NYT: Pardons Granted 88 Years After Crimes of Sedition (Gov. Schweitzer)

[Pirate Smile]

Pardons Granted 88 Years After Crimes of Sedition

By JIM ROBBINS
Published: May 3, 2006

HELENA, Mont., May 2 — When Steve Milch found out recently that his great-grandfather, an immigrant from Bavaria, had been convicted of sedition in Montana during World War I, he was taken aback. It was something no one in the family had ever talked about.

-snip-
Seventy-nine Montanans were convicted under the state law, considered among the harshest in the country, for speaking out in ways deemed critical of the United States. In one instance, a traveling wine and brandy salesman was sentenced to 7 to 20 years in prison for calling wartime food regulations a "big joke."

But the silence — and for some families, the shame — has ended. The convictions will be undone on Wednesday when Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a descendant of ethnic Germans who migrated here from Russia in 1909, posthumously pardons 75 men and three women. One man was pardoned shortly after the war.

-snip-
Mr. Work, who was conducting research for the book when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, said he had found the similarities between 2001 and 1918 to be eerie.
"The hair on the back of my neck stood up," Mr. Work said. "The rhetoric was so similar, from the demonization of the enemy to saying 'either you're with us or against us' to the hasty passage of laws."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/us/03pardon.html?hp&ex=1146628800&en=483b7ecfd85383c6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Pirate Smile]

1. more

"I'm going to say what Gov. Sam Stewart should have said," Mr. Schweitzer said, referring to the man who signed the sedition legislation into law in 1918. "I'm sorry, forgive me, and God bless America, because we can criticize our government."

Dozens of relatives of the convicted seditionists will be at the State Capitol to witness the signing of the pardons, with some traveling from as far as Florida. Marie Van Middlesworth, the 90-year-old daughter of one of those convicted, Fay Rumsey, will be coming from Medford, Ore. She was among 12 children put up for adoption when the family farm failed after her father was imprisoned.

Mr. Milch said the official acknowledgment, even after so many years, offered comfort and closure to the families.

"The whole Milch clan is appreciative of making things right," he said."