By Rit Carter

Part II

VII

The Arrest

• 

• 

At first light on May 28, 1918, cool temperatures and a gray sky greeted Bristol residents.

Meanwhile, on Summer Street, Mr. and Mrs. Morton C. Treadway welcomed the birth of their daughter Jean Treadway.

Milk dealers Holt & Gilbert raced through town delivering pure Jersey Milk and Cream. 

Over on Anderson Street in Forestville, Anna Kaczmarczyk fussed with her flower beds surrounding her home while chasing away pesky neighborhood kids who enjoyed toying with them.

And at City Hall, sometime near mid-morning, three relative strangers stepped in from the morning gloom accompanied by a familiar face in the name of Clarence Woodruff. They were there to prepare notarized affidavits.

Based on the events of the last two weeks, Woodruff felt they had enough “scurrilous remarks” to warrant an arrest. Among the comments Miss Murphy and Mrs. Kerr gathered and recorded were the following:

• The present war that the United States is engaged is nothing more but a Wall Street affair
• Germany is the most wonderful country in the world
• The war would last four or five years
• Germany would easily crush the allies
• It was unjust for the U.S. to have gone to war
• President Wilson was intimate with Mrs. Galt
• Men ran Germany while women ran the United States
• The Kaiser is a wonderful man
• Reverend Beussel does not believe in the Red Cross
• The schools in the United States were failures

The documents were brought to Hartford and presented to U.S. Assistant Attorney John F. Crosby, who hastily issued an arrest warrant for Rev. Beussel. That night around 8 p.m. detectives from the U.S. District Attorney’s office, accompanied by Woodruff, arrived in Bristol and arrested Beussel at the boarding house at 157 Queen St.

He was driven to Hartford and questioned by the Bureau of Naval Intelligence Unit into the next morning. Interrogators said he was evasive and would not answer many of their questions. During the questioning, Woodruff informed agents that Beussel’s reputation around town was that of a dangerous man. Consequently, the accused was placed in the Hartford County Jail, also known as the Seyms Jail. He would never set foot in Bristol again.

In the following days, government agents returned to the boarding house and found a cache of letters, notes, a diary, payment stubs, a German iron cross, and names of his friends and associates. Later, the defense would say pieces of the evidence found that day were planted. Because Beussel had traveled to Germany, India, and Constantinople and had purchased a house on little salary, investigators did not know if Beussel was radicalized, a spy, or part of something on a grander scale. His friends and associates were either questioned or investigated. 

In one instance, while detained, the clergyman sought permission to write a letter after a judge determined his bail. The letter addressed to Rev. Doering (also spelled Dearing) of Jersey City advised that he was in trouble and to cancel his speaking engagement scheduled for June in his parish. George W. Lillard, a member of the American Protective League known as “Little Chief” by subordinates and the man who oversaw the APL’s eyes and ears in Connecticut, authorized an investigation into Rev. Doering. It is unknown whether Lillard was shown the letter or read it without Beussel’s knowledge.

Rooting around in the surviving memos from the APL and government investigators, a picture emerges of an investigation going in multiple directions. There are directives to investigate every component of Beussel’s life, such as his finances, and contact individuals he met or was remotely acquainted with, including a domestic servant he met on a ship coming to the U.S. One thing is sure they did not have much time because the trial was beginning in July, and they still had to select a jury.

VIII

Jury Section

Jury selection concluded the afternoon of Friday, July 12. Because many of the jurors were farmers and had work to do, they delayed the start until the 15^th. Beussel’s attorney only asked two questions of prospective jurors:

Did any of them have any knowledge of the case? And did they read newspaper accounts, particularly a story filed with the Hartford Courant on July 1? 

The answer was no to both questions, so the following were sworn in as jurors: 

• H.B. Pomeroy of Coventry
• Henry G Pratt of Willington
• William T Redfield of Hartford
• Frank P Lockwood of Hartford
• R. B. Bunnell of Hartland
• A.L. Mills of Hampton
• Charles Bell of Glastonbury
• Willis E. Caulkins of Hartford
• Franklin J. Howard of old Lyme
• Charles E. Jeffrey of New London
• John Dray of New London
• Lucius C. Brown of Colchester

Aware of the APL tactics and while staring up at that ceiling fan, I wondered if they penetrated the jury pool and planted an operative, so I went to ground after my quarry.

With the list of the APL members in my possession, I compared the jury list against the APL list and did not locate any members.

Not finding evidence to support my Grassy Knoll theory, I went further and investigated the jurors individually by scanning through old newspapers and databases. 

For weeks, I floundered, and I recall thinking at the time, “I don’t even know what I am looking for but will know what it is when I find it.” And that is precisely what happened when I came upon Walter E. Ives, the son-in-law of juror William T. Redfield of Hartford.

Mr. Redfield was a Hartford fire commissioner (1889-1901) and a broker. In Hartford’s Trinity Church, his daughter Dorothy married Walter E. Ives on Feb. 12, 1912.

Born in the U.S. but educated in Germany (his parents were German-born and became U.S. citizens) and living on Park Avenue in New York City, Ives was a former Lieutenant of the Royal Prussian Thirteenth Dragoons. While in the U.S., he was a Wall Street broker and moonlighted for New York newspapers writing about German war strategy and a critic of the German war effort, or so it seemed. Privately, he told friends he wished to return to Germany and join his old unit.

In 1916, he suddenly went missing. For several weeks at the behest of the British government, a half dozen Pinkerton agents dropped anchor in front of the Redfield’s Hartford home on Collins Street., waiting to see if Ives would make contact. He didn’t.

Ives had smuggled himself out of the United States on a Scandinavian liner bound for Europe as a stowaway. It was reported that he went to Germany that spring, rejoined his regiment, and fought in the trenches. Ives maintained it was a business trip.

British Agents discovered letters bearing his signature promoting the German cause. The letters described his efforts to aid Germany; Ives wrote in part, “I write a good deal for our cause and otherwise try to make myself useful for, but is not the same as being able to take part in the war. How much would I not give for that? We all look with firm confidence for the victory of the righteous German cause.”

And if that was not enough, I located a wealth of government documents regarding the Ives affair. Included among them, per a French dispatch, is a memorandum dated May 24, 1917, stating his mother is “engaged as a German agent in carrying messages between Holland, Sweden, and Germany.”

Eventually, he made passage back to the U.S. and found himself detained at Ellis Island for months while investigated. He signed a loyalty pledge and was freed on a $20,000 bond. Ives’s movements were restricted to “west of the Alleghenies,” and he was placed under surveillance.

None of this came up, though. The story’s core played out in 1916 and 1917, and articles appeared in the Hartford Courant and New York Times, but the newspaper accounts about the trial nor the Appellate court record suggested the matter was raised. Mr. Redfield, by no fault of his own, was allowed to decide the fate of a man charged with being faithful to Germany even though his son-in-law was accused of being devoted to Germany and his mother was thought to be a spy.

IX

United States v. Theodore Beussel

“You do not need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary.”

Franz Kafka, The Trial

“In vino veritas, “under the influence of alcohol, a person tells the truth.”

The trial of Theodore Beussel lasted three days. It began Monday, July 15, 1918, 44 days after his arrest, and ironically, in the same courtroom, he had sworn an oath to the United States to become a naturalized citizen. It was also his 36th birthday. 

Located in Hartford on Central Row, the Superior Court (the building no longer exists) was mere feet from the old statehouse and on the third floor of the post office building. One could see trolly cars, automobiles, and pedestrians hurriedly going about their affairs from the third-floor windows. Surrounding the building was The Hartford Courant, banks, insurance companies, and east beyond the Consolidated Railroad Company, the Italian neighborhood, and a string of small shops, factories, was the Connecticut River.

The third-floor courtroom, as expected, was crowded and without an empty seat. 

Twenty-nine-year-old John F. Crosby, the U.S. Assistant District Attorney, prosecuted the case for the federal government.

Born and raised in Wisconsin, Crosby was a good athlete. By 17, though, he was a millionaire receiving an inheritance from Major Robert Crosby, who made his fortune in the yeast business. A believer in hard work, the teenage millionaire worked as a laborer on a Wisconsin farm making $1.50 a day.

The ideals of hard work at an early age would serve him well.

A graduate of Georgetown University in 1912, where he was valedictorian, he received his law degree three years later from Harvard Law School. Known for his oratory skills and stage presence, in 1912, he won the American inter-collegiate oratory contest, and the Boston Globe four years later referred to him as “one of the coming platform orators.” Following Harvard, Crosby attended Boston College for one year and received the degree of Master of Philosophy.

He was appointed Assistant U.S. attorney in March of 1917 and, in June of 1918, put on trial a Meriden police officer for sedition. However, the Beussel affair would be Connecticut’s most high-profile sedition case.

Joseph P. Tuttle took up the cause of the defense. Tuttle was no ne’er-do-well either. A graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1891 and was a former superior court judge (resigned 1918) and a 32- degree Freemason. He belonged to many fraternal organizations and was socially connected. In 1898 and 1900, the Democrats nominated him for Congress. He lost.

It was the United States v Beussel. Patriotism Vs. Free speech. Yale vs. Harvard.

Rev. Beussel’s donations to the Red Cross, love interests, and writings, which necessitated a handwriting expert to testify, played parts in the case. However, the trial boiled down to the events of May 23 and 27.

Crosby alleged that on those days, the pastor made scurrilous and abusive language against the United States in violation of the Sedition Act. The defense countered by saying he was under the influence of alcohol, had no memory of making such statements, and Congress overstepped its bounds regarding free speech.

Sometime after 10 a.m., the empaneled jury was sworn into the courtroom of Judge Harland B. Howe by R.F. Carroll, the Deputy clerk.

Mrs. Kerr and Miss Murphy were seated next to each other, with Murphy dressed in all white. The theatre of the court was on display. Marie Kerr was the first witness.

Although she had difficulties recalling Beussel’s exact words and the timeline of events, Murphy and other witnesses corroborated the substance of her testimony. 

Mrs. Kerr testified that the purpose of the trips to Hartford was Beussel wanted to entertain Miss Murphy.

On the 23^rd, they visited the museum, city hall, and the state capital. Eventually, deciding it was time to eat, and around 6 p.m., they arrived at the Heublein Hotel restaurant, which overlooked Bushnell Park.

It was Murphy’s party, and she took control, so according to Kerr, Beussel wanted to go to a Chinese Restaurant, but Mrs. Kerr did not fancy chop suey, and there was no bar, so Murphy and Beussel had the following exchange:

“Why not got to Heublein?”

“I can’t go to Heublein–it’s too expensive.”

“I will foot the bills,” Murphy said.

Murphy paid for the dinner with APL donations. When questioned about the matter by Tuttle, she coyly denied suggesting the Heublein because it had a bar.

The dinner was under the guise of dinner amongst friends, but Kerr, under cross-examination by the defense, admitted it was to get Beussel.

Q. Were you told Miss Murphy was in the employ of the United States government? 

A. I was.

Q. And you knew Miss Murphy had been sent to Bristol for the express purpose of trying to run down Mr. Beussel? 

A. I did. 

Q. And you knew when you came to the Heublein Hotel that was the purpose of Miss Murphy’s coming? 

A. I did.

Q. And you expected, and Miss Murphy expected when you went to the Heublein Hotel that you would get something on Mr. Beussel before you got out? 

A. We were not sure.

Q. But you expected it – didn’t you? 

A. Yes.

Kerr and Murphy recalled that his conversation on the 23^rd focused mainly on Germany and its people. “U.S. soldiers are not true, and they could be bought for small sums such as five dollars; that the soldiers (Germans) were loyal to the Kaiser and they would sacrifice even their lives.”

While at the Heublein, Murphy ordered Bronx cocktails before the meal, but only Murphy and Beussel partook.

The defense argued that Beussel became intoxicated, but both women testified that Beussel’s sobriety was not in question during the meal nor after when they had champagne.

Lawrence Caffey, a waiter at the Heublein, told the court that the group was there twice on that day for lunch and later dinner. Caffey’s recollection squared with Kerr’s and Murphy’s; Beussel was not under the influence.

Andrew Bergman, another waiter, observed that Mrs. Kerr sat quietly and listened while Murphy peppered him with questions. Only once did he hear Buessel get excited and say, “Americans were not fit to fight the Germans.” He, too, said the reverend was not impaired by alcohol.

During Beussel’s testimony, he asserted that whiskey was ordered and served, which was a drink he was unfamiliar with but consumed because “I took whatever she gave me.” He would say that he had never had a cocktail until meeting Murphy, and the most potent drink he ever drank was a peach brandy with 2 percent alcohol.

The defense inferred that Mrs. Kerr switched drinks when the pastor left the table on two occasions. She denied the accusation.

Dinner came to an end near 8 p.m., and with a train to catch, Murphy excused herself and ducked into the sitting room to dig through the tricky terrain of her purse, searching for pen and paper.

With compressed sounds of the restaurant in the background and unknown footsteps coming and going from the hallway, she composed her thoughts and quickly wrote down her conversation with Beussel before being discovered.

The return train ride to Bristol became a subject of scrutiny. Miss Murphy testified that Mrs. Kerr was wearing an American flag pin measuring one-half an inch by one-quarter inch. Seated three across, Murphy occupied the window, with Kerr seated next to her and Beussel on the aisle sheltered into the arm seat. The inconspicuous rusted American flag pin consumed a small piece of real estate on Mrs. Kerr’s coat lapel, and in the dimly lit coach, the ornament did not look befitting due to the rust, so Beussel asked her to remove it. Nothing suggested that he recognized it as an American flag pin, but the testimony made him appear unpatriotic. 

The 27^th brought more of the same, but this time in the Kerr’s apartment. The Kerr’s plotted to get Beussel to visit, under the pretext of a party, so they invited the reverend and Miss Murphy to their apartment for 7 p.m. In anticipation, Mr. Kerr testified that he purchased a bottle of wine (Tokay) to get Beussel in a talking mood. According to Murphy, he drank a third of the bottle or several glasses.

There was drinking, a checkers game, dancing, and talk of the war during the party. Beussel, who pursued Murphy with ardor from the moment they met, proposed a toast right away with Murphy seated next to him, “To the ladies we love.”

Mr. Kerr asked the pastor what he thought about the United States going into war. With the wine flowing, the words began to tumble out, “it was unjust; that they should not have gone into the war; the Americans would have to fight it alone, and the U.S. did not have any right to get into the war, and this is a Wall Street War in which President Wilson had a large stock.” 

As the conversation moved on into the evening, Beussel elaborated, “Germany could easily crush the allies; it was the greatest nation in the world, and no nation could hope to cope with her.”

Murphy had what she needed, so when the night ended near 10:30 p.m., she, along with Mrs. Kerr, transcribed what they heard, which along with the dinner at the Heublein became the basis for their affidavits the following morning.

During the trial, Beussel did not endear himself to the court. Sensitive and with his frail nerves, he had difficulties with stress and the prosecutor. On several occasions, matters became testy with Crosby, “Mr. District Attorney, you irritate me,” he snapped twice.

Another flare-up resulted in an admonishment from Judge Howe after Beussel accused the District Attorney of setting traps for him, “I think what you say about the District Attorney should be withdrawn. It is not for you to lecture or criticize the District Attorney; he has shown you every consideration, and when you speak about traps, here is all out of place and will not be permitted.”

The tension between Crosby and Beussel was apparent. At one point, Crosby approached Beussel in his seat and went at him hard. He spectacularly denounced him with such force that the reverend, frustrated by the demonstration, rose to meet Crosby’s eye to respond but was pulled down into his seat by a friend sitting beside him. 

Even his attorney grew frustrated with him. Crosby tried to introduce an iron cross found in Beussel’s home as evidence. Judge Howe excluded it, but Beussel insisted on discussing the matter and tried to join the conversation between the lawyers and the judge.

(Witness): I must ask a question here; absolutely necessary.

Tuttle: Why do you insist on asking questions? The Court has excluded it. What is the use in talking about it?

(Witness): This is no iron cross.

Tuttle: I will take care of that.

Adding to the stress and drama were the conditions of the courtroom. During Day 2, the judge ordered the doors and windows closed because of the noise outside. But then the courtroom became hot, so he asked the windows and doors to be opened for everyone to speak louder. They had to clear the court the next day to let it air out.

Near the end of Day 2 of the trial, the index cards found in his boarding house and his handwriting took center stage. Crosby made the pastor read from the cards. Identified as Exhibit 2, Beussel read aloud, “Wilson is the meanest coward on two legs. God’s curse upon America. German-Americans two. German-Americans as far as I can see t-w-o.”

Crosby and Beussel sparred over Exhibit 3 as Beussel refused to read it in its entirety, so the district attorney read it into the record, “Germany did not break her pledges. You have not won yet. One German is as good as 299 Americans. Americans have not got any blood. They are milk and water creatures.”

Were they for a speech? Were they random notes? After much back and forth, it took nearly an hour for the Reverend to concede that the writing might be his, but the words were not.

Later, Crosby asked the pastor to read a letter he wrote to the Hartford Courant in 1917. Beussel asked if he could stand because it contained the president’s name and then dramatically did so—a few moments later, he was asked why he stood.

Q. I understood you wanted to rise when you read this paper because the president’s name was mentioned at the beginning.

A. Yes.

Q. Wilson’s name was on the other card, and you didn’t rise then?

A. It doesn’t say anything about President Wilson on that card. There are hundreds of Wilson’s in the United States.

William E. Hingston, an Examiner of Documents and handwriting expert and a consultant on forgery from Boston, was called to the witness box. He said the cards were written by someone who learned to write in a German School, based on the shape of the letters and the script.

Hingston also testified there was a difference in the writings that appeared on the cards and known writings of Beussel. He also said that it is not unusual for someone not to recognize their handwriting. In this instance, it seemed the cards were hastily written while standing (I checked to see if Hingston was an APL member in Massachusetts, and he was not).

• 

• 

Inventory of the effects found in Beussel’s boarding house

The cards were written in 1915 or 1916 before the espionage laws were on the books and possibly before he became a naturalized citizen. As a result, Attorney Tuttle objected that the cards were immaterial and irrelevant, but the Judge agreed with Crosby that it went to his credibility, so he allowed them into evidence. The ruling drew a terse response from Tuttle, “In my opinion, those cards were planted there so Mr. Lynch (government investigator) could find them there.”

Closing arguments were on Day 3.

Mr. Tuttle began near 11:30 a.m. and spoke for an hour and a half. “It was not a case of the United States government against Beussel but the case of the American Protective League against Beussel. It got the Murphy girl to trap Beussel to the suit a whim of its own, using the methods of the Hun, trickery. Having Miss Murphy pose as a guest of Mrs. Kerr was part of a trick, and starting with no evidence at all, they proceeded to trick him.

“Beussel was not being prosecuted for what he said in his sermons but for what he said to Miss Murphy. In 1916 President Wilson was reelected on the platform ‘he has kept us out of war.’ It was on the billboards and emblazoned throughout the country. Five months later, we were in the war, and many loyal citizens at that time thought we should not go in at that time. If people were to be convicted of that, half of the newspapers and a third of the people would have been guilty prior to May 1917.”

Concerning the party on the 27^th, Judge Tuttle said it took “over three hours of wine, women in victrola to get him to say, ‘”this is a Wall Street war.”‘

Tuttle continued, “Miss Murphy led him on with the siren voice of an enchanting woman. It was not wise, perhaps not excusable, but he was not accused here of being drunk, or of being enchanted, but he is accused of a felony, and the question was if that felony had been committed. There are 2.5 million German Americans in the United States, will they be hounded down by methods like these?”

Crosby allotted an hour and a half, used three-quarters of an hour to make his closing remarks.

The attorney for the government said, “The American Protective League was the best organization of any organizations that are assisting the government and everything it does is under the direction of the Department of Justice. Traps were necessary to get such people as Beussel who worked undercover.  

“The jury did not have to go on the evidence of the detectives alone, but the waiters, subpoenaed by the accused, testified they heard the slanderous and inflammatory remarks. 

“None saw signs of intoxication on him at the time, and the testimony was that all the remarks made were before any drinks were served at all. It was not a picture of a girl that made him say these things, but the picture of the Kaiser imprinted in his heart.”

Mr. Crosby speaking with great force and effect reminded the jury of the words on the cards that were presented as evidence and launched another salvo, “Out of the fullness of his heart, his mouth hath spoken.”

The jury was provided their instructions and withdrew until 4:15 p.m. It took 54 minutes to reach their verdict.

X

The Verdict

“Judgement does not come suddenly; the proceedings gradually merge into the judgement.”

Franz, Kafka, The Trial

As Beussel reentered the courtroom with the tails of his black frock coat wrapped around his knees, all eyes were upon him. Incarcerated for seven weeks in the Hartford County Jail, an undeniable hell hole, he was a mess.

The jail, known as the Seyms Street Jail due to its location, was built in 1873 to accommodate 350 prisoners. However, it came to house over 600 men and women in the summer months. It took a century to install a sewage line, so prisoners emptied their own waste buckets. For meals, prisoners were marched single file to an opening in a wall to receive their ration. It was believed then that eating at a table was an overindulgence, so they ate in their cells.

For political prisoners, life in the heartless jail was harsh. They were kept in what was known as punishment rooms, which were devoid of windows or light bulbs. Anyone occupying these four rooms was only allowed one glass of water and a slice of bread every 12 hours. Reserved for anarchists, communists, or union activists, it is unknown if Beussel occupied a punishment room.

In 1920, The Nation magazine exposed the conditions and abuses, but it took until the 1930s for the state legislature to recognize prisoners’ problems.

Consequently, as Rev. Theodore Albert Beussel rose to hear his fate, the story of the last two months was etched on his face. He was exhausted from the ordeal, and appearing pale, nervous, and numbed, he heard guilty. After he sat back down with the same confused look, his dedicated female parishioners in attendance openly wept. The jury found him guilty on three counts in violation of the espionage act of June 15, 1917. Six of the nine counts were dropped.

Other than Boston, Hartford had the largest telegraph office in New England. Consequently, within minutes of the verdict, the telegraph machines were busy tapping out messages from Hartford to Boston to Maine and across the country, including the Justice Department and the American Protective League offices advising of the guilty verdict.

XI

The Aftermath

Friday, July 20, the sentencing took place, but before being imposed, Rev. Beussel addressed the court. Wearing a sack coat in place of the frock coat he wore during the trial, and with tears running down his face, he told Judge Howe with a quiver in his voice, “I only ask that you give me another chance. Send me to France, anywhere. I will lay down my life for my country. Take this stain of prison from me.”

Beussel went on to say that he would be unable to withstand severe punishment. If the Judge thought him to be a dangerous man, he should send him for treatment. Judge Howe called him a counterfeit citizen and said, “I wouldn’t think of doing that. You are not crazy; all that is the matter with you is that you are dishonest, disloyal, and unfaithful; that is all that is the matter.”

Unmoved, Howe, denounced him when he read aloud a typewritten memorandum, “Severe punishment is the only suitable sentence for the court to impose upon such a counterfeit citizen. His being a minister of the gospel aggravates his crime.”

Beussel was sentenced to ten years in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and was taken away by federal marshals. On Aug. 24, he left for Atlanta.

The “system,” however, was not done with him.

In March of 1919, Rev. Beussel lost his standing in the church.

His attorney mounted an appeal of his conviction, and in September 1919, it was denied.

In October of 1919, a United States judge revoked his U.S. citizenship because it was “fraudulently and illegally obtained.”

Was there any good news? President Wilson commuted his sentence from 10 years to finish April 1, 1920. Note: I requested Beussel’s prison records in July and November of 2021 from the Atlanta Penitentiary. The National Archives were unable to fulfill my request due to the pandemic. Information regarding his pardon received a similar response.

The Times Dictate the Measures

To understand the event, you have to understand the time. The war was everywhere and in everything. Sons, brothers, friends, and neighbors went to France and fought in unbearable conditions, some never to return.

Newspaper headlines detailed the fighting from the front every day; the pages were filled with war news. May 23^rd, the day Beussel spent in Hartford with Murphy and Kerr, the bolded headline atop the masthead of the Bristol Press was “WORK OR FIGHT ORDER TO EVERY MAN OF DRAFT AGE ALL IDLERS AND THOSE ENGAGED IN NON-ESSENTIALS AND SPORTS MUST DO SOMETHING USEFUL, JULY 1ST.”

Then there were the casualty lists and the letters from the front detailing the action. Corporal Charles T. Blanchard of Company D., 102^nd U.S. Infantry, wrote to his mother on Burlington Avenue. His letter from “Somewhere in France” dated Apr. 25, 1918, described the fighting, “Well, after a continuous barrage of shell fire lasting until about 5:30 in the morning they raised the barrage and started over on us in mass formation, coming in on us from two or three different directions. They had us cornered and we saw at once that it was to be a fight for our lives. I think there were ten of us in the same dugout at that time. We loaded, cocked and made everything ready to stand them off. It wasn’t long to wait for they saw us and at least 20 of them proceeded to make corpses of us.”

Therefore, it did not matter that the house he purchased was intended for his parents to bring to the States.

It did not matter that his church raised funds for the Red Cross.

It did not matter that a parishioner had died at the Newport Naval Station and Beussel arranged a patriotic funeral service.

It did not matter that Mrs. Julia Gillard, the owner of 157 Queen St., where he roomed for most of the time he lived in Bristol, remarked: “he is patriotic as half the men.”

It did not matter that parishioners never heard him make any seditious remarks, including Albert Plitt, Gustaf Rode, Paul Tessman, Emil Redman, Mrs. Charlotte Tessman, Olga Potz, and Julia Bissell who said he encouraged enlistments and the buying of Liberty Bonds.

And it certainly did not matter that he hung an American Flag outside his church. 

There was no room for alternate voices or anyone perceived as different with each passing day. The fog of war is not exclusive to the battlefield. Being an immigrant and German, Beussel was an easy mark, so his patriotism faced constant questions; even his charitable donations to the war effort were met with a watchful eye. When the questioning broke down with the District Attorney during the trial, the Judge asked about his Red Cross donations.

Q. Have you done anything to help this country?

A. Yes.

Q. What?

A. I bought two Red Cross signs.

Q. How much did you give to them?

A. $1.50.

Q. For one or both?

A. For both.

Q. Have you done anything else?

A. I bought a Liberty Bond.

Q. How much?

A. $50

Q. Anything else?

A. I gave to collections.

Q. How much?

A. I don’t know. $3, $4, or $5.

The Red Cross conducted numerous fundraisers during the war for their relief work. The money raised went to knitted materials, surgical dressings, and general hospital supplies. In May of 1918, the Red Cross ran a week-long drive.

Measuring one’s patriotism based on the number of their contributions seemed egregious to me.

Because the contributors’ names were published for the May of 1918 campaign (the period of his arrest), I decamped to a small corner in the Bristol Historical Society looking for them (appearing May 21 and running through June 6). Only seven of the 21 Bristol APL members (Fuller Barnes $100, W.M. Ferris, Charles Riley $40, Clarence A. Woodruff, C. T. Treadway $1,000, Morton C. Treadway $500, and Dewitt Page $650) made donations.

William Kerr, who orchestrated the party on May 27^th and aided the APL but was not a member, donated $4.

Miss Murphy, however, the amateur sleuth brought exclusively to Bristol to determine if “Beussel was all that he was supposed to be,” did not contribute to the Bristol Red Cross.

Even the defendant’s voting record found itself under the microscope when he testified that he voted for Charles Hughes (Republican) and not President Wilson in the election of 1916. His attorney actually had to remind the court, “Since when has it become a crime to differ with the administration?”

Working with the Connecticut Law Library Services, they directed my attention to a manuscript titled New England’s Experience With Punishing Political Speech During World War I: A Study in Prosecutorial Discretion.

Well-researched by Alexis J. Anderson, the manuscript includes excerpts from memos by crucial participants in the case. U.S. Attorney Crosby wrote to his chieftains in Washington, “There was no evidence of a real intent to interfere with the war program.” He recommended that Beussel not be pardoned until the case had time away from the limelight because it and the subsequent appeal absorbed much attention in the newspapers.

Even Judge Harlan Howe made his views known to Washington and wrote, “Sentence was severe more for an example and warning to others than to punish him, and I believed the President would relieve him as soon as the war was over.”

The office of the United States Attorney General conceded there was a “failure to show a violation of the law.”

And a memo I found dated June 29, lodged within the German espionage files, called into question the evidence. Addressed to George Lillard in Hartford and signed “Chief,” it states, “I also note from subsequent reports by Agent Lynch that additional witnesses have been interviewed and the personal effects of Beussel examined under search warrant, and that such investigation has thrown some doubt upon the truth of the charges of disloyalty made against Rev. Buessel.”

Essentially, all the time, effort, and money spent on this merely made him an example so others would stay in line. What Beussel did was illegal by the letter of the law and showed an inability to “read the room.” But the zeal that some of his pursuers dedicated to taking him down while fully knowing he had not interfered with the war was troubling.

Whatever happened to what’s his name?

As to what became of Theodore Beussel after his imprisonment, that is hard to say with any certainty. In September 1919, while still in prison, he deeded his property on the corner of Queen and Goodwin to John R and Louisa P. King.

After his release from federal custody in April of 1920, records show he regularly traveled between the United States and Germany. He appears in a 1925 New York State census living in Haverstraw, in Rockland County, 86 miles from Bristol. However, after 1928, I could not find any records, he disappeared. Did he return to his homeland and get swallowed up in Germany of the 1930s or reside in another country? After the trail went dry, I reached out to the German Ancestry community through an intermediary but to no avail.

As for the rest

In this case, many who played critical roles, who were only in their 20s, went on to live productive lives.

Crosby, the prosecuting attorney, and great orator, not surprisingly took a stab at politics in New York but lost. He eventually became Chairman of the Mary Carter Paint Co and died at 73 in 1962 at Spring Lake, N.J.

Tuttle died in 1921 due to liver problems. He left a wife and two daughters.

In November 1931, William Sterling Kerr, 38, died in a drowning accident in Northumberland, N.H.

The Bangor News reported in July of 1918 Marie Kerr’s involvement in the Beussel story. Ironically shortly after the case, she aided the government in closing a Chinese Restaurant for failing to follow pure food standards. Her refusal to eat Chinese food led to the events at the Heublein on May 23^rd. 

She remarried in 1933, operated a beauty shop, became a correspondent for the Colebrook News, and was involved in Republican state politics in New Hampshire. She passed away in 1979 at the age of 86.

Clarence Woodruff and his family moved from Bristol by 1920 and eventually settled in New York, where he died in 1963.

Miss Murphy proved to be the most intriguing figure and the most elusive to research.

Scant information was uncovered about her, which she probably preferred. But and an exchange she had with the defense attorney goes to the heart of who she was:

Q. Mr. Beussel by this time was under your attractive guidance, would do anything most that you suggested?

A. Not sure about that.

Q. You did make it your business – didn’t you. To be very attractive – not that you had any difficulty in doing that; but you did make it your business to be very attractive to Mr. Beussel?

A. No, sir.

Q. Now, Mr. Beussel said he would drink anything that you ordered?

A. Yes.

Q. And so you ordered champagne?

A. He already expressed the wish; why shouldn’t I?

Q. And spending the money of the American Protective League and not your own, you were quite willing that it should be champagne?

A. I should do it if it was my own; it was part of my duty.

Summary

The war ended on Nov. 11, 1918. The American Protective League disbanded on Dec. 19, 1918, and The Sedition Act found itself repealed, along with other wartime laws, on Dec. 13, 1920.

The night of Beussel’s arrest, Clarence Woodruff told government officials that the pastor, who never encouraged anyone to take arms against the United States or promote anti-war propaganda, was a dangerous enemy agent. So vital to the national security and essential to the common good, hardly a word has appeared in print in Bristol about him since it happened. He is forgotten.

The outbreak of World War I brought to a close one of the most extensive periods of immigration in the United States. Over 1 million arrived each year (from July-December of 1917, it fell to 80,222), and consequently, many citizens felt threatened by the resulting ethnic diversity. 

The anti-immigrant sentiment began before the war and slowly built, exposing a chasm in Bristol (and beyond) between native-born Americans and immigrants, who were viewed with suspicious eyes. The chasm, though, was already in plain sight, with small, seemingly meaningless events pushing it all along.

In 1910, immigrants from Ellis Island armed with “immigrant destination cards” began coming to Bristol. In the event of a cholera outbreak, which was a fear because they were coming from cholera-infected countries, the cards were necessary so they could be tracked and isolated. At the time, cholera was associated with outsiders.

1912 saw trains arriving with immigrants being dumped in Bristol after midnight. Unable to speak the language and nowhere to go and complaints mounting from many, including the police department, the mayor asked the train company to “improve conditions.”

And in May of 1916, Bristol Brass needing employees, erected a tent town along King Street for newly hired employees, mostly newcomers who did not speak English. The tent town, the first of its kind in the state and a public spectacle, aroused curiosity.

Unlike other parts of the country, Bristol did not experience any violence, so there were no tarring and featherings and no hangings. Only the threat of one.

Emerson Howe, a writer of westerns and historical novels, penned the first history of the American Protective League entitled, The Web. Published in 1923, his prose encapsulated what many believed, “We must purify the source of America’s population and keep it pure.”

And it wasn’t just Howe. Learning of the APL’s dissolving, Connecticut Gov. Marcus H. Holcomb wrote to their offices in Washington, “I think the services of the American Protective League is absolutely required until every American [sic] is Americanized.”

Beussel must’ve felt like Joseph K in The Trial, stuck in a nightmare that he could not awake with an outcome that seemed predetermined. It is no coincidence that much of the information contained in correspondence between the APL and the Department of Justice memos was leaked to the newspapers before the case went to court. And while Bristol’s branch of the APL did not violate the pastor’s civil rights per se like their brethren throughout the country, they did manipulate and take advantage of his most vulnerable commodity, his heart.

If there are any takeaways it is you don’t need a war to awaken a mob; you only need a cause. Vigilantism cloaked under patriotism is a recipe for disaster.

An examination of history shows there is always a boogeyman in times of strife. Alas, it begs the question, who is next and when?