http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_ActThe Alien Registration Act or Smith Act (18 U.S.C. § 2385) of 1940 is a United States federal statute that made it a criminal offense for anyone to:
“ knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association. ”
It also required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government; within four months, 4,741,971 aliens had registered under the Act's provisions.
The Act is best known for its use against political organizations and figures, mostly on the left. Prosecutions continued until a series of United States Supreme Court decisions in 1957 threw out numerous convictions under the Smith Act as unconstitutional. The statute remains on the books, however.
The Act was proposed by Congressman Howard W. Smith of Virginia, a Democrat who supported the poll tax (a mechanism that was often used for keeping certain racial groups from voting) and a leader of the "anti-labor" bloc of Congressmen. It was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat It...
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