Kate Richards O’Hare Denounces World War I; Gets Five Years in Prison
Kate Richards O’Hare was a radical anti-war protester and Socialist Party leader during World War I. She was convicted on this day under the Espionage Act for an anti-war speech in Bowman, North Dakota, and sentenced to five years in prison.
There is no transcript of the speech for which she was convicted, but it was essentially the same speech she had been giving everywhere in her campaign to arouse opposition the the war. There is a transcript of her speech to the judge when she was convicted and sentenced to prison. Read her fiery words:
“The crime that was charged by inference in the trial was the same crime, was the same charge that was brought against the first slave rebellion, against the first serf revolt . . . . The is this: ‘She stirs up the people . . . [and I plead guilty of that crime . . . .”
” . . . I thank God that at this hour I am dangerous to the war profiteers of this country who rob the people on the one hand and rob and degrade the government on the other . . . .”
“[ and just like Jesus] it is necessary for me to become a convict among criminals in order that I may serve my country there . . . .”
Because there was no federal prison for women at that time, she served her sentence in the Missouri State Penitentiary. She published an account of her imprisonment, In Prison (1923).
She was pardoned by President Warren G. Harding in 1921.
Learn more about her life and activism: Sally M. Miller, From Prairie to Prison: The Life of Social Activist Kate Richards O’Hare (1993)
Read her first-person account: Kate Richards O’Hare, In Prison (1923)
Find original documents by and about O’Hare at Women and Social Movements: http://womhist.alexanderstreet.com/kro/doclist.htm
Learn more about O’Hare: http://www.kshs.org/p/kate-richards-o-hare/16398