Incendiary Threats in Seattle Lead to Internment
A German resident is taken into federal custody following threats directed at the Pacific Coast as tensions mount on the home front.
Fritz Sonneburn, a German subject, was arrested and interned at Seattle Saturday by Federal officers. He has been under surveillance for some time, the officers said, on account of frequent incendiary utterances, but was considered irresponsible until he wrote a letter to a friend in Baltimore in which he said, 'If this country joins the allies something is going to happen on the Pacific coast.'
“If this country joins the allies something is going to happen on the Pacific coast.”
This arrest reflects the heightened domestic anxieties of 1917, where personal letters were monitored for signs of subversion. It echoes contemporary discussions about the tension between individual expression and national security during periods of geopolitical conflict.
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