THE MASSES
The Justice Department shut the magazine down under the Espionage Act {612703} This censorship in hindsight was clearly unconstitutional, but this is yet another example of civil rights being eroded in wartime with timidity on the parts of the courts to uphold the constitution when the Executive is stating that the court ruling could greatly harm the nation. In retrospect, such testimony has almost always been fabricated lies or paranoid fears.
The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the United States from 1911 until 1917, when federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses. It published reportage, fiction, poetry and art by the leading radicals of the time such as Max Eastman, John Reed, Dorothy Day, and Floyd Dell.
