The Montana Sedition law, enacted in a special session of the state legislature in February 1918, criminalized just about anything negative said or written about the government or its conduct of the war. Stiff criminal penalties–a maximum of 10 to 20 years in prison and a $20,000 fine–conveyed the seriousness of the crime. Sedition is the illegal promotion of resistance against the government, usually in speech or writing.
Most of the 79 persons convicted of sedition under Montana law worked at menial, blue-collar or rural jobs. Half were farmers, ranchers or laborers. Others worked as butchers, carpenters, cooks, teamsters, bartenders and saloon swampers. More than half of the men sent to prison were born in Europe, many in Germany or Austria. Probably the most dangerous place to open one’s mouth was Custer County (which included present-day Powder River County). A total of 13 persons were tried for sedition in Miles City, the county seat; ten were convicted.
Only one woman was convicted of sedition in Montana, Janet Smith. Born in Iowa in 1876, she lived in Deadwood, S.D. for a year and also in Lead City, S.D. before coming to Montana in about 1906 and to the Powder River country in about 1910, marrying WK Smith. She and her husband together owned close to 1,000 acres, on part of which Smith ran 2,000 head of sheep with R.R. Selway. He also owned 300 head of cattle, 35 horses and had “accumulated a competency” of $30,000 to $50,000.
The couple were arrested for sedition and tried in Miles City. The statements and actions attributed to them sound hard-bitten and distrustful, the kind made by tough, taciturn loners—in other words, the kind of people that might be expected to survive in the desolate buttes and gulches of southeast Montana.
Witnesses testified that Janet Smith “advocated turning the stock into the crops to prevent helping the government.” They said she declared the Red Cross to be a “fake,” and that “while she didn’t mind helping the Belgians with the relief work, the trouble was that the damned soldiers would get it.” She allegedly sent back War Savings Stamps supplied by the Post Office Department.
The political and economic establishment, led by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, saw a mounting threat by political dissidents, such as the Industrial Workers of the World, and sought laws to destroy them. The IWW had been active in promoting strikes against leading industries, such as copper mining, logging and agriculture to increase wages being eaten away by inflation and to improve execrable working conditions. At the same time, wartime frenzy overtook the state. Even in a state as remote as Montana, most people believed American democracy to be threatened by German threats of world domination. Fear and hatred overcame common sense. Extreme laws were passed. German residents, in particular, bore the brunt of such passions. German books were banned and burned. Even preaching in German from the pulpit was banned, a law that was cruelly enforced even after the armistice was declared.
Additional information on the Montana Sedition Project.