On guard against saboteurs and espionage, troops guard the Boston & Maine Railroad bridge and the Hoosac Tunnel, in Adams, Massachusetts.
Troops guarding railroad bridge and tunnelReverse:These boys are on guard at the Hoosac Tunnel on the Boston & Maine Railroad in the western part of Massachusetts. Most of the freight from the West passes this tunnel, and the authorities of the state deemed it wise to post guards as a protection against fanatics and spies. The Hoosac Tunnel is the largest and most important in the New England states; it is 4¾ miles long. This precaution, however, is not limited to New England, as most of the railroad bridges, canals, locks, etc., throughout the country have been guarded by regulars or National Guardsmen ever since the declaration of war with Germany.Photo © International Film Service, Inc.No 16. Published by American Colortype Co., Chicago
"Section three of the Espionage Act contained a clause which could be interpreted by the courts to prove an effective curb on free speech in wartime: '. . . and whosoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct the recruiting of enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service of the United States, shall be punished with a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.'"
Slow to ask the Congress and the country to go to war, Woodrow Wilson would, once committed, do everything possible to win and to make opponents fall in line. The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed on June 15, 1917, the day after Wilson's address celebrating the second Flag Day, a commemoration he had proclaimed in 1916. On his 1917 speech he threatened, 'Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations.' (World War I and America, p. 372) Wilson's Espionage Act would be enforced by his Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos, pp. 218–219, copyright © 1962, 2013 by John Dos Passos, publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
1917-06-15, 1917, June, Espionage Act, espionage, United States Espionage Act, Hoosac Tunnel
