Enacted as a guard against domestic subversion of the U. S. effort in WoRLD WAR I, the Espionage Act of 1917 was a controversial law that threatened domestic civil liberties. As the efforts at progressive reform in the early 20th century gave way to a focus on the war in Europe, the Wilson administration grappled to find ways to bolster support for American intervention. Public opinion was sharply divided about the conflict and how the United States should respond. Given the large influx of immigrants to the United States since the 1880s, new ethnic and national groups contributed to the social and political conflict over the war. German immigrants still formed the largest foreign-born group, 2.3 million, in the population. In addition, there were more than two million immigrants from the various parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, another major combatant.
Throughout his first term as president, WooDRow Wilson and others expressed concern about the large immigrant population in the United States and frequently referred to the need for national loyalty. Running for reelection in 1916, President Wilson made Americanism a dominant theme of his campaign. Along with Wilson’s desire to build a sense of national unity, the war led his administration to secure legislation to dampen dissent and opposition and to further promote the cause of national unity in the United States. As Wilson moved toward a pro-intervention policy in the European conflict, he saw this as an opportunity to publicize and export American democratic ideals.
Fearing that opposition would undermine his ability to bring the United States directly into the conflict, Wilson favored policy initiatives that fostered and promoted patriotism. In this vein, the Committee eor Public Ineorma-TIon was created in 1917 to publicize and popularize the war and the reasons for American involvement in this conflict. A major outcome of this drive for national unity was to actually create more division within the United States. In particular, what originated as an anti-German campaign resulted in an anti-immigrant crusade, which culminated in the first in a series of restrictive immigration laws passed by Congress between 1917 and the mid-1920s.
During the controversial debate about national identity, the Wilson administration called upon Congress to pass legislation that would silence dissent and encourage support for the United States in World War I, which the country officially entered in April 1917. As Wilson called upon Congress to declare war on Germany and its allies, Representative Edwin Webb of North Carolina and Senator Charles Culberson of Texas began to craft legislation that would give the president the ability to impose “stern repression” to ensure unity behind the nation’s emerging war effort. The Espionage Act, as it was known when enacted in early June 1917, furnished the government with ample power for the suppression of those who opposed the war. The act imposed stiff fines of between $5,000 and $10,000 and jail sentences of up to 20 years for individuals convicted under this law. The law went far beyond simply attempting to prevent spying for the enemy. Instead its main objective was to make it illegal to write or utter any statement that could be construed as profaning the flag, criticizing the Constitution, or opposing the military draft.
The extreme nature of this legislation constituted the most drastic restriction of free speech since the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers oe the World (IWW) had emerged by 1917 as the most vocal and organized forces to oppose America’s involvement in the war in Europe. Accordingly, they quickly became among the first groups to feel the strong arm of the American legal system after the passage of the Espionage Act. The head of the Socialist Party, Eugene Victor Debs, received a 10-year jail term for making an antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio, in 1918. In that same year, some 2,000 members of the IWW were arrested under the authority of the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act helped fuel a movement to protect civil liberties in the postwar era.
See also Sedition Act.
Further reading: Paul Murphy, World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the Untied States (New York: Norton, 1979).
—David R. Smith
World History
