UM project seeks pardons
for free-speech martyrs

”During World War I, Herman Bausch was an outspoken German-born farmer living in Yellowstone County. On April 13, 1918, he told a county committee, “I won’t do anything voluntary to aid this war. I don’t care who wins this war. I would rather see Germany win than England or France. I am not prepared to say whether Germany is in the right. We should have never entered this war ...”

Those words were enough to land Bausch in prison for four to 10 years.

The farmer was one of 74 people convicted of sedition during 1918-19, when Montana was ruled by perhaps the harshest anti-speech law ever passed by any state in the history of the United States. Sedition is the illegal promotion of resistance against the government, usually in speech or writing.

Now 13 law and journalism students at UM are preparing petitions for posthumous pardons from Gov. Brian Schweitzer for those found guilty under the old sedition law.

The students were inspired to take up the cause by UM journalism Professor Clem Work, whose recently published book “Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West” details Montana’s old draconian sedition laws.

“This is important on two levels,” Work said. “First it shows we have an abiding commitment to the principles of free speech and freedom of expression — even in times of war. Then on a personal level for the families of these people, it rights an old wrong. It offers justice and vindication and heals an old wound.”

The law students participating in the Montana Sedition Project — also called the Pardon Project — are part of the law school’s criminal defense clinic. Jeff Renz, the faculty member who leads the clinic, said project participants hope to present their findings to the governor in April.

But first the students — including three journalism students helping with research and writing — have to spend hours prowling musty courthouse record rooms and visiting piles of dusty archival material. Much has been lost over time, and the students encourage anyone with any information about those convicted to contact them.

The project has a Web site with contact information and pictures of those convicted at http://www.seditionproject.net/pardonproject.html.

“When we are ready, we’ll file our petitions in letter form,” Renz said. “And some of our students are working on a legal opinion about whether the governor has the authority to pardon those people.”

Work said the project has garnered national attention, and this publicity has led to contacts with descendants of those convicted of sedition. “One woman in Michigan heard about us on NPR’s ‘Talk of the Nation’ program. She called up and said, ‘I’m a granddaughter.’ Another read about us in the LA Times.”

Renz said he has talked with Gov. Schweitzer in passing about the project, and Work said the governor has read his book.

The Montana sedition law was enacted by a special session of the Legislature in February 1918. It criminalized just about anything negative said or written about the government in time of war. The max penalty was 20 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.

Most people convicted under Montana law worked at menial, blue-collar or rural jobs. Half were farmers, ranchers or laborers, and some were convicted on witness accounts of casual statements, which were often made in saloons. Those who went to prison collectively served more than 65 years in prison for an average of 19 months apiece.

Work said the sedition law came about when lawyer Matt Canning managed to get charges dismissed against his client, a Rosebud County rancher who was being convicted of sedition under the federal Espionage Act of 1917. This incensed then Gov. Sam Stewart so much that he called a special session of the Legislature to help enact a stronger law.

That law ended after World War I, but the Legislature promptly enacted a peacetime sedition act with similar wording.
Years later in the 1970s, Canning’s grandson William F. “Duke” Crowley, a UM law school professor, helped rewrite Montana’s criminal code as a member of the Criminal Code Commission. He made it his personal mission to finally get the old sedition laws expunged from the books.

“It’s one of history’s neat little ironies,” Work said.

Though he isn’t getting rich off sales of his book, Work appreciates the attention it has drawn to those convicted of sedition.

“The book led to this project,” he said, “and now these people may finally be getting justice. To me that’s better than money.”