Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: Floyd Dell Recounts The Masses Trial; “Constitutional Rights…are not a gift.”

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Quote Morris Hillquit, 1st Masses Trial Apr 1918, Liberator June 1918
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday June 6, 1918
New York, New York – The Masses Trial as Told by a Defendant, Part II

The trial of the those connected with The Masses began on April 15th of this year and resulted in the dismissal of the jury on April 27th, for failure to agree on a verdict. Another trial of the defendants is certain, according to the prosecution. Floyd Dell, one of the defendants, tells the story of that trial wherein the defendants were facing up to twenty years in prison for alleged violations of the Espionage Act of 1917. We began with Part I yesterday and conclude today with Part II.

The Story of the Trial [Part II]
By Floyd Dell

Masses 1st Trial, Malone by Art Young, Liberator p14, June 1918

Speech of Dudley Field Malone

[Said Mr. Malone:]

This is a case of large issues-issues which go to the very source and purpose of our Government. And so I would like to read to you very briefly a historic statement of these issues-for these things have been spoken with classic utterance, and doubtless you would rather hear them from the original sources than from me-in order that you may have in your minds certain fundamental considerations in reaching a verdict and a judgment in this case.

In I792, Thomas Erskine defended one of the signers of our Declaration of Independence for printing a book-the “Rights of Man.” Thomas Paine had written that book, and it was being defended, and at that time Erskine laid down certain fundamental propositions from which flow the liberties of the press in all English-speaking countries.

Erskine said: “Every man not intending to mislead and confound, but seeking to enlighten others with what his own reason and conscience, however erroneously, may dictate to him as truth, may address himself to the universal reason of a whole nation

And that is the basis, gentlemen, that is the crux thought, underlying the freedom of the press. If anyone in this country has the power to say by autocratic power that a certain thought, because he disagrees with it, shall be taken out of the public discussion, there will no longer be a free expression of opinion.

Erskine said further, speaking of Paine-and he disagreed entirely with the opinions of his client, he did not agree with Paine’s views at all-“His opinions indeed were adverse to our system, but I maintain that opinion is free and that conduct alone is amenable to the law.”

I hope you will take that as the crux idea in this case in formulating your judgment-that opinion in a democracy like ours, must be free freely spoken, freely written. Only conduct is amenable to law.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: Floyd Dell Recounts The Masses Trial; “Constitutional Rights…are not a gift.””

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: Floyd Dell Recounts The Masses Trial; Art Young Found Asleep in Courtroom

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“For heaven’s sake, wake Art Young up,
and give him a pencil!
Tell him to try to stay awake
until he gets to jail!”
-Attorney Malone

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 5, 1918
New York, New York – The Masses Trial as Told by a Defendant

The trial of the those connected with The Masses began on April 15th of this year and lasted for about two weeks, ending in a hung jury. A new trial is certain, according to the prosecution. Floyd Dell, one of the defendants, tells the story of that trial wherein the defendants were facing up to twenty years in prison for alleged violations of the Espionage Act of 1917. We begin with Part I today and will conclude tomorrow with Part II.

From The Liberator of June 1918:

The Story of the Trial [Part I]
By Floyd Dell

Masses 1st Trial, Dell by B Robinson, Liberator p13, June 1918

AT 10:30 o’clock in the morning on April 15 we filed into one of the court-rooms on the third floor of the old Postoffice Building, and took our places about a large table in the front enclosure. Ahead was a table at which sat three smiling men from the district attorney’s office; higher up, on a dais, behind a desk, a black-gowned judge, busy with some papers; to the right a jury-box with twelve empty chairs; and behind us, filling the room, a venire of a hundred and fifty men from among whom a jury was presently to be selected.

It was with the oddest feelings that we sat there, waiting. It seemed strange that this court-room, this judge, this corps of prosecutors, those rows of tired men at the back, had any personal relationship to us. It took an effort to realize that we were not there as interested observers, but as the center of these elaborate proceedings.

It was more than strange, it was scarcely credible. Was it possible that anyone seriously believed us to be conspirators? Was it conceivable that the government of the United States was really going to devote its energies, its time and its money to a laborious undertaking, with the object of finding out whether we were enemies of the Republic! It was fantastic, grotesque, in the mood of a dream or of a tragic farce. It was like a scene from “Alice in Wonderland,” re-written by Dostoievsky. But it was true. We did not expect that the judge, frowning as he read over the papers before him, would suddenly look down at us over his spectacles and ask: “What the devil are you doing here? Don’t you know that I am a busy man, and that this is no place for silly jokes?”

No….For we knew that war produces a quaint and sinister psychology of fear and hate, of hysterical suspicion, of far-fetched and utterly humorless surmise, a mob-psychology which is almost inevitably directed against minorities, independent thinkers, extreme idealists, candid and truth-telling persons, and all who do not run and shout with the crowd. And we of the Masses, who had created a magazine unique in the history of journalism, a magazine of our own in which we could say what we thought about everything in the world, had all of us in some respect belonged to such a minority. We did not agree with other people about a lot of things. We did not even agree with each other about many things. We were fully agreed only upon one point, that it was a jolly thing to have a magazine in which we could freely express our individual thoughts and feelings in stories and poems and pictures and articles and jokes. And when the war came we were found still saying what we individually thought about everything-including war. No two of us thought quite alike about it. But none of us said exactly what the morning papers were saying. So–

We rose to answer to our names: Max Eastman, Floyd Dell, Merrill Rogers, Art Young, Josephine Bell*-a poet-philosopher, a journalist, a business manager, an artist, and a young woman whom none of us had ever seen until the day we went into court to have our bail fixed. And there was another, invisible “person” present, the Masses Publishing Company, charged, like the rest of us, with the crime of conspiring to violate the Espionage Act-conspiring to promote insubordination and mutiny in the military and naval forces of the United States and to obstruct recruiting and enlistment to the injury of the service. We all sat down, and the trial had begun.

*John Reed, war-correspondent, and H. J. Glintenkamp, artist, also indicted, were not on trial

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: A Word from The Masses Defense Committee Regarding Recent Trial

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People who demand neutrality
in any situation
are usually not neutral
but in favor of the status quo.
-Max Eastman
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday June 4, 1918
New York, New York – Retrial of Masses Editors Expect

From The Liberator of June 1918:

re Masses Trial, Liberator p5, June 1918

The Masses Case

Art Young, 1st Masses Trial, Liberator p11, June 1918

THE prosecution of the editors of The Masses for “conspiracy to obstruct recruiting and enlistment” is an attack on the lawful freedom of the press.

It is not an attempt to defend the country against conspirators, spies, or any other classes of criminals contemplated by those who framed the espionage law.

It is an attempt to put four American citizens in jail for expressing their lawful opinions. And it is the culmination of a series of acts which the New York Evening Post has described as “governmental persecution.”

Not one word of evidence to prove that these men ever wrote to each other, or ever discussed the subject of the draft or enlistment with each other, after the passage of the espionage law, was adduced by the government.

Not a word of direct evidence that they intended to, or wanted to, or ever even imagined or discussed the possibility that they might obstruct recruiting or enlistment.

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