violence and intolerance directed at suspected enemies within the United States, public officials began to demand stronger laws against spies and disloyal acts. Claiming that the Espionage Act had not brought about enough convictions and had not succeeded in wiping out sabotage and treasonous behavior, representatives and senators passed the more severe Sedition Amendment to the Espionage Act on May 7, and Wilson signed it into law on May 16, 1918. It made it a crime to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the U.S. government, the Constitution, the flag, or armed forces or to use “language intended to cause contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute.” It also made it illegal to obstruct the sale of war bonds, to advocate the success of the enemy, or to “urge... any curtailment of production... essential to the prosecution of the war” (40 Stat. 553 [1918]). Any publicly voiced criticism of government policy could be interpreted as pro-German sentiment and was punishable by fines up to $20,000, or twenty years’ imprisonment, or both. The Sedition Act thus broadened the power of the Espionage Act not only to stop the overt acts of German spies and saboteurs but to also eliminate the unpatriotic words of any opponent to the war.
The Espionage and Sedition Act was intended to ensure loyalty and conformity while the United States dealt with a national crisis.
The zealous enforcement of these laws also made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between a German spy or traitor and a person who simply criticized U.S. war policies. As a result, more than 2,000 law-abiding citizens of German birth, workers, and individuals who expressed an opinion critical of the government’s war effort were arrested and prosecuted for having made pro-German and disloyal statements. About half of them were convicted, and hundreds of aliens were deported. These acts were very effective in silencing immigrants, the foreign- language press, and opponents to the war and in restricting their civil liberties.Petra Dewitt
See also Newspaper Press, German Language in the United States; World War I; World War I and German Americans; World War I, German Prisoners and Civilian Internees in
References and Further Reading
Jensen, Joan M. The Price of Vigilance. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968.
Peterson, H. C., and Gilbert C. Fite. Opponents of War, 1917—1918. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957.
Zieger, Robert A. America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.