The Journey to War: Woodrow Wilson and American Pacifism
Paul Brewer looks at the politics behind US involvement in the First World War and how President Woodrow Wilson dealt with those Americans who campaigned against it.
On June 15th, 1917, the US Congress passed the Espionage Act. American entry into the First World War, by a declaration passed by Congress on April 6th, 1917, also brought legislation that would enable the prosecution of those working with the enemy to hamper the war effort. (Parts of this law remain in effect in the US Code, and were most prominently used during the prosecution of the Vice President's advisor Scooter Libby for disclosing CIA secrets, that ended in March 2007.) However, the act's third section stated:
... whoever when the United States is at war, shall wilfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall wilfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or of the United States, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.
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