Biography
Carl Henry Gleeser owned, published, edited, printed and distributed the German-language Kansas City newspaper Missouri Staats-Zeitung, which carried Jacob Frohwerk’s series of editorials opposing American participation in the First World War. The articles argued, among other things, that the United States had entered the war for British and financial interests, that Germany was fighting defensively, and that working-class Americans were being conscripted to protect wealthy investors; the government charged that twelve articles published during 1917 were intended to cause insubordination and disloyalty in the armed forces and to obstruct recruitment and conscription. Gleeser and Frohwerk were arrested together on January 26, 1918 and indicted on thirteen counts on April 23. Gleeser chose a different course from his co-defendant: he pleaded guilty on April 30, 1918, agreed to testify for the government against Frohwerk, drew five years — half of Frohwerk’s eventual ten — and entered the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth the same day as prisoner 12644, so that he was already inside when Frohwerk went to trial that summer. The Supreme Court case that discusses their alleged conspiracy, Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U.S. 204 (1919), was Frohwerk’s appeal; Gleeser never appealed. President Woodrow Wilson commuted Gleeser’s sentence to one year and one day, and when the Justice Department notice reached the Leavenworth warden on May 8, 1919 he was released immediately — after 373 days, slightly longer than the commuted term. He later joined the cooperative colony at New Llano, Louisiana, where he edited the Llano Colonist and helped administer the colony. Born in Germany in August 1855, he died at his New Llano residence late on March 30, 1947 and is buried in the colony’s Gill Cemetery.
