things have changed

The Montana Sedition Project collects the stories of Montanans who were jailed for saying the wrong thing during WWI.



On March 15, 1918, Wyman said to divers persons...in speaking of the atrocities reported to be committed by the German soldiers, that our soldiers would act in the same way and commit the same atrocities...and that soldiers of the U.S. Army are no better than the German soldiers. Sentence: 6-12 years

In March 1918, a third-degree committee in Forsyth grilled Starr about Liberty Bonds and forced him to kiss the flag. "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." Sentence: 10-20 years