Helena, Mont. – It was a black mark on dozens of family histories that lingered for nearly nine decades – until a journalism professor and a group of law students examined what happened to citizens who spoke out against the government during World War I.
On Wednesday, nearly 80 people convicted of sedition amid the war’s anti-German hysteria received the first posthumous pardons in Montana history.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer said the state was “about 80 years too late” in pardoning the mostly working-class people of German descent who were convicted of breaking what was then one of the harshest sedition laws in the nation.
“This should have been done a long time ago,” said Schweitzer, the son of German immigrants.
About 40 family members attended a ceremony in which the governor signed the pardons, including descendants of farmers, butchers, carpenters and cooks.
August Lambrecht was imprisoned for seven months for predicting the United States would “get a licking” in France. His great-grandson, David Gabriel, said Lambrecht left the state after his release for fear of being imprisoned again.
Seventy-eight men and one woman were convicted of sedition. They were imprisoned for an average of 19 months, often based on casual comments made in saloons.
Journalism professor Clem Work of the University of Montana said many were turned in by friends, acquaintances or, in some cases, by people envious of their land holdings.
Work’s book “Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West” inspired law students at the university to write petitions for the pardons and help find family members.
