WOODROW WILSON may be America’s WORST-EVER president on free speech.
As president, Wilson weaponized fear of spies during WWI to silence critics, arrest suffragists, and even weaponize the postal service. 🧵
2/ Although Wilson was hardly a stout defender of the First Amendment in his first term, it wasn’t until the USA entered WORLD WAR I in 1917 that his censorship program began.
3/ Wilson began with the Espionage Act banning false information “harmful” to the US war effort and restricting what could be sent through the mail. He effectively weaponized the postal service against his adversaries destroying the distribution channels for 70+ publications.
4/ What started out as a noble goal (protecting the US in wartime) still had disastrous consequences for speech. The message was clear: don’t talk. One year into the war, Wilson announced the Sedition Act which escalated the speech restrictions to dire levels.
5/ The Sedition Act Banned:
👉🏻 advocating for labor strikes
👉🏻 supporting countries at war with the US
👉🏻 incitement to “insubordination” in military
👉🏻 “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the government the Constitution, the military or the flag”
6/ Ironically, this ban on disloyal speech on the Constitution violated the very principles Wilson was attempting to defend, which raises the question, “What mattered more the Constitution or silencing Wilson’s critics?”
7/ The Espionage and Sedition Acts led to 2000+ prosecutions and about 1000 convictions, not to mention a massive violation of American’s free speech rights. As this image points out, even Jesus would have found himself on the wrong side of these rules!
8/ Some of those were arrested for protesting Wilson himself! The Women’s Suffrage Movement had long criticized Wilson for his reluctance to champion their voting rights.
9/ But in 1919, the tension escalated. The suffragists were fed up with Wilson’s refusal to advocate on their behalf, so they protested outside the White House, burning an effigy of Wilson (a straw-stuffed Wilson doll) to show their anger.
10/ “We burn not the effigy of the President of a free people, but the leader of an autocratic party organization,” said one woman. Wilson’s counteraction against the protestors only confirmed this statement.
11/ The police arrested dozens of women for making “violent speeches.” But last time we checked, speech isn’t violence. Wilson used force to silence his opposition.
12/ And this wasn’t the first time. Suffragists were arrested during a multi-year protest outside the White House. After those imprisoned started a hunger strike, they were even force-fed, as this poster demonstrates.
13/ These abuses of government power make Wilson an abominable president for free speech.
The good news is speech triumphed over censorship, the Sedition Act and parts of the Espionage Act were repealed, and the suffragists got the last laugh with the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920. And the rest is history!
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