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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"The Espionage Act is a foul relic of a foul time, born of the repressive mind of Woodrow Wilson"
-Charles Pierce, Esquire Magazine, May 28, 2013.
Here's A Bipartisan Idea That Will Die At Birth
I was watching a panel discussion on MSNBC this morning, and Alex Wagner managed to direct the conversation toward the administration's "war on the press," which is defined by Eric Holder's rather clumsy attempts to find out who was talking to the AP, and the Department Of Justice's muscle-flexing in regards to James Rosen of Fox News, whom it will never bring to court, let alone jail, but who has been nominated for the role of John Peter Zenger by the guardians of our national dialogue. At one point, the ever-reasonable — and there is no snark intended there — Bob Herbert cautioned the administration to lay off, suggesting, among other things, that it not use the Espionage Act, which it has done six times.
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OK, that prompted a notion, now that both parties are staunchly behind the right of the press to ferret out uncomfortable secrets about what the government's up to, and because there isn't a scintilla of political expedience or chunks of gored oxen involved in this story, what do you say we all get together and repeal the damn Espionage Act?
The Espionage Act is a foul relic of a foul time, born of the repressive mind of Woodrow Wilson, American history's most overrated man, employed to quash dissent during World War I, and then repurposed for the Red Scare that followed hard on the Armistice, and it rose again during the subsequent Red Scares after the subsequent world war. As the late Walter Karp recounted in his essential essay, "The America That Was And Is Now Dead," the Espionage Act was a monster at birth and grew more horrible through the decades:
nder the Espionage Act of June 1917, it became a felony punishable by twenty years' imprisonment to say anything that might "postpone for a single moment," as one federal judge put it, an American victory in the struggle for democracy. With biased federal judges openly soliciting convictions from the bench and federal juries brazenly packed to ensure those convictions, Americans rotted in prison for advocating heavier taxation rather than the issuance of war bonds, for stating that conscription was unconstitutional, for saying that sinking armed merchantmen had not been illegal, for criticizing the Red Cross and the YMCA. A woman who wrote to her newspaper that "I am for the people and the government is for the profiteers" was tried, convicted, and sentenced to ten years in prison. The son of the chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court became a convicted felon for sending out a chain letter that said the Sussex Pledge had not been unconditional. Under the Espionage Act American history itself became outlawed. When a Hollywood filmmaker released his movie epic The Spirit of '76, federal agents seized it and arrested the producer: his portrayal of the American Revolution had cast British redcoats in an unfavorable light. The film, said the court, was criminally "calculated . . . to make us a little bit slack in our loyalty to Great Britain in this great catastrophe." A story that had nourished love of liberty and hatred of tyranny in the hearts of American schoolchildren had become a crime to retell in Wilson's America. The filmmaker was sentenced to ten years in prison for recalling the inconvenient past.
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http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/espionage-act-repeal-052813
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AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)which were passed as a result of the French Revolution.
The effort to use governmental resources to quash dissent seemed to have started long before Woodrow Wilson (D) became president.
Is there a rational reason for Charles Pierce of Esquire Magazine to refer to Woodrow Wilson as American history's most overrated man?
Other than the fact that Wilson was a Democrat, what's his reason for attacking Wilson?
starroute
(12,977 posts)President Woodrow Wilson in his December 7, 1915 State of the Union address asked Congress for the legislation:
"There are citizens of the United States ... who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt ... to destroy our industries ... and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue.... We are without adequate federal laws.... I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out."
Congress moved slowly. Even after the U.S broke diplomatic relations with Germany, when the Senate passed a version on February 20, 1916, the House did not vote before the then-current session of Congress ended. After the declaration of war in April 1917, both houses debated versions of the Wilson administration's drafts that included press censorship. That provision aroused opposition, with critics charging it established a system of "prior restraint" and delegated unlimited power to the president. After weeks of intermittent debate, the Senate removed the censorship provision by a one-vote margin, voting 39 to 38. Wilson still insisted it was needed: "Authority to exercise censorship over the press ... is absolutely necessary to the public safety." but signed the Act without the censorship provisions on June 15, 1917, after Congress has passed the act on the same day.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)starroute
(12,977 posts)Wilson is obviously an important historical figure but he doesn’t seem to me to have been much of a president. For one thing, he was a huge racist. Noting racism on the part of past historical figures is sometimes a cheap shot—Abraham Lincoln said things that people would find repugnant today, but was very progressive for his time—but Wilson was a real racial reactionary who turned the clock backwards. He signed a bill banning miscegenation in the District of Columbia and segregating DC streetcars. He appointed white southerners to his administration who introduced segregation into their previously unsegregated departments, including the postal service which was a major employer. Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt had African-Americans appointed to federal office, but Wilson did away with that.
His administration’s handling of the great influenza pandemic was disastrous, and his record on civil liberties was the worst in American history. On the pro column, Wilson’s tax policy (lower tariffs, higher income tax) was good and he did some good regulatory things. On the other hand, the switch from “trust-busting” lawsuits to attempting to use the FTC to establish regulatory cartels doesn’t seem to me to have been a great idea.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)starroute
(12,977 posts)In the 1850s, Lincoln's views were anti-slavery but also decidedly racist. As the quote below makes clear, he struggled with his own contradictory views -- and if he had lived to finish out his term in office and become an elder statesman, he might have evolved still further. But it's definitely true that at times he "said things that people would find repugnant today."
http://thehistoricpresent.wordpress.com/lincoln-slavery-and-racism/
Lincoln believed that the existence of the United States was crucial to the quotient of good in the world. Lincoln believed he was obligated to live with slavery on this basis, waiting for it to die on its own. He also didn’t know how black people could be integrated into white American society. He did not believe black and white people could live peacefully together, not after hundreds of years of slavery had driven them so far apart. Lincoln felt that black people would never be given their full rights as Americans, and that black people could never really forgive whites for enslaving them. He knew that there was no point in “[freeing black Americans] and [keeping] them among us as underlings.” Therefore, he decided the only solution, once slavery ended naturally, was to send all the black people in America “back” to Africa, “their own native land.” This despite the fact that America was their own native land.
So Lincoln aspired to high ideals, and knew intellectually that black and white people were equal, but in his daily life he was not ready to end slavery or begin the work of racial integration in the United States. And when he was addressing racist audiences during his senate campaign, he ramped up the racism in his own comments, assuring people he would never want to see blacks living equally with whites, and that the U.S. was a nation by and for whites alone. . . .
What makes this man admirable? The fact that he changed. In 1858, he believed that black people were equal to white people, but when it came down to visualizing a truly mixed and equal society, he just couldn’t see it, and didn’t want to risk it for fear of civil war. He believed that black and white people shared a common humanity. But nothing in his life in America had prepared him to try to introduce a truly just, racially equal society.
Unlike Douglas, and most other Americans, however, Lincoln couldn’t rest with this attitude. He struggled over it.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)Raids and arrests in January 1920
As Attorney General, Palmer struggled with exhaustion and devoted all his energies to the coal strike, (J. Edgar) Hoover organized the next raids. He successfully persuaded the Department of Labor to ease its insistence on promptly alerting those arrested of their right to an attorney. Instead Labor issued instructions that its representatives could wait until after the case against the defendant was established, "in order to protect government interests." Less openly, Hoover decided to interpret Labor’s agreement to act against the Communist Party to include a different organization, the Communist Labor Party. Finally, despite the fact that Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson insisted that more than membership in an organization was required for a warrant, Hoover worked with more compliant Labor officials and overwhelmed Labor staff to get the warrants he wanted. Justice Department officials, including Palmer and Hoover, later claimed ignorance of such details.
The Justice Department launched a series of raids on January 2, 1920 with follow up operations over the next few days. Smaller raids extended over the next 6 weeks. At least 3000 were arrested, and many others were held for various lengths of time. The entire enterprise replicated the November action on a larger scale, including arrests and seizures without search warrants, as well as detention in overcrowded and unsanitary holding facilities. Hoover later admitted "clear cases of brutality." The raids covered more than 30 cities and towns in 23 states, but those west of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio were "publicity gestures" designed to make the effort appear nationwide in scope. Because the raids targeted entire organizations, agents arrested everyone found in organization meeting halls, not only arresting non-radical organization members but also visitors who did not belong to a target organization, and sometimes American citizens not eligible for arrest and deportation.
The Department of Justice at one point claimed to have taken possession of several bombs, but after a few iron balls were displayed to the press they were never mentioned again. All the raids netted a total of just four ordinary pistols.
While most press coverage continued to be positive, with criticism only from liberal publications like The Nation and The New Republic, one attorney raised the first noteworthy protest. Francis Fisher Kane, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, resigned in protest. In his letter of resignation to the President and the Attorney General he wrote: "It seems to me that the policy of raids against large numbers of individuals is generally unwise and very apt to result in injustice. People not really guilty are likely to be arrested and railroaded through their hearings....We appear to be attempting to repress a political party....By such methods we drive underground and make dangerous what was not dangerous before." Palmer replied that he could not use individual arrests to treat an "epidemic" and asserted his own fidelity to constitutional principles. He added: "The Government should encourage free political thinking and political action, but it certainly has the right for its own preservation to discourage and prevent the use of force and violence to accomplish that which ought to be accomplished, if at all, by parliamentary or political methods." The Washington Post endorsed Palmer's claim for urgency over legal process: "There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over infringement of liberties."
Any of this sound familiar? NSA apologists use such arguments today.
Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)In the lead up to the American participation in the war, Wilson was allowing the Germans to send, via American State Department telegram service, messages to and from Berlin. Wilson authorized this with the idea that he could talk to them about peace. The rules of neutrality meant that the messages could be sent, but must be sent in the Neutral's code, not in the belligerent code. Germany sent the messages in their own code. Wilson authorized dozens of messages to and from Berlin, including the Zimmerman Telegram of fame and legend. Yes, that telegram to Mexico, traveled through the American Embassy in Berlin, to the American State Department and then to the German Embassy in Washington. From there, it traveled to Mexico by Western Union, the American telegraph company.
Wilson did not allow that bit of information out when they published the telegram. But wouldn't that be aiding the enemy? I mean, they sent war plans to their potential allies through official US Government networks. Plans to make war on the Americans no less.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Add LBJ, Nixon, and both Bu$hes to that list.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Another asshole elected to keep us out of a war, who then did all he could to get us into it, meanwhile hiring A. Mitchell Palmer to hunt down commies and implementing the seeds of our present police state.
Generic Other
(28,979 posts)like Emmanuel Goldstein who they all hated as the enemy of the state in Orwell's 1984: Yes, his story is quite Orwellian.
from wiki:
The film was produced by Robert Goldstein (born September 21, 1883), a Jewish immigrant from Germany who owned a costume shop. The Spirit of '76 was considered controversial at the time because of its depiction of the British atrocities during the American Revolutionary War, such as the Wyoming Massacre, which did not fit well with the vast British Empire being now supported by America in a war against the original supporters of American independence which was furthermore squarely against American interest.[1]
The film depicted scenes in which British soldiers committed not just stock character atrocities—such as killing babies and dragging young women out to a "terrible fate"—but also pure fiction: the film purportedly showed King George III hitting Benjamin Franklin squarely in the face and also having Catherine Montour as a mistress.
The Spirit of '76 premiered in Chicago in May 1917, just one month after the United States declared war on Germany. The head of Chicago's police censorship board, Metallus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser, confiscated the film at the behest of Woodrow Wilson's Justice department on the grounds that it generated hostility toward Britain, America's new ally. Goldstein trimmed the offending scenes, got federal approval for the censored version, and resumed the Chicago run. But when the film premiered in Los Angeles a few months later, Goldstein reinserted the deleted scenes concerning British atrocities. This was considered aiding and abetting the German enemy by the U.S. government, which after an investigation, arrested Goldstein.
The film was again seized and Goldstein was charged in federal court with violating the Espionage Act. At trial, the U.S. prosecutor argued that as the World War I effort demanded total Allied support, Goldstein's film was seditious on its face. Goldstein was convicted on charges of attempted incitement to riot and to cause insubordination, disloyalty, and mutiny by U.S. soldiers then in uniform as well as prospective recruits, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison (The judgment was later upheld by an appellate court). This sentence was later commuted to three years by President Wilson.[2]
Aftermath
After the war, the film was finally shown as public opinion, after 116,000 young American war dead, had again turned against the British. Robert Goldstein applied for a US passport in 1921 giving his address as the Hotel Astor in New York City and his occupation as "clerk". In 1923 he again reapplied for a new passport giving his occupation as "Agent" for "Goldstein & Company"; the company address was his father's home in San Francisco, California. He may have perished sometime after 1935 during travel in Europe, when he could not raise the $9.00 to renew his American passport and was later taken to a Nazi concentration camp. However, in June and July 2000, Slate published a two-part article "The Unluckiest Man in Movie History" which says Goldstein was expelled from Germany in 1938.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_%2776_%281917_film%29
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