Joseph McKenna

“ This same kind of excuse of the defendant offering to protect the German people is the same kind of excuse offered by the pacifists in this country, who are against the United States and have the interests of the enemy at heart by defending that thing they call the Kaiser and his darling people. You are the same kind of a man that comes over to this country from Germany to get away from the Kaiser and war. You have become a citizen of this country and lived here as such, and now when this country is at war with Germany you seek to undermine the country which gave you protection. ”

“ Besides, it cannot be the assumption of section 21 that the bias or prejudice of a judge in a particular case would be known by everybody, and necessarily, therefore, to deny to a party the use of information received from others is to deny to him at times the benefit of the section.
We are of opinion, therefore, that an affidavit upon information and belief satisfies the section and that upon its filing, if it show the objectionable inclination or disposition of the judge, which we have said is an essential condition, it is his duty to 'proceed no further' in the case. ”

“ February 2, 1918, there was returned into the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois, an indictment against plaintiffs in error (it will be convenient to refer to them as defendants) , charging them with a violation of the Act of Congress of June 15, 1917, known as the Espionage Act (40 Stat. 217, c. 30) . [1] In due time they invoked section 21 by filing an affidavit charging Judge Landis, who was to preside at the trial, with personal bias and prejudice against them, and moved for the assignment of another judge to preside at the trial. ”