HELENA — As their families fought back tears, Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Wednesday apologized on behalf of the state and signed posthumous pardons for 78 people convicted of sedition during the anti-German hysteria that gripped Montana during World War I.

About 50 members of the families of eight people convicted of sedition were on hand for the ceremony in the Capitol rotunda, as several hundred spectators watched. One by one, Schweitzer read their ancestors’ names, signed the pardon and handed it to a family member.

“Across this country, it was a time in which we had lost our minds,” said Schweitzer, himself the grandson of German-speaking immigrants who settled in Montana. “So today in Montana, we will attempt to make it right. In Montana, we will say to an entire generation of people, we are sorry. And we challenge the rest of the country to do the same.”

The 75 men and three women, many of them German immigrants, were arrested and convicted of violating the state’s 1918 Sedition Act. Some had criticized the U.S. government’s entry into the war, while others expressed support for Germany and the kaiser and others refused to buy Liberty Bonds or kiss the American flag.

The Montana law became the model for the Federal Sedition Act of 1918. The same state legislative session that passed the Sedition Act created the Montana Council of Defense and granted it the power to enact laws. Among its decrees were a state ban on speaking German, even in the pulpit, and a list of banned books in German or about Germany.

The Montana Sedition Act was “probably the harshest anti-speech law in the history of this country,” said Clemens P. Work, the University of Montana journalism professor whose 2005 book, “Darkest Before Dawn” spawned the effort to seek posthumous pardons for Montanans convicted of sedition.

Work, UM law professor Jeff Renz and some journalism and law students spent days searching for court and prison records in dusty courthouse and Capitol basements. They tracked down many descendents of those convicted of sedition, with the law students doing the legal research to convince Schweitzer to issue the first posthumous pardons in Montana history.

“History is a great teacher, that’s for sure, but the lessons are meaningless unless we learn them well,” third-year law student Katie Olson of Great Falls told the crowd.

Schweitzer challenged the rest of the country not to forget these lessons. As he spoke, huge photos of four of the Montanans imprisoned for sedition were on poster boards, along with a large poster quoting the language of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment guarantees the right to free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the right to peacefully assemble.

“It is not the American way for Americans to spy on neighbors,” he said. “And today, we ask that we never forget the mistakes that we have made so that we don’t make them again.”

“For those of you who are here to honor your ancestors, I say to you, they were patriots,” Schweitzer concluded, as the crowd rose to applaud heartily.

Among those attending was Farida “Fritzi” Bausch Briner of Tahoe City, Calif. Her father, Herman Bausch, was a German immigrant who farmed near Billings. He was arrested and convicted of sedition for his comments when he refused to buy Liberty Bonds.

“I don’t care anything for the Red, White and Blue,” Bausch allegedly said. “I would rather see Germany win than France (or)England.”

For those comments, Bausch served 28 months in the dungeon-like Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, which is now a museum. Briner and her husband and their family toured the prison earlier this week.

Briner was beaming after receiving her father’s pardon. Her son read excerpts from her father’s writings.

“It was very exhilarating,” she said of the pardon. “It’s a bright and shining day for Montana and for all of us.”

As a child, Briner said she sensed “something dreadful had happened” to her family before she was born in 1931. She thought it was the death of her two brothers. Finally, her mother told her the details of her father’s imprisonment, although Bausch did not “savor the subject.”

Her father, who died in 1958, was not a pacifist, Briner said, but said he wouldn’t buy Liberty Bonds unless Congress passed a law requiring citizens to buy them.

“He believed and lived by the Ten Commandments,” Briner said, “and he believed firmly in the Constitution of the United States and the freedom of the United States.”

Asked what lesson she drew from what happened to her father, Briner said, “I think we have to be very aware of our rights so we can protect them.”

Marie Van Middlesworth, 89, came from Medford, Ore., to accept the pardon for her late father, Fay Rumsey of Sarpy Creek in Rosebud County. He was sentenced to two to four years in prison for allegedly saying he wished the Germans would come in and clean up the United States, especially Sarpy Creek. He allegedly said that President Wilson was in cahoots with the moneyed powers of the country and, if drafted, he would not fight for the United States but would fight for the German Kaiser.

Van Middlesworth was delighted after the ceremony.

“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “I love this bunch of people. They’re so smart.”

Her father died in 1922. Although some said he died of heart problems, “he was a sick man and a broken man” after his conviction, his daughter said.

“I’m kind of like my dad,” Van Middlesworth said. “I’d speak my mind, even if they’d put me in jail.”