Defiance in the Heartland: Resistance to Hyper-patriots in WWI Era Wisconsin

Published: 8 October 2024

By Jacob Steidinger
Special to the Doughboy Foundation website

Krueger house

The Krueger house, a mile south of Withee, Wisconsin, probably mid-week following the shootout on September 14, 1918, Note that the tractor engine seems to be running and that an American flag has been nailed to a pillar on the left side of the veranda. The house has been remodeled in the last 15 years with siding and a garage added and the left chimney removed. (Courtesy Vern Hansen via Jerry Buss, The Krueger Affair: A War of their Own (1998))

(Note: This article was originally written during the Spring 2024  for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s “World War I Wisconsin” course, taught by Dr. Leslie Bellais.)

One dead, five wounded, and two at large at the Krueger homestead. 106 years ago in mid-September 1918, just south of the small northern Wisconsin town of Withee, US Marshals attempted to serve the Krueger brothers for failure to enlist…only chaos and gunfire ensued. The shootout occurred at the height of when Wisconsinites who were critical of the US’s involvement in the First World War, or assumed to be, became victims of targeted violence, harassment, and intimidation by the state’s hyper-patriots. This group of diehard government supporters took it upon themselves to enforce President Wilson’s goals during World War I through vigilantism and violence.

“Sedition Map” created by the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion just after the March 19, 1918 special election primary to show the “rotten spotted” or disloyal areas in Wisconsin, The shaded areas reflect places that voted for the Socialist or Progressive Republican candidates for U.S. senator. The Wisconsin Loyalty Legion considered both candidates to be disloyal. (Wisconsin Historical Society, image 40882)

Wisconsinites who did not support the war for reasons such as for religious pacifism, dissenting political opinion, familial entanglements with the central powers, or pacifist beliefs, became the antagonistic focus of many discriminatory groups such as the hyper-patriots, individual vigilantes, official government agencies, and nearly all institutions that decided to support the current power structure. Those with unpopular opinions were not the only people targeted: the 30% of the state of Wisconsin’s population with a German heritage, those who opposed government bond drives, Socialists, and any other group that had been stereotyped as “unpatriotic” also fell into the hyper-patriot’s sights. While many in these situations often had no other options or were unable to stand up to these acts of vigilantism and harassment, a diverse range of targeted Wisconsinites reacted to the violence and injustice by pushing back. Wisconsinites who became targets of the hyper-patriots and their organizations’ acts of intimidation, violence, and vigilantism, at times boldly stood up for themselves and resisted this organized harassment, using democratic institutions, litigation, and violence, to varying degrees of success.

Victims and Patriots

Hyper-Patriots

Vigilante violence in WWI-era Wisconsin is best described as unwavering support of the Wilson administration’s military plans through any means, often social manipulation through intimidation and control. These were the hyper-patriots, or super-patriots, a group smaller than they realized at the time but still very powerful, who took up an intensely strong brand of patriotism.[1] Their use of coercion and force to grow a support of the war effort forced many Wisconsinites, who didn’t hold the same sentiments, into compliance with patriotic rhetoric as a way to stay out of the spotlight. However, even when playing it safe, hyper-patriots frequently targeted these people anyway, and in many cases with extreme cruelty.

This rang especially true for those associated with anything supportive of the enemy being fought overseas, primarily German Americans, Socialists, and pacifists. Americans from central power nations posed as an easy target because of their strange foreign languages, common lack of proper naturalization documents, and being born, raised, or emigrating from European enemy countries. Socialists also became a natural choice for antagonization because of their inherent distrust with the capitalist systems and institutions that the hyper-patriots held dear. Pacifists, sometimes called slackers, could be nearly anybody, including German Americans, most Socialists, religious groups that objected to any sort of violence, and anyone who did not meet the expectations for their ability to support the war. This attempt of control of pacifists and German Americans was not isolated to Wisconsin, as superpatriotism was a phenomenon in most of America. On April 6th 1917 President Wilson, reviving the antiquated Alien Enemy Act of 1798, declared all German-American males, fourteen years and upward who were not fully naturalized to the United States to be registered by the government, and were banned from the following: Owning or possessing firearms or weapons and their components, possession or operation of aircraft, and wireless or signaling apparatus, being within a half-mile of any military base, munition factory, or designated restricted area for enemy aliens, and writing or performing any hostile acts against the US or its interests, entering or exiting the US without permission. Violation of these acts by the designated Alien Enemies or aiding or harboring those who did would be met with hefty fines and deportation.[2]

Mrs. Shaw

Mrs. Shaw, age 78, of Evansville found herself victim to this aggressive category of “encouragement.” This stemmed from the third liberty loan drive; essentially a national initiative to sell war bonds at certain intervals. The third drive occurred in the summer of 1918. After her public showing of support through extremely generous purchases during previous war bond drives, Mrs. Shaw expressed dissatisfaction with the nature of how they were pushed on her community and not others during the third drive. In response, Evansville hyper-patriots took it upon themselves to show slackers like her what the consequences of non-support would be, and painted the front of her house yellow to signify her cowardliness.

They did not stop there though, and on Armistice Day, remembering her alleged lack of support for the war effort, a mob of hyper-patriots blew into her home and demanded that she come with them, she refused. They left for a short time, only to return with a large animal cage, and demand the same again. At first Mrs. Shaw stood her ground and pointed a firearm at the crowd, but eventually someone snatched it from her hands, giving the mob a chance to capture and load her into the cage. They then paraded Mrs. Shaw around town in the cage and would only let her out if she knelt and kissed the American flag. Mrs. Shaw resisted until a police officer broke up the mob, relieving her, but the mob just went out to do the same to others around the area.[3] This shocking example of the treatment of those that the super-patriots put in their out-groups, highlights their unchecked aggression in this period of conformity, as well as the uselessness of resistance in this event being a norm for the many times outnumbered victims.

The Missing Responses

While it may be difficult to understand why someone would let others treat themselves badly, imagining yourself in their shoes standing up for yourself, imagining how much different those in the past and their environment were from today is baffling. The Wisconsin Loyalty Legion (WLL), a civilian organization, separate from any government oversight or support, focused on using its significant membership, resources, and affect, to make Wisconsin into a patriot state. Naturally they supported Wilson’s war effort and attracted crowds of hyper-patriots from all across Wisconsin to the legion. The WLL took it upon themselves to generate many forms of literature, public appearances, popular events, and anything more that could inform the public of the merits of supporting the war, and the social changes that came with it. The WLL, effective in its mission, and while never officially calling for violence, stood back and let vigilantism and hyper-patriotic violence run its course in the name of creating a sense of control and intimidation in support of the war effort.

Individual pressure on those branded as slackers was intense. Dozens of high-level cases of documented violence against regular people, and unknown numbers of unrecorded instances of it as well, instilled fear in many people. While speaking one’s opinion in the marketplace of ideas has been an important facet of American life, when you could be publicly called out, humiliated, and even attacked, that tenant of free speech seems less than appealing. Even without an all-seeing mob of patriots in every town, the horror stories many heard from friends or read about in the papers, such as the tarring and feathering of a member of Ashland’s Northland College faculty for disloyal speech, created a sense of dissenters being only a tiny minority against everyone else. Even though distorted, the deluded level of success of violent groups of individuals, vigilantes, and the WLL of turning most if not all Wisconsinites into patriots was all it took for most people who did not support their ideas, to suppress their own and participate in anything necessary to stay inconspicuous until the war ended, and the patriotic madness to die down. The missing responses from the opponents of super-patriots can be seen after further investigation into how the majority of Wisconsinites quietly practiced their political beliefs.

Institutionalism of Hyper-patriotism

When imagining oneself to be in the position of a targeted Wisconsinite many might also ask “Why didn’t they push back? Couldn’t they stand up for themselves and fight, stand up for their rights in a court, or call for the wider authorities to help?” In the 1910s, some people did, but most did not. Resulting from any number of factors and every individual being in a unique situation, we can’t always say why someone did or didn’t resist these attacks on normal people. There are many reasons that contributed to the lack of large-scale resistance. Foremost, during the time when these attacks occurred, the concept of personal and individual applications of civil liberties was in its infancy. At this time these rights and the first amendment did not hold the significance many today understand.[4] For instance, hyper-patriotic sentiment thrived in many government institutions, including state defense councils, heads at all levels of government, and congress, leading to the passing of the Espionage Act and other laws that outlawed utterance of anti-US or pro-Central Powers statements. This was used to imprison, fine, and ultimately silence any opinion, no matter how mundane, that could have been seen to be hurtful to the US’s war effort.

This naturally left the super-patriots free to demonstrate their true feelings as much as they pleased, and their opponents to stay quiet, unless ready to accept the legal consequences. The authoritative powers and law enforcement therefore performed their obligations to support this act. Police and federal law enforcement applied this nation-wide, leading to policies such as the Espionage and Sedition Acts, made by mainly super-patriots, being carried out nation-wide. When the powers that be form up with violent citizens to work against any and all resistance, it more often than not pays to not risk facing their cumulative backlash.

Reactions Through the System

Voting

The weapon most used in the fight against hyper-patriots’ influence was not the firearm or club, but the ballot. Those who could vote in Wisconsin at this time: men above twenty years old, projected their voices against vigilantism through the safe pillar of the American spirit–voting.

Eugene Debs (left) and Victor Berger (right), 1897 . Allegedly, Berger is the one who introduced Debs to Socialism by bringing him a copy of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital while in prison. Debs was also the 1912 presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket with running mate Emil Seidel, a former Milwaukee mayor. (Wisconsin Historical Society, image 56204)

The April 1918 Wisconsin elections caused the state’s super-patriots to rethink their relative position in the hearts and minds of Wisconsinites after a series of shocking results. This election was a “crisis of loyalty” because of the opportunity for Wisconsin to turn around its perception of disloyalty by voting out non-patriot candidates, and signal to the rest of the union that despite the large proportion of disloyal representatives, Wisconsin was loyal.[5]

The election resulted in the “loyalty” candidate Irvine Lenroot winning, but with an astounding 26% of the vote going to the antagonist of the hyper-patriots, outspoken critic of the war, Milwaukee Socialist Victor Berger. The cream city also reelected Socialist Daniel Hoan with 48%. The Wisconsin Loyalty Legion expected to clean house with their pro war candidates, but left disappointed, when they learned they underestimated the portion of the state that didn’t exactly agree with them. Their blindness towards their extreme methods of garnering support surely affected the public perception of what patriots in power stood for. Wisconsinites that had experienced firsthand, had close ones victimized, or in general disagreed with the intimidation tactics turned out to the polls to show their dissatisfaction with this behavior, and succeeded in causing a great deal of concern to the super-patriots. As a reaction, the WLL made a map of Wisconsin with dark shaded areas where voters rejected their candidates, calling those areas “Rotten Spotted” which correlated to many of the areas with high populations of German Americans, and rural Wisconsinites who were disillusioned with the war. [6]

Berger was one of, if not the most influential Socialist figures in Wisconsin and the United States and was the Loyalty Legion’s most threatening enemy. Berger was a Jewish Austro-Hungarian immigrant to Wisconsin, who ran several successful socialist newspapers, foremost the Milwaukee Leader. He was outspoken for his political beliefs, associated closely with the renowned Socialist activist Eugene V. Debs, both of whom were instrumental in the creation of the Social Democratic Party.[7] Berger’s publication of allegedly disloyal statements in his newspapers caught the attention of authorities, and he was charged and convicted with sedition (although later reversed by the Supreme Court in 1921).[8]

The April 2 and November 5, 1918 election results. In the November 5 election, Emil Seidel, Socialist, ran for governor and received 17.35% of the vote. Seidel had served as Milwaukee’s mayor from 1910 to 1912 and was the first Socialist to lead a major American city. Daniel Hoan, who took a stand against hyper-patriotism during the war, served as Milwaukee’s second Socialist mayor from 1916 to 1940. Finally, Milwaukee elected Socialist Frank Zeidler from 1948 to 1960. Milwaukee is the only US city to have had three Socialist mayors, but has not elected one since 1960.

The November 1918 election continued this trend of super-patriotic decay. At the polls, of all the disloyal candidates the hyper-patriots wished to replace, only a few house seats turned,[9] and their goal of replacing Governor Phillipp[10] failed when he defeated the “loyalty” candidate. Hyper-patriots faced another wake-up call when Victor Berger was re-elected (non-consecutively) to Wisconsin’s 5th district seat (Milwaukee). While those targeted Wisconsinites may have been forced to comply with patriots’ tactics for supporting the war through Liberty Loans and public shows of force, they could not change people’s political opinions. Super-patriots actually pushed public opinion further to the other side with their aggressive actions, causing a hard disillusionment when again, loyal citizens faced the reality of who Wisconsin desired to represent their interests.[11]

Litigation

Though the electoral system abetted resistance to overwhelming hyper-patriot political influence, the court system became popular for those who wanted to individually bring justice to those who victimized others in their violent acts.

Clinton Ballard as he appeared in the Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin, 1909. Ballard, who served in the Wisconsin State Assembly, tried to take some of the vigilante groups who harassed farmers in Outagamie County to court. (Wikipedia Commons)

Clinton Ballard of Appleton, state legislator and member of the Society of Equity, a political farmer’s organization, took it upon himself to bring perpetrators of vigilantism such as the Outagamie County’s “Night Riders” and vigilante committees to justice. One victim represented by Ballard was John Deml of Apple Creek, who had his house vandalized, was physically assaulted, and had had a rope tied around his neck by a vigilante committee for paying only $450 of his allotted $500 of liberty bonds. In his efforts, he aimed to create justice for farmers in Outagamie County who super-patriots targeted, through the court system. For the next few years, after the armistice, he went through several court battles, winning none, with a deadlock in one, where a hung jury was split by class and age on whether intimidation was illegally used to sell liberty bonds. Despite these losses in the judicial system, the publicity of these vigilantes’ actions caused the greater public to see the aggressive and coercive acts that many had endured, a turning point in the public opinion of the retrospective morality of these actions.[12]

Publications

Shortly after the war ended, Charles D. Stewart, a contemporary of Ballard and Governor Philipp and a Hartford (Washington County), Wisconsin resident, wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly with the provocative title, “Prussianizing Wisconsin.” In it he enumerated the ways that hyper-patriotic fervor in its excitement often overstepped its boundaries and created a belligerent environment to any opponents of the moral fixation in favor of the war effort, showing an attitude towards control worse than the one in Germany itself. He notably wrote about why Socialists, like Victor Berger, won seats in Wisconsin elections, “…the result was a great relief to me, even if some did vote Socialist. This is America. And to a large extent, and in a sense which you will understand, the Socialists’ sudden accretion was a Pro-America vote, not a Pro-German.”[13] Stewart here explains that those who labeled Wisconsin supporters of pacifists and Socialists as Prussians because of their votes, were angry that these “disloyalists” performed their civic duty to vote, a cornerstone of American democracy, in support of something they personally didn’t like. Super-patriots belittled the expression of unpopular opinions, making them a better fit with their German enemies’ system of law by rule. Mixed reactions came from many people who read Stewart’s article—some complained about its overt messaging contrary to popular thought about Germany, but some approved of the minority opinion being published.[14] The Prussification of Wisconsin was not done by those resistant to support an all-encompassing nationalistic expedition to fight in a European war, but by the hyper-patriots and their dead-set mission of conformity by force, and disdain for their opposition to exercise their rights to protest—acts similar to those of the actual Prussians’ suppression of opposing demonstration to national interests.

Direct violent reactions

William Gessert

Use of legal systems and institutions was the closest to a mass resistance movement that Wisconsin experienced in opposing the acts of the hyper-patriots, but more widely publicized were the extreme actions that key individuals made in directly defying their influence. William Gessert, a German-American resident of Sheboygan County resisted the drafting of his sons in November and early December of 1917. Gessert, born to immigrant parents in Rhine Township in Sheboygan County was raised speaking German, not English, and became a staunch opponent of conscription. This was especially important to him for his two sons who would be fighting his own kin in Europe if sent to the front. He said to DOJ agents: “Wilson was wrong to send this country to war against Germany…because Germany was right in this war and the Germans are good people.”[15] He also explained that his sons could make more money working at the neighbor’s farm than in the armed forces, but would fight, along with himself, if the United States were invaded by Germany.

When Gessert repeatedly refused to let his sons appear for military service, US Marshals visited him at his home to serve him for his breach of the Espionage Act. However, they soon found themselves being beaten by Gessert and his sons with fists, sticks, and household objects. Bloodied and outnumbered, the Marshals pulled their service weapons on the Gesserts, and after continued resistance the family conceded. Gessert on his way to jail then lashed out again and with the help of another handful of men, officers forced him to succumb.[16]

This event became a hot story in the state and was published in several newspapers after the event and through the sentencing of Gessert to five years jail, and one of his son’s eventual conscription into the Army. The hyper-patriots used the incident to illustrate how opposition to the war effort by the disloyal and traitorous revealed a danger to society, and that violence was a fair means to an end. The hyper-patriots used this and other examples of resistance to vindicate their efforts and expand their justification of force when growing support for the war.[17]

The Krueger Shootout

September 14, 1918, just south of the small lumber baron town of Withee, volleys of fire thundered in the remote wooded community. For a moment that day, a portion of the violent gun battles of WWI occurred in Wisconsin. Caroline Krueger, the widowed mother and head of the infamous Krueger household, held the Russellite belief that God forbade any and all killing, and therefore required her four sons to act accordingly.

The Krueger family, 1905-1907: Back row, left to right, are brothers: Leslie, Frank, Robert (died 1911), and Louie. Front row: Caroline (mother), Ennis, and Louis (father, died 1910). (Courtesy of Bernard Auberg via Jerry Buss, The Krueger Affair: A War of their Own (1998))

When the draft on June 5th, 1918 called two of her four sons to fight, they both fled, Louie out west and the other, Leslie, into the family barn to hide, gaining them reputations as slackers in the community. The Kruegers were well known in the town of Withee and Owen for their house, which, when finished, would be the most modern and grand house in the area, and their evasions of conscription, leading to the interception of a package containing firearms and ammunition addressed to Frank Ennis. This led to further speculative news spreading across the area, a subsequent visit to their homestead by federal agents, and more rumors on that as well. By September the eldest and youngest still at the farm, Frank and Ennis, were in trouble. The draft board had expanded its eligible ages and now all of the Krueger brothers could be drafted. When the remaining Krueger males failed to appear for drafting processes, US marshals dispatched Joe Gantz, a wildly inexperienced and shady hire-on agent from Eau Claire, to arrest them and bring them to justice for violation of the Espionage Act.

What ensued can be described as a series of bad decisions, blunders by unqualified deputized citizens, and death and destruction. When the agents confronted the two Kureger boys working on their land, Ennis produced his pistol and began shooting at the lawmen. After a retreat to the house, and to the nearby barn, a shootout between the marshals and the three present Krueger boys would ensue. Gantz sent his local liaison to spread word in town to form a posse and mobilize the town to take down the draft evaders. Things did not go according to plan after this, with two civilians, sneaking towards the Kruger house with borrowed guns, being shot up and left laying for hours, Gantz commandeering and ordering around the neighboring Vater farm, and a lack of any professional negotiation between the two parties. Caroline and a badly wounded Frank Krueger surrendered themselves to Gantz, leaving Ennis and Leslie who were unwilling to leave their positions in the barn.

Eventually over one hundred civilians, a detachment of home guardsmen, and Gantz’s disgruntled boss circled the Krueger place, but after burning down their barn, where officials suspected the brothers were hiding, they learned that neither Ennis nor Leslie were on the premises. This led to the launch of a massive manhunt and PR nightmare for the state and federal agencies involved. Gantz would eventually track down Ennis to a barn in Polley, about 23 miles north of Withee. Finding him asleep in the hay Gantz fired his pistol point blank into Ennis’s forehead, killing him instantly, then proceeded to cover up his actions as self-defense. Agents discovered Leslie in Brainerd, Minnesota, initially arrested for trying to bribe an officer in regard to illegally carrying a concealed gun, he later admitted to impersonating another draft dodger from Wisconsin, and authorities quickly brought him back for trial. Two years later, they spotted and arrested Louie in Chippewa Falls. Caroline and Louie faced legal troubles, including possible jail time, for aiding the combatants and draft evasion respectively, but avoided any punishment. Frank and Leslie, on the other hand, spent 16 years in jail and mental institutions, before they received discharges on conditional pardons from Governor Phillip La Follette in 1934. The members of the family lived at the house until they all died; never finishing the house or even repairing the bullet holes from the shootout.[18]

Culminations

Hyper-patriotism’s Legacy

Reviewing how Wisconsinites resisted the harsh tactics of hyper-patriots, three main conclusions can be drawn. First, most people’s head-on actions did not have the results they hoped for. The individual actions of those who resisted failed to significantly impact the processes of hyper-patriot violence, and many times only caused harsher regulations and reactions from the hyper-patriots. Secondly, the most effective forms of resistance were through the established democratic and court systems. This included voting in the April and November elections, and symbolic victories like the negative publicity of vigilante actions from Clinton Ballard and Charles Stewart’s cases, causing Wisconsinites to condemn the super-patriots’ actions and mentality. These forms of resisting intimidation appeared to be the best ways to respond to the unwelcome environment created by hyper-patriots and helped reverse public thought on what were acceptable actions in support of the war effort. Lastly, hyper-patriot violence was more than just vigilantism. Hyper-patriotism affected many legally established and powerful institutions, which created laws and systems that led to the conditions where not only vigilantism became a widespread acceptable option but encouraged institutions to enact violent and unjust laws. For example, the violent overreactions of those serving justice to those refusing conscription, like the Krueger family.

Illustrated by the influence of hyper-patriot’s rhetoric, even the top levels of government supported their goals, giving legitimacy to their actions. Professor Philip Dynia has noted that President Wilson’s Committee on Public Information (CPI), which helped sell the United States role in the war to Americans, “flooded the nation with materials whose dominant theme was a demand for conformity and super-patriotism. Many communities banned German-language teaching and German-language books, and citizens of German descent were often subjects of vigilante action.” [19] The height to which super-patriotism swayed the legitimate forms of governance and authority into supporting an extremely hostile society to a minority underscore how the mania of war can create a chest thumping, backwards, and authoritative mindset to those in powerful positions.

Today’s Free Speech’s Origins

Though these events were completely antagonistic to the American freedoms that the hyper-patriots thought they were protecting, in a way those freedoms were eventually strengthened through responses to hyper-patriotic vigilantism. Shortly after the war, activists responded to the attack on civil rights by creating the American Civil Liberties Union (originally the National Civil Liberties Bureau), which in the 1920s fought against future limiting of free speech such as that during WWI. It opposed freedoms being taken away as stated in the Espionage Act, which still is in effect today, but rarely utilized. Another reaction to the attacks on free speech can be seen in several Supreme Court cases that occurred between the war and 1969, such as Schenck v. US, and Abrams v. US, which only limited speech when the threat of “imminent lawless action” existed. In 1919, Supreme Court Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes’ dissenting opinion in the Abrams case stated, “Congress certainly cannot forbid all effort to change the mind of the country.” His opinion represented an early judicial belief that speech that disagreed with federal actions and strategies should not be considered dangerous, nor censorable.[20]

Conclusions

The stories of individual accounts of pushback against widespread violence matter to this day, even when characterized as sparse and unorganized. This fact does affect their importance though. Instances of super-patriot violence that would have made history books today may have been stopped by forgotten dissenters standing up to these vigilantes. Wisconsin and the US have faced and continue to face some similar problems today. The Red Scare, civil rights, ethnic attacks, and today’s current tribalism surrounding the war in Gaza, LGBT, black history etc… all reflect aspects of the hyper-patriots’ use of force and subversive institutional changes to uphold their immovable viewpoints and create a hostile world for their opponents. But most importantly, when we look back at these historical events, we get a sense of what does and doesn’t necessarily work in combating these kinds of actions. Learning about this period of unprecedented intimidation of innocent people and other movements like it, whether individual, successful, organized, creates a benchmark of what we can accomplish today in response to current issues that mirror the struggles of our past.

—♦—

Notes:

[1] Lorin Lee Cary, “The Wisconsin Loyalty Legion, 1917-1918,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 53, no. 1, (Autumn 1969): 50.

[2] “President’s Proclamation of a State at War, and Regulations Governing Alien Enemies,” The New York Times, April 7, 1917.

[3] Leslie Anne Bellais, “‘Traitor State’: A Crisis of Loyalty in World War I Wisconsin,” (Ph.D. diss, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2022), 316-317.

[4] Philip A Dynia, “World War I,” The Free Speech Center, July 2, 2024, https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/world-war-i/

[5] Bellais, ‘Traitor State,’ 168.

[6] Bellais, ‘Traitor State,’ 218 (see also: Sedition Map, Wisconsin Historical Society, image 40882, https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM40882).

[7] “Eugene Debs and Victor Berger: Photograph.” Wisconsin Historical Society, image 56204, https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM56204.

[8] Stevens, Michael E. “Victor L. Berger,” Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, February 21, 2020. https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/victor-l-berger/.

[9] Many of the “disloyal” candidates were those who the WLL focused on after their support for anti-war causes, legislation, statements, or association with figures like Senator Robert LaFollette, Victor Berger, or organizations the WLL deemed disloyal.

[10] Governor Phillip was targeted because he was considered a “weak” patriot–not as bad as Senator La Follette, but not a true “loyalty” politician because he strongly believed in maintaining the civil rights of German Americans, Socialists, and others viewed as potentially disloyal, while also supporting the war effort.

[11]  Charles D. Stewart, “Prussianizing Wisconsin,” Atlantic Monthly 123 (January 1919): 99-105.

[12]  Bellais, ‘Traitor State,’ 306-307, 324-330.

[13] Stewart, “Prussianizing Wisconsin,” 105.

[14] “Is This All?” Milwaukee Journal,” January 10, 1919, clipping in Charles D Stewart Papers, WHS. This editorial was a reaction against the Milwaukee Herold’s (a German language newspaper) response to Prussianizing Wisconsin.

[15] “Germany Right in This War,” Milwaukee Journal, February 13, 1918, 1.

[16] Milwaukee Journal articles William Gessert December 8, 1917-February 15, 1918. See footnotes 410-412 in Bellais, ‘Traitor State,” for specific articles and dates.

[17] Bellais, “Traitor State,” 191-195, 273

[18] Jerry Buss, A War of Their Own (Oregon, WI: Badger Books, 1998). 1-202.

[19] Philip A Dynia, “World War I,” The Free Speech Center, July 2, 2024, https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/world-war-i/.

[20] Eric P. Robinson, “Free Speech Wasn’t so Free 103 Years Ago, When ‘Seditious’ and ‘Unpatriotic’ Speech Was Criminalized in the US,” University of South Carolina, accessed May 9, 2024, https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2021/05/conversation_free_speech.php.


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