Page:Max Eastman's Address to the Jury in the Second Masses Trial (1918).pdf/22

 As a citizen, who has never before been accused of a crime, I feel it to be my moral right, whether it is my legal right or not, to have you believe that no matter what I may have thought, or what I may have said or done before a law was passed, I would after the law was passed conform my conduct to the best of my ability to the provisions of the law. That is the way I feel about it. That is the way it presents itself to my intelligence. But His Honor has ruled otherwise. He has ruled that things which we said before either of those laws was passed may be proof of our intent to violate the laws.

You are laboring under a misconception. It is some evidence of the intent of the defendants at the time it is alleged that they committed the offense—that is the period between the time the law was enacted on June 15th, and November.

I must have misspoken. I meant to say that.

I wanted to clear it up.

It is evidence of our intent as having continued after June 15th.

And the first thing the District Attorney produces—I am not going to weary you by taking up all of these articles that he produces, in detail. I think there are a few crucial points in them all, which if explained will explain the whole tenor and intent of the magazine and each of the contributors.

The first of them, and perhaps in some points of view the worst, is the telegram which I sent on the day of the declaration of war. To me it only proves what I already knew