“Stand firm against war and the future will honor you. Collective homicide cannot establish human rights. The entry of our country into this European war would be a betrayal of humanity.” With these words the senator for Wisconsin and ex-governor of the State Robert La Follette opposed when the House voted the declaration of war of the United States to the European Central Powers in 1917.
Like other senators and members of the House of Representatives, La Follette considered that his country’s real interest in entering that distant war was none other than its commercial purposes, and that the United States was not defending Western democracy in Europe in this way or the liberties that enshrined in its Constitution. And she soon had to denounce how to those ends that she considered spurious was added precisely the reduction of internal rights and freedoms.
Barely four months after the declaration of war, the senator presented a resolution to the Upper House demanding a declaration of the Allies’ war objectives and showed his opposition to the Espionage law approved that same year, which restricted freedom of expression. and press in times of war. The reaction of the majority party to the role of the United States in the conflict and of the favorable press was furious.
The pressure did not let up, and two more months later, a week after the Senate referred a petition to the Committee on Privileges and Elections asking for the expulsion of La Follette, the embattled representative raised an issue of personal privilege that allowed him to make a strong case. defense of freedom of expression and press as the foundation of democracy in a historic speech that he delivered on October 6, 1917 and that we offer an excerpt.
The senator was unable to stop either the media harassment or the legal –and illegal– actions against him and other prominent pacifists and public figures opposed to the majority position of the Woodrow Wilson Administration. However, after the war, the Senate dropped all charges against him and ended up vindicating his role in favor of freedoms. Although he came to support and recognize the Bolshevik regime, he is recognized by the United States Senate as a key figure in its defense of democracy.
“Mr. president,
“I have no intention of taking the Senate’s time with a review of the events leading up to our entry into the war. Six senators and fifty members of the House voted against the declaration of war. Immediately there was unleashed upon them an avalanche of invective and insults from newspapers and people who had been clamoring for war, unequaled, I believe, in the history of civilized society.
“Before the declaration of war, all the men who had dared to oppose our entry into it had been condemned as cowards or worse, and not even the president had been immune from these attacks. Since the declaration of war, the triumphant war press has persecuted the senators and representatives who voted against it with malicious falsehoods and recklessly slanderous attacks, going so far as to accuse them of treason.
”If it were a unique or exceptional case of illegal defamation, it would not bother the Senate. But, Mr. President, it is not. In this mass of newspaper clippings that I have here on my desk, which represent only a small part of what has been published in the country’s daily press in the last three months, I find other senators, like myself, accused of the highest crimes of which any man can be guilty: treason and disloyalty. Accused not only without evidence, but without proof that such evidence exists anywhere.
“It is not claimed that the senators who opposed the declaration of war have since acted for any concerted purpose, whether in connection with the war measures or otherwise. They have voted according to their individual opinions, have often played against each other on bills that have been introduced in the Senate since the declaration of war, and to the best of my recollection they have never all voted together since then on a single bill.
“I am aware, Mr. President, that, in furtherance of this general campaign of defamation and attempted intimidation, requests have been made to the Senate by various individuals and certain organizations to expel me from this body, and that such requests have been forwarded and considered by one of the Senate committees. If I had only been the victim of these attacks I would not take a moment of the Senate’s time for consideration, and I believe that other senators who have been unfairly attacked, as I have been, have the same attitude about what I do.
“Neither the clamor of the crowd nor the voice of power will divert me one hair from the course that I set for myself, guided by knowledge and by a solemn conviction of right and duty. But, sir, it’s not just members of Congress that the declaration of war has tried to intimidate. The mandate seems to have reached the sovereign people of this country, who must remain silent while his Government does the things that most concern their well-being, their happiness and their lives.
”Today and for weeks past, honest and law-abiding citizens are being terrorized and outraged in their rights by those sworn to uphold the laws and protect their rights. I have in my possession numerous affidavits establishing the fact that people are being illegally detained, imprisoned, held incommunicado for days, only to be released without even being brought to trial, because they have committed no crime.
”Private residences are being invaded, loyal citizens of undoubted integrity are being arrested, interrogated, and the most sacred constitutional rights guaranteed to every American citizen are being violated. It seems to be the purpose of those who are leading this campaign to bring the country into a state of terror: to coerce public opinion, stifle criticism, and suppress discussion of the big issues related to this war.
“I think that all men recognize that in wartime the citizen must cede some rights for the common good that corresponds to him to enjoy in peacetime. But, sir, the right to control their own government in accordance with constitutional weapons is not one of the rights that the citizens of this country are called upon to surrender in time of war. Rather, in time of war, the citizen must be more attentive to the preservation of his right to control his government.
”You must be very attentive to the usurpation of the military over civil power. He must beware of those precedents in support of the arbitrary action of officials, which, excused under the plea of ??necessity in wartime, become the fixed rule when necessity has passed and normal conditions have been restored. And above all else, the citizen and his representatives in Congress in time of war must maintain their right to freedom of expression.
”More than in times of peace, it is necessary that the channels for the free public discussion of government policies be open and public. I believe, Mr. President, that I am now addressing the most important issue in this country today, and that is the right of the citizens and their representatives in Congress to discuss in an orderly manner, frankly and publicly, without fear, from this rostrum and through the press, every important phase of this war: its causes, the manner in which it must be conducted, and the terms on which peace must be made.
”The widespread belief in this country that this most fundamental right is being denied to citizens is a reality whose tremendous scope some of you have not begun to appreciate. I am fighting, Mr. President, for the great fundamental right of the sovereign people of this country to make their voice heard and to have that voice heard on the great issues that arise from this war.
“I defend this right because its exercise is necessary for the welfare, for the legitimacy of this government, for the successful conduct of this war and for a peace that will be lasting and for the best interest of this country.
“Mr. President: our Government, above all others, is based on the right of the people to freely discuss all matters related to its exercise, no less in war than in peace, because in this government the people are truly the sovereign in war, more even than in peace. When the people can make their will known, their representative must obey that will.
”How can that popular will be expressed between elections but through meetings, speeches, publications, petitions and speeches to the representatives of the people? Any man who seeks to put a limit on those rights, whether in war or in peace, aims a blow at the most vital part of our Government.”
