“Children’s Crusade:” Families of Political Prisoners Picket White House Seeking Amnesty
The campaign to achieve amnesty for persons convicted of violating the Espionage Act during World War I was one of the major efforts of civil libertarians in the 1920s. On this day, thirty five women and children, labeled the “Children’s Crusade,” picketed the White House, seeking a presidential amnesty proclamation. President Warren G. Harding declined to meet with them, however.
The Joint Amnesty Committee was formed on June 11, 1922, as a coalition of the ACLU, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the Federal Council of Churches to coordinate amnesty-related activities. Roger Baldwin, Director of the ACLU, played a major role in organizing the committee.
There was never any precise figure of the number of people convicted and imprisoned strictly because of their views during World War I. Some held out for complete amnesty (a “forgetting”) and refused pardons.
The amnesty campaign continued for another 11 years, until December 23, 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt finally pardoned all victims of Espionage Act prosecution who were still in prison.
Following World War II, President Harry Truman on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1947 pardoned 1,523 people still in prison for refusing to cooperate with the draft.
Learn more: Stephen Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts (2004)
Learn more about the repression during World War I: Paul L. Murphy, World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States (1979)
Read the ACLU report on political prisoners in 1922: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175035184301;view=1up;seq=1