100 years ago: Americans debated whether to censor the press

There have been times since the ratification of the Bill of Rights when federal, state and even local governments have nevertheless sought to curtail free speech in the interest of national security or unity — on occasion with popular support.

The Sedition Act of 1798, signed into law by President John Adams, made it a crime to voice, write, print or publish anything "false, scandalous and malicious" against the president, Congress or about the federal government in general. The legislation came during a period when the young republic was under threat of war with France. A number of journalists were fined or sent to prison under the statute. As a consequence, Adams became America's first one-term president after his successor, Thomas Jefferson, made it a campaign issue in the election of 1800.

One hundred years ago, in the late spring of 1917, the United States had just entered what history would eventually call World War I. At the time, President Woodrow Wilson was determined to rally the American people behind him — particularly an unprecedented number of able-bodied men who were needed for immediate military service. Like other wartime presidents before him, Wilson believed he had the moral authority to take extraordinary measures under such extraordinary circumstances; to ensure public support, given the life and death stakes for millions. That meant rooting out defeatist attitudes that could undermine confidence in the war effort both on the battlefield and at home.

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Wilson had the support of Congress and a nation that was on the brink of hysteria over the war. In 1917, the Espionage Act was passed which made it a crime to interfere with military recruitment and the operations of American armed forces. The following year, the so-called Sedition Act was added to the Espionage Act that limited free speech during the war. 

What did America look like when fundamental Constitutional rights, for all intents and purposes, were suspended?

On June 1, 1917, the front page of the Asbury Park Press was all about the state of the war, here, across the country and abroad. Less than two months had passed since Congress had made a formal declaration of hostilities against Germany.

"LOCAL GIRL IS HELD IN ANTI-DRAFT PLOT," screamed one of the headlines, with the sub-head: "Eleanor Wilson Parker of 302 Asbury Avenue Arrested With Columbia Students -- Father Declares They Are Catspaws Of Pacifist Columbia Professors."

What had the 19-year-old Parker done to now be facing a federal grand jury under the charge of "conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States?"

She had joined students and alumni at Columbia University (Parker herself was a student at Columbia's Barnard College for women) in distributing anti-war pamphlets to young men in New York, urging them to resist the coming draft.

Back in her hometown of Asbury Park, her father was beside himself. Edwin C. Parker, the owner of the Atlantic Hotel, insisted that his daughter was a naive innocent under the spell of a bunch of erudite rabble-rousers.

"My daughter is one of those modern young women, independent, forceful and given to ideas," Parker told a Press reporter. "But she is a sweet, wholesome girl and I cannot believe she fully realized what she was doing or that she was violating the laws."

Make no mistake, she is not pro-German at all, she's just a socialist, Parker said.

"She merely abhors war," he went on. "So do I and I talked against war up to the time that America got into it. Then I was for war and I am now. I believe America's entry means victory for the allies."

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Elsewhere on the front page, Asbury Park Mayor Clarence E.F. Hetrick announced that police would be empowered to stop people on the street and demand to see their "papers" effective June 5, 1917 — the national date when President Wilson had directed that all men eligible for conscription under the new Selective Service law present themselves at their local polling place for possible military service.

At a meeting of municipal clerks from throughout Monmouth County, Hetrick said that all men between the age of 21 and 30 must do so, including naturalized citizens and non-citizen immigrants, "even Chinese of draft age."

The mayor also went over the registration process for immigrants classified as "enemy aliens" who lived in Monmouth County.

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Draft day — June 5 — had been declared a legal holiday, with Gov. Walter Evans Edge proclaiming the date "New Jersey Day." Hetrick said he had requested that the local Chamber of Commerce arrange patriotic and solemn demonstrations to mark New Jersey's "faithful and honorable discharge of its duties to the United States."

Businesses and schools would be expected to close for the day so everyone could watch the planned parades, he said.

In another page one story from the same edition, a wire service dispatch from the nation's capital, reported that the U.S. House of Representatives had defeated — in a vote of 184 to 144 — a bill to allow the Wilson administration to censor newspaper content as an amendment to the Espionage Act.

The crux of the debate centered on whether the executive branch should have the power to determine what could be published or the power to determine what could not be published, with the latter proposal viewed as the less draconian measure.

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"With only four days more before Tuesday, draft registration day, the Department of Justice planned today to exert every energy to quell anti-conscription agitation, which already has resulted in a number of arrests," read a companion wire service article from Washington.

Those who registered for the draft would receive draft cards and bronze buttons to wear in public, which were intended to brand them as having done their duty, and perhaps more importantly, signal to police that they had done their duty.

In Bradley Beach, Mayor William E. Macdonald came up with what he thought was a novel way of getting men to their local polling places to sign up for the draft: He asked the borough’s women to volunteer to personally pin the enrolling men with the "Registered U.S. Military Service" shield button.

Erik Larsen: 732-682-9359 or elarsen@gannettnj.com