Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Montana WWI seditionists are pardoned

|
|
 
  
Published: May 4, 2006 at 1:28 PM

HELENA, Mont., May 4 (UPI) -- Victims of Montana's harsh World War I seditionist law have been granted pardons 87 years after they were convicted.

In all, 78 people were convicted of sedition and 41 were sent to prison for one to 20 years and fined up to $20,000, the Chicago Tribune reported. All had been hauled into court for a variety of allegedly unpatriotic statements. Sometimes, the action virtually wrecked family life.

It ended on Wednesday when Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer granted a blanket posthumous pardon.

"I think this sends a signal to the rest of the folks across the country that in times of insecurity and xenophobia, sometimes we lose our minds," Schweitzer said. "It takes cooler minds and cooler heads to say, `This wasn't right.'"

Topics: Brian Schweitzer
© 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
Passenger jet crashes into apartment building in Nigerian capitol. Over 150 princes, bank officials,...
I'll see your zombie apocalypse, and raise you "swarms of deadly spiders" invading a town in India...
Photoshop this woman at the wheel
New book is full of girls in their bedrooms, will be read by people who need to have a seat right...
★☆☆☆☆ Michigan is an uninhabitable swamp. Do not settle
As part of the Queen's jubilee celebrations, Top Gear presenter James May has built a contraption...