[Vision2020] it happened (close to) here.

[Matt Decker]

Mark,

I agree. I have really high hopes for this conservative democrat.

MD


>From: Mark Solomon <msolomon at moscow.com>
>To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: [Vision2020] it happened (close to) here.
>Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 20:24:45 -0700
>
>Bravo to Gov. Schweitzer and the students and faculty who have seen 
>injustice acknowledged and reversed.
>
>Mark S.
>
>The New York Times
>
>
>May 3, 2006
>Pardons Granted 88 Years After Crimes of Sedition
>By JIM ROBBINS
>
>HELENA, Mont., May 2 - When Steve Milch found out recently that his 
>great-grandfather, an immigrant from Bavaria, had been convicted of 
>sedition in Montana during World War I, he was taken aback. It was 
>something no one in the family had ever talked about.
>
>For the past 88 years, a lot of secrets have been kept in Montana families, 
>especially those of German descent, about a flurry of wartime sedition 
>prosecutions in 1918, when public sentiment against Germany was at a 
>feverish pitch.
>
>Seventy-nine Montanans were convicted under the state law, considered among 
>the harshest in the country, for speaking out in ways deemed critical of 
>the United States. In one instance, a traveling wine and brandy salesman 
>was sentenced to 7 to 20 years in prison for calling wartime food 
>regulations a "big joke."
>
>But the silence - and for some families, the shame - has ended. The 
>convictions will be undone on Wednesday when Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a 
>descendant of ethnic Germans who migrated here from Russia in 1909, 
>posthumously pardons 75 men and three women. One man was pardoned shortly 
>after the war.
>
>Forty-one of those convicted, including one woman, went to prison on 
>sentences from 1 to 20 years and paid fines from $200 to $20,000.
>
>"I'm going to say what Gov. Sam Stewart should have said," Mr. Schweitzer 
>said, referring to the man who signed the sedition legislation into law in 
>1918. "I'm sorry, forgive me, and God bless America, because we can 
>criticize our government."
>
>Dozens of relatives of the convicted seditionists will be at the State 
>Capitol to witness the signing of the pardons, with some traveling from as 
>far as Florida. Marie Van Middlesworth, the 90-year-old daughter of one of 
>those convicted, Fay Rumsey, will be coming from Medford, Ore. She was 
>among 12 children put up for adoption when the family farm failed after her 
>father was imprisoned.
>
>Mr. Milch said the official acknowledgment, even after so many years, 
>offered comfort and closure to the families.
>
>"The whole Milch clan is appreciative of making things right," he said.
>
>The pardon ceremony is a result of a book by Clemens P. Work, director of 
>graduate studies at the University of Montana School of Journalism, called 
>"Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West" 
>(University of New Mexico Press, 2005). The book chronicled a contentious 
>period in Montana history when people were convicted and jailed for voicing 
>their opinion about the war.
>
>"It was an ugly time," Mr. Work said.
>
>After reading the book, Jeffrey Renz, a law professor at the University of 
>Montana, asked Mr. Work what he intended to do about the convictions. Mr. 
>Work had no plans, he said, "but I told them in my box of dreams I hoped 
>these people would be exonerated."
>
>Professor Renz's students took the project on as part of a criminal law 
>clinic. Some contacted family members of the convicted seditionists, and 
>others researched the law, leading to a petition for pardon being sent to 
>the governor last month.
>
>The sedition law, which made it a crime to say or publish anything 
>"disloyal, profane, violent, scurrilous, contemptuous or abusive" about the 
>government, soldiers or the American flag, was unanimously passed by the 
>Legislature in February 1918. It expired when the war ended, Mr. Work said.
>
>During that time, though Germans were the largest ethnic group in Montana, 
>it was also illegal to speak German, and books written in it were banned. 
>Local groups called third-degree committees were formed to ferret out 
>people not supportive of the war, especially those who did not buy Liberty 
>Bonds.
>
>"They leaned on people to ante up and buy bonds, and if they didn't, they 
>were disloyal and considered pro-German," Mr. Work said.
>
>Farida Briner said she was told that a committee showed up at her father's 
>farm. "They threatened to hang him and tar and feather him," Ms. Briner 
>said. Her father, Herman Bausch, was taken to town, interrogated and later 
>convicted. He spent two years in prison.
>
>Officials encouraged neighbor to inform on neighbor, and one person's 
>accusation was often enough for an arrest.
>
>Mr. Milch's great-grandfather, John Milch, was turned in by an undercover 
>agent named Eberhard Von Waldru, who was working for the prosecutor in 
>Helena, the state capital. Mr. Von Waldru went into a German beer hall and 
>drew out people's feelings on the war. His testimony was used against Mr. 
>Milch; his brother, Joseph; and six other men. All were convicted, and four 
>went to prison.
>
>John Milch was sentenced to three to six years, but the law had expired by 
>the time he was to begin serving his term. Joseph was fined $1,800.
>
>Steve Milch said that although his family was not aware of the arrest, they 
>did know about the anti-German sentiment of the time.
>
>"There was a story that a mob of people was going around asking Germans to 
>kiss the flag," Mr. Milch said. "My great-grandfather told them he didn't 
>kiss anybody's flag, whether it was American or German."
>
>Mr. Milch also had another surprise in store. He discovered that the 
>great-grandfather of another lawyer in his firm was the Helena prosecutor 
>who hired Mr. Von Waldru. "His great-grandfather prosecuted my 
>great-grandfather," Mr. Milch said.
>
>Mr. Work, who was conducting research for the book when the Sept. 11 
>attacks occurred, said he had found the similarities between 2001 and 1918 
>to be eerie.
>
>"The hair on the back of my neck stood up," Mr. Work said. "The rhetoric 
>was so similar, from the demonization of the enemy to saying 'either you're 
>with us or against us' to the hasty passage of laws."
>
>Twenty-seven states had sedition laws during World War I. Montana's became 
>the template for a federal law, enacted by Congress later in 1918. More 
>than 30 Montanans were arrested under the federal law, though none were 
>convicted, according to the Montana Sedition Project, which Mr. Work 
>directs.
>
>Mr. Work and other historians believe that the harshness of the Montana law 
>was influenced by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, which dominated the 
>state economically and viewed the law as a way to deal with labor unrest. 
>Many of those charged with sedition were immigrant laborers.
>
>But blame should also be laid at the feet of Governor Stewart, Mr. Work 
>said.
>
>"In the last 100 days of his term, he commuted 50 sentences, including 13 
>murderers and 7 rapists," he said, "but not a single seditionist."
>


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