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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 6, 1910
New Castle, Pennsylvania – Free Press on Trial for “Seditious Libel”

From the International Socialist Review of July 1910:

The Free Press Fight at New Castle, Pa.

By FRED D. WARREN
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[Part I of I.]

HE case against the comrades comprising the committee engaged in the publication of the New Castle Free Press, charged with “seditious libel,” was tried under what was known as the old English common law. This law against “seditious libel” was framed at a time when kings ruled by divine right, and in order to establish the guilt of the “pestiferous” McKeever, Hartman, McCarty and White, the prosecutor of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, cited a case that occurred during the reign of Charles II. A score of Irish peasants raised a rebellion, so the prosecutor read, against the English land lords. These Irish peasants were arrested, charged with “seditious libel” and sentenced to prison. That was nearly four hundred years ago, yet we find a fossilized county prosecutor referring to it today in an effort to convict these four comrades of ours. It would be laughable were it not for the serious consequences that are likely to follow this New Castle trial for “seditious libel.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Fred D. Warren on “Seditious Libel” and the Free Press Fight at New Castle, Pennsylvania, Part I” →