LAD #30: Schenck vs. US

The Committee on Public Information, a collection of leading writers and journalists, effectively functioned as a propaganda arm of the government, distributing some 75 million pieces of literature on behalf of the war effort from 1917 to 1918. But the strict conformity demanded by the government in wartime invited an element of hysteria. Dissenters were often forcibly silenced and jailed for their views. Among the best organized organs of dissent against the war was the Socialist party. Its leader, Eugene V. Debs, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his statement that while the “master classes” caused the war, the “subject classes” would have to fight it. A Butte, Montana, mob dragged antiwar labor-organizer Frank Little through the streets before they hung him from a railroad trestle. In Washington, the House of Representatives refused to allow Milwaukee representative Victor Berger, a Socialist elected in 1918, to take his seat, despite his service in that chamber from 1911 to 1913. Berger, too, had been jailed for his antiwar prtotests.

Charles Schenck was the general secretary of the Socialist Party of America. Socialists believed that the war had been caused by and would benefit only the rich, while causing suffering and death for the thousands of poor and working-class soldiers who would do the actual fighting in Europe. Party officials not only opposed the war, they urged American workers to oppose the war as well.

Schenck participated in many antiwar activities in violation of the Espionage Act, including the mailing of about 15,000 leaflets urging draftees and soldiers to resist the draft. He was arrested and charged with “causing and attempting to cause insubordination in the military and naval forces of the United States” and with disturbing the draft. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for violating the Espionage Act of 1917, and he appealed his case to the Supreme Court. Espionage Act was unconstitutional. Schenck and the Socialist party were persecuted for opposing what they felt was an “immoral war.” The 1st Amendment was specifically included in the Constitution to protect political speech, and to prevent a “tyranny of the majority.” The 1st Amendment protections would be meaningless if Congress could choose where and when citizen's rights may be diminished.