2020 needs to go to a corner and think about what it did this past year. What ill would next befall the land? Well, on December 37th, which was the first day of Epiphany where we pray for a shining light to guide us through the darkness, a rabid, repulsive, and revolting mob of insurgents rampaged up the Capitol’s stairs to mount a seditious insurrection, fomented by treasonous Trump.
As the media fixated yet again today on the “day of infamy,” I heard someone on tv as I sauntered by say something like, “the Nation has not seen this possibility since Victor Berger in 1919.” I immediately thought of an American Hero, Convict Number 9653, aka perennial Presidential candidate, Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party. I pulled my copy of Ernest Freeberg’s Democracy’s Prisoner. Sure enough, the book’s index included several numbered pages regarding Mr. Berger.
Mr. Berger, a Socialist, served as the Mayor of Milwaukee and had the distinction of being the first Socialist elected to Congress, serving from 1911-1913. University of Chicago law professor, Geoffrey Stone, wrote in his tome entitled “Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism” that Mr. Berger “became the editor of the Milwaukee Leader, an anti-war German newspaper.” Because The Leader criticized America’s participation in WWI, Berger was indicted under the Espionage Act. Before the trial commenced, in November 1918 the public once again voted Berger to Congress. The next month, according to Stone, Berger “was tried, convicted, and sentenced to twenty years in prison by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.” During Berger’s appeal, Congress voted 309-1 not to seat the man the public wanted by vote. In 1921, the charges against Berger were dropped due to the judge’s prejudicial conduct, and Berger became a member of Congress.
Back to Mr. Debs. He and over 2,000 others were prosecuted for their opposition to the draft and WWI under the Espionage Act and Sedition Act. The Socialist candidate was sentenced to 10 years of prison, a time similar to others who practiced their right to free speech. Mr. Debs, a man who once received over 1,000,000 votes during a Presidential election, went to jail.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states:
No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
To Trump and those members of Congress who tragically encouraged the fringe element to cause mayhem, destruction, and death in a failed coup attempt on Epiphany:
Lock Them Up! Lock Them Up! Lock Them Up! Lock Them Up!
- Mark Erickson
