In September 1917, a drama was playing out in a Trenton courtroom that would have a major influence on how political dissent would be treated in the United States. Frederick Krafft, a 58-year-old Ringwood, N.J., Socialist who had twice run for governor, was being tried under the recently passed Espionage Act for giving his speech in Newark in which the government indictment claimed he had said, “I can’t see how the government can compel troops to France.