William Griffin and the Great Sedition Trail

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s infamous Sedition Trials in 1944 had as their aim the final annihilation of America’s anti-war movement. Information relating to these notorious trials has been largely removed from public scrutiny. All references to the trials were erased from Wikipedia on December 13, 2004.

During the Washington DC trials some 30 or so Americans were charged with insurrection. The trials were widely considered to be show trials. The defendants were each charged with ‘violations of the Alien Registration Act (1940)’. Otherwise known as the Smith Act the defendants were allegedly part of an international Nazi conspiracy. The reality was a little different as the charges merely related to the defendants’ isolationist or pro-German sympathies.

Having brought the charges the Federal authorities were time after time made fools of by the prosecution’s ludicrous exaggerations and embroidery. The tribunal was unable to present a case of specific intent to overthrow the government. The jury was practically falling asleep during the proceedings; it was very much a case of much ado about nothing.

Perhaps having realised that the outcome would result in a mass acquittal and ridicule the state’s accusers salvaged what they could. The trial’s judge, ex-congressman Edward C. Eicher, conveniently died and the case was declared a mistrial.

One of those charged with sedition was William Griffin (1898 ~ 1949). Of Irish background, Griffin’s forebears had settled in Missouri during the mid-1800s. The highly educated defendant was publisher of the New York Evening Enquirer. He and his newspaper worked hard to keep the United States out of foreign wars. Given America’s long history of unrelenting such a stance was perhaps unwise.

1938 Press Photo William Griffin, Editor and Publisher of New York Enquirer

As a newspaper proprietor William Griffin considered also a political career. His options in 1936 were to run either as a candidate as mayor of New York (1937) or try for senatorial office in 1938.

Very much an American patriot and idealist the fiery publisher demanded that Great Britain settle her Great War (1914 ~ 1918) debt to the American nation. The New York publisher suggested that Britain should surrender Cunard superliner RMS Queen Mary and the island of Bermuda as a goodwill gesture.

William Griffin, as leader of the Keep America out of War Committee, was indicted for sedition on July 21, 1942. Due to the stress of the inane charge the publisher was to then suffer a heart attack. The case was finally dropped on January 26, 1944.

American anti-war activist William Griffin is particularly difficult to research due to his meetings with Britain’s unelected wartime leader Winston Churchill. Half-American Churchill and William Griffin were acquaintances long before Britain’s declaration of war on the twice-elected German government.

1942 Press Photo William Griffin Publisher goes to Court

The year 1936 was pivotal for Europe, the Soviet Union and the United States. It was during this same year that a parliamentary group, led by the half-American near bankrupt dilettante Churchill, received £50,000 (€248,000 today) from the British Board of Jewish Deputies. The kickback was to secure Churchill’s bombastic oratory gifts to inflame an anti-German war psychosis. It is believed the plutocrat was assured of the backing of Britain’s Jewish controlled media.

Winston Churchill was won over by the Jewish dominated Focus Group. Perhaps it was bitterness at his political volte face that Churchill unleashed his invective at the unfortunate proprietor or the New York Evening Enquirer.

“America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn’t entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany.

If America had stayed out of the war, all these ‘isms’ wouldn’t today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives.”

Churchill later denied having made these remarks but did concede the interview held with Griffin in 1936. William Griffin testified in a Congressional hearing that indeed Churchill made this statement.

Griffin would later sue Winston Churchill for $1,000,000 in a libel suit. In October 1942 the case came up in British courts. As at the time the patriotic American was under indictment in the US on charges relating to sedition he was unable to appear in British courts. The suit was dismissed on October 21, 1942.

REICH AND WRONG,

Democracy, Tyranny and Two Plutocracies,

Mike Walsh.

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