Biography
Business manager of The Masses. Indicted in November 1917 along with editor Max Eastman, John Reed, and the staff of The Masses — the radical New York socialist literary magazine — under the Espionage Act of 1917 for conspiracy to obstruct military recruitment. The Post Office had already revoked the magazine's second-class mailing privileges, effectively shutting it down. The first trial (April 1918) and second trial (October 1918) both ended in hung juries; the government declined a third prosecution and the charges were dismissed. The Masses re-emerged as The Liberator under Eastman's editorship. Famously, during the trial Rogers would stand up and lead the courtroom in the national anthem whenever the band on the street outside struck up — repeatedly halting proceedings and infuriating Judge Augustus Hand.
