Sports in Montana - History - Montana and World War I

Montana and World War I

As World War I broke out, Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in America to be a member of Congress, was a pacifist and voted against the United States' declaration of war. However, her actions were widely criticized in Montana, public support for the war was strong, and wartime sentiment reached levels of hyper-patriotism among many Montanans. In 1917-18, due to a miscalculation of Montana's population, approximately 40,000 Montanans, ten percent of the state's population, either volunteered or were drafted into the armed forces. This represented a manpower contribution to the war that was 25 percent higher than any other state on a per capita basis. Approximately 1500 Montanans died as a result of the war and 2437 were wounded, also higher than any other state on a per capita basis. Montana's Remount station in Miles City provided 10,000 cavalry horses for the war, more than any other Army post in the US. The war created a boom for Montana mining, lumber and farming interests as demand for war materials and food increased.

In June 1917, the U.S. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917 which was later extended by the Sedition Act of 1918, enacted in May, 1918. In February 1918, the Montana legislature had passed the Montana Sedition Act, which was a model for the federal version. In combination, these laws criminalized criticism of the U.S. government, military, or symbols through speech or other means. The Montana Act led to the arrest of over 200 individuals and the conviction of 78, mostly of German or Austrian descent. Over 40 spent time in prison. In May 2006, then-Governor Brian Schweitzer posthumously issued full pardons for all those convicted of violating the Montana Sedition Act.

The Montanans who opposed U.S. entry into the war included certain immigrant groups of German and Irish heritage as well as pacifist Anabaptist people such as the Hutterites and Mennonites, many of whom were also of Germanic heritage. In turn, pro-War groups formed, such as the Montana Council of Defense, created by Governor Samuel V. Stewart as well as local "loyalty committees."

War sentiment was complicated by labor issues. The Anaconda Copper Company, which was at its historic peak of copper production, was an extremely powerful force in Montana, but also faced noticeable opposition from socialist newspapers and increasing radicalization of unions. In Butte, a multi-ethnic community with significant European immigrant population, labor unions, particularly the newly-formed Metal Mine Workers’ Union, opposed the war on grounds that it mostly profited large lumber and mining interests. In the wake of ramped-up mine production and the Speculator Mine disaster in June, 1917, Industrial Workers of the World organizer Frank Little arrived in Butte to organize miners. He gave some speeches with inflammatory anti-war rhetoric. On August 1, 1917, he was dragged from his boarding house by masked vigilantes, and hanged from a railroad trestle, considered a lynching. Little's murder and the strikes that followed resulted in the National Guard being sent to Butte to restore order. Overall, anti-German and anti-labor sentiment increased and created a movement that led to the passage of the Montana Sedition Act the following February. In addition, the Council of Defense was made a state agency with the power to prosecute and punish individuals deemed in violation of the Act. The Council also passed rules limiting public gatherings and prohibiting the speaking of German in public.

In the wake of the legislative action in 1918, emotions rose. U.S. Attorney Burton K. Wheeler and several District Court Judges who hesitated to prosecute or convict people brought up on charges were strongly criticized. Wheeler was brought before the Council of Defense, though he avoided formal proceedings, and a District Court judge from Forsyth was impeached. There were burnings of German-language books and several near-hangings. The prohibition on speaking German remained in effect into the early 1920s. Complicating the wartime struggles, the 1918 Influenza epidemic claimed the lives of over 5,000 Montanans. The period has been dubbed "Montana's Agony" by some historians due to the suppression of civil liberties that occurred.