The Curtain Rise

The Curtain Rises

The green-walled courtroom in Washington's Federal District Court building was small (40 x 38 ft.) for the largest sedition trial in U.S. history.* The ever-present question before the court was big: can a democracy defend itself legally?

Each of the 28 men and two women on trial last week faced ten years in prison, a $10,000 fine. The charge: the 30 had conspired to overthrow the U.S. Government in favor of a Nazi dictatorship, and had tried to demoralize the armed forces. The probable defense: the accused were merely enjoying their constitutional right to free speech when they expressed such sentiments as:

P: "The Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor was deliberately invited by the public officials of the U.S."

P: "The Government of the U.S. and Congress are controlled by Communists, International Jews and plutocrats."

P: "The cause of the Axis powers is the cause of justice and morality and . . . any act of war against them is unjust and immoral. . . ."

Colorful Cast. The accused were a strangely assorted crew. Handsome Joe McWilliams, the soapbox fiuehrer who used to berate the Jews and laud Hitler on Manhattan street corners, got top billing in the indictment ("United States of America v. Joseph E. McWilliams, et al"). Quiet, swart Lawrence Dennis, U.S. fascism's No. 1 intellectual, sat glumly near benign-faced James True, organizer of America First, Inc., and inventor of the "kike-killer" (Pat. no. 2,026,077), a short rounded club made in two sizes (one for ladies). Chicago's Mrs. Elizabeth ("The Red Network") Dilling, leader of the "Mothers' Crusade" which once sprawled noisily in the halls of the Senate office building, wore a big, rose-trimmed hat and a becoming new dignity.

Mrs. Dilling looked coldly at her codefendant, peppery Mrs. Lois de Lafayette ("T.N.T.") Washburn, who favored delighted photographers with a stiff-armed Nazi salute. Florid, convivial Edward James Smythe, onetime speaker at Bund and Ku Klux Klan rallies, held up proceedings for two days while FBI agents were sent to fetch him, spluttering indignantly, from a fishing trip near the Canadian border. There were also George Deatherage, founder of the Knights of the White Camellia; Howard Victor Broenstrupp, alias the Duke of St. Saba, alias Count Cherep-Spiridovich, etc. Nine of the defendants were already interned or in jail. They arrived by police van. Among them: famed, shrewd Propagandist George Sylvester Viereck, good friend of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II; the Silver Shirts' William Dudley Pelley; onetime Bundleader Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze.

Deft Direction. Mrs. Dilling was defended by her ex-husband. Those without funds were represented by court-appointed lawyers. On behalf of their clients, who have shown little enthusiasm for democratic ways, the 22 lawyers energetically demanded every final democratic safeguard. All week long the legalists bobbed up & down, objecting, concurring, complaining. They protested because the court reporter worked for a firm with an allegedly Jewish executive. They applied for a writ of mandamus to have the whole thing dropped. They said there were too many policemen in court for a "relaxed" atmosphere--and FBI agents had been "persecuting" the accused. When Prosecutor 0. John Rogge inadvertently let slip that this was the third indictment for some of the defendants, the whole "prejudiced" jury panel had to be dismissed.

Most of the U.S. press, viewing the proceedings with mixed emotions, called for a fair trial, but no nonsense. Manhattan's hyperthyroid PM warned its readers that Hitler, too, was once a silly-looking seditionist who used his trial as a forum for spreading propaganda and winning new converts. The Chicago Tribune, favorite organ of most of the defendants, wrote indulgently of the "crackpots" who were the victims of a New Deal "smear campaign" against isolationist Congressmen.

Shades of the Past. In a nation which has never been calmer and less hysterical in time of war, the 30 people now on trial for sedition could take comfort from a more zealous, witch-hunting U.S. past:

P: In 1798, a Mr. Thomas Callender, who called President Adams such names as "hoary-headed incendiary," was fined $200 and jailed for sedition. Dr. Thomas Cooper, a Pennsylvania editor, paid a $400 fine and spent six months in jail for even milder cracks at Adams.

P: During the Civil War, the Government (without a Sedition law) suppressed newspapers, jailed editors, shushed those who said Mr. Lincoln was "violating" the Constitution, gagged speakers.

P: In 1918, a girl and four men were sentenced to three to 20 years for distributing a pamphlet which attacked President Wilson's policy of intervention in Russia. A Mrs. Clark remarked: "I wish Wilson was in hell, and if I had the power, I would put him there." The court which tried her held that the President could not be in hell unless dead; Mrs. Clark had therefore threatened the President's life and was guilty of sedition.

* Sedition is defined as inciting resistance to lawful authority. It falls short of treason, which involves an overt act.

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