"A LANDMARK OF OPPRESSION IN AMERICAN HISTORY"¹
What came to be known as the Espionage Act started as legislation in 1917 by Congressmen Edwin Webb and Charles Culberson to accomplish three objectives: "censorship of the press; punishment of any interference with the activities of the armed services, including recruitment; and control of the mails to prevent their use for the dissemination of allegedly treasonable material."² The Espionage Act resulted from various controversies around the United States' involvement in World War I, especially objectionable speech from marginalized groups such as the Socialist party. The Espionage Act resulted in restrictions of speech and the press, and denied second-class postal rates to various "objectionable" publications of political parties.³ The Espionage Act included severe penalties to those it viewed as opposing the war effort, penalties that often exceeded the bounds of reasonable punishment for a supposed crime. However, the Espionage act was seen as too lenient for the crimes committed, so Congress passed the Sedition Act, an amendment to the Espionage Act which gave the government more powers over speech and the press.
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Charles Schenck. Photo Credit: By Mitchell Charles Harrison [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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Despite the obvious unconstitutionality of the Espionage and Sedition acts, the courts decided to not only declare them constitutional, but also gave them a broad range of prosecutorial power; people were convicted for even discussing the constitutionality of conscription.⁴ This occurred in the famous case of Schenck v. United States, in which the socialist Charles T. Schenck was convicted of distributing pamphlets opposing the draft.⁵ This ruling allowed the Wilson administration to prosecute many cases under the two acts. In their ruling, the Supreme Court declared that:
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"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 no court could regard them as protected by any constitutional rights."⁶
The Espionage and Sedition act supposedly increased American security, at the price of the morals that the country was founded on. These liberties also affected the freedom of the press and incited a heated, ironically public, debate about the necessity of censorship.
The Committee on Public Information
The Committee on Public Information was created after the Espionage Act passed in 1917. They managed the implementation of the Espionage Act. They punished anyone who published anything that "interfere[d] with the operation or success of the military or naval forces." They also restricted the mailing of anything they deemed to be "containing any matter advocating or urging treason, insurrection, or forcible resistance to any law."⁷ This allowed the government to further censor voices that it found to be objectionable. Furthermore, this allowed for a more centralized control of censorship activities.
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George Creel, Director of CPI. Photo Credit: National Archives and Records Administration [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Their main purpose, however, was to create propaganda to help Americans stay invested in the war effort, most famously with their "four-minute men," who gave speeches across the US advocating for the continuation of the war. These propaganda efforts complimented the censorship activities already in place; the government first created a vacuum of information with censorship, and then filled it through propaganda.
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"C.P.I. Delegates to Europe." Photo Credit: By Bain (Library of Congress) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
¹ David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society, 25th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 80.
² Ibid.
³ Ronald S. Rasmus, "Censorship, Press and Artistic," in Dictionary of American History, ed. Stanley I. Kutler, 3rd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003), accessed February 1, 2018, https://goo.gl/B7WmsC.
⁴ Op. Cit. Kennedy, Over Here, 79.
⁵ New York Times, "SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST PACIFISTS: Holds Enlistment Section of Espionage Act No Interferencewith 'Free Speech.,'" New York Times, March 4, 1919, https://goo.gl/5J43y5.
⁶ "Censorship," in International Military and Defense Encyclopedia, ed. Trevor N. Dupuy (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 1993), accessed February 1, 2018, https://goo.gl/CSuajU.
⁷ Ibid.
² Ibid.
³ Ronald S. Rasmus, "Censorship, Press and Artistic," in Dictionary of American History, ed. Stanley I. Kutler, 3rd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003), accessed February 1, 2018, https://goo.gl/B7WmsC.
⁴ Op. Cit. Kennedy, Over Here, 79.
⁵ New York Times, "SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST PACIFISTS: Holds Enlistment Section of Espionage Act No Interferencewith 'Free Speech.,'" New York Times, March 4, 1919, https://goo.gl/5J43y5.
⁶ "Censorship," in International Military and Defense Encyclopedia, ed. Trevor N. Dupuy (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 1993), accessed February 1, 2018, https://goo.gl/CSuajU.
⁷ Ibid.