LAD #31: Wilson's Fourteen Points

Wilson's Fourteen Points focus primarily on calling for an international policy of open relations and peace.  "The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world." Too, he urges the American people to come together through a new sense of national unity, stating that "all the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest." Together, his fourteen parts are as follows:

1. Calling for diplomacy,

2. Freedom of the seas both during peace and war,
3. Equal trading conditions throughout the globe,
4. A reducing of national arms,
5. The adjustment, impartially, of colonial claims,

6. Evacuation of the Russian Territory and aiding Russian Government,

7. Freedom for Belgium,

8. A correction by France for the wrongs done against Prussia in 1871,

9. Readjusting the territories of Italy,

10. Free opportunity for the people of Austri-Hungary to autonomous development,

11. Evacuations of the countries of Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania,

12. Dardenelles permanently opened to free trade and freedom to Turkey from the Ottomans,

13. Erection of a free Polish State,

14. And mutual guarantees of territorial and political stability and independence for small nation states.

LAD #30: Schenck vs. United States Case

Due to the  “mailing of printed circulars in pursuance of a conspiracy to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service”, “an unlawful use of the mails for the transmission”, and for an “offence against the United States...to use the mails for the transmission of matter declared to be non-mailable,” Schenck was found guilty on March 3rd, 1919. Congress, stating that Schenck's documents posed as a threat and a serious danger, had a right to halt their distribution despite his first amendment right to free speech. With regards to the testimony, it was claimed that Schenck was the general secretary for the socialist party and was in charge of the headquarters from where the dangerous documents were being distributed. “The document in question upon its first printed side recited the first section of the Thirteenth Amendment, said that the idea embodied in it was violated by the Conscription Act and that a conscript is little better than a convict.” Schenck’s primary intentions were: “"Do not submit to intimidation” and “Assert your rights”. His socialist document was to prevent the draft. “It denied the power to send our citizens away to foreign shores to shoot up the people of other lands, and added that words could not express the condemnation such cold-blooded ruthlessness deserves”. Due to the fact that these were distributed in times of warfare rather than peace, they were considered to be outside of the realm of acceptable practice. “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force.” Schenck obstructed the recruiting forces, that was his crime.