The day Ben Salmon got the attention of the FBI

One hundred years ago on October 29th, 1917, Ben Salmon self-published a pamphlet entitled Killing the Wrong Men,  that he hoped would eventually "cob-web" the United States when citizens bought and distributed his circular. The cover letter Ben sent and a copy of the circular are available as a .pdf file here 

Click to open "Killing the Wrong Men" in new window

It is worth noting that radical Catholic Ben Salmon included the footnote: "Our slogan: Loyalty! First to God, then to our country."
​

As Secretary of the Denver Branch of the People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace, Ben advocated, in his circular, a peaceful resolution to the war the US had recently entered. Circulation of such a "seditious" and "treasonous" (in 1917 America had war fever) idea quickly launched an investigation by the US Bureau of Investigation (the predecessor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)), led to the revocation of mailing privileges for the circular, and also caused the Knights of Columbus to expel Ben from membership. The result of all this denigration interrupted the distribution of the circular. However, Ben quickly rebounded and got out an improved circular a few weeks later, though it didn't fare any better with the censors. Details can be found at http://www.bensalmon.org/pamphlets.html
Though the Government plagued Ben and his neighbors with its investigation, the final result was that Ben was not prosecuted (the case was closed when Ben was sentenced to hard labor by the US Army) and his threatening pamphlets were preserved in the Bureau archives to be read in the 21st century.