Montana Governor continues to impress

Posted by Mary Mancini on May 3, 2006 under Uncategorized |

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer will overturn the convictions today of 79 Montanans (posthumously) who were “convicted under the state law, considered among the harshest in the country, for speaking out in ways deemed critical of the United States” during World War I.*

‘”I’m going to say what Gov. Sam Stewart should have said,” Mr. Schweitzer said, referring to the man who signed the sedition legislation into law in 1918. “I’m sorry, forgive me, and God bless America, because we can criticize our government.”‘

The pardons are the result of a book called “Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West” which chronicles a contentious period in Montana history when people were convicted and jailed for voicing their opinion about the war.

Interesting thing to do by a Democrat governor of a red state while the US is in the middle of a war, God bless’im.

*UPDATE: I originally wrote World War II. A.C. corrected me. Thanks, A.C!