(I posted this on my political blog in December 2010, but it is also a particular Montana story that should be posted here again in light of recent discussions on civil liberties with the signing of the NDAA. )
So you are a little girl in grammar school in 1917. Your name is Christine Shupp and you live near Melville in Sweet Grass County. Every morning after the pledge of allegiance to the flag, the teacher makes you, alone, kneel down on the floor and kiss the flag. It is because you are German. You are a rancher in Rosebud County and you call WWI “a millionaire’s war” and you are dragged off by neighbors to jail. You’re in a saloon and call war time food regulations “a big joke” and you are sentenced to from 7 to 20 years. http://www.seditionproject.net/index.html
Montana played a huge part in suppressing free speech during WWI. In light of all the noise about Julian Assange, Wikileaks, and Joe Lieberman’s “upgrading” The Espionage Act of 1917, it ‘s probably a good idea to take a look backwards to the Montana Council of Defense. (Yes, President Obama and MSNBC, it’s a good idea to look backwards because leaning forwards can more often than not have you falling on your face.)
Historian K. Ross Toole wrote a chapter called “The Inquisition” in his book “Twentieth Century Montana: A State of Extremes” about a very dark time in Montana’s history. At the beginning of WW I, Woodrow Wilson formed a National Council of Defense and asked each state and each county in the state to help with war propaganda, helping in recruitment of troops, and getting people to buy Liberty Bonds. The Montana Council of Defense went whole hog into this endeavor and was especially keen on finding “slackers” and “draft dodgers”. The Governor of Montana, Sam Stewart called a special session of the legislature in part to make the Montana Council of Defense a legal body with funding by the state. The legislature also passed the Sedition Act and the Criminal Syndicalism Act, which the federal government would use as a model for the federal Sedition Act which was an amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917. This act was probably one of the harshest anti-speech laws ever passed in the United States. 
In order to root out “vipers circulating the propaganda of the junkers”, as Governor Stewart called them, local Councils of Defense made up of “upstanding” business men were appointed by the Republican governor. They gave themselves subpoena power and wide berth in issuing orders. Order Number One made it illegal to have parades, processions, or other public demonstrations (except funerals) without permission from the governor. Order Number Two locked up vagrants, prostitutes, and drunks and anybody that didn’t work at least five days a week. Order Number Three ordered librarians to remove books like “First German Reader”, “German Songs”, “A Summer in Germany” and “German Compositions”. It also forbade the speaking of German which led to the Mennonites leaving for Canada. The orders had a strong moral Puritan tone to them and from February to October of 1918. the Council passed 14 more orders.
These county councils were determined to discover disloyal thought and along with the Montana Loyalty League and Liberty Committees were very busy during these years pitting neighbor against neighbor and class against class. They would haul in neighbors if they didn’t think that they bought enough Liberty Bonds or publish their names and the amount of contributions in the paper. “A bond shirker is an enemy to humanity and liberty, a traitor and a disgrace to his country.” The law stated that
“…any person or persons who shall utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, violent, scurrilous, contemptuous, slurring, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the constitution of the United States, or the soldiers or sailors of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the army or navy…or shall utter, print, write or publish any language calculated to incite or inflame resistance to any duly constituted Federal or State authority in connection with the prosecution of the war…shall be guilty of the crime of sedition.” (p. 276 “Montana: A History of Two Centuries”)
There were heroes in this period. District Attorney Burton K. Wheeler, District Judge George M. Bourquin, and Attorney General Sam Ford tried to stem the tide of war hysteria. In 1917 Judge Bourquin acquitted the rancher Ves Hall who had remarked that the Germans had a right to sink the Lusitania if it was carrying munitions and that the United States had no business being in this “Wall Street millionaire’s war.” Judge Bourquin couldn’t see how a rancher in a little town of 60 people and 60 miles away from the nearest railroad could possibly put military operations in jeopardy by these remarks. This is the case that set off the firestorm and led to the Governor calling the special legislative session. They tried to impeach Bourquin but were unsuccessful, but Judge Crum who was a character witness for Ves Hall was impeached.
District Attorney Wheeler was hauled in front of the Council but unlike the often quivering neighbors, Wheeler was a force of nature and promptly turned to accusing the council of misdeeds. (Note: He is a particular hero to Governor Schweitzer.) The Anaconda Company lawyer blamed him for not prosecuting aliens. Wheeler gave an explanation of treason that we all should remember. Treason cannot be based on rumor, “only on the basis of law”:
“There is such a thing as a treasonable utterance in common parlance, but as matter of law there is treason, but there is not any such crime as treasonable utterance.”
The Council also hauled in William Dunne, editor of the radical labor Butte newspaper, the Bulletin. Dunne was a harsh critic of the Anaconda Company, the mining company that controlled Montana politics and most newspapers. He “considered the council not only illegal but foolish and motivated by antediluvian politics.” He denied any affiliation with the I.W.W., but made no secret of his Marxist views.” He was dismissed but later was arrested. Judge Bourquin dismissed the case but the local council finally convicted Dunne and fined him $5000. But the war by that time was over and the hysteria was abating. The Supreme court would later reverse this decision.
The Republican Attorney General, Sam Ford, wrote a letter to the Council reprimanding them for violence against people attempting their right to make public speeches. He wrote:
“It is true that we are at war and that the life of the nation is at stake; and these conditions may so affect the minds of overzealous patriots and persons of hysterical tendencies as to lesson their powers clearly to analyze civil rights…but mob spirit is fraught with serious menace to society and to the most precious liberties of the people of the state.”
Eventually 76 men and 3 women would be convicted in Montana in the war years and 41 of them sentenced from 10 t0 20 years in prison. In 2006, Governor Schweitzer pardoned all of them; the culmination of efforts by law students at the U of Montana to seek the pardons.
Time to take serious looks backward and to remember that we are, or at least were, a nation of laws.
Bar Codes; Pt 3 – Buying Rounds and Gifting
This continues my series/obsession with bar etiquette and whether there are different rules for men
and women at bars.
Having grown up in a Dutch Calvinist community of tea totalers even though my parents did go out for cocktails (shhhh!!!!), I did not have the Frank McCourt experience of dragging Da’ home from the bars, so my experience with them came as an adult. My experience as a woman sitting at a bar by myself started when I moved from New York City to a Montana county the size of Rhode Island with a population of 3500. The bar in these small places serves as sort of a club. The American Legion bar is actually the American Legion Club and there is a new saloon in a space that used to be the Moose Lodge. The B& B in town has a real chef and a renowned restaurant and award winning wine list. It’s bar area with booths is a kind of club for the merchant class, but everybody goes there to dine because it has good food including one of the best burgers around. It also has only one TV so it is the only bar in town that isn’t a sports bar. Rumor has it they may put in another TV. That has caused some consternation since the tipping point into sportsbardom seems to be two TVs. But that’s another story.
Buying rounds of drinks is a ritual in many bars in many towns, but our town is quite notorious for this ritual. I have always watched with amusement the men buying a round of beers for each other. One guy buys a round for the four guys with whom he is talking to at the bar. Then the next guy buys a round. Then the third and then the fourth. Sometimes they come so fast that the guys have at least two beers in front of them. So no one is buying somebody a beer since it all evens out. If you want to leave early, you just say, “No more for me, but buy another round for me mates. Gar. Gar. Gar.” Nobody owes nobody nuthin’.
Made no sense to me. It’s not a treat or a gift if it is even. And I began to notice that women don’t do this. Women buy their own drinks. What they may do is order an appetizer and then ask if people next to her want to share. If a woman is part of the group that a man is buying rounds for, she thanks him. She does not then buy a round for everybody in the drinking circle.
What I have done is bring in a bottle of barbecue sauce that I ordered on line and received too many bottles of it and given it to John who has bought me the occasional drink. What I did the other night was just thank Dan for the drink he bought me. No reciprocity. The next night was New Year’s Eve. I bought a bottle of good champagne and gave glasses to a couple people including Dan.
I’ve been practicing this whole “gifting” thing for years. I had a group of friends in New York City who, like me, were struggling artists. We loved to find some little gadget or piece of clothing that was unique or would make us laugh and give it for no reason at all. Whether this can work on a larger scale as part of a modern gift economy, I really don’t know. I read a forum on this topic over at libcom.org. Seems that thinkers for many years have wondered about a different kind of social economy other than capitalism with its organization that is hierarchical and exchange oriented. And those thinkers often talk in terms of gifting rather than the exact exchange of commodities.
Is it coincidental that women practice sharing rather than exchange as a means of communal eating and drinking? Just askin’.
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Posted in Montana Life, Social Commentary
Tagged capitalism, communism, drinking, feminism, gift economies, Montana