The Sedition Act of 1918
Technically the Sedition Act of 1918 was an extension of the authority bestowed by the Espionage Act of the preceding year. The Sedition Act made the uttering or writing of anything considered to be disloyal to the United States to be illegal and established the penalties for the crime. One of the earliest arrests under the act was a Russian born American citizen named Mollie Steiner, who wrote, printed, and distributed pamphlets describing American opposition to the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. She was arrested under terms of the Act, sentenced to fifteen years in prison, and finally deported to Russia.
Eugene Debs was arrested for violation of the Sedition Act in 1918. Debs had used public appearances and written pamphlets and magazine articles to argue against the forced conscription imposed by the federal government during the First World War. Debs was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. He served just over two before President Harding commuted his sentence in 1921. By then the Act was no longer operational, its wording was such that it was only in effect if and when the United States was in a state of war. The Armistice which ended the hostilities of World War 1 had been signed in November 1918.
At least one politician of the 1920s found the provisions of the act so useful in silencing political enemies and controlling dissent he proposed that it be placed in effect during peacetime. Mitchell Palmer was the Attorney General of the United States and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President when he drafted the support of newspaper editors and publishers as well as members of the House and Senate. Palmer was hopeful of using the act to eliminate the many foreign language newspapers in the United States, labor newsletters and pamphlets, and those arguing for racial equality.
Several individuals were arrested under the terms of the Sedition Act of 1918, and some of them convicted after the war was over, despite the Act being no longer in operation. Marie Equi was a Doctor of Medicine and activist for the poor, workers, women, and equal rights. She was a vocal opponent of America’s entry into World War 1 and she was arrested after the United States entered the war. Convicted, she was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, and by the time her appeals were exhausted (and denied) the war was over. President Wilson commuted her sentence to one year and one day, which was served in San Quentin beginning in 1920. She served ten months of the sentence.
The case of seven Russian immigrants distributing literature (by throwing it out of a New York hat manufacturer’s windows to the crowds below) led to the Sedition Act of 1918 being argued before the Supreme Court in 1920. In the case, known as Abrams v. The United States, the Supreme Court upheld the Act as constitutional. Subsequent discussion of the Sedition Act of 1918 in other cases indicates that the decision of 1920 was incorrect and that it would be unlikely to be considered constitutional today. The Sedition Act was fully repealed in 1920, even as those accused of violating it were under trial or serving sentences in prison.