He was sentenced to 18 months inprison under the Sedition Act of 1918. Sidis's arrest featured prominently in newspapers, as his early graduation from Harvard had garnered considerable local celebrity. During the trial, Sidis stated that he had been aconscientious objector of theWorld War I draft, an atheist,^[7]and a socialist.^[8] (He later developed his own philosophy of quasi-"libertarianism" based on individual rights and "the American social continuity").^[9][10]