An unsung Montana hero who won a major freedom of speech case during one of the nation's most divisive times will be the topic of a presentation on Monday, April 21, in Kalispell.Missoula author Doug Ammons will tell the story of attorney Matt Canning, who defended a farmer who was accused of insulting President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Canning won the case, but his victory resulted in a national Sedition Act.Ves Hall, from Ashland, Montana, was accused of opposing the war against Germany and calling President Wilson the “crookedest SOB that ever sat in the President's chair.” Hall was arrested under the federal Espionage Act.It was a fractious time in Montana, and earlier in 1917, radical labor organizer Frank Little had been mysteriously lynched in Butte.Hall was represented by Canning, an Irish immigrant who started his career in the Butte mines and eventually became an attorney. Ironically, he was up against his former apprentice Burton K. Wheeler in the three-day trial.Canning won. In issuing the acquittal, the judge said Hall's comments in a village of 60 people, with none of the armies with hundreds of miles, could not be construed as interfering with the war effort.The fallout was immediate, with Canning being punched in the nose by a deputy sheriff. Then, a Rosebud County District Attorney pulled a gun on a state judge, and the confrontation hit the Helena newspaper under the headline, “Gunplay at Montana Capital.”An angry Montana Legislature called a special session and unanimously passed the Sedition Act. Congress then approved the same law, making it a federal offense. Ammons is best known for books about his kayaking adventures and for "A Darkness Lit by Heroes," about a 1917 Butte mine disaster. He has also entertained local audiences with his “then and now” historic photographs of Montana,

The presentation is at the monthly meeting of the Northwest Montana Westerners, a local history group. It starts at 7 p.m. on the second floor of the Northwest Montana History Museum, at 124 2nd Ave. East in Kalispell. Cost is $5 for the general public, with members and youths under 16 admitted free.