Criminal
12-30-2005, 12:35 AM
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512280165dec28,1,1986710.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
On April 23, 1918, with the U.S. in the depths of World War I, Fred Rodewald, a German immigrant homesteader who had settled with his family on 320 acres in eastern Montana, uttered a sentence that forever changed his life.
He suggested that Americans "would have hard times" if Germany's kaiser "didn't get over here and rule this country."
That remark earned him 2 years in prison for violating Montana's Sedition Act. When he went off to the penitentiary in Deer Lodge, the 42-year-old Rodewald left behind a pregnant wife and eight children. An armistice ended the war less than a month later.
Now, nearly 90 years later, law students at the University of Montana have begun a quest and are prowling dusty archives and musty courthouse storage rooms across the state to clear Rodewald and 73 other Montanans convicted of sedition.
The project provides a contrast between the waning days of World War I, when a farmer could be jailed for suggesting that it was "a rich man's war," and today, when citizens can criticize the war in Iraq without fear of prosecution, if not without fear of government surveillance.
Sparked by "Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West," a new book by Clemens Work, a University of Montana journalism professor, seven law students have begun reinvestigating the cases to prepare clemency petitions that they intend to present to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer this spring.
When first notified of the possibility of a pardon, Rodewald's granddaughter Phyllis Rolf, of Minnesota, wept.
"I will be very, very happy if they can clear not only my grandfather, but all of them," Rolf said.
Today, with criticism of the government's conduct of the war shouted in the streets, heard in the halls of Congress and read on Weblogs, Rodewald's remark about the kaiser seems rather innocuous.
"If [Montana's sedition] law was around now, I probably would be in jail myself--relating to Iraq," said one of the law students, Jason Lazark, 28, of Sebastopol, Calif. "The modern context interests me because free speech is such an important thing--to be able to speak about the war and not to be thrown into jail."
Schweitzer, a plainspoken man whose German-Russian grandparents emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Montana, said in a recent interview that he had just finished reading Work's book. And although the governor made no promises, he appeared favorably disposed to granting clemency if petitions are presented.
On April 23, 1918, with the U.S. in the depths of World War I, Fred Rodewald, a German immigrant homesteader who had settled with his family on 320 acres in eastern Montana, uttered a sentence that forever changed his life.
He suggested that Americans "would have hard times" if Germany's kaiser "didn't get over here and rule this country."
That remark earned him 2 years in prison for violating Montana's Sedition Act. When he went off to the penitentiary in Deer Lodge, the 42-year-old Rodewald left behind a pregnant wife and eight children. An armistice ended the war less than a month later.
Now, nearly 90 years later, law students at the University of Montana have begun a quest and are prowling dusty archives and musty courthouse storage rooms across the state to clear Rodewald and 73 other Montanans convicted of sedition.
The project provides a contrast between the waning days of World War I, when a farmer could be jailed for suggesting that it was "a rich man's war," and today, when citizens can criticize the war in Iraq without fear of prosecution, if not without fear of government surveillance.
Sparked by "Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West," a new book by Clemens Work, a University of Montana journalism professor, seven law students have begun reinvestigating the cases to prepare clemency petitions that they intend to present to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer this spring.
When first notified of the possibility of a pardon, Rodewald's granddaughter Phyllis Rolf, of Minnesota, wept.
"I will be very, very happy if they can clear not only my grandfather, but all of them," Rolf said.
Today, with criticism of the government's conduct of the war shouted in the streets, heard in the halls of Congress and read on Weblogs, Rodewald's remark about the kaiser seems rather innocuous.
"If [Montana's sedition] law was around now, I probably would be in jail myself--relating to Iraq," said one of the law students, Jason Lazark, 28, of Sebastopol, Calif. "The modern context interests me because free speech is such an important thing--to be able to speak about the war and not to be thrown into jail."
Schweitzer, a plainspoken man whose German-Russian grandparents emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Montana, said in a recent interview that he had just finished reading Work's book. And although the governor made no promises, he appeared favorably disposed to granting clemency if petitions are presented.