Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 77 In this perilous moment, let's zoom in on Feb. 23, 1919, when 38 men and one woman sat in their tiny cells in the state penitentiary in Deer Lodge, sharing a common story. Each had been convicted of sedition for criticizing America's participation in the war, and each was sentenced to hard labor for up to 20 years. It had been exactly one year since Gov. Sam Stewart had signed the law under which they were sentenced. Just the day before, two Slavic coal miners from Roundup had had their heads shaved, mug shots taken, and joined their doleful peers. e sedition law said that anyone who said or wrote anything in wartime that was "disloyal, profane, violent, scurrilous, contemptuous, slurring or abusive" about the United States was guilty. Sedition is the illegal promotion of resistance against the government, usually in speech or writing. What is illegal depends on the government and its regard for freedom of speech. e problem for the coal miners and their fellow inmates was that in the U.S. and in Montana in February 1919, freedom of speech was a nebulous right. e sedition prisoners in Deer Lodge probably knew nothing of this. All they knew was that juries, seizing on the vague language of the law (what exactly is "disloyal" or "scurrilous"?) and acting in the temper of the times, had quickly convicted them, and that judges had thrown the book at them. Here's what some of those prisoners had allegedly said, and their sentences: • JOSEF HOCEVAR, one of those miners, originally from Slovenia, at the Roadside Saloon: "I am an Austrian. is government is no good. I have been a citizen of this country since 1888. I am not a pro-German, I am an Austrian. President Wilson had no business getting into this war." (and then he threw a few F-bombs). Six to 12 years. • FAY RUMSEY, a Michigan native who homesteaded in Sarpy Creek south of Hysham with his wife and 12 kids, beset by horse rustlers, said "that he wished the Germans would come in and clean up the U.S. and especially Sarpy Creek..." Two to four years. • EARNEST V. STARR, an Ohio native who home- steaded near Hardin, refused to kiss the flag when confronted by men at the general store pressuring him to buy Liberty Bonds. "What is this thing anyway?" he asked. "Nothing but a piece of cotton with a little paint on it, and some other marks in the corner there. I will not kiss that thing. It might be covered with microbes." Ten to 20 years plus a $500 fine (about $9,000 today). • THOMAS BURANS, an Irishman farming on the Flathead reservation, told a young draft registrant in front of the Montana pool hall in Ronan, "Get out of the country and the jurisdiction of the draft board. Don't enlist. ey are only tin soldiers anyway, and they are persecuting the I.W.W. [Industrial Workers of the World]." Found guilty by a jury that included the Rev. John Maclean, the father in Norman Maclean's A River Runs rough It. One to two years. e average age of those sent to prison for se- dition was 45. e oldest was 74 and the youngest was 29. All were paroled by 1923, after wartime passions had subsided, but collectively, 65 years of their lives were wasted in prison. Nineteen men each received fines of up to $20,000, which is worth about $360,000 today. We may never know exactly why these people were targeted, other than saying the "wrong" thing at the wrong time, but we do know that the sedition law gave their neighbors and their enemies permission to settle scores or seek revenge. Starr was the victim of a woman's mali- cious gossip. Hocevar, according to official papers, had been the victim of a frame-up by two men in a saloon who, "being crazy drunk got the idea of having him arrested for sedition [and] after they sobered up they had to stay with their charge or they might go to jail." by CLEM WORK T HE WINTER MONTHS OF 1919 WERE A BLEAK AND DISPIRITING TIME IN MONTANA AND IN THE REST OF THE COUNTRY. e Armistice had ended the Great War the previous November, but soldiers and civilians were still dying in the influenza pandemic that was killing 50 million people worldwide. As contagious as that virus, was the fear that pervaded America, fear of the nascent Bolsheviks and fear that they were influencing labor "agitators" in the Northwest, setting off a general strike in Seattle and other strikes in Montana, Idaho, and elsewhere, all in the midst of a post-war recession. "e war has set back the people for a generation," reflected California Sen. Hiram Johnson. "ey will not recover for many years." After Rumsey's con- viction, his wife could not hold on to the homestead and it was foreclosed on for a few hundred dollars. Most of the children went to orphanages or were "let out" to other people. Montana's sole fed- eral district judge, George Bourquin, who almost single-handedly prevented prosecutions DEREK PRUITT JULIE ROWE-HORNBAKER CONTINUED

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