Farida is the youngest daughter of Herman Bausch, just one of 79 men and women convicted of sedition in 1918, at the tail end of World War I, under one of the harshest anti-speech laws in U.S. history.
That spring, after refusing to purchase Liberty Bonds, Bausch was nearly hanged from his own apple tree on the family's farm in Billings.
Bausch was soon convicted at trial and, while serving his 28-month sentence at the prison in Deer Lodge, his infant son, Walter, died of dysentery.
On Wednesday afternoon, in the state Capitol's crowded rotunda, Gov. Brian Schweitzer granted posthumous pardons to Bausch and 77 other men and women turned criminal by Montana's Sedition Act. One man had his sentence commuted in 1921.
The Montana Sedition Act was enacted in February 1918 during a special legislative session held by Gov. Sam Stewart.
It applied to anyone who in wartime “spoke or published disloyal, profane, violent, scurrilous, contemptuous, slurring or abusive language about the form of government of the United States.”
If convicted of sedition at trial, the accused could be sent to prison for up to 20 years and fined up to $20,000.
Of the 145 people charged, 79 were convicted. Of those convicted, 41 were imprisoned.
Farida, one of just a few single-generation descendants still living, said she and 11 family members traveled from northern California to “enthusiastically participate” in Wednesday's pardons ceremony.
“It's a bright and sunny day for Montana,” she said.
Farida's son and Bausch's grandson, Drew Briner, read emotional passages from the man's diary about his decision to protest the war.
“I regret the loss of my beautiful child, and the loss of years, but I do not regret that I refused to voluntarily aid in the starvation of children and the rape of nations. I have lost much, but I still have my self-respect. My hopes are modified but not diminished.”
“Your poetic words, and your patriotism to mankind, will not be forgotten,” Drew Briner said of his grandfather. “The governor and the state of Montana are pardoning you today. May you rest in peace. Amen.”
In April, a group of University of Montana law and journalism students and two professors petitioned Schweitzer's office to restore a sense stricken by the now-defunct law.
“This was probably the harshest anti-speech law in the history of this country,” said Clemens P. Work, a University of Montana journalism professor and First Amendment scholar. “Its victims were not traitors, they were ordinary people ... who said critical or derogatory things about their government, but nothing more.”
Work's book, “Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West,” inspired the students to research the lives of people jailed for criticizing the government and exercising their rights to free speech.
That research turned into the Montana Sedition Project, and on Wednesday, the students' hard work paid off.
“History is a great teacher, but the lessons are meaningless unless we learn from them,” said Katie Olson, a third-year law student at UM.
But the pardons don't just clear the names of the men and women convicted, they also remove a great burden from family members who for decades believed their relatives were criminals.
Wayne Mckee and Paul Peterson represented the family of William R. Mckee, a farmer who served a prison term of almost seven months.
Wayne said another relative declined to attend the pardons ceremony because he refused to believe his ancestor was prosecuted as a criminal.
When Alvina Erickson was a child, her mother confided that her father, Fred Rodewald, had gone to prison for sedition.
Erickson never told anyone about her grandfather's secret, sweeping the knowledge beneath the rug until Work's book and the Sedition Project started garnering national attention.
“My mother told me about him being in prison, but I didn't tell anybody, not even my husband or my children,” Erickson said. “It was something nobody wanted to talk about. He moved to Minnesota to escape all those memories, to get away from the past.”
The Sedition Act also separated whole families. One family, the Rumsey clan, was unable to survive financially after Fay Rumsey was jailed for sedition.
Marie Van Middlesworth, 90, is Rumsey's daughter, and traveled to Helena from Medford, Ore., for the ceremony. She was one of 12 Rumsey children, and had to be put up for adoption after her father went to prison and the family farm failed.
At the pardons ceremony, Van Middlesworth was reunited with cousins she hadn't seen since she was a little girl.
Schweitzer, whose German ancestors migrated to Montana in 1909, only to discover that it was illegal to speak their native language.
“Imagine their dismay when they arrived here,” Schweitzer said. “Across the country, this was a time when we lost our minds. It is time to say to an entire generation of Montanans ‘We are sorry.' ”
“Send the word to the rest of the country,” Schweitzer said. “We may be first, but we shouldn't be last.”
Reporter Tristan Scott can be reached at 523-5264 or at tscott@missoulian.com
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