didn’t report on the outbreak because they did not want to go to jail. A morale law had been passed in 1917 after the United States entered World War I. It stated you could receive twenty years in jail if you chose to “utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the government of the United States.”9 This law seems unconstitutional, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court ruling (Schenck v. United States) that you can’t say things that “represent to society a clear and present danger.”
