Espionage and Sedition Acts

The Espionage and Sedition acts, passed in the midst of World War I, were separate pieces of legislation designed to limit treacherous behavior in wartime and to promote patriotism. The first, the Espionage Act, was approved on June 15, 1917, and set fines of up to $10,000 and prison terms for citizens who aided the enemy. The second piece of legislation was the Trading with the Enemy Act, which moved through Congress in October of 1917. And finally, the Sedition Act passed Congress on May 16, 1918. A fourth act, the Alien Act of 1918, is sometimes considered one of the Espionage and Sedition acts as well. The Alien Act gave the commissioner of immigration broad powers of deportation over noncitizens who engaged in hostile actions or held beliefs deemed hostile, such as anarchism.

These acts were strictly enforced by Postmaster Gen. Albert Burleson, with his control over the U.S. postal service. Burleson required local post offices to send him items such as newspapers that might have content that would violate the Espionage Act. The postal service also had to be supplied with English translations of all foreign-language newspapers that printed articles about the war. These [Page 257]requirements were most stringently enforced with leftwing newspapers.

The Sedition Act forbade “any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy.”

Most heavily persecuted under the acts were radicals, including socialists and labor organizations. The acts are credited with dealing a fatal blow to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical union. More than 100 members of the IWW were found guilty of violating the acts in Chicago alone. A Wisconsin congressman received a 20-year jail sentence for sedition. A man in Iowa received a one-year jail term for attending a meeting at which somebody else attacked the draft.

At times the prosecutions seemed to defy logic. Movie producer Robert Goldstein was convicted for attempting to cause military insubordination. Goldstein had made a movie, The Spirit of '76, in which he portrayed British soldiers participating in a massacre of women and children during the American Revolution. Goldstein received a 10-year sentence from a federal judge in 1919, serving three years before having the sentence commuted.

The most well-known person convicted under the new legislation was Eugene V. Debs. Debs served as the perpetual Socialist Party candidate for president in no fewer than five separate elections and recorded the best showing of any left-wing party presidential candidate in U.S. history when he garnered 6 percent of the vote in 1912. In June 1918, after visiting three socialists imprisoned in Canton, Ohio, for opposing the draft, Debs was arrested for delivering a speech in which he expressed his opposition to the draft. Under provisions in the 1917 Espionage Act, Debs was sentenced to a 10-year prison term. In 1919 he appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously affirmed his conviction in an opinion delivered by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. After serving three years, Debs was pardoned by President Warren Harding and, at the age of 66, released from prison.

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