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10/5/16
Learning goals
EQ
• Students will complete a partner
activity of analyzing the
Espionage and Sedition Acts.
• Why did the U.S. government
pass the Espionage and Sedition
Acts?
• Due Monday: TTT #3
• Due Wednesday: NBs
• WW1 Test!!!!!!! No notes!
Jump start
• 10/5
• Do you think it is right for a government to restrict certain
freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of press, etc.) during
wartime? Explain WHY or WHY NOT!?
Table of contents
10/5
Espionage and Sedition Acts 39
Espionage and sedition acts (39, H-42)
• Espionage Act: 1917
• Passed b/c of fear of spying
• Penalties for obstruction of war effort
• Could refuse to deliver mail that might encourage disloyalty
• CPI encouraged people to spy on neighbors/co-workers
• Sedition Act: 1918
• Could not criticize gov’t on war effort
• Added to Espionage Act to strengthen it
• 6,000 people arrested as a result
• Some up to 20 years in prison
• Few attacked by mobs
Result of the Espionage Acts during World
War I
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Over 6,000 arrest
Walter Mathey, arrested and convicted, attended antiwar conference
and contributed 25 cents.
Rev. Clarence Waldron, arrested and convicted for telling a bible study
class the "Christians could take no part in the war." 15 year term.
Eugene V. Debs, arrested and convicted for opposing the war, 10 years.
Gained over a million votes in a run for President while he was in
prison.
Ricardo Flores Magon, a leading Mexican-American Labor organizer
was sentenced to 20 years for opposing the administrations Mexico
policy.
Herbert S. Bigelow, a pacifist minister, was dragged from the stage
where he about to give a speech, taken to a wooded area by a mob,
bound and gagged and whipped.
Charles Schenck, member of the Socialist Party, sentenced to 15 years
for publishing pamphlets urging citizens to refuse to participate in the
draft. He called the draft slavery, among other things
"when a nation is at war many things
that might be said in time of peace are such
a hindrance to its effort that their utterance
will not be endured so long as men fight,
and that no Court could regard them as
protected by any constitutional right." In
other words, the court held, the
circumstances of wartime permit greater
restrictions on free speech than would be
allowable during peacetime.
The question in every case is whether
the words used 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.”