Montana Gov pardons 78 deceased Americans convicted of "sedition" during WWI

Anybody hear about this one? Gov. Schweitzer apologized yesterday for the several dozen german immigrants & other folks who got trapped in the wartime hysteria and who were put on trial & jailed for voicing an opinion.

“Across this country, it was a time in which we had lost our minds,” said Schweitzer, himself the grandson of German-speaking immigrants who settled in Montana. “So today in Montana, we will attempt to make it right. In Montana, we will say to an entire generation of people, we are sorry. And we challenge the rest of the country to do the same.” The 75 men and three women, many of them German immigrants, were arrested and convicted of violating the state’s 1918 Sedition Act. Some had criticized the U.S. government’s entry into the war, while others expressed support for Germany and the kaiser and others refused to buy Liberty Bonds or kiss the American flag.

The Montana law became the model for the Federal Sedition Act of 1918. The same state legislative session that passed the Sedition Act created the Montana Council of Defense and granted it the power to enact laws. Among its decrees were a state ban on speaking German, even in the pulpit, and a list of banned books in German or about Germany...