On this day in 1918, Congress extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broad range of spoken or written offenses, including the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language” about the federal government, the U.S. flag or the armed forces or speech “that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt.”
The legislation, chiefly aimed at socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists, came to be known as the Sedition Act. It was tied to the U.S. entrance into the World War I in April 1917 and orchestrated largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, President Woodrow Wilson’s attorney general.
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The Senate voted 48 to 26 to pass the act, and the House voted 293 to 1 with Rep. Meyer London, a New York socialist, casting the only dissenting vote. He had voted against the war but went on to support it. When these seemingly contradictory actions angered contending members of his constituency, London said, “I wonder whether I am to be punished for having had the courage to vote against the war or for standing by my country’s decision when it chose war.”
Such Senate stalwarts as Republicans Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and Hiram Johnson of California also opposed the legislation, as did former President Theodore Roosevelt. Lodge spoke out in defense of free speech while Johnson criticized the administration for not using existing laws.
Congress repealed the Sedition Act on Dec. 13, 1920. However, large parts of the 1917 Espionage Act remain in force. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in New York Times v. Sullivan that media criticism of public officials is protected under the First Amendment, requiring the plaintiff to prove that the statements were made with malicious intent or reckless disregard for the truth.