Montana’s Great War of Words: Pt 1, Chuck Johnson

Chuck Johnson, Marian Holter Brod, and Kurt Wetzel discuss the war of words that took place in the Montana press as the United States entered the Great War. Helena Independent editor William A. Campbell—a key member of the Montana Council of Defense—used his position to carry out a series of witch hunts across the state, while the Montana Staats-Zeitung, a German-language newspaper that began publishing in 1886, attempted to defend the integrity and honor of the German immigrants who called Montana home. At the same time, Bill Dunne, editor of the Butte Daily Bulletin, labor leader, and unapologetic Socialist battled the perceived excesses of the status quo.