WHAT WAS THE 1918 SEDITION ACT?
On 16 May 1918, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States signed a piece of federal legislation into law. In fact, this ‘Sedition Act’ was an amendment to the Espionage Act passed by the US Congress 11 months earlier. Despite years of efforts to maintain the country's neutrality while World War I consumed Europe, America had finally entered the conflict in April 1917. Within weeks, any outlet that cast the US war effort in a negative light, and anything that undermined the government's sale of ‘liberty bonds’ – debt securities used to fund the Allied cause –
