Transcriber’s Notes

The cover image was provided by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Punctuation has been standardized.

In the main text, several of the topics are not listed in alphabetical order. These have been left as printed.

In the concluding Table of Contents, the alphabetical order of topics has been corrected, but no topics omitted by the author have been added.

The text frequently shows quotations within quotations, all set off by double quotes. The inner quotations have been changed to single quotes for improved readability.

This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note.

The symbol ^‡ indicates the description in parenthesis has been added to an illustration. This may be needed if there is no caption or if the caption does not describe the image adequately.

Transcriber’s Notes are used when making corrections to the text or to provide additional information for the modern reader. These notes are not identified in the text, but have been accumulated in a table at the end of the book.

COPYRIGHT BY
FREDERICK FRANKLIN SCHRADER
1920

PUBLISHED BY
CONCORD PUBLISHING COMPANY
INCORPORATED
NEW YORK, U. S. A.

“1683-1920”

The Fourteen Points and What Became of Them—Foreign Propaganda in the Public Schools—Rewriting the History of the United States—The Espionage Act and How it Worked—“Illegal and Indefensible Blockade” of the Central Powers—1,000,000 Victims of Starvation—Our Debt to France and to Germany—The War Vote in Congress—Truth About the Belgian Atrocities—Our Treaty with Germany and How Observed—The Alien Property Custodianship—Secret Will of Cecil Rhodes—Racial Strains in American Life—Germantown Settlement of 1683

And a Thousand Other Topics

by

Frederick Franklin Schrader

Former Secretary Republican Congressional Committee
and Author “Republican Campaign Text Book, 1898.”

PREFACE

With the ending of the war many books will be released dealing with various questions and phases of the great struggle, some of them perhaps impartial, but the majority written to make propaganda for foreign nations with a view to rendering us dissatisfied with our country and imposing still farther upon the ignorance, indifference and credulity of the American people.

The author’s aim in the following pages has been to provide a book of ready reference on a multitude of questions which have been raised by the war. It is strictly American in that it seeks to educate those who need education in the truth about American institutions and national problems.

A blanket indictment has been found against a whole race. That race comprises upward of 26 per cent. of the American people and has been a stalwart factor in American life since the middle of the seventeenth century. This indictment has been found upon tainted evidence. As is shown in the following pages, a widespread propaganda has been, and is still, at work to sow the seeds of discord and sedition in order to reconcile us to a pre-Revolutionary political condition. This propaganda has invaded our public schools, and cannot be more effectively combatted than by education.

The contingency that the book may be decried as German propaganda has no terrors for the author, and has not deterred him from his purpose to deal with facts from an angle that has not been popular during the past five years. What is here set down is a statement of facts, directed not against institutions, but men. Men come and go; institutions endure if they are rooted in the hearts of the people.

The author believes in the sacredness and perpetuity of our institutions. He believes in the great Americans of the past, and in American traditions. He is content to have his Americanism measured by any standard applied to persons who, like Major George HavenPutnam, feel prompted to apologize to their English friends for “the treason of 1776,” or who pass unrebuked and secretly condone the statement of former Senator James Hamilton Lewis, that the Constitution is an obsolete instrument.

Statements of fact may be controverted; they cannot be disproved by an Espionage Act, however repugnant their telling may sound to the stagnant brains of those who have been uninterruptedly happy because they were spared the laborious process of thinking for themselves throughout the war, or that not inconsiderable host which derives pleasure and profit from keeping alive the hope of one day seeing their country reincorporated with “the mother country”—the mother country of 30 per cent. of the American people.

It is to arouse the patriotic consciousness of a part of the remaining 70 per cent. that this compilation of political and historical data has been undertaken.

European issues and questions have been included in so far only as they exercised a bearing on American affairs, or influenced and shaped public opinion, prejudice and conclusions. To the extent that they serve the cause of truth they are entitled to a place in these pages.

THE AUTHOR.

New York City, January, 1920.

Allied Nations in the War.

Allied Nations in the War.—The following countries were at war with Germany at the given dates:

The following countries broke off diplomatic relations with Germany:

Alsace-Lorraine.

Alsace-Lorraine.—Dr. E. J. Dillon, the distinguished political writer and student of European problems, in a remarkable article printed long before the end of the war, called attention to the general misunderstanding that prevails regarding Alsace-Lorraine. He said that the two houses of the Legislature in Strasburg made a statement through their respective speakers which, “however skeptically it may be received by the allied countries, is thoroughly relied upon by Germany as a deciding factor” in the vexatious question affecting those provinces.

The president of the second chamber, Dr. Ricklin (former mayor of Dammerkirch, then occupied by the French), declared solemnly in the presence of the Stadthalter that the two provinces, while desiring modification of their status within the German empire, also desired their perpetuation of their present union with it.... “The people of Alsace-Lorraine in its overwhelming majority did not desire war, and therefore did not desire this war. What it strove for was the consummation of its political status in the limits of its dependenceupon the German empire, and that settled, to resume its peaceful avocations. In this respect the war has changed nothing in our country. We make this confession aloud and before all the world. May it be everywhere heard, and may peace be speedily vouchsafed us.”

“The speaker of the First Chamber, Dr. Hoeffel,” continues Dr. Dillon, “also made a pronouncement of a like tenor, of which this is the pith: ‘Alsace-Lorraine particularly has felt how heavily the war presses upon us all, but selfless sacrifice is here, too, taken for granted. Our common task has knit the imperial provinces more closely together than before, and has also drawn more tightly their links with the German Empire.’”

Under date of January 17, 1917, Mayor North, of Detweiler, was quoted in the press of that day: “Alsace-Lorraine needs no liberator.After the war, I am confident, it will know how to guard its interests without the interference of any foreign power. The sons of the country have not bled and died in vain for Germany.”

North is of old Alsatian stock, as is also Former Secretary Petri of Alsace, who said, when the issue of the war was still undecided: “In view of the military situation, the reply of the Entente to President Wilson’s peace note is simply grotesque. It could hardly have used other words if the French were in Strasburg, Metz, Mayence, etc.”

At the National Congress of United Socialists, March 24, 1913, Gustave Herve (quoting a dispatch from Brest to the New York “Times” of the day following), declared, “Alsace was German in race and civilization, and had been an ancient possession of Germany. One of the provinces naturally belonged to Germany and the other to France.”

Francis de Pressense, ex-deputy, declared: “Time has done its work. Alsace-Lorraine no longer wants to return to French rule.”

The last election to the Reichstag before the war showed that only 157,000 out of a total vote of 417,000 voted for “protesting candidates,” while 260,000 voted as Germans, not as separatists.

Though forced to live several generations under French rule, it must be observed that the people of Alsace-Lorraine never ceased to be Germans. The proper mother tongue of a people is that in which it prays. The most distinguished Catholic pulpit orator of Alsace in the last century, Abbe Muhe, who died in 1865, was able only once in his life to bring himself to preach in French; and Canon Gazeau, of Strasburg Cathedral, published in 1868 an “Essai sur la conversation de la langue Allemagne en Alsace,” in which, in the interest of religion and morals, he energetically resisted the attempt to extirpate German speech.

The population of Alsace, with the exception of the rich and comfortable, in its thoughts, words and feeling was thoroughly German.In a petition which was addressed in 1869 to the Emperor Napoleon by people of German Lorraine, we read as follows: “O, sir! How many fathers and mothers of families who earn their bread in the sweat of their brow impose upon themselves the pious but none the less heavy duty of teaching their children the catechism in German by abridging in the winter evenings their own needful hours of sleep.”

In 1869 a radical journal was established by prominent republicans of Muhlhausen in the interest of propagating agitation against the French empire among the laboring people. This paper appeared only in the German language, and justified this course in the following words: “Because the majority, yes, the very large majority, of the Alsatian people is German in thought, in feeling, in speech; receives its religious instruction in German; loves and lives according to German usages, and will not forget the German language.”

The boundary established in 1871 was the true national and racial boundary, which had been destroyed by Louis XIV when Germany, after the Thirty Years War, was too weak to defend it, but which remained the boundary in the hearts of those on both sides until the French Revolution, when executions, deportations and process of ruthless extermination finally broke the spirit of resistance in the population and made it succumb in order to save itself from extinction.

The attempt of the French to control the Rhine regions, though continued for centuries, has been a failure. “To one who has been through the documents,” writes Raymond D. B. Cahill, in “The Nation” for July 26, 1919, “an astounding thing is the French picture of their former experience in ruling the Rhinelands. The student of that period sees little which should encourage the French to attempt a repetition of that experiment. Indeed, he is impressed with the futility of the nation’s attempt to absorb a people of quite different culture. Although dealing with a people still unawakened by German patriotism, the French found eighteenth century Rhinelanders so different, so attached to their own customs and religion, that it took many years to overcome their resistance.”

It will again require the guillotine, the firebrand and the methods of violence employed during the French revolution to convert Alsace-Lorraine into a French possession. France has decisively declined to submit the question of the annexation to a plebiscite. The beautiful dream about the “redemption of our lost sons” has proved a delusion; hundreds of thousands of citizens have been transported by France in order to blot out the appearance that there was discontent. Abbe Wetterlé, once a member of the German Reichstag, and one of the leaders of the pro-French movement, in his lectures, compiled in his book, “Ce qu était l’Alsace-Lorraine et ce quelle cera; l’edition Francaise illustrée,” Paris, 1915, said: “Soldiers who had participated in the battles of 1914 and had invaded Alsace-Lorraine, returned painfully disappointed. They reported, and their stories agreed in establishingthem as reliable, that the civil population of the annexed provinces had betrayed them in the most outrageous manner.”

General Rapp, a descendant of Napoleon’s famous marshal, whose family has been a resident of the province for 600 years, in a manifesto signed by him as a member of the “Executive Committee of the Republic of Alsace-Lorraine,” and addressed to Sir James Eric Drummond, general secretary of the League of Nations, says: “We, the representatives of the sovereign people of Alsace-Lorraine, protest in the name of our people against the systematic ruin of our homeland. The French government has usurped the sovereignty of Alsace-Lorraine. The sovereign people of Alsace-Lorraine was not consulted concerning the constitutional status of the future. We, representing our people, personifying its sovereignty, assume the right to speak for the interests of the people of Alsace-Lorraine before the League of Nations. We are standing today at the parting of the ways in our history. The hour has come when the people are asking, ‘Shall it be revolution or self-determination?’ Before that question is decided we appeal to the good sense of the world, which must know that until the Alsace-Lorraine question is solved beyond the limits of our country, two great nations will never know peace.”

This manifesto, dated Basel, August 25, 1919, informs the world that millions of francs were taken out of the treasury of the French government to finance the reception committee of President Poincare and Premier Clemenceau in every city in Alsace-Lorraine, and for the payment of agents to inflame manifestations of joy, finding vent in shouts of “Vive la France;” that wagonloads of decorations for the receptions, French flags, banners and torches and Alsatian costumes especially manufactured in Paris, were imported for the occasion.

The meager dispatches which reach the public in spite of the iron hand of suppression which is wielded in Alsace-Lorraine teem with accounts of anti-French demonstrations and the arrest and deportation of citizens. The police in October were reported exercising a hectic energy in searching houses in Strasburg; all business houses were directed to discharge their German employes, by order of Commissary General Millerand. Hundreds of persons were arrested in Rombach, Hagendingen and Diedenhoefen. The people were taken in automobiles to Metz, and after passing the night in the citadel, were deported over the bridge at Kehl the next day.

A dispatch of October 27, 1919, says: “Another trainload of wounded Frenchmen has arrived at the main station at Mayence. They are said to come from the Saar Valley and Alsace-Lorraine. It is reported of the revolt in the Saar that the men sang, ‘We will triumph over France and die for Germany.’ The band which played ‘Die Wacht am Rhein’ and ‘Deutschland Ueber Alles’ was subjected to a heavy fine, which was immediately paid by a leading industrial, in consequence of which the commandant was relieved of his office.”In Sulzbach, on the Saar, the French issued the following proclamation:

“‘Every person guilty of uttering shouts or grinning at a passing troop will be arrested and brought before a court martial for insulting the army. Every German official with cap or arm-emblem who refrains from saluting officers will be arrested and after an examination will be released. His name will be reported to general headquarters of the division.’”

In the new electoral orders, 30 per cent. of the population of Alsace-Lorraine is disfranchised. The voters are divided into three classes, consisting of persons of French birth or pure French extraction; second, of children born of mixed marriages. In this class those only have the franchise who are the sons of French fathers married to German mothers. The third class, consisting of voters having a German father and an Alsatian mother, are completely disfranchised.

France is proceeding in Alsace-Lorraine as the English did in Acadia. “The Nation” of September 6, 1919, indicates the measures in the following article:

Military measures for the punishment of troublesome French citizens of Alsace-Lorraine are quoted in the following extract from “L’Humanité” of July 16:

“Citizen Grumbach spoke on Sunday, before the National Council, of the order issued recently at Strasbourg by M. Millerand, a decree under which any citizen of Alsace-Lorraine who notably appeared to be an element of disorder would be immediately turned over to the military authorities.

“This abominable decree, whose existence Grumbach thus revealed, is now known in its entirety. It is to be found in ‘The Official Bulletin of Upper Alsace,’ No. 25, June 21, 1919. Its title is ‘Decree Relative to Citizens of Alsace-Lorraine in Renewable Detachment’ (sic). Order is given to the municipalities to draw up lists of citizens of Alsace-Lorraine in renewable detachment.

“And here is what Article 2 of this strange decree says:

“1. Every citizen of Alsace-Lorraine whose class has not yet been demobilized in France, and who notably appears to be a disorderly element, shall be immediately, upon the order of the Commandant of the District, arrested by the police and turned over to the military authorities.

“His papers will be sent by the Commandant to the commanding general of the territory, who, after inquiry, will command the return of the arrested man:

“To his old organization if he was a volunteer in the French army;

“To the Alsace-Lorraine depot in Paris if he is a former prisoner of the Allied armies, or a liberated German soldier.

“2. Citizens of Alsace-Lorraine whose class has been demobilized in France.

“Any of these men who notably appears to be a disorderly element shall be arraigned by request of the Commissaries of theRepublic before the Commission de Triage under the same classification as undesirable civilian citizens of Alsace-Lorraine.

“Strasbourg, 24 May, 1919.

“Commissary General of the Republic,

“A. MILLERAND.”

After this, who can be scandalized by the vehement criticisms directed at the National Council by Grumbach, against the state of siege and of arbitrary rule which the Government of the Republic imposes upon Alsace-Lorraine?Does M. Clemenceau, that “old libertarian” know the decree of Millerand? In any case it is important to know that this decree is not aimed at the Germans residing in Alsace-Lorraine, but at the citizens of Alsace-Lorraine of Category A, those indisputably French. Incredible, yet true!

Americans Not An English People.

Americans Not An English People.—Careful computation made by Prof. Albert B. Faust, of Cornell University, shows that while the English, Scotch and Welsh together constituted 30.2 per cent. of the white population of the United States of the whole of 81,731,957, according to the census of 1910, the German element, including Hollanders, made up 26.4 per cent. of the total, and constituted a close second, the Irish coming next with a percentage of 18.6.

According to this table, more than twenty-six Americans out of every hundred are of German origin and about thirty out of every hundred only are either of English, Scotch or Welsh descent. Recent writers, like Dr. William Griffis, and Douglas Campbell (“The Puritan in Holland, England and America”) have vigorously disputed the theory that the Americans are an English people. As Prof. Faust shows, only 30.2 per cent. of the mixed races of the United States are of English origin, while nearly 70 per cent. are of other racial descent.Dr. Griffis wisely declares: “We are less an English nation than composite of the Teutonic peoples,” and the great American historian, Motley, declared: “We are Americans; but yesterday we were Europeans—Netherlanders, Saxons, Normans, Swabians, Celts.”

“She (England) has a conviction that whatever good there is in us is wholly English, when the truth is that we are worth nothing except as far as we have disinfected ourselves of Anglicism.” James Russell Lowell in “Study Windows.”

“Most American authors and all Englishmen who have written on the subject, set out with the theory that the people in the United States are an English race, and that their institutions, when not original, are derived from England. These assumptions underlie all American histories, and they have come to be so generally accepted that to question them seems almost to savor of temerity.... Certainly no intelligent American can study the English people as he does those of the Continent, and then believe that we are of the same race, except as members of the Aryan division of the human family, with the same human nature.”—Douglas Campbell. “The Puritan in Holland, England and America,” Chapter I.

“The Germans were among the earliest and the most numerous of American settlers. The Anglo-Saxons are the acknowledged masters of the earth. The bulk of the early immigrants were of these two stocks. Examine the matter from any angle, and it is apparent that the American people are the direct, immediate descendants of world empire builders.

“The American colonies were all settled by British, French, Germans, Spanish and other inhabitants of the north and west of Europe. The central and western Europeans played no part in the early history of the colonies. Colonial ancestry means the ancestry of the world’s conquering peoples.

“Immigration during most of the nineteenth century was from the same portion of Europe. The immigration records (kept only since 1820) show that between that year and 1840 the immigrants from Europe numbered 594,504, among whom there were 358,994 from the British Isles [including, of course, the Irish—Editor] and 159,215 from Germany, making a total from the two countries of 518,209, or 87 per cent. of the immigrants arriving in the 20-year period. During the next 20 years (1840-1860) the total of immigrants from Europe was 4,050,159, of whom the British Isles furnished 2,385,846, and Germany 1,386,392, making for these two countries 95 per cent. of the whole. Even during the 20 years from 1860 to 1880, 82 per cent. of the immigrants to the United States from Europe hailed from the British Isles and from Germany. During the most of the nineteenth century European immigration was overwhelmingly British and German.

“Nearly nine-tenths of the early immigrants to the United States came from these countries. They and the countries immediately adjoiningthem furnished practically all of the men and women who settled in North America from the earliest days of colonization down to 1880—the beginning of the last generation. The American race stock is built around the stock of Great Britain and Germany.”—Prof. Scott Nearing.

(See “[The German Element in American Life],” elsewhere.)

Whatever racial prejudice and political bias may attempt to do, philosophers and thinkers know that from the German race emanated the ideals of freedom and personal liberty which is the heritage of the whole world. To that great French thinkers, Montesquieu, Guizot and others have candidly testified, as have Englishmen, such as Hume and Carlyle. In describing the battle of Chalons in his standard work, “The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,” Prof. E. S. Creasy says:

In order to estimate the full importance of the battle of Chalons we must keep steadily in mind who and what the Germans were and the important distinction between them and the numerous other races that assailed the Roman Empire; and it is to be understood that the Gothic and Scandinavian nations are included in the German race.Now, in two remarkable traits the Germans differed from the Sarmatic as well as from the Slavic nations, and indeed from all those other races to whom the Greeks and Romans gave the designation of barbarians. I allude to their personal freedom and regard for the rights of men; secondly to the respect paid by them to the female sex and the chastity for which the latter were celebrated among the people of the North. These were the foundations of that probity of character, self-respect and purity of manners which may be traced among the Germans and Goths even during pagan times, and which, when their sentiments were enlightened by Christianity, brought out those splendid traits of character which distinguish the age of chivalry and romance. (See Prichard’s “Researches Into the Physical History of Man.”) What the intermixture of the German stock with the classic, at the fall of the western empire, has done for mankind may be best felt, with Arnold (Arnold’s “Lectures on Modern History”) over how large a portion of the earth the influence of the German element is now extended.

It affects more or less the whole west of Europe, from the head of the Gulf of Bothnia to the most southern promontory of Sicily, from the Oder and the Adriatic to the Hebrides and to Lisbon. It is true that the language spoken over a large portion of this space is not predominantly German; but even in France and Italy and Spain the influence of the Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Lombards, while it has colored even the language, has in blood and institutions left its mark legibly and indelibly. Germany, the low countries, Switzerland for the most part, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and our own islands, are all in language, in blood and institutions, German most decidedly. But all South America is peopled with Spaniards and Portuguese; all North America and Australia with Englishmen. I say nothing of the prospectsand influence of the German race in Africa and in India; it is enough to say that half of Europe and all of America and Australia are German, more or less completely, in race, in language, in institutions or in all.

It has been extravagantly modish to distort ethnological facts and set up new gods, but the assailants of the German race have not been able successfully to deny that tremendous influence which has given birth to the free institutions of the world, and there are not wanting among Americans of authority those who have been openly outspoken for the truth. President Garfield in his article on “My Experiences as a Lawyer” in the “North American Review” for June, 1887, p. 569, observed, alluding to a speech made by him on the death of his friend, Representative Gustav Schleicher of Texas in 1879:

“We are accustomed to call England our fatherland. It is a mistake; one of the greatest of modern historians writing the history of the English people has said that England is not the fatherland of the English-speaking people, but Germany. I go into that and say, ‘The real fatherland of the people of this country is Germany, and our friend who has fallen came to us direct from our fatherland, and, not, like the rest of us, around by the way of England.’ Then I give a little sketch of German character, and what Carlyle and Montesquieu said, that the British constitution came out of the woods of Germany.”

In a like manner Charles E. Hughes, while governor of New York State, in a speech at Mount Vernon in 1908, said:

Did you ever think that a very large portion of our people, despite their present distinction of home and birthplace, and even nationality, are descended from those common ancestors who a few years ago lived their life in the German forests? There were nourished the institutions of freedom; and if any one were to point to any place in the world to which, above all, we trace our free institutions, we would point, above all, to the forests of Germany.

Americans Saved from Mexican Mob at Tampico by German Cruiser “Dresden.

Americans Saved from Mexican Mob at Tampico by German Cruiser “Dresden.”—The destruction of the little German cruiser “Dresden” by the British in the neutral waters of Chili, in March, 1915, must call up sentimental memories in the hearts of certain Americans. For it was the gallant little “Dresden” under command of Capt. von Koehler, that saved the lives of hundreds of American refugees who were surrounded by a bloodthirsty mob of Mexicans at the Southern Hotel, Tampico, Mexico, April 21, 1914. These fugitives had gathered from all parts of Mexico, expecting to be protected by the American battleships in Tampico Bay. But by some criminal short-sightedness the American ships were ordered to withdraw, and the Americans at the Southern Hotel were exposed to immediate death by a raging mob, when Capt. von Koehler entered upon the scene and threatened to lay Tampico in ashes if the mob did not disperse in fifteen minutes. Hethen sent a squad of his blue jackets ashore and extricated the besieged people from their dangerous position. Two American yachts, hoisting the German and English flags, carried the refugees to a place of safety. Capt. von Koehler’s gallantry was publicly acknowledged by Secretary of State Bryan. A special dispatch to the New York “Times,” dated Galveston, April 27, stated that “the officers of the battleship ‘Connecticut’ said tonight that but for the action of the men of the German cruiser ‘Dresden’ there would have been bloodshed on Tuesday night.” And “the refugees arriving on the ‘Esperanza’ sent this cable dispatch to the German Emperor:

“To your officers and men we owe our lives and pledge our lifetime gratitude. We salute you and the noble men of your Empire.”

Armstadt, Major George.

Armstadt, Major George.—After the sack of Washington, the burning of the White House and the Capitol, in 1812, the British proceeded to attack Baltimore. This action brought into great prominence two Americans of German descent. General Johann Stricker, born in Frederick, Md., in 1759, was in command of the militia, and Major George Armstadt commanded Fort McHenry. He was born in New Market in 1780 of Hessian parents. “If Armstadt had not held Fort McHenry during its terrific bombardment by the British,” writes Rudolf Cronau in “Our Hyphenated Citizens,” a valuable little brochure, “our national hymn, ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ most probably would never have been written.”

American School Children and Foreign Propaganda.

American School Children and Foreign Propaganda.—The tendency in some directions to picture George III as “a German King,” in order to shift upon the shoulders of a historical manikin the responsibility for the American Revolutionary War, has gone so far as to attempt to blind the unthinking masses to the truth about our war of independence; but it should be remembered that if the responsibility rested wholly with this alleged “German King,” then Washington, Jefferson and Franklin deceived the American people and the Declaration of Independence was a lie. In that event we have lived 140 years of our history under a delusion and a fiction. It is eminently to the interest of English propaganda to create and strengthen this impression, and it is regrettable that no organized opposition has developed to the attempt to inculcate into the minds of our school children the conception that but for this German King we should still be a contented colony of the British crown.

How is this fiction fostered?

Largely through the medium of certain important book publishers, who print school books, though the public is ignorant of the fact that the majority of these publishing houses are financed either by British or American circles closely intermarried or financially related to English houses.

The movement to rewrite the history of the United States in the interest of England is so widespread and persistent that the chairman of the Americanization Committee of the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce, in November, 1919, published an expose of his discoveries and conclusions as to the extent of the British propaganda, in which he said:

To work among aliens to build up respect and loyalty for the United States while a stupendous plot is under way to destroy the very thing which we are pleading with these aliens to preserve is wasted effort.

In view of the efforts to burden the shoulders of George III with the offenses that led to the Declaration of Independence while exonerating the English people of any guilt, by representing him as a “German King” to the uninformed minds of our school children, it is pertinent to quote Lord Macaulay’s description of George III:

The young king was a born Englishman; all his tastes, good or bad, were English.... His age, his appearance and all that was known of his character conciliated public favor. He was in the bloom of youth; his person and address were pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no vice; and flattery might without any glowing absurdity ascribe to him many princely virtues.

We find nothing in Macaulay to warrant the conclusion that George, a born Englishman in the third generation, was not complete master of the English language, as has been alleged; and, moreover, if he can reasonably be called a German, because of his German ancestry, it follows that the same allegation can be reasonably preferred against President Wilson, and that, because of his even nearer English ancestry, he is really an Englishman and not an American—an imputation which his partisans would declare an absurdity on its face.

A further proof of the vicious misrepresentation which describes George III singly and alone responsible for the cause of the Revolution is contained in the words of our forefathers themselves. They must have known whom they were fighting, who tyrannized over them and who were trying to subjugate them. And this is what they said to the world:

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated inquiry.... Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

American School Children and English Propaganda.

American School Children and English Propaganda.—The Encyclopedia Britannica says: “The notion that England was justified in throwing on America part of the expenses caused in the late war was popular in the country.... George III, who thought that the first duty of the Americans was to obey himself, had on his side the mass of the unreflecting Englishmen who thought that the first duty of all colonists was to be useful and submissive of the mother country.... When the news of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga arrived in 1777, subscription of money to raise new regiments poured freely in.”

It is not enough to disprove the absurd statement that the English people had no responsibility for the stamp act and the oppressions that were practiced against the American colonies, and that all these evils were the work of George III; it is vital for the American people to recognize the danger of the ultimate aim of the Anglo-American publishers who are supplying the public schools with histories in which the English are exalted and the Germans represented as our immemorial enemies, all contrary evidence notwithstanding. (See under “[Frederick the Great],” elsewhere.)

Edward F. McSweeney, of the Americanization Committee of the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce, in tracing the baleful propaganda, calls attention to a Fourth of July demonstration in London in 1917, during which George Haven Putnam, himself a native of London, head of one of the largest book publishing houses in this country, made the following observations:

The feelings and prejudices of the Americans concerning their transatlantic kinsfolk were shaped for my generation, as for the boys of every generation that has grown up since 1775, on text books and histories that presented unhistorical, partisan and often distorted views of the history of the first English colonies, of the events of the Revolution, of the issues that brought about the War of 1812-15, and the grievances of 1861-1865.

The influence of the British element in our population has proved sufficiently strong to enable the English-Americans to bring it under control and to weld it into a nation that, in its common character and purposes, is English. Text books are now being prepared which will present juster historical accounts of the events of 1775-83, 1812-15 and 1861-65.

Americans of today, looking back at the history with a better sense of justice and a better knowledge of the facts than was possible for their ancestors, are prepared to recognize also that their great-grandfathers had treated with serious injustice and with great unwisdom the loyalists of New York and of New England, who had held to the cause of the Crown.

It is in order now to admit that the loyalists had a fair cause to defend, and it was not to be wondered at that many men of the more conservative way of thinking should have convinced themselves that the cause of good government for the colonieswould be better served by maintaining the royal authority and by improving the royal methods than by breaking away into the all-dubious possibilities of independence.

I had occasion some months back when in Halifax to apologize before the great Canadian Club, to the descendants of some of the men who had in 1776 been forced out of Boston through the illiberal policy of my great-grandfather and his associates. My friends in Halifax (and the group included some of my cousins) said that the apology had come a little late, but that they were prepared to accept it. They were prepared to meet more than half way the Yankee suggestion.

During the present sojourn in England I met in one of the Conservative clubs an old Tory acquaintance, who, with characteristic frankness, said:

“Major, I am inclined to think that it was a good thing that we did not break up your republic in 1861. We have need of you today in our present undertaking.”

The methods to be followed in the pursuit of the plan to induce us to repudiate our ancestors and their action are diverse and always devious. It begins with an agitation for “an orderly Fourth of July,” in order to wipe out the memories of 1776, and it finds expression in insidious attempts to discredit our national poets, notably Longfellow, for recording the rape of the Acadians in his “Evangeline,” and for writing “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

This foreign propaganda is supported by men like Putnam and even American writers like Owen Wister. For the Fourth of July issue of the London “Times” in 1919, Wister wrote an article in which he said:

A movement to correct the school books (in America) has been started and will go on. It will be thwarted in every way possible by certain of your enemies. They will busily remind us that you burnt our Capitol; that you let loose the Alabama on us during the Civil War; they will never mention the good turns you have done us. They would spoil, if they could, the better understanding that so many of us are striving for.

At the meeting of the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church, at Detroit, October 11, 1919, a resolution was offered to exclude from the church hymnal “The Star Spangled Banner” and “America.” In some of the public schools in New York copy books are furnished the children with a picture of General Haig and embellished with the British flag, and for some time pictures of a flag combining the American Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack in one design were publicly exhibited for sale all over New York City.

We read in the Prefatory Note to the revised edition of “English History for Americans,” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Edward Channing (1904): “In the preparation of this revised edition, the authors have been guided by the thought that the study of English history in our schools generally precedes that of the United States.”

There is obviously as strong a Tory sentiment in the United States as there was in 1776, 1779, 1808 and 1812, and the words of Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to Governor Langdon, of New Hampshire, are as true today as they were then:

The Toryism with which we struggled in ‘77 differed but in name from the Federalism of ‘99, with which we struggled also; and the Anglicism of 1808 against which we are now struggling is but the same thing still in another form. It is a longing for a King, and an English King rather than any other. This is the true source of our sorrows and wailings.

Again we hear the prophetic voice of Abraham Lincoln as it is borne to us like an echo of his speech at Springfield, Ill., June 26, 1857:

The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be—as, thank God, it is now proving itself—a stumbling block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of posterity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

England’s chief propagandist is Lord Northcliffe. He owns the London “Times,” and the latter, on July 4, 1919, clearly outlined in an editorial the method to be pursued in turning us from our ideals and making us forget the glorious traditions of the past. It said:

Efficient propaganda, carried out by those trained in the arts of creating public good-will and of swaying public opinion as a definite purpose, is now needed, urgently needed. To make a beginning, efficiently organized propaganda should mobilize the press, the Church, the stage and the cinema; press into service the whole educational systems of both countries and root the spirit of good will in the homes, the universities, public and high schools, and private schools.

It should also provide for subsidizing the best men to write books and articles on special subjects, to be published in cheap editions or distributed free to classes interested. Authoritative opinion on current controversial topics should be prepared both for the daily press and for magazines; histories and text books upon literature should be revised. New books should be added, particularly in the primary schools. Hundreds of exchange university scholarships should be provided.

In this manner the article continues, revealing, in defiance of all sense of delicacy and discretion, the English attempt to undermine the foundations of our national life by tampering with the children of the public schools and the young men and women in the universities.

The English campaign of propaganda invades the home, the school and the church; and has already assumed a degree of appalling boldnessin denying to America any substantial share in the issue of the World War. Protesting against a pamphlet, “Some Facts About the British,” said to have been published “at the suggestion of the War Department,” District Attorney Joseph C. Pelletier, of Boston, addressed Secretary of War Baker as follows:

I cannot believe that this pamphlet has come to your notice, for I cannot believe that you would suggest, far less authorize, any statement regarding the war which unduly lionized Great Britain and absolutely omitted any mention of the decisive share of the United States in the triumph of the Allied Powers.

If the sinister plot, with its ramifications in our churches and universities, our publishing houses and newspapers, is to be checked, it will be necessary to act so as to make it unprofitable for these interests to pursue their plans in quiet, and to seek by every means available to arouse something of the good old spirit of 1776 that prevailed throughout America until the advent of the late John Hay as the first American ambassador to forget the traditions of his country and its experiences at the hands of England.

How painful, how humiliating to every American, it should be to have the history of our national life for 144 years declared a forgery and to see it rewritten at the dictates of the champions of a foreign power who repudiate the stand of their forefathers. (See “[Propaganda in the United States].”)

Astor, John Jacob.

Astor, John Jacob.—“The inborn spirit of John Jacob Astor made America what it is,” is the judgment passed upon this famous German American by Arthur Butler Hurlbut. Popular conception of John Jacob Astor’s personality and work is based upon a collossal underestimate of his tremendous service in the cause of the commercial and economic development of the United States. More interest attaches to those things which appear adventurous in Astor’s life than to the genius which inspired all his undertakings in pursuing unsuspected aims and converting into accomplishments objects that seemed impossible of accomplishment. Many picture him as a sort of Leatherstocking with an eye to business, a hunter and trapper, boldly invading the wilderness and making friends of the Indians, and who finally amassed an immense fortune from the fur trade.

Truth is, only two millions represented the share of his fur trade in the total of twenty or thirty million dollars which constituted his fortune at the time of his death. The mythical John Jacob Astor was a creation of those who came after him; the real one appeared quite different to his contemporaries. His bier was surrounded by the leading statesmen, financiers and scholars of the first half of the nineteenth century, for they knew what today is either little known or forgotten, that his methods were those of a true pioneer and pathfinder.

None other than John Jacob Astor found the way of making American commerce independent of England by getting around the English middleman in New York for the disposal of his products and shipping direct to the London market. It was he who opened the ports of China, then the foremost trading country of the Orient, to the American ships, by securing this privilege direct from the East India Company. It was Astor who made possible trans-continental intercourse and who opened the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the founding of Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River. It was at the cost of a fortune, it is true, but, with a spirit of enterprise which remained unrivaled for sixty years after he had blazed the way. Knowledge is power; and Astor, equipped only with an education such as a village school afforded, had a genius for imbibing knowledge from every source and direction, and then to employ it to the full bent of his exceptional ability.

His life (“Life and Ventures of the Original John Jacob Astor,” by Elizabeth L. Gebhard, Bryan Pub. Co., Hudson, N. Y.) was crowded with anecdotal incidents of his ability and manner of gathering information, always in the form of confidential chatter, or a simple plying of questions. In this he was materially aided by a winning personality, an open manner and inherent modesty, characteristics which clung to him even after he had become one of the leading and most influential figures in the country, and which remained with him until his death. He was a man of natural nobility, who achieved great results during his life-time and left his descendants to complete what he had no time to complete himself.

The author quoted, who is a great granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. John Gabriel Gebhard, pastor of the German Reformed Church in Nassau Street, New York, during the Revolution, and who was driven out of his pulpit through the machinations of the influential Tories then in New York, and forced to preach in Claverack in Van Rensselaer County, on the Hudson, declares that however fondly attached Astor was to his adopted country, he never abandoned certain ideals instilled in him in the old German home and of which neither his experiences nor the radical changes surrounding one so young could ever divest him, ideals translated into German thoroughness, German love of industry and efficiency and German honesty, judgment and foresight, confidence and the guiding principle that knowledge is power.

He enjoyed the friendship of many eminent men, and was very intimate with Washington Irving and Fitz-Greene Halleck, at the suggestion of the former leaving $400,000 to found the Astor Library in New York City.

He was born in Waldorf, near Heidelberg, Germany, came to New York at the age of twenty with a few musical instruments, which he sold and the proceeds of which he invested in furs. He died March29, 1848. His descendants only in part remembered the racial origin of the founder of their fortune, and one of them expatriated himself and in December, 1915, was made a baron by the King of England in recognition of his loyalty to the British Crown.

Titled Americans.

Titled Americans.—The correspondent of the New York “Evening Post,” writing from Paris after the armistice, commented on the power of propaganda through the medium of decorations bestowed on Americans by some of the foreign governments. The war has assuredly added a long list to the roll of titled Americans, Knights of the Garter and of the Bath and Chevaliers and Commanders of the Legion of Honor. Except Secretary Daniels and former Senator Lewis, practically all accepted the dignities with which they were invested at the hands of royalty. The cross of the Legion of Honor was established by Napoleon and historically is an imperial decoration.

Prominent among those who had knighthood conferred upon them at the hands of the King of England were General Pershing, General Dickman, former Ambassador James W. Gerard, Oscar Straus, Col. C. Cordier, Brigadier General C. B. Wheeler and Major General George W. Goethals (Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George). Lieutenant General Robert L. Bullard was decorated by the King of Belgium with the Order of Leopold and made a Commander of the Legion of Honor. General Joseph H. Kuhn, former military attache at Berlin with the American embassy, was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor. James M. Beck, a famous Wall Street corporation lawyer, was made “a Bencher,” an honor never before bestowed on an American, and he also received the Order of the Crown from the King of Belgium; Alfred C. Bedford, chairman of the board of directors of the Standard Oil Company, was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; Lieutenant Laurenc C. Welling of Mount Vernon received the order of a Chevalier of the Crown of Belgium; the Legion of Honor Cross was conferred on Dr. William T. Manning, rector of Trinity Church, New York; Otto H. Kahn was appointed by the King of Italy, Commander of the Crown of Italy, as was Major Julius A. Adler; J. M. Nye, chief special agent, in charge of King Albert’s train in the United States, was given the order of Chevalier of the Order of Leopold; Elizabeth Marbury was decorated with the Medal of Queen Elizabeth of Belgium “in recognition of services rendered to Belgium since 1914.”

Others named to be Knights Commanders by the King of England were Brigadier General George Bell, Jr., Major General William Lassiter, Brigadier General John L. Hines and Brigadier General Charles H. Muir; Commanders of the Order of the Bath, Brigadier General Malin Craig and Brigadier General Harry A. Smith; Commanders of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, Col. John Montgomery, Col. David H. Biddle, Col. William P. Wooten, Col. HoraceStebbins. Several American naval officers were “promoted” and nominated in the Legion of Honor.

Admiral Benson promoted to receive the Grand Cross of the Legion, while Admiral Mayo and Rear-Admirals Sims and Wilson are advanced to the grade of Grand Officer. Rear-Admirals Gleaves, Usher, Long, Griffin, Welles, Taylor and Earle become Commanders of the Legion.

Dr. Henry van Dyke, former American ambassador to the Netherlands, and Alexander J. Hemphill were made Chevaliers of the French Legion of Honor.

Companion of the Order of Bath—Major General William L. Kenly. Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George—Brigadier General William Mitchell, Brigadier General George S. Diggs, Colonel Walter Kilmer and Major Harold Fowler.

The widow of Col. Robert Bacon, who fell in action, was invested with the insignia on behalf of her husband of the order of British knighthood; Edward R. Stettinius was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor; the Order of the Crown was conferred on Elliot Wadsworth of Boston; Mrs. James Hamilton Lewis received a French decoration; Jacob A. Riis received the order of Danneborg from the King of Denmark. This list is only a partial one of Americans distinguished in the manner indicated, which prompted Arthur Brisbane in his column in the New York “American” to observe:

We shall have our little titled class in America, thanks to the British King’s action. General Pershing is now “Sir John”—in England, anyhow, and here if he chooses. Our General Dickman, commander of the Third Army, is made a Knight Commander of the Bath. He will be “Sir Joseph” and his wife “Lady Dickman.” Those that “dearly love a Lord” or a Knight are not all English.

In England such men as Gladstone, Carlyle and others refused any title, setting too high a value upon their own dignity. Some American soldiers have missed an opportunity to take democracy seriously.

Atrocities.

Atrocities.—It is easily conceivable that had Germany been invaded early in the war by the joint world powers, instead of the reverse, there would have been a decided sentiment in favor of Germany instead of an increasing hatred which in a short time was extended to people of German ancestry in the United States; it held them morally responsible for the alleged atrocities of the German armies in Belgium. When a paper like the New York “Sun” holds that “the Germans are not human beings in the common acceptation of the term,” it cannot avoid the responsibility which that verdict imposes on every person of German lineage in America. It is therefore a matter of duty to investigate the testimony of responsible persons whether the Belgian atrocities had any existence inthe light in which they were presented. The administration shares this responsibility in having steadfastly ignored demands for the publication of the report on Belgian atrocities made by the British government early in the war and transmitted to the State Department by Ambassador Page at London. These atrocities were alleged to consist of cutting off of hands of Belgian children, cutting off tongues, of mutilating the breasts of women, of outraging nuns and violating nurses, crucifying soldiers, etc.

Now and then a conscientious voice was heard out of the universal cry of accusation such as represented by the following self-explanatory letter addressed to the New York “Evening Post:”

To The Editor of the “Evening Post:”

Sir: Every man who has had a connection with the honorable British journalism of the past ought to thank you for your just and moderate rebuke of the pretended censorship which has passed off such a mountain of falsehoods on the public of both hemispheres. I suppose I am the Doyen of the foreign editors of London, and well I know that under Gladstone and Beaconsfield it would have been impossible to find either writers or censors for the abominable fictions which have been spread in order to inflame the British masses against their German opponents. The tales of German officers filling their pockets with the severed feet and hands of Belgian babies, and German Catholic regiments deliberately destroying French Catholic Cathedrals, would decidedly not have been accepted by any editors of the “Times” or “Morning Post” in the days of Queen Victoria.

The worst part of these infamous inventions has been that they have stirred up the blind fury of the English populace against tens of thousands of inoffensive and useful foreigners who have done nothing but good in a hundred honest professions, and who are now, in the midst of savage threats and insults, torn from their industrious homes and thrust into bleak and miserable prisons without a single comfort on the brink of the wintry season. The spectacle is a hideous one, and the military censorship which has spread the exciting calumnies has gained no enviable place in truthful history.

F. Hugh O’Donnell.

Formerly foreign editor on the “Morning Post,” “Spectator,” and other leading journals.

Melville E. Stone, general manager of the “Associated Press,” in an address before the Commercial Club of St. Louis, early in 1918, as reported in the St. Louis “Globe-Democrat,” of March 25, 1918, among other things made the following statement:

One of the many rumors which I have investigated since the beginning of the war is that “the hands of Belgian children have been cut off.” This is not the truth. Aside from all other proof, a child whose hands had been cut off would die if notgiven immediate medical attention; any surgeon or physician will bear me out in this.

The rumor was given currency by pro-Germans in this country, I believe, because it was so easy to deny it; they could assume on the strength of the proof of that denial that all other atrocities, of which there were innumerable instances, could be denied.

I have investigated forty or fifty of such stories, and in every case have found them untrue. One of these statements came from the wife of a leading banker in Paris. She was asked where she had seen the child, and mentioned a certain railway station. Asked if she had seen the child, she replied she had seen a little girl with her hands wrapped up. She did not know the little girl. In reply to another question she admitted she had been told the child’s hands had been cut off by Germans by a woman who stood on the platform near her. She had never seen the woman before or after, and did not know her or know her name.

“There is a little band of Catholic priests,” he said, “who have been going into Belgium and Holland and hunting out children who have lost one or both parents or in the great excitement have become separated from their parents. They informed me in a letter that they had taken between 5,000 and 6,000 children from these countries and found homes for them, and that they never had seen such a case and didn’t believe they existed.”

On December 16, 1917, the Rev. J. F. Stillimans, a pupil of Cardinal Mercier, director of the Belgian Propaganda Bureau in New York, made a similar statement, singularly assigning the same reasons for the currency of the reports, namely, that they were inspired by “Germans.” He said:

I believe that the rumors as to mutilated children being in this country are started and circulated by the Germans themselves for the sake of being able to declare them erroneous and to claim victoriously, though illogically, that all other accusations are to be judged untrue, since in this particular case no proof is forthcoming.

Because the proof was not forthcoming, the campaign was abandoned, thus leaving in the lurch a great many supposedly honorable persons who had sworn to “the truth of what they had seen with their own eyes.”

B. N. Langdon Davies, an Englishman, speaking at Madison, Wis., as reported under date of December 5, 1919, said among other things, that the public had been fed on a great deal of misinformation, and that most of the German atrocities were manufactured by Allied press agents for the purpose of stirring up hate.

The London “Globe” of November 1, 1915, said:

In regard to the stories about German war atrocities, which are as mythical as the Russians in France, the “Globe” hasreceived numerous letters. Those who have until now given credence to these stories must realize that reports concerning atrocities which were never committed will tend to shake confidence in the accuracy of reports concerning innumerable barbarities which have been committed. These reports are still credited in many circles, and what is the result when investigations are instituted? It can be expressed in one sentence which an official of the Committee on Belgian Refugees stated to a reporter of the “Globe” today:

“We have not seen a single mutilated Belgian refugee in this country, nor have we found anyone who had ever seen one.”

The following extract is from the “Universe,” London:

A correspondent writing from Amsterdam states that a friend of his, a Catholic, who has visited many convents in Belgium with the object of testing stories of ill-treatment of nuns, makes the following statements. After careful examination it is evident that, with the exception of one or two isolated instances of rough treatment, Catholic nuns have nowhere suffered violence; on the contrary, this witness cites many examples of humane and excellent behavior on the part of the Germans, both officers and men. It is not to be assumed from the above that the gentleman quoted has made an exhaustive examination of all the convents in Belgium, but his evidence is noteworthy since he explicitly denies, on the authority of the nuns themselves, the stories of violence that were spread abroad regarding two convents, one of which was at Malines and the other at Blaunpal.

John T. McCutcheon, special war correspondent of the New York “World” and Chicago “Tribune,” made this declaration in September, 1914:

In that time from Louvain to the French frontier at Beaumont, there has not been a single instance of wanton brutality which has come under my observation. The widely disseminated stories of German atrocities were found to be groundless, and I am sincerely convinced, after my association and the observation of the officers and private soldier of the German columns with which I have traveled, that no army could go through a hostile country with fewer exhibitions of brutality.

In a special dispatch to the New York “Times,” dated London, October 16, 1914, Irvin S. Cobb, writes:

In all my travels in the theater of war I have seen no atrocities committed by either side. I have seen men led away to execution, but only after thorough and ready justice of a drumhead court martial had been administered. Germany is full of stories of German Red Cross nurses with their breasts slashed by Belgians.

A highly important witness in this connection is Emily Hobhouse, the well-known English philanthropist and writer. In October, 1916, Miss Hobhouse wrote an article for a British periodical, giving herimpressions of her visit to Belgium. She emphasized her astonishment at seeing so little of the terrible devastation which she had been led, by English newspaper reports, to expect. From her experience in the South African war she was well aware that soldiers rule with fire and sword, but she found nothing in Belgium to compare with the devastation of South Africa. While but 15,000 houses out of a total of 2,000,000 had been destroyed in Belgium, the houses of 30,000 farmers had been destroyed in the Boer war out of a relatively much smaller total, and whole cities and towns with their schools and churches had been made level with the ground. Even in cities like Liege and Antwerp, where the fighting had been fierce, she could discover no evidence of any extraordinary destructiveness on the part of the Germans, and the conditions in Louvain, which she had pictured as a place of ruins, fairly astounded her.

In May, 1915, on his return from Europe, Ex-Mayor and Ex-Representative McClellan of New York, gave out a statement correcting the view so prevalent in American circles that Belgium was devastated.

The following correspondence will speak for itself:

Rev. J. F. Matthews, Glossop Road Baptist Church, Sheffield.

Dear Sir:—A correspondent informs us that on Sunday morning you stated in the course of a sermon delivered in Wash Lane Church, Latchford, Washington, that there is a Belgian girl in Sheffield with her nose cut off and her stomach ripped open by the Germans and that she is still living and getting better. I am anxious to investigate stories of German atrocities and should be grateful if you could send particulars to me by which your statement could be authenticated. Faithfully yours,

A. FENNER BROCKWAY,
Editor of “Labor Leader.”

The Editor the “Labor Leader.”

Dear Mr. Brockway: I enclose our consul’s letter, which I have just received. I am writing a letter to my old church at Latchford, to be read on Sunday next, contradicting the story which I told on what seemed to be unimpeachable authority. I am glad I did not give the whole alleged facts as they were given to me. With many thanks for your note and inquiry, I am, yours sincerely,

JOHN FRANCIS MATTHEWS,

March 12, 1915.

(Enclosure.)

Dear Mr. Matthews: Replying to your letter of the 9th inst., enclosing a letter which you have received from the “Labor Leader,” although I have heard of a number of cases of Belgian girls being maltreated in one way or another, I have on investigation not found a particle of truth in one of them, and I know of no girl in Sheffield who has had her nose cut off and her stomach ripped open. I have also investigated cases in othertowns, but have not yet succeeded in getting hold of any tangible information. Yours very truly,

A. BALFAY,

Consulat du Royanne de Belgique.

District War Refugee Committee for Belgians.

March 11, 1915.

Horace Green, a war correspondent, who spent many weeks in Belgium during the early stages of the war, in his book, “The Log of a Noncombatant,” issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company, devotes the last chapter to a discussion of atrocities. Concluding that the stories of atrocities have been exaggerated a hundred fold, Mr Green says:

The reports of unprovoked personal atrocities have been hideously exaggerated. Wherever one real atrocity has occurred, it has been multigraphed into a hundred cases. Each, with clever variation in detail, is reported as occurring to a relative or close friend of the teller. For campaign purposes, and particularly in England for the sake of stimulating recruiting, a partisan press has helped along the concoction of lies.

In every war of invasion there is bound to occur a certain amount of plunder and rapine. The German system of reprisal is relentless; but the German private as an individual is no more barbaric than his brother in the French, the British, or the Belgian trenches.

In the “Atlantic Monthly” for October, 1917, Prof. Kellogg, of the American Belgian Relief Commission, while severely arraigning Germany’s treatment of Belgium, expressly states that he came across no instance of Belgian children with their hands cut off or women with breasts mutilated.

Ernest P. Bicknell, Director of Civilian Relief, American Red Cross, in an article in “The Survey” in 1917, writes as follows:

The world is familiar with stories of the atrocities charged against the German army in Belgium. In our travels in Belgium many of these stories came to our ears. In time we came to feel that a fair consideration of these reports required a careful discrimination between the conduct of individual German soldiers, and those operations carried on under the direction of army officers in accordance with a deliberately adopted military policy.

Approaching this subject in accordance with this idea, we should classify the stories of mutilations, violations of women, killing of women and children, etc., as belonging in the category chargeable against individuals of reckless and criminal character, who when opportunity offers, will gratify their lawless passions. The stories of individual atrocities in Belgium, which have shocked the world, we found difficult to verify. While it is probable that such atrocities were occasionally committed, I personally came in contact with no instance of that character during my travels about Belgium; nor did I discuss this subject with any person who had himself come in contact with such an instance.

In my opinion the verdict of history upon the conduct of the German army in Belgium will give little heed to these horrifying stories of individual crime.

Testimony along the same line is furnished by Father Duffy, chaplain of the 165th Infantry; the War Refugee Committee in London, George Bernard Shaw, General Pershing, General March and many others of equal standing, and furnishes an array of evidence that is strangely opposed to that of Mrs. Harjes, the wife of the partner of J. P. Morgan, that she personally saw Belgian children with their hands cut off, and of Cardinal Mercier, who stirred the heart of humanity when he declared that “forty-nine Belgian priests were tortured and put to death by the Germans during the occupation.” It is a matter of record, however, that General Bissig, Governor General of Belgium during the occupation, forbade the Belgians to keep song birds that had been bereft of their eyes to make them sing better. The order concludes: “The wilful blinding of birds is an act of cruelty which I cannot under any circumstances tolerate.”

Five reputable American correspondents on September 6, 1914, after tracing the German army in its invasion of 100 miles, sent a message to the American people that “we are unable to report a single instance (of atrocities) unprovoked.... Everywhere we have seen Germans paying for purchases and respecting property rights as well as according civilians every consideration.... To the truth of these statements we pledge our professional and personal word.” The statement was signed by James O’Donnell Bennett and John T. McCutcheon, of the Chicago “Tribune;” Roger Lewis, of the Associated Press; Irvin S. Cobb, of the “Saturday Evening Post,” and Harry Hansen, of the Chicago “Daily News.”

It has been said that Lord Bryce signed the official atrocity report and that his honored name raises it above suspicion. Lord Bryce is an old man and it is inferred that he signed the report in good faith without, however, having looked into the truth or falsity of the statements himself, accepting the word of others who were using him for their nefarious purpose, the intention being to incite American public opinion to action in behalf of the Allies. For Lord Bryce is flatly contradicted by the following cable message from London, taken from the daily papers of September 15, 1914:

(Lord Bryce subsequently modified his position by a denial of the truth of the report as presented.—Ed.)

London, Sept. 14, 3:23 P. M.—Premier Asquith told the House of Commons today that official information had reached the Ministry of War concerning the repeated stories that German soldiers had abused the Red Cross flag, killed and maimed the wounded, and killed women and children, as had been alleged so often in stories of the battlefields.

Joseph Medill Patterson: The Hague, September 11—To the Chicago “Tribune:” I firmly believe that all stories put out by the British and French of tortures, mutilations, assaults, etc., of Germans are utterly rubbish.

A flat denial of the atrocity stories was furnished by a Washington dispatch to the New York “World,” five months after the invasion of Belgium. The report contained the substance of an official finding by the British government and was turned over to Ambassador Walter H. Page for transmission to Washington upon the request of the American government. When Dr. Edmund von Mach subsequently requested the State Department for information about the finding, after returning one evasive reply, Secretary Lansing left Dr. von Mach’s letters unanswered and the report has never been made public. Following is the Washington report referred to:

Washington, Jan. 27. (Special to the “World”)—Of the thousands of Belgian refugees who are now in England not one has been subjected to atrocities by German soldiers. This in effect is the substance of a report received at the State Department from the American Embassy in London. The report states that the British government thoroughly had investigated thousands of reports to the effect that German soldiers had perpetrated outrages on the fleeing Belgians. During the early period of the war, columns of the British newspapers were filled with these accusations. Agents of the British government, according to the report from the American Embassy at London, carefully investigated all of these charges; they interviewed alleged victims and sifted all the evidence. As a result of the investigation the British Foreign Office notified the American Embassy that the charges appeared to be based upon hysteria and natural prejudice. The report added that many of the Belgians had suffered severe hardships but they should be charged up against the exigencies of war rather than the brutality of the individual German soldier.

According to advices from Switzerland, under date of July 9, 1916, the paper “Italia” printed the following:

“Assisted by the Papal state department, the congregation of Catholic church officials instituted a searching inquiry into the reported German atrocities in Belgian convents, first among the Belgian prioresses resident in Rome, next among the Belgian nuns passing through, all of whom unanimously deny having any knowledge of the alleged atrocities. Bishop Heylen, of Namur, who was among those examined, declared that the reports referred to were lacking in every essential of truth. Possibly an isolated case had occurred without his knowledge, but certainly nothing beyond this. Cardinal Mercier, who was also interviewed, spoke of three cases based upon hearsay. The Congregation deplored the spread of exaggerated reports lacking all semblance of truth and expressed its satisfaction with the results of the investigation.”

To the last it was a favorite pastime to charge the Germans with wanton destruction of towns. Ample contradiction could easily be offered if space permitted. Thus William K. Draper, Vice Chairman of the New York County Chapter of the American Red Cross, is quoted in the New York “Times” of July 13, 1919: “A pitiful part of this destruction is the realization that much of it was caused by French artillery, the troops being forced to demolish the towns while being occupied and used by the Germans.”

The whole web of lies and the conditions underlying the scheme are conclusively exposed in “The Tragedy of Belgium,” by Richard Grasshof, (New York: C. E. Dillingham Co.)

The Belgian atrocities were purposely conceived and exaggerated for two reasons:

1. To camouflage the fact that against all rules of civilized warfare, the Belgians of Louvain and several other towns, claiming protection as civilians, awaited an opportune time to institute a massacre of German soldiers who had entered and been stationed there approximately a week in apparently good relations with the population.

2. It was expected that Germany and Austria would be surely invaded under the joint impact of the forces of Russia, France, Belgium, Servia, Montenegro, England and Japan. In that event the world would hear no end of Cossack, Servian and Montenegran atrocities committed on German women and children, as in the Balkan campaign. England had called into the field the Indians, Maoris, Zulus and other savage blacks and yellow skins; France had called the Moroccan natives and the Senegalese tribesmen, blacks who hang around their necks strings adorned with the ears and noses of their fallen foes.

Forseeing that the ravages of these uncivilized warriors would excite the anger of the world against the Allies, if they ever crossed into German territory, that their deeds would bring the curses of the universe upon England’s head, it was resolved to anticipate all possible criticism and reproach by being the first to charge atrocities against their enemies and thus to negative all counter charges, or to say that they were merely retaliatory measures adopted in reprisal for barbarous acts committed against their own men. The Allies never crossed the German lines, save in East Prussia, nor the Austrian-Hungarian border save in Galicia, and here the Cossack reign, short as it was, proved the shrewd wisdom of English and French foresight; 700,000 homes were wantonly destroyed in Galicia alone. Its lawlessness beggars description; but humanity was not staggered because the mind of the world had been drugged by fatal infusions of falsehood about Belgian babies and women maimed and brutalized by “German barbarians.”

Prof. John W. Burgess, Charles Carleton Coffin (“The Boys of ’61”) and others have shown that precisely the same hysterical lies were circulated throughout England and the world by Englishmen during the American Civil War, the same kind of atrocities being charged against the Union Army.

No paper has been more aggressive in charging the Germans with atrocities than the New York “Times.” In its issue of April 17, 1865, it said:

“Every possible atrocity appertains to this rebellion. There is nothing whatever that its leaders have scrupled at. Wholesale massacres and torturings, wholesale starvation of prisoners, firing of great cities, piracies of the crudest kind, persecution of the most hideous character and of vast extent, and finally assassination in high places—whatever is inhuman, whatever is brutal, whatever is fiendish, these men have resorted to. They will leave behind names so black, and the memory of deeds so infamous, that the execration of the slave-holders’ rebellion will be eternal.”

The late James G. Blaine quoted Lord Malmesbury of date February 5, 1863, as accusing the Union troops guilty of “horrors unparalleled even in the wars of barbarous nations.”

All efforts to counteract the avowed campaign of misrepresentation were denounced as the acts of men in the pay of the Kaiser or irreclaimable pro-Germans determined to lend aid and comfort to the enemy, and subjected any one attempting them to the penalties contained in the Espionage Act. In interpreting the act, as applied to the liberal press, Postmaster General Burleson was quoted as follows:

“There are certain opinions and attitudes which will not be tolerated by the Post Office Department. For instance, such papers have sought to create in the minds of our citizens of German birth or descent the impression that Germany is fighting a defensive war; that the accounts of Belgian atrocities ... are all English or American lies.”

To gainsay such an edict was to risk imprisonment for a term of twenty years.

Bancroft, George—Treaty with Germany—Vancouver Boundary Line.

Bancroft, George—Treaty with Germany—Vancouver Boundary Line.—The very cordial relations which subsisted between the United States and Germany from the days of Frederick the Great were carefully nurtured by the great men succeeding the establishment of the republic, as shown elsewhere by the comments of President Adams on the treaties with Prussia, and were strongly cemented by the aid extended the Union by Germany during the Civil War, as acknowledged by Secretary Seward and prominent members of the United States Senate. One of the most active promoters of this friendship was America’s foremost historian, George Bancroft, Secretary of theNavy under President Polk, and father of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, minister to Great Britain and subsequently to Prussia and Germany (1867-74).

It was through his efforts and friendly personal relations with Bismarck that a memorable agreement came into existence which established the right of immigrant German Americans to renounce their old allegiance and accept an exclusive American citizenship, exempting them from performing military service should they return to their native land. The effect of this agreement was more important than appears, as it was the first time that by a formal act the principle of renunciation of citizenship at the will of the individual was recognized. Beyond this, it led to a complete change of policy on the part of Great Britain by upsetting the old doctrine, “once an Englishman, always an Englishman.” The immediate good result was the renunciation by England of her claim to indefeasible allegiance, and to the right to impress into the British service a former British subject who had become an American citizen, a claim which had contributed to bring about the War of 1812.

Nor was this all that Bancroft accomplished. The Northwestern boundary, having been settled by treaty, Bancroft, while United States Minister in Great Britain, had perceived an incipient effort of a great English interest to encroach on the territory which had been acknowledged by the treaty to be a part of the United States.

By and by the importunities of interested persons in England, who possessed a great party influence, began to make themselves heard, and the British government by degrees supported the attempt to raise a question respecting the true line of the boundary of the Northwest and finally formulated a perverse claim of their own, with a view of obtaining what they wanted as a compromise.

The American administration had of course changed, and the President and his cabinet, having had no part in the negotiations, agreed to refer the question to an arbiter. They made the mistake of consenting that the arbiter, if there was uncertainty as to the true boundary line, might himself establish a boundary of compromise. The person to whom the settlement of the dispute was to be referred was the president of the Swiss Republic.

The American Secretary of State chanced to die while the method of arrangement was still inchoate. Bancroft at once wrote to the new Secretary, urging him not to accept a proposal of compromise, because that would seem to admit an uncertainty as to the American title, and to sanction and even invite a decision of the arbiter in favor of a compromise, and would open the way for England, under an appearance of concession, to obtain all that she needed.

Being at the time minister to the court of Prussia, he advised the government to insist on the American claim in full, not to listen to aproposal of compromise, but to let each party formulate its claim, and to call on the arbiter to decide which was right, and urged it to select for that arbiter the Emperor of Germany.

The Department of State at once consented that the arbiter should be the Emperor of Germany, and left the whole matter of carrying out the American argument to Bancroft. The conduct of the question, the first presentation of the case, as well as the reply to the British, were every word by him, and the decision of the Emperor was unreservedly in favor of the United States. (Prof. William M. Sloane, in “The Century,” for January, 1887.)

Bancroft has been pronounced one of the greatest historians of the past century; he was one of the most distinguished statesmen of his time, and as former minister to London and a student at Göttingen and minister to Germany, he was qualified as no other famous American to form an appraisal of German, French and English policies, especially in regard to ourselves. We may be pardoned, therefore, in taking more than a cursory interest in some expressions which occur in a letter of Bancroft’s, addressed to Hamilton Fish, then Secretary of State, and written at Berlin during the Franco-Prussian war.

In summing up his reasons for preferring Germany over England and France, he says: “If we need the solid, trusty good will of any government in Europe, we can have it best with Germany; because German institutions and ours most resemble each other; and because so many millions of Germans have become our countrymen. This war will leave Germany the most powerful State in Europe, and the most free; its friendship is therefore most important to us, and has its foundation in history and in nature.” (“Life and Letters of George Bancroft,” by M. A. De Wolfe Howe, II, 245.)

Baralong.

Baralong.—An English pirate ship commanded by Capt. William McBride, which sailed under the American flag, with masked batteries, and sank a German submarine which had been deceived by the Stars and Stripes and the American colors painted on both sides of her hull. On August 19, 1915, the “Nicosian,” an English ship loaded with American horses and mules and with a number of American mule tenders aboard, was halted by a German submarine about 70 miles off Queenstown. The men took to the boats and the U-boat was about to sink the “Nicosian” when a ship flying the American flag came alongside. Without suspecting anything, the submarine allowed the ship to approach, when suddenly the American flag was lowered and the English ensign hoisted, and a destructive fire was opened on the U.The latter soon sank. Half a dozen German sailors swam alongside of the “Nicosian” and clambered on deck, concealing themselves in the holds and engine rooms as the English followed them aboard. They were dragged out and murdered in cold blood. The German captain swamtoward the “Baralong” and held up his hand in token of surrender but while in the water was first shot in the mouth and then repeatedly hit by bullets aimed at him by the English, and killed without compunction. The story of the “Baralong” is one of the most brutal in the history of the seas and illuminates the inhuman character of English warfare toward a weaker foe in the most glaring light.The history of the tragedy first came to light through a letter written by Dr. Charles B. Banks, the veterinary surgeon aboard the “Nicosian,” to relatives in Lowell, Mass., giving some of the gruesome details as follows: “A number of German sailors were swimming in the water. Some swam to our abandoned ship and climbed up to the deck. Shots from the patrol boat (the ‘Baralong’) swept several from the ropes. We were taken aboard the patrol boat, and then the boat steamed slowly around our ship while the marines shot and killed all the Germans in the water. As we had left three carbines and cartridges aboard the ‘Nicosian,’ we had reason to believe the Germans had found them. So marines went on our ship and killed seven men there. We were then towed to port.” The infamous wretch who performed this murder, Capt. McBride, later wrote a letter to the captain of the “Nicosian,” warning him not to speak of the affair, and requesting that the Americans aboard especially be cautioned to keep the matter from the public. But one of the American mule tenders made an affidavit to the truth at Liverpool and forwarded it to the American Embassy in London and three others made affidavit to the same facts on their return to New Orleans. The affidavits were sent to the State Department, but neither President Wilson nor Secretary Lansing complied with the request of the German Ambassador to demand an inquiry into the misuse of the American flag, and the cold-blooded murder of German sailors. Dr. Bank’s letter was published in the N. Y. “Times” of September 7, 1915, but that paper was among the most active in preventing an investigation.

Berliner, Emile.

Berliner, Emile.—One of the most important inventors in the United States, distinguished for his improvements of the telephone; born at Hanover, Germany, May 20, 1851; came to the United States in 1870. Invented the microphone and was first to use an induction coil in connection with the telephone transmitters; patentee of other valuable inventions in telephony. Invented the Gramophone, known also as the Victor Talking Machine, for which he was awarded John Scott Medal and Elliott Crosson Gold Medal by Franklin Inst. First to make and use in aeronautical experiments light weight revolving cylinder internal combustion motor, now extensively used on aeroplanes.

The Boers—England’s Record of Infamy.

The Boers—England’s Record of Infamy.—The success in causing the surrender of the Boers by exterminating their women and childrenby slow starvation and disease is the incentive which prompted the British nation to violate international law by stopping the shipment of non-contraband goods, Red Cross supplies and milk for babies, to Germany and contiguous countries. The number of deaths (in the Boer concentration camps) during the month of September, 1901, was 1,964 children and 328 women. There were then 54,326 children and 38,022 women under Kitchener’s tender care. The “Daily News” on November 9, 1901, said: “The truth is that the death rate in the camps is incomparably worse than anything Africa or Asia can show. There is nothing to match it even in the mortality figures of the Indian famines, where cholera and other epidemics have to be contended with.” “Reynold’s Newspaper” (London) of October 20, 1901, spoke of “the women and children perishing like flies from confinement, fever, bad food, pestilential stinks and lack of nursing in these awful death traps,” with a rate of 383 per 1,000. The “Sydney Bulletin” said: “The authority granted by Lord Roberts to Red Cross nurses to attend our camps has been withdrawn.” The English wanted the women and children to perish for want of Red Cross supplies, as in the case of Germany. President Steyn of the Orange Free State, in a letter of protest to Lord Kitchener, dated August, 1901, among other things said:

Your Excellency’s troops have not hesitated to turn their artillery on these defenseless women and children to capture them when they were fleeing with their wagons or alone, whilst your troops knew that they were only women and children, as happened only recently at Graspan on the 6th of June near Reitz, where a women and children laager was taken and recaptured by us, whilst your Excellency’s troops took refuge behind the women; and when reinforcements came they fired with artillery and small arms on that woman laager. I can mention hundreds of cases of this kind.

On December 16, 1913, the Boers, in the presence of immense throngs, dedicated a monument at Blomfontein with the following inscription:

This Monument is Erected by the Boers of South Africa in memory of
26,663 WOMEN AND CHILDREN
who died in the Concentration Camps during the War 1900-1902

No better evidence can be desired than is contained in a speech which the present British Premier, Lloyd George, made in 1901, charging that the English army had burned villages, swept away the cattle, burned thousands of tons of grain, destroyed all agricultural implements, all of the mills, the irrigation works, and left the territory a blackened, devastated wilderness. Then the women and childrenwere herded, in winter, in thin, leaky tents, surrounded by barbed wire fences, where thousands died of unnecessary privations. He said:

Is there any ground for the reproach flung at us by the civilized world that, having failed to crush the men, we have now taken to killing babies?

“Illegal, Ineffective and Indefensible Blockades.”

“Illegal, Ineffective and Indefensible Blockades.”—The World War has evolved principles of warfare, upset practices and sanctioned acts that place war in a new aspect, present it as a new physical problem, like the discovery of a new planet. So many laboriously achieved understandings, agreements and principles of international law were swept overboard that the world must begin its efforts all over, if humanity is to regain the rights which it had slowly wrested from reluctant power during four or five centuries.

The outstanding fact is the recognition of the right of a belligerent power to compel another to surrender by the starvation of its civil population.

If this object were obtainable by direct blockade of the nation to be starved there would be some latitude for discussion; but when attainable only by so controlling the food supply of neutral nations as to leave them no alternative but to starve themselves or to help starve the power to be coerced, a new problem is created which will recur to vex those who sanctioned it.

During the Civil War we sent food to the starving mill operatives of England who were exposed to famine by the war, although English-built and equipped privateers were destroying our commerce, and England was actively supporting our enemies in other ways. Germany sent us food, chemicals, goods, shoes and necessary supplies in one of the most needful stages of the war, for non-contraband supplies were recognized as immune from seizure or destruction.

A blockade is illegal unless it is effective in blockading the point named. The blockading of a whole nation and the rejection of the immunity character of non-contraband supplies intended for the civil population, down to the furnishings of the Red Cross, is an English expedient and a product of the late war, though the same policy was tentatively tried in England’s war against the Boer republics.

We held that such blockade was illegal, for in the note of October 21, 1915, our State Department said: “There is no better settled principle of law of nations than that which forbids the blockade of neutral points in time of war,” and we reminded the British government that Sir Edward Grey said to the British delegates to the “Conference assembled at London upon the invitation of the British government,” that:

A blockade must be confined to the ports and coasts of the enemy, but it may be instituted at one port or at several ports orat the whole of the seaboard of the enemy. It may be instituted to prevent the ingress only or egress only, or both.

And because England had violated these and numerous other principles, agreements, covenants and pledges we said to her:

“It has been conclusively shown that the methods sought to be employed by Great Britain to obtain and use evidence of enemy destination of cargoes bound for neutral ports and impose a contraband character upon such cargoes are without justification; that the blockade upon which such methods are partly founded is ineffective, illegal and indefensible.... The United States, therefore, cannot submit to the curtailment of its neutral rights by these measures, which are admittedly retaliatory, and therefore illegal in conception and in nature, and intended to punish the enemies of Great Britain for alleged illegalities on their part.”

But the State Department surrendered to the contentions of England.We submitted to countless outrages (see extract from Senator Chamberlain’s speech under “[England Threatens United States]”); we made it unpleasant for native Americans who determined to send non-contraband goods across the seas; approved England’s assumption of dictatorial control of the commerce of Holland and Scandinavia and held that Germany was equally our enemy as England’s on the ground that in using her submarines to sink merchant vessels feeding England she had violated our rights to the free use of the seas.

In thus abandoning cardinal principles which made us a great nation and recognizing as effective, legal and justified, England’s blockade of neutral nations, her right to confiscate non-contraband goods, to search and deprive Red Cross surgeons of their instruments, rifle our mail, remove American citizens from neutral vessels and incarcerate them, prevent Red Cross supplies from reaching the civil population and to do all the things we said she should not do, we have surrendered to Great Britain rights, powers and privileges that can hardly be justified unless we are about to dissolve our political institutions and merge ourselves with England as one people—two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.

The point is that future wars will not be decided by the usual engines of war, but by the starvation of the civil population; this invests the nation having the largest fleet with a terrible weapon of annihilation; it makes England the arbiter of nations—it compels us to compact our own terrible power of destruction, for in making food the sine qua non of victory, fate has given us a factor of far-reaching importance. And how will a nation menaced with extinction by famine retaliate? Will the inevitable consequence be that the nation so threatened will meet starvation with the subtle poison germs of a malignant plague?

Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

Brest-Litovsk Treaty.—It is an approved trick of political strategy to raise a hue and cry over one matter in order to divert attention from another, and by this token to accuse one’s enemies of treachery, baseness and all the sins in the calendar with a professed feeling of righteous indignation. Thus the Brest-Litovsk treaty between Germany and Russia, when the former was in a position to impose her terms as conqueror upon its beaten foe, was made to appear as an act of unexampled oppression. In the light of the terms ultimately imposed upon Germany by the Paris Peace Treaty, it is interesting to examine the cardinal features of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. Under its terms as revised by the three supplementary agreements signed in Berlin in August, 1918, several weighty concessions were made to Russia which insured her routes of trade and free ports in the Baltic provinces which were given their independence in accordance with century-long aspirations and revolutionary movements. Germany dropped her Caucasus claims and demanded that Russia should recognize the independence of Georgia, Finland, Ukrania, Poland, Esthonia and Livonia. Russia, desiring to assure herself of the rich territory with the naptha fields of Baku, Germany supported the wish on condition that Russia pledge herself to place a portion of the oil production at the disposal of Germany and its allies. The total indemnity levied was 6,000,000,000 marks ($1,500,000,000) which Russia undertakes to pay, all sums lost by Germans up to July 1, 1917, through revolutionary confiscatory legislation being included. Independent courts were provided for the adjudication of claims and one-sixth of the indemnity was shifted to Finland and the Ukraine jointly. This was reputed to be the oppressor’s toll unheard of in history—no milch cows, no horses, no surrender of the instruments of industry, no seizure of strictly Russian territory, independence for all states that had been struggling for independence through long centuries, no occupied zones.

“Bombing Maternity Hospitals.”

“Bombing Maternity Hospitals.”—Nominally a favorite occupation of the enemy throughout the war. The following was written by the late Richard Harding Davis in the Metropolitan Magazine for November, 1915: “So highly trained now are the aviators, so highly perfected the aeroplane that each morning in squadrons they take flight, to meet hostile aircraft, to destroy a munition factory, or, if they are Germans, a maternity hospital. At sunset, like homing pigeons, in safety they return to roost.”

Creel and the “Sisson Documents.”

Creel and the “Sisson Documents.”—George Creel, a Denver politician, was appointed head of the Committee of Public Information pending the war, and was practically in control of the American press and the propaganda work. Exercising almost unlimited authority and directing general publicity at home and in Europe, includingthe presentation of war films, many of the oppressive measures against the liberal press are justly charged to his account, at the same time that numerous measures inaugurated under his direction attracted widespread notoriety. Among others, the bureau issued to the American press the notorious “Sisson documents.” They consisted of a series of documents to prove that Lenine and Trotzky, heads of the Russian Soviet government, had taken German money and were, first and last, German agents. The New York “Evening Post” was quick to discern the forgery—they are said to have been written in London, translated into Russian in New York by two Russians and sent to Russia, where they were “discovered.” For pointing out the internal evidence of their incredibility contained in the papers Mr. Creel charged the paper with being guilty “of the most extraordinary disservice” to the government of the United States and the nation’s cause; claiming that it had impugned the good faith of the government and exposed itself to “the charge of having given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States in an hour of national crisis.” The ultimate end was that the famous Sisson documents were proved to be clumsy forgeries and Mr. Creel subsequently claimed for them no more than that they made a good story.

The Creel bureau cost the government about $6,000,000, and its affairs were found to be in hopeless confusion, according to official reports made to Congress, Creel being charged with gross negligence in handling the government’s funds. In June, 1919, frauds in the handling of war films, involving huge sums of money and “the complicity of high officials” were charged in Congress. Mr. Creel’s connection with the Sisson documents places him in no flattering light. In reply to a letter of protest against the publicity of the Sisson documents and the use made of them, he wrote: “Of course, you are entitled to your opinion, but I warn you it seems to border on sedition.” While this bureau flagrantly compromised the reputation of the government and the American people by a piece of wicked fiction, to deny the authenticity of the Sisson documents was sedition.

Cromberger, Johann.

Cromberger, Johann.—A German printer who as early as 1538 established a printing office in the City of Mexico.

Custer, General George A.

Custer, General George A.—Famous American cavalry leader in the Civil War, and the hero of the battle of the Little Big Horn, Dakota, in which he and his command were destroyed by the Sioux Indians, June 25, 1876. Of German descent. Frederick Whittaker in “A Complete Life of General George Custer” (Sheldon & Co., New York, 1876) says: “George Armstrong Custer was born in New Rumley, Ohio, December 5, 1839. Emanuel H. Custer, father of the General, was born in Cryssoptown, Alleghany County, Md., December 10, 1806.The name of Custer was originally Kuster, and the grandfather of Emanuel Custer came from Germany, but Emanuel’s father was born in America. The grandfather was one of those same Hessian officers over whom the Colonists wasted so many curses in the Revolutionary war, and were yet so innocent of harm and such patient, faithful soldiers. After Burgoyne’s surrender in 1778, many of the paroled Hessians seized the opportunity to settle in the country they came to conquer, and amongst these the grandfather of Emanuel Custer, captivated by the bright eyes of a frontier damsel, captivated her in turn with his flaxen hair and sturdy Saxon figure, and settled down in Pennsylvania, afterward moving to Maryland. It is something romantic and pleasing, after all, that stubborn George Guelph, in striving to conquer the colonies, should have given them the ancestor of George Custer, who was to become one of their greatest glories.”

Cavell, Edith.

Cavell, Edith.—An English nurse shot by the Germans as a spy at Brussels in October, 1915, an episode of the war which supplied the English propagandists in the United States with one of the principal articles in their bill of charges of German atrocities. Colonel E. R. West, chief of the legislative section of the Judge Advocate General’s Department, before the American Bar Association’s Committee on Military Justice, declared that the execution was entirely legal. S. S. Gregory, chairman of the committee, and Judge William P. Bynum, of Greensboro, N. C., before the Bar Association, (Baltimore, August 27, 1919), rendered a minority report of the same import. Col. West said:

“We have heard much of the case of ‘poor Edith Cavell.’ Yet I have become rather firmly convinced that she was subject to her fate by the usual laws of war. Certainly the French have executed women spies.”

Col. West agreed with the Chairman that it would be only consistent with the Anglo-Saxon attitude on the Cavell case to exempt women from the death penalty, but he added:

“I believe that a woman spy deserves the same fate as a man spy. Otherwise we would open the gates wide to the most resourceful class of spies that is known.”

In his report Mr. Gregory said: “A careful consideration of the case of Miss Edith Cavell, one of the most pathetic and appealing victims of the great war, whose unfortunate fate has aroused the sympathy and excited the indignation of two continents, has led me to the conclusion that she was executed in accordance with the laws and usages of what we are commonly pleased to refer to as civilized warfare. This being so, it has seemed to me quite inconsistent with our condemnation of those who thus took her life to retain in our own system of military justice those provisions oflaw which were relied upon by the German military authorities in ordering her execution. For us to take any other course, it seems to me, is to impeach our sincerity and good faith in criticising the German authorities in this regard, and to warrant the suggestion that such criticism is inspired rather by the fact that they, our enemies, were responsible for it, as well as sympathy for a good and worthy woman, than any well-considered judgment in the case.” The three majority members declared that “they could not concur in the suggestion of Mr. Gregory that there should be a provision prohibiting the death penalty in the case of women spies.”

It was proved that Miss Cavell was an English professional nurse employed only by people well able to pay for her services. She imposed upon the German officials for a long time in the character of a devout Christian who was taking a disinterested share in the relief work for the good of humanity until it was discovered that she was the head of a widespread organization which assisted hundreds of English and Belgians to escape from the country and enter the armies of Germany’s enemies. Her activities are described in the New York “Times” of May 11, 1919, by her friend and co-agent, Louise Thuliez, who was condemned with Miss Cavell but pardoned. In court she admitted all charges and contemptuously shrugged her shoulders when the presiding judge asked her if she wished to make any statement that might influence the verdict. She was confined in prison about ten weeks before her execution. Her case gave rise to much comment in the press, endeavoring to show that it was a case of exceptional harshness. The Paris “Galois” admitted the shooting of 80 women spies by the French. The Germans presented proof that two German women, Margaret Schmidt and Otillie Moss, had been shot by the French in March, 1915, on similar charges, and this was admitted later by the French authorities. Miss Schmidt was executed at Nancy and Miss Moss at Bourges. (Associated Press dispatch from Luneville dated March 25.) Julia Van Wauterghem, wife of Eugene Hontang, was executed at Louvain, August 18, 1914, for treason. Felice Pfaat was executed at Marseilles, August 22, 1916, for espionage. Later the beautiful Mata Hari was executed by the French.

Miss Cavell’s case is very similar to that of Mrs. Mary Surratt, the American woman, found guilty in 1865, by a military commission consisting of Generals Hunter, Elkin, Kautz, Foster, Horn, Lew Wallace, Harris, Col. Clendenin, Col. Tompkins, Col. Burnett, Gen. Holt and Judge-Advocate Bingham, of receiving, harboring, concealing and assisting rebels; she was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead, which sentence was approved by President Johnson.

Concord Society, The.

Concord Society, The.—Born during the latter part of the war of a desire on the part of a few Americans of German origin deeplyimpressed by the events of the times to have an organization that would stand for the promotion of good fellowship and friendship between them and their kin as individuals, and to encourage the study of the share of their race in the founding and development of the United States. The society takes no part in politics or affairs of state or church. Its sole aim is the fostering of good relations between all citizens of the German race for social and educational purposes. The active membership will be limited to 500.

The name is derived from the good ship “Concord,” which brought the settlers of Germantown to these shores in 1683. This historic event will be commemorated by an annual banquet of members of the society in one of the larger cities. All activities on the part of the society have been deferred until the state of war is finally ended. Address Frederick F. Schrader, Secretary, 63 East 59th Street, New York, N. Y. (See “[Germantown Settlement].”)

Christiansen, Hendrick.

Christiansen, Hendrick.—Soon after Hendrick Hudson discovered the noble river which bears his name, a German, Hendrick Christiansen of Kleve, became the true explorer of that stream, undertaking eleven expeditions to its shores. He also built the first houses on Manhattan Island in 1613 and laid the foundations of the trading stations New Amsterdam and Fort Nassau. “New Netherland was first explored by the honorable Hendrick Christiansen of Kleve.... Hudson, the famous navigator, ‘was also there.’” (“Our Hyphenated Citizens,” by Rudolf Cronau.)

DeKalb.

DeKalb.—Major General Johann von Kalb, who gave his life for American independence in the Revolutionary War, was a native of Bavaria. Fatally wounded in the battle of Camden, he died August 19, 1780. A monument to his memory was erected in front of the military academy at Annapolis, which states that he gave a last noble demonstration of his devotion for the sake of liberty and the American cause, after having served most honorably for three years in the American army, by leading his soldiers and inspiring them by his example to deeds of highest bravery. Kalb was one of a number of efficient German-born officers who came over with the French to serve with the French troops under Lafayette.

Declaration of Independence.

Declaration of Independence.—The first paper to print the Declaration of Independence in the United States was a German newspaper, the “Pennsylvania Staatsboten” of July 5, 1776. It is also claimed that the first newspaper in Pennsylvania was printed in the German language. Benjamin Franklin at one time complained that of the eight newspapers then existing in Pennsylvania two were German,two were half German and half English, and only two were printed in English.

Dorsheimer, Hon. William.

Dorsheimer, Hon. William.—Lieutenant Governor of the State of New York; born at Lyons, Wayne County, 1832. His father was Philip Dorsheimer, a native of Germany, who emigrated from Germany and settled at Buffalo; he was one of the founders of the Republican party and in 1860 was elected Treasurer of the State.

Dutch and German.

Dutch and German.—In the history of early American colonization the terms Dutch and German are often confounded, as the English had little first-hand acquaintance with the people of the continent save Dutch, French and Spanish. Hence many have inferred that the Pennsylvania Germans were somehow misnamed for Pennsylvania Dutch, because the latter designation is the more frequently employed in describing the most important element of the population concerned in the settlement of Penn’s Commonwealth. Many of the first settlers of New Amsterdam were Germans and almost as many Germans as Swedes were concerned in the earliest European settlement of Delaware.Peter Minnewit, the first regular governor of New Amsterdam, was German-born, and it was he who, having entered the Swedish service, in 1637, with a ship of war and a smaller vessel, led a colony of Swedes with their chaplain, to the Delaware River region, between Cape Henlopen and Christian Creek. They bought land of the Indians and called it “New Sweden.” A second company of immigrants from Sweden came over in 1642, under Colonel John Printz, likewise a native of Germany. Among these first settlers of Delaware a considerable number were Germans. The latter however, are more often confounded with their nearest of kin, the Hollanders. “At that time,” says Anton Eickhoff (“In der Neuen Heimath”) “the distinction between Hollanders and Germans was not as pronounced as nowadays. The loose political union which had never been very close, between Holland and the German Empire, was formally severed by the Peace of Westphalia. But though politically it was no longer a German State, Holland continued to be regarded as such in public mind. The common language of the Hollanders and the Low Germans was Plattdeutsch.” Dr. William Elliot Griffis (“The Romance of American Colonization”) refers to the confounding of Germans with Dutch. “The Isthmus of this peninsula was called ‘Dutch Gap,’ after the glass makers who set up their furnace here in 1608,” he writes. “Most Englishmen then made and uneducated people now make, no distinction between the Dutch and the Germans, who are politically different people.”

Dual Citizenship.

Dual Citizenship.—It was frequently alleged before and during our entrance into the war that a native German might under the lawsof Germany become a citizen of another country without thereby being released from his obligations to his native country, and the attempt was made to make it appear that naturalized Germans could still be regarded as citizens of Germany, or as possessing dual citizenship.

It is true that the German law (Reichs-und-Staatsangehorigkeits-Gesetz) of July, 1913, says: “Citizenship is not lost by one who, before acquiring foreign citizenship, has secured on application the written consent of the competent authorities of his home State to retain his citizenship. Before this consent is given the German Consul is to be heard.” But this section is under no circumstances applicable to the United States, because in Section 36 the law says: “This law does not apply as far as treaties with foreign countries say otherwise.” Now the treaty of the United States with the Northern German Confederacy which was concluded 1868 (the Bancroft treaty) provides that Germans naturalized in the United States shall be treated by Germany as American citizens. This provision applies now to the natives of all the German States, and was so interpreted by the State Department.

Earling, Albert J.

Earling, Albert J.—President of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company and one of the recognized authorities on modern railway economics. Son of German immigrants.

Eckert, Thomas.

Eckert, Thomas.—General superintendent during the Civil War of military telegraphy, and assistant secretary of war (1864). Given the rank of Brigadier General Appointed general superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1866, and in 1881 became its president and general manager, and also director of the American Telegraph and Cable Company also of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Eliot, Prof. Charles W.

Eliot, Prof. Charles W.—One of the most eminent as well as bitter enemies of the German cause. Prof. Eliot has attacked German civilization and German institutions in magazines and newspaper articles and in a book. Yet in 1913, one year before the war, at a public dinner, Prof. Eliot paid German “Kultur” this high tribute: “Two great doctrines which had sprung from the German Protestant Reformation had been developed by Germans from seeds then planted in Germany. The first was the doctrine of universal education, developed from the Protestant conception of individual responsibility, and the second was the great doctrine of civil liberty, liberty in industries, in society, in government, liberty with order under law. These two principles took their rise in Protestant Germany; and America has been the greatest beneficiary of that noble teaching.” Yet with all these political and civic virtues, Prof. Eliot reversed himself like a weather-cock within a few months and became the hysterical spokesman of the most violent section of the Anglo-American coterie.

England Plundered American Commerce in Our Civil War.

England Plundered American Commerce in Our Civil War.—From Benson J. Lossing’s “History of the Civil War:” “The Confederates ... with the aid of the British aristocracy, shipbuilders and merchants, and the tacit consent of the British government, were enabled to keep afloat on the ocean some active vessels for plundering American commerce. The most formidable of the Anglo-Confederate plunderers of the sea was the ‘Alabama,’ which was built, armed, manned and victualled in England. She sailed under the British flag and was received with favor in every British port that she entered. In the last three months of the year 1862 she destroyed by fire twenty-eight helpless American merchant vessels. While these incendiary fires, kindled by Englishmen, commanded by a Confederate leader, were illuminating the bosom of the Atlantic Ocean, a merchant ship (the “George Griswold”) laden with provisions as a gift for the starving English operatives in Lancashire, who had been deprived of work and food by the Civil War in America, and whose necessities their own government failed to relieve, was sent from the City of New York, convoyed by a national war vessel, to save her from the fury of the British sea-rover!”

Recent statistics show that while 90% of our imports and 89% of our exports were carried in American bottoms before the Civil War, they had declined to 10 and 7½% of our imports and exports in 1910.

English Tribute to Germany’s Lofty Spirit.

English Tribute to Germany’s Lofty Spirit.—The following tribute to the lofty spirit of the German Empire is from the pen of Prof. J. A. Cramb, “Germany and England,” (Lecture II, p. 51, 1913):

And here let me say with regard to Germany, that, of all England’s enemies, she is by far the greatest; and by “greatness” I mean not merely magnitude, not her millions of soldiers, her millions of inhabitants; I mean grandeur of soul. She is the greatest and most heroic enemy—if she is our enemy—that England, in the thousand years of her history, has ever confronted. In the sixteenth century we made war upon Spain. But Germany in the twentieth century is a greater Power, greater in conception, in thought, in all that makes for human dignity, than was the Spain of Charles V and Philip II. In the seventeenth century we fought against Holland, but the Germany of Bismarck and the Kaiser is greater than the Holland of DeWitt. In the eighteenth century we fought against France, and again the Germany of to-day is a higher, more august Power than France under Louis XIV.

Election of 1916 and the League of Nations Covenant.

Election of 1916 and the League of Nations Covenant.—Save for artificially engendered belligerency, owing its inspiration to a subtle propaganda conducted through a portion of the press known to be under the direct influence of Lord Northcliffe, there was no demand for war with Germany among the people in general over the various issues that had arisen. The McLemore resolution in the House was defeated through the direct intervention of the administration underwhip and spur. It requested the President to warn American citizens to refrain from traveling on armed ships of any and all powers then or in the future at war.

In the Senate the Gore resolution declaring “that the sinking by a German submarine without notice or warning of an armed merchant vessel of her public enemy, resulting in the death of a citizen of the United States, would constitute a just cause of war between the United States and the German Empire” was laid on the table by a vote of 68 to 14. It had been designed by Senator Gore to put the issue squarely up to the Senate. Senator Stone in the Senate said, referring to the original Gore resolution warning American citizens to keep off armed merchant vessels: “The President is firmly opposed to the idea embodied in the Gore resolution. He is not only opposed to Congress passing a law relating to this subject, but he is opposed to any form of official warning to American citizens to keep off so-called armed merchantmen. If I could have my way I would take some definite step to save this country from becoming embroiled in this European war through the recklessness of foolhardy men.”

A few days before, the Senator, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, had returned from an interview with the President which had convinced him even then that war was impending.

In various parts of the country test votes of whole communities showed an overwhelming sentiment in favor of peace. W. J. Bryan had resigned as Secretary of State because “the issue involved is of such moment that to remain a member of the Cabinet would be as unfair to you (the President) as it would be to the cause which is nearest my heart, namely, the prevention of war.”

Perhaps the best indication whether the war was popular or not is that supplied by the number of volunteers who offered themselves for service from April 1, 1917, to April 6, 1918, in eleven eastern States, as follows:

The number of enlistments in the remaining States was in proportion.

The President had been elected because “he kept us out of the war.” In his nominating speech ex-Governor Glynn of New York assured the country that, if elected, Mr. Wilson would keep us out of war. It became the campaign slogan. The Democratic National Committee published full-page advertisements in the daily press. On November 4, 1916, it printed in all the papers a full-page display with a cartoon under the caption, “Mr. Hughes Would Name a Strong Cabinet,” showing a council of ten Roosevelts in Rough Rider attire, with slouched hats and spurs, and in every possible attitude of vociferous belligerency, intended to show the kind of cabinet that Mr. Hughes would select. In heavy type these lines appeared: “You Are Working—Not Fighting!” “Alive and Happy—Not Cannon Fodder!” “Wilson and Peace With Honor or Hughes With Roosevelt and War?” “The Lesson is Plain: If You Want War Vote for Hughes; If You Want Peace With Honor Vote for Wilson and Continued Prosperity. It Is up to You and Your Conscience!”

It latterly became known that though Hughes had repeatedly declared himself clearly on the issues in the course of his campaign speeches his remarks on this subject were not reported. All reference to the European situation and his views thereon were suppressed.

The city of Milwaukee gave Wilson 6,000 majority over Hughes. He carried the assured Republican State of Ohio on the issue that he would keep us out of the war and the decisive vote was given by California under the belief that with Wilson peace would be assured.

The defeat of Hughes secondarily must be attributed to Colonel Roosevelt. The latter’s personality fell like an ominous shadow across the path of the Republican candidate. Roosevelt was satisfied with nothing short of immediate war, and, nominally fighting Wilson, was in effect making the election of Hughes impossible. Repeatedly proven to have lost his power of influencing political results in his own State of New York, in New England and other sections, he still was able to decree the defeat of the candidate of his own party by inspiring popular fear of his future sway over him.

In Washington it was known that preparations for war with Germany were long under way. Secretary McAdoo, the President’s son-in-law, was understood to have entered into a secret arrangement with Brazil, during his visit there, for the seizure of German ships when the hour to strike should have arrived. The administration in 1916, months before the election, passed through Congress appropriations for military purposes larger than those provided in the German budget for 1914, the year of the war:

The national election occurred in November, 1916. Three months later, early in February, 1917, Count Bernstorff, the German ambassador, was handed his passports and relations with Germany were broken off. The announcement came like a bolt out of a clear sky. The President was not to be inaugurated until March 4 following. Within a month of his formal inauguration he announced that we were in a state of war with the imperial German government.

The events that followed were marked by a complete surrender of Congress and the domination of the Executive over the Legislative branch of our government. The President was invested with dictatorial powers; political traditions and the time-honored admonitions of the founders of the government were disregarded and overruled. A Cabinet order had already decreed that American citizens forswearing their allegiance in order to serve in the British army were not to lose their standing as American citizens. Now armies of conscripts were made ready to be sent a distance of 3,000 miles to fight for the safeguarding of democracy in Europe and to protect us from an invasion, possible only by ships which were subsequently pronounced by the Secretary of the Navy to be restricted by their bunker capacity to operations in European waters.

A sudden mad fury seized the people, following a visit of Lord Northcliffe, marked by numerous conferences with publishers during a trip West. The press became unanimous, with the exception of the Hearst papers, on the question that Germany must be crushed. During the floating of the $500,000,000 loan to England and France pending our neutrality, full page advertisements had been generously distributed to papers throughout the country by the Morgan banking interests. In mining regions, in steel-producing sections, in great industrial centers, in cities having large packing interests or sugar refineries, local interests prevailed to influence sentiment for war as a means of profit and prosperity. Public opinion was soon rendered so completely unfit for sober reflection by the continued propaganda directed from Wall Street and British and French publicity centers in this country that a wave of hate against people of German descent swept everything before it. The Germans were not wanted, and papers like the New York “Sun” declared that Germans were not human beings in the same sense as other members of the family.

Yet, shortly prior to the election, a member of the Cabinet and others in the confidence of the administration had come to New York to confer with those whom they regarded authorized to speak for the German element to prevail upon them to influence the so-called German vote in favor of the Democratic candidate, and in one case, at least, a post of honor was tentatively promised to one such spokesman by an agent direct from the highest source.

The crowning event of the raging spirit of repression was the passage of the Overman bill creating the Espionage act, consideredelsewhere, under which every liberal paper was tampered with in one form or another, and public assembly, the right of petition, freedom of speech and the press became a memory.

A vigorous reaction against the President set in during the fall of 1918. Down to that period he had practically had a free hand in dealing with the conduct of the war and with the European situation. There had been a protest by Senators against the disregard shown that body by the President in the initial negotiations at Paris, but so completely had the Executive dominated the high legislative body, his treaty-making partner, that the protest took the discreet form of a round-robin, which in turn was not only disregarded, but characterized as a presumption to hamper the action of the President.

The November election of 1918 was coming on. The President in Paris issued an appeal to the voters to elect a Democratic Congress to strengthen his hands. Diplomatically, steps were inaugurated to insure the end of the war by the voluntary abdication of the Kaiser in time to influence the elections with the news of a crushing victory over Germany. The name of Minister Nelson Morris at Stockholm, Sweden, as also the name of Senator James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois, was brought into connection with rumors of negotiations looking to the surrender of Germany on the basis of the Fourteen Points in time to enable the news to be flashed to America on the eve of the election as the crowning achievement of the President. But the psychological moment passed. The elections occurred on November 7, the German debacle four days later.

Although it was well understood that a victory was at hand, the Republicans swept the country. The great Democratic majorities were reversed, not only in the House, but in the Senate. The Republican leaders interpreted the result as an endorsement of their party, but it was really a popular vote of protest that could find no channel of expression other than the Republican party because of its opposition to the administration on party policies, though in accord with it on many of the radically oppressive measures of domestic policy in the prosecution of the war.

With the Republicans in control of both branches of Congress, the President’s dominating influence began to wane rapidly. When it began to be apparent that his visit to Europe, where he had been hailed by millions as the Moses of the New Freedom, was marked by one concession on his part after another to the superior statescraft of Premiers Lloyd George and Clemenceau and that his famous Fourteen Points had been reduced one by one to zero, the magic slogan, “Stand by the President,” was forgotten. Some one said that on his way to Utopia he had met two practical politicians.

A year preceding men were arrested for failing to stand by the President, as treason to the institutions of the country; now the tide had turned, the rallying cry had lost its force. The country waswitnessing the spectacle of its President stepping down from his pedestal to play the game of European politics in the secrecy of a closet, not with his equals, but with mere envoys of sovereign powers, guided by radically different interests from our own.

Thence on the President was at open war with the Senate, which had been kept in ignorance of the peace negotiations and discovered that a draft of the League of Nations covenant, including the treaty with Germany, had been in the hands of the Morgan banking group while the high treaty-making body of our government had been ignored in its demand for information.

A few courageous Senators, notably Reed of Missouri, Democrat, and Borah of Idaho and Johnson of California, Republicans, began to analyze the treaty, and showed that while Great Britain was accorded six votes the United States would have but one vote in the League, and that China had been ravaged by the ceding to Japan of the Shantung Peninsula as the price of her adherence to the League of Nations. Senator Knox directed attention to the ravagement of the German people by the terms of the treaty, and, though a conservative, evidenced the vision of a statesman and patriotic American.

The outlook for the treaty began to darken from day to day. The administration was still confident, and statements from the White House declared the treaty to redeem all of the Fourteen Points of the President’s peace program. But the constant assaults upon it by Senators Reed, Borah and Johnson in speeches in various parts of the country eventually aroused the administration to its danger.

A conference with the President was brought about at the White House in the summer of 1919, at which the Chief Executive expressed himself ready to answer all questions, and a committee from the Senate waited upon him to submit a series of inquiries. It was in the course of this interview that the following colloquy occurred:

Senator McCumber: “Would our moral conviction of the unrighteousness of the German war have brought us into this war if Germany had not committed any acts against us without the League of Nations, as we had no League of Nations at that time?”

The President: “I hope it would eventually, Senator, as things developed.”

Senator McCumber: “Do you think if Germany had committed no act of war or no act of injustice against our citizens that we would have got into the war?”

The President: “I do think so.”

Senator McCumber: “You think we would have gotten in anyway?”

The President: “I do.”

The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Representative Mann, in 1916 had declared “Wilson is determined to plunge us into war with Germany.” Three years later the admission thatwe would have been in the war even “if Germany had committed no act of war or no act of injustice against our citizens” came from the White House, and Senators stood appalled at the revelation.

The President’s frank admission that the administration would have drifted into war regardless of what Germany had done or might do, is strangely in accord with statements contained in the great historic work on the World War by the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hanotaux, who writes:

Just before the Battle of the Marne, when the spirits of many of the leading politicians in France were so depressed that they were urging an immediate peace with Germany, three American ambassadors presented themselves to the government—the then functioning ambassador, his predecessor and his successor—and implored the government not to give up, promising that America would join in the war.

“At present there are but 50,000 influential persons in America who want it to enter the war, but in a short time there will be a hundred million.”

The description makes it easy to identify the three diplomats who gave France this assurance; they were Robert Bacon, Roosevelt’s ambassador; Myron T. Herrick, Taft’s ambassador, and William G. Sharp, Wilson’s ambassador to Paris. This promise was given in September, 1914. There had then been no alleged outrages against American rights. The U-boat war had not been started. The Lusitania was not sunk until May, 1915. Obviously, then, the sinking of the Lusitania, the U-boat raids, and other alleged offenses, were mere pretexts of these “50,000 influential persons” in a propaganda to precipitate their hundred million fellow-citizens into the bloody European complication.

No compromise now seemed possible. The Senate was determined to take charge of the treaty, and the President prepared to appeal to the country by a series of speeches which carried him through the West as far as the Pacific Coast. During the trip he denounced the opposition Senators with strong invective, culminating in violent outbreaks of temper. But apparently his spell over the public mind, the seduction of his phrases, had been broken. Suddenly came the news of his physical breakdown, followed by his immediate return to Washington under the care of physicians, and a long period of confinement with the attendance of various specialists. Still he continued to direct the fight in the Senate for the ratification of the League of Nations and the treaty with Germany without the crossing of a “t” or the dotting of an “i.”

On November 19, 1919, the question came to a vote on a resolution of Senator Underwood, resulting in the defeat of the administration measure by a vote of 38 for and 53 against it. The only Republican voting with the administration was McCumber of North Dakota, seven Democrats voting against ratification with the Republicans.They were Gore of Oklahoma, Reed of Missouri, Shields of Tennessee, Smith of Georgia, Thomas of Colorado, Trammell of Florida and Walsh of Massachusetts.

English Opinion of Prussians in 1813-15.

English Opinion of Prussians in 1813-15.—The British, as is well known, revise their opinions of other nations according to their own selfish interests. The ambition of England to crush Prussia is in strong contrast to England’s gratitude to Prussian military genius for saving Wellington from annihilation by Napoleon at Waterloo. The sinister years of 1806-13 speak an eloquent language. The Corsican conqueror thought he had crushed Prussia for all times. He had stripped Prussia of half her territory and trampled the rest under the hoofs of his cavalry. But Prussia was not dead, and from 1813 to 1815 Prussia was the wonder of the world. The London “Times” said: “Almost every victory that led to the fall of the conqueror was a Prussian victory. At Lutzen and Goerzen always the Prussians. At the Katzbach, always the Prussians; at Grossbeeren and Leipzig, always the Prussians; in the battles in France, always the Prussians, and finally at Waterloo, always the Prussians. The Prussian soldier has proved himself the best soldier of these campaigns.”

Espionage Act, Vote on.

Espionage Act, Vote on.—By a vote of 48 to 26, the Senate, on May 4, 1918, adopted the conference report on the Espionage Act. It accepted all recommendations of the conference, even to the extent of rejecting the France amendment, designed to protect from prosecution newspapers and other publications whose criticism of the Government was shown to be not based on malice.

The actual count showed the result as follows:

AYE: Democrats—Ashurst, Bankhead, Beckham, Chamberlain, Culberson, Fletcher, Gerry, Guion, Henderson, Hitchcock, Hollis, Jones, of New Mexico; King, Kirby, Lewis, McKellar, Myers, Overman, Owens, Phelan, Pittman, Pomerene, Ransdell, Salisbury, Shafroth, Sheppard, Shields, Simmons, Smith, of Georgia; Smith, of Maryland; Smith, of South Carolina; Swanson, Thompson, Tillman, Trammell, Underwood, Walsh and Williams.

Republican—Colt, Fall, Jones, of Washington; Lenroot, McCumber, McLean, Nelson, Poindexter, Sterling and Warren. Total, 48.

NO: Democrats—Hardwick and Reed—2.

Republicans—Borah, Brandegee, Calder, Curtis, Dillingham, France, Gallinger, Gronna, Hale, Harding, Johnson, of California; Kenyon, Knox, Lodge, McNary, New, Norris, Page, Sherman, Smoot, Sutherland, Wadsworth, Watson and Weeks—24. Total, 26.

Exports and Imports to and from the Belligerent Countries, 1914.

Exports and Imports to and from the Belligerent Countries, 1914.—The following figures are taken from the “Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1915.”

The table shows that the normal trade with Germany was the largest next to that with the United Kingdom, and that Germany took more of our products than Canada. It shows that Germany was not only one of our best customers but that the balance of trade was largely in our favor, the excess of American exports to Germany over imports in 1914 amounting to $154,875,140, or nearly as much as our entire exports to France in 1914.

The following table shows how the British arbitrary rule of the seas cut down our trade with the Scandinavian countries, all but that of Norway, whose neutrality was largely in favor of England. The figures are for the nine months ending March.

Under the Espionage Act—A Chapter of Persecution.

Under the Espionage Act—A Chapter of Persecution.—The sudden decision of our government to enter the European war, on April 6, 1917, found the German element wholly unprepared for the outburst of bitter hate which in the course of a few weeks threatened to overwhelm every standard of sense and justice. Though a minority element, it approximated closely the dominant Anglo-American element; it far outnumbered every other racial element, and it was not conscious of anything that justified its being relegated to a class apart from the American people as a whole.

The German element had fought for the independence of America in the Revolution to the full limit of its quota, which was considerable; it had outstripped every other element in furnishing troops for the Union army; it had stood loyally by the government in every other crisis of its history, and it was not aware that the Germans living3,000 miles away under a government of their own had ever followed any policy save one of pronounced friendship for the United States.

Having no political adhesion among themselves, having never contemplated the possibility of being turned upon by their fellow citizens, fostering the spirit of conviviality, sociability, and cultivating song and art rather than politics, they had relied confidently on the impartiality of laws of the land to protect them in their rights as well as to exact the performance of their duties as American citizens.

Their forefathers had been foremost in the winning of the West; more than any others they formed the far-flung battle line that encountered the invasion of the red hordes in the French-Indian wars; more of their number had perished in Indian massacres, from Canajoharie to New Ulm, than of any other race; they could defiantly challenge any other element to show a greater influence in educational, cultural and general academic directions, and in the words of that truly great American woman, Miss Jane Addams, the German American element was entitled to be heard.

It is unfortunately an Anglo-American trait to be easily lashed into a fanatical mob spirit by prominent spokesmen, in singular disregard of its avowed democracy. The history of our country teems with examples of unbridled violence against any non-conforming spirit that ever developed. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote:

The influential classes, and those who take upon themselves to be the leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob. Clergymen, judges, statesmen, the wisest, calmest, holiest persons of their day, stood in the inner circle round about the gallows, loudest to applaud the work of blood, latest to confess themselves miserably deceived.

It began with the hanging of witches; it was continued in the mobbing of Quakers; at one time we mobbed English actors, and in the Astor Place riots of New York, because we abhorred an English actor, Macready, eighteen persons were killed. There were the anti-Masonic riots, the anti-Catholic emeutes, the Know Nothing riots; later the anti-abolitionist riots in Boston and elsewhere; the Copperhead mobs, the Sandlot riots, and dozens of others, down to the burning of negroes by demonstrative communities charging themselves with the administration of savage justice.

It happened to be the turn of the Germans, forming 26 per cent. of the total population, and so intermixed that nothing can ever segregate the cross-currents of blood that courses through the veins of the American people.

In the Revolution Prussia had given refuge to American cruisers at Danzig, the port which, under the treaty we are helping to distrain from her German motherland, and had bribed Catherine the Great’s minister to prevent the sending of Russian troops to help England fight the American colonists; in the Civil War, besides giving theirsons to the cause of the Union, the Germans had come to our rescue with their money when most needed. Was it astonishing that the so-called German element was stunned and staggered by the sudden reversion of sentiment from one of complete spiritual and national accord to one of vindictive malice by neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend?

It is perhaps true, as has been assumed, that certain influential members of the administration received an inordinate shock at the suggestion, from whatever source it came, that the German Americans would be likely to rise in revolution, and that a panic seized Washington at such a prospect, so that all measures were considered fair that would tend to put down the Germans and keep them in complete subjection by a system of terrorism. It is certain that no evidence has been disclosed by the endless investigations that have been going on which tended to establish the guilt of any member of the race as to plots against the government.

The Attorney General called for 200,000 volunteers to act as agents of the Department of Justice to report all disloyal talk or on the identity of persons suspected of being “pro-German.” To be known as having sympathized with the Central Powers, no matter what one’s action was after we entered the war, was to insure one’s footsteps and movements to be dogged by spies. No home was sacred, and the least indiscreet utterance was ground for a report, arrest and indictment under the so-called Espionage Act, which the New York “American” of February 24, 1917, described as “simply the infamous Alien and Sedition laws under another name,” passed in 1789, during the presidency of John Adams, which consigned the party that passed it to eternal oblivion.

Senator Cummings of Iowa said:

This measure is the most stringent and drastic law ever proposed to curb a free people in time of peace or war. The Government would have absolute power in war time to suppress newspapers and prevent debate in Congress. It might even be held a criminal offense for two citizens to discuss with each other questions of military policy.

The New York “Call” of July 2, 1919, described the effect of the law in no exaggerated language when it said:

Free discussion became a memory, and rubber stamp opinions became a badge of “patriotism.” Men and women were hunted out of their homes for having an idea higher than a rat. In some states a White Terror raged which deported whole families to adjoining states. Blood flowed. Men were mobbed and some lynched because they insisted on using their brains, instead of the brains of others. Public officials applauded, refused to interfere, and newspapers glorified the carousal of hate and terror.

Spying upon your friends became an honorable calling. The coward who hated his fellow man in packs became the popular “hero.” Papers and magazines had their mailing privilegeswithdrawn and some were suppressed. Libraries were repeatedly ransacked for “seditious” literature. The schools became a refuge of servile teachers, who taught what was told them, no matter how absurd it might be. Censorship barred the masses from the real news of the world. The “news” was manufactured in government bureaus and in the editorial offices of the daily newspapers. The theater and the “movie” became agencies for enforcing standardized opinions. The churches tied their creeds to the chariot of the imperialists and made their Christ speak for reaction. The lecture platform became defiled. The reversion back to the primitive permeated politics. The blackest enemies of human progress had the public ear; its friends were damned and assaulted. Historical works were “revised” or suppressed to make them square with the brutal mania of the hour.

All this was glorified in the name of “democracy,” in the name of “liberty,” in the name of “freedom.” A shadow fell upon the intellectual life of the nation. For the time being it was blotted out. All thinking had ceased, except for a courageous few, and they were mobbed or sent to the penitentiaries. Yet the editors, politicians, preachers, capitalists, bankers, exploiters, profiteers, patrioteers, “labor leaders,” all, looked upon their work and called it good. Missions went abroad to tell the European yokels of our “ideals.” The masses were intellectual prisoners, marching in the lockstep of capital’s chain gang.

There was a phase of this spy activity that went even beyond this: The invasion of the homes of German Americans whose sons were fighting in the ranks and dying in France—there were 17,000 of the latter. They were harried by ill-bred patriots of the sort we read of in the history of the French revolution, who, disregarding the fact that these parents were citizens, treated them as suspects and kept them under surveillance because they were not rushing out into the open and shouting “Huns.”

Many a case occurred in which a lad in the American army was fighting against his own brother in the ranks of the German army and his mother over here was harrassed by members of the National Security League, the American Defense Society or the American Protective League, while the father was cast out of employment for being of German blood.

Many a crippled boy returned from France to find that his family had been impoverished and persecuted by secret agents or self-constituted spies. In the breast of many a young German American were then and there planted the seeds of hate for his tormentors, and, sad to relate, doubts of the virtue of American liberty. He had given his blood to make the world safe for democracy and found his home in the grip of despotism.

There are those who account for the persecution of the German element by the reminder that the war offered the first opportunity for Southern-thinking Americans to repay the German element forits share in the Civil War in aiding the Union to win the final victory in 1865. Be that as it may, in the end this element was gloriously vindicated by ample proof of its loyalty, no matter what the test. Despite the most unrelenting enforcement of every phase of the objectionable act, mass meetings were held in twelve cities during Lincoln’s birthday in 1919, to protest against the law and demand its repeal. The meetings were called in the name of Lincoln, the liberator, but not by German Americans.

Reviewing the prosecutions under the Espionage Act, the Civil Liberties Bureau, 41 Union Square, which itself was repeatedly raided, on February 13, 1919, issued the following summary:

The bureau has had, since the beginning of the war, a standing order with a newspaper clipping company covering all references in the press of the United States to disloyalty, sedition, espionage and the Espionage law. As a result, we have the most illuminating record of cases which it has been possible to complete without access to the records of the Attorney General. We have no record of a single instance when a spy has been imprisoned under this law.

Furthermore, in the cases cited in the Attorney General’s report as typical of those prosecuted under the Espionage law, there is not one case in which the prisoner was convicted of being a paid German spy, or of even trying to find out military secrets. All the convictions which are reported arose under section 13 of the Penal Code, under which the maximum sentence is two years. So far as we have any record, cases of this nature which have arisen under the Espionage act have been terminated by the internment of the accused, without imprisonment. On the other hand, American citizens exercising (perhaps without discretion) the right of free speech in war time have been sentenced to as high as twenty years in the penitentiary. According to the data in our possession, about two-thirds of the convictions have been for remarks in private conversation. The remainder have been for statements made in public speeches and in literature publicly circulated.

The daily press, with the very rarest exceptions, was in accord with the mob and the spirit of the Espionage Act. If ever it was evident how little the German Americans had been taken into consideration by their fellow citizens, it became undeniably patent in the refusal of the press, though largely dependent on the support of this element, to cry a halt to the persecutions. Every man arrested on some charge was glaringly pictured in the character of a dangerous spy, and fanatical women were given much space in their columns for organized assaults on German toys and German music. The German people were described as moral lepers. The New York “Herald” advocated the hanging of German Americans to lamp posts. The New York “Sun,” late in October, 1918, soberly printed this:

Yet by not a few are we ominously told that the German is a man of like nature with ourselves and that as such we must be prepared to live with him after the war. This is not thetruth; it is rather the most menacing lie upon the horizon of the conflict and its conclusion.... Scrutinized historically and presented boldly, the German cannot be but recognized as a distinctly separate and pathological human species. He is not human in the sense that other men are human.

Societies were formed for the Suppression of Everything German, and there exists at present in all parts of the United States a secret society pledged not to buy of any German American or to give employment to any member of that race.

The German Americans manifested an utterly helpless spirit in the situation. No uniform demand was formulated to be presented to Congress demanding the repeal of the Espionage Act after the excuse that called it into existence had ceased to exist, or calling on the authorities for protection. Some formed a society known as “The Friends of German Democracy,” under Mr. Franz Sigel, which adopted resolutions pledging complete and unreserved loyalty. It was rewarded with a letter from a woman heading an anti-German movement who subsequently was shown to be an English subject, in which the Friends of German Democracy were roundly told that “the only good German-American is a dead one.”

Another woman, the daughter of German parents, Mrs. William Jay, gained great notoriety by her campaign against German music, and was instrumental in stopping German plays, operas and symphonies in New York before and after the armistice had been signed, and also in sending many well-established German musicians into exile, or to an internment camp. Many, courting favor and recognition from persons having some social standing, seeing their own race utterly helpless in counteracting the feeling of contempt, joined with their detractors in order to remove all doubt as to their own loyalty.

In many States the teaching of the German language was prohibited by the legislatures. In New York City, though the Germans have a total vote of 1,250,000, including the women, they were unable to prevent—and made no attempt to prevent—an order forbidding the teaching of German or the introduction of new books of history in the schools in which their race is described as Huns and made responsible for every atrocity ascribed to it in the heat of war.

The only outstanding resistance to the spirit of Anglicising the country was recorded in New Jersey, where the German language was put under the ban in the Masonic lodges, and where John J. Plemenik, Master of Schiller Lodge, in Newark, refused to comply with the order of the Grand Lodge on the ground that for fifty years the lodge had worked in German, under the sanction of the Grand Lodge. Rather than submit to the edict of the Grand Lodge of the State the master walked out of the lodge room, followed by 200 Masons, some of them from English-speaking lodges. The example found a near parallel in one of the twenty-seven German lodges in New York City, one of them above 125 years old, after which an order extending thetime for discontinuing the German language of the lodges was promptly issued. All the lodges were, however, unanimous in support of steps against obedience to the edict.

The New York Liederkranz Society, one of the largest German social organizations in the United States, cheered the late Col. Roosevelt to the echo in his attacks on their race. The New York “Times” of October 16, 1918, says that although all members of the club are of German descent, every statement made by Col. Roosevelt, and the other speakers, William Forster, president of the club, and Ludwig Nissen, chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee, were cheered again and again. Col. Roosevelt said there was room here for but one language, meaning, of course, the King’s English.

A few months later we read a dispatch from Philadelphia (New York “Tribune,” April 26, 1919): “President Wilson’s attitude on the Fiume situation has so aroused Italians in this city that they will not hold their Victory Liberty Loan parade.... Leaders here fear that the attitude of the Italians toward President Wilson will result in cutting down their subscriptions to the loan.”

Before one Justice Cropsey, of the Queens County Supreme Court, ten Germans out of eleven who applied for citizenship one day in May, 1919, six months after the signing of the armistice, had their petitions denied. A girl who was earning her living as a stenographer was included in the list because she had not invested in the first two Liberty loans, though she was unemployed at the time. The learned Justice dismissed her petition with the statement: “You get the benefit of this country and increase your pay through its entrance into the war, and yet you will not support it.”

Out of 215 staff officers named among the personnel of the new general staff of the army, announced October 3, 1918, only nine bore German names. Of the service men aboard an American ship destroyed in action during the war, 36 per cent. bore German names. The highest distinction conferred on any American aviator during the active fighting was given to Capt. Edward V. Rickenbacker, popularly called “the American Ace of Aces,” of Columbus, Ohio.

Any one resisting the current of hatred and abuse, as Henry Ford, whose contribution to the success of the American army is certainly incontestible, was exposed to the same attacks as those directly of German descent who were everywhere summoned before boards of inquisition; a headline in the “Evening Sun” of July 2, 1919, runs like this: “Ford Kept 500 Pro-Germans—Staff Men Say They Worked at Plant During the War—Motor Defects Were Passed—Didn’t Try to Correct Errors.”

That citizens of German origin were assigned a status independent of other citizens is apparent from a statement filed with the United States Senate by Mr. George A. Schreiner, the war correspondent of the Associated Press, who, upon his return here for a visit, was refuseda passport for two years to go back to his post of duty. He writes:

I will terminate my report with a few remarks that seem greatly in order. These remarks concern the status of the naturalized citizen. On the very report issued to me on August 30, 1919, there appears personal data denouncing me which was formerly not placed on passports, and which during the last two years has done much injury to naturalized citizens. I refer to the fact that in the lower left-hand corner of the passport is noted the citizen’s place of birth and former nationality. As things are constituted and as they have been for some time, the notice referred to constitutes a discrimination against citizens of the United States of immigrant origin. The passport is given to the citizen as a means to identify himself as a citizen of the United States, not as signal to those hostile to his racials elsewhere, that the Government of the United States sees a distinction between native and those of foreign birth.... The elimination of all personal data from the passport would be the first step on the part of the Government in serving notice upon foreign governments that there is but one class of citizens in the United States, and that all of them are equally entitled to protection, as was the stand taken by the Senate when some years ago it abrogated the commercial treaty with the Imperial Russian Government, because that government had refused to recognize fully the American passports given to citizens of the United States of Jewish origin.

Men in the Department of State have thought it presumptuous on my part that I should claim the rights of a native-born citizen, and do that in the manner in which I was forced to do it. To that I will reply that no other avenue was open. In the first place, I am either a citizen of the United States in every sense of the word, and in every duty and right, or I am not. So long as there is not set up, let me say, immigrant citizens, or whatever designation may be deemed proper, which class a person can join, fully cognizant of what he or she is doing, the citizen admitted on the basis of full citizenship, the reservation of the presidency duly considered, would show his utter unfitness for his national status did he relinquish, in the least degree, his rights and guarantees, as constitutionally fixed and legally defined.

One German American army officer was sentenced to 25 years at hard labor at Leavenworth for having written a letter to the War Department, declaring that as his sympathies for Germany did not fit him to act a soldier in the fighting line, he desired to resign. He was nevertheless sent to France in the hope that it “would cause his sense of propriety to reassert itself.” Later, when Pershing reported that there had been no change, he was sent back to the United States for trial, with the above result. The “Times” said the papers and documents seized in his home would not be published. “These papers are said to show that the convicted man was an active friend of Germany in this country (his wife was born there), and that in the early part of the war he subscribed to one of the German war loans, payinghis subscription in installments.” This was the extent of the proof, so far as known. Another officer of German descent could not be confirmed when his name was sent in for promotion to brigadier general.

One of the most sensational trials was that against Albert Paul Fricke, in New York, charged with high treason. Delancey Nicol, a famous attorney, was specially engaged to prosecute the case. Fricke was acquitted by a jury. This result was noticed in an obscure part of the papers, whereas Fricke’s arrest, indictment and the details of the case at many stages was spread under screaming headlines invariably. Paul C. H. Hennig, holding a responsible position as superintendent in the E. W. Bliss Co. plant in Brooklyn, was announced to have been caught red-handed tampering with the gyroscopes for torpedoes manufactured by the company for the Government. It was described as a plot so to manipulate the gyroscope as to reverse the course of the torpedo and discharge it against the vessel from which it was released, thus blowing the ship out of the water. At the trial it was testified that Hennig could not have accomplished any such purpose had he desired, as the torpedoes passed through numerous other hands after leaving his and were carefully inspected at every stage of their manufacture. He was acquitted by a jury, but the trial had ruined him financially.

Two years before the war, a Lutheran minister, Rev. Jaeger, was assassinated in his home in Indiana for being pro-German. On April 5, 1918, Robert B. Prager was lynched by a mob of boys and drunken men at Collinsville, Illinois, for being a German. The acquittal of the men was received with public jubilation, bon fires and concert by a Naval Reserve band. At West Frankfort, Ill., according to a press dispatch of March 25, 1918, “500 men seized Mrs. Frances Bergen, a woman of Bohemian birth, from municipal officers, rode her on a rail through the main street of the town, and compelled her to wave the American flag throughout the demonstration. At frequent intervals the procession paused while Mrs. Bergen was compelled to shout praise for President Wilson.”

A law evidently designed to hurt citizens of German descent was passed in Chicago, and a dispatch of March 26, 1918, gleefully announced that “six thousand aliens will lose their rights to conduct business in Chicago, May 1, when the ordinance passed by the City Council refusing licenses to all persons not United States citizens takes effect. Brewers, saloon keepers, restaurant keepers, tailors, bakers, junk dealers and others for whom a license from the city is required will be affected by the new law.” In this manner judges were forced from the bench and even compelled to fly for their lives, teachers were ousted out of their places, and professors frozen out of their professorships in universities. Citizens to the number of thousands were made outcasts in the country of their birth or adoption,and they were asking themselves “why?” without getting an answer. The German plotters spoken of by leading officials of the government as menacing the safety of the government, had not materialized; the danger of the “hyphen” had been exaggerated.

Under the extraordinary power given to irresponsible organizations and individuals by the repressive legislation enacted by Congress, the abuses which ensued were harrowing to any one with the least conscious regard for the institutions of his country. In New York a boy was sentenced to three months in jail for circulating a leaflet containing extracts from the Declaration of Independence, emphasis being laid on the fact by the court that certain passages, construed to be an incitement to sedition, were printed in black type. An appeal to a higher court fortunately nullified the verdict. A woman was knocked down in the streets of New York by a man for speaking German, and the court discharged the brute without a reprimand. From all parts of the country reports of outrages against citizens with German names were of daily occurrence. Men were carried off by groups of hooligans, stripped and whipped, or tarred and feathered. The same individuals who had themselves expressed sympathy for the cause of the Central Powers in conversations with their neighbors, suddenly turned informers, and professed to be proud of their betrayal of confidence. Everywhere men were indicted for treason who on trial were acquitted by the juries who heard their cases.

Not until the mob spirit everywhere assumed such a menacing aspect that no citizen dared trust his own friend, and bloodshed and violence began to run rampant, came any utterance from administration sources designed to check the reign of terror, and then the warnings were couched in such conservative language that they could be applied as a rebuke only to extreme cases of fanatical madness.

Not only was the press doing yeoman’s duty in the suppression of human rights, but the pulpit, the bar and the theaters and film companies combined to lash the ignorant into a state of maniacal fury and incited them to further outrages. A few judges, here and there, stood out in bold relief for their attitude in defense of constitutional government and the right of the individual under the same.

One of the most dastardly outrages was enacted near Florence, Ky., October 28, 1917, when a masked mob seized Prof. Herbert S. Bigelow, a prominent citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio, tied him to a tree in the woods and horse-whipped him for advocating the constitutional rights of American citizens.

The manner in which terrorism was carried out is well illustrated by events in New York City. Bazaars were everywhere held in aid of the cause of army and navy and the associated governments, and committees scoured the city for subscriptions and support. Amongthe events organized for this ostensible purpose was the Army and Navy Bazaar. The sum of $72,000 was taken in, but only $700 went to Uncle Sam’s soldiers and sailors. The rest went for commissions and expenses. This affair was used to terrorize German Americans on a large scale in order to press money out of them. An investigation brought out evidence, supplied by William S. Moore, secretary of the Guaranty Trust Company, who was treasurer of the bazaar, that “German citizens and citizens of German descent had been threatened with accusations of disloyalty by collectors of the bazaar.” An evening paper stated: “He admitted to the prosecutor that during the preparations for the bazaar several complaints that New Yorkers of German blood had been solicited, with the threat that they would be reported for internment if they refused to contribute, had been made to the bazaar officials.”

Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, during the war declared that 600 liberal periodicals had been interfered with by the Post Office Department under the power given the Postmaster General to censor the American press. A large number of papers were harrassed, their editors arrested, some charged with treason or other high crime; and a few—a very few—were indicted. One effectual way of putting a stop to a publication which, though no grounds existed for its suppression, yet proved offensive by its outspoken defense of American principles, was to cancel its second-class mailing privilege. Under this privilege a paper enjoys a pound-rate postage, instead of being obliged to pay one cent or more for every copy mailed.

This was the course pursued toward the weekly, “Issues and Events,” which, with “The Fatherland” (now Viereck’s “American Monthly”), was started in 1914 to combat the pro-Ally campaign under Lord Northcliffe. After some five or six issues were stopped from going through the mails, the paper taking steps to reincorporate, became “The American Liberal,” but after only four issues was denied the second-class mailing privilege, and was forced to suspend.

The issue of March 23, 1918, was stopped for printing Theodore Sutro’s plea before the Senate Committee as attorney for the German-American Alliance, which was having its charter canceled by a bill introduced by Senator King, of Utah. The issue of April 6, 1918, was stopped. It contained a compilation of the outrages against German Americans in all parts of the country under the heading, “A Reign of Terror.” The issue of April 13 was stopped. It contained a quotation from Carl Schurz on the freedom of speech and press, and a statement of Abraham Lincoln on reverence for the law; also an article on the seizure of a list of 40,000 subscribers to the German war bonds by the then attorney general of New York.

The next number to be stopped was the issue of May 11, containing an article, “The Right of Free Speech Defined by a DistinguishedFederal Judge to Roosevelt and by Judge Hand to the Jury Trying ‘The Masses’ Case,” and an article showing that the Germans had subscribed a larger amount to the Liberty Loan than any other group of foreign-born citizens.

The June 1 issue was next stopped. It contained the address of Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, before the St. Louis Commercial Club, in which he denied the truth of the stories of Belgian atrocities after a personal investigation of numerous cases in France and Belgium. The June 8 issue also was stopped. The offensive material obviously consisted of extracts from a pamphlet issued by the National Civil Liberties Bureau, “The Truth About the I. W. W.” It presented a compilation of extracts from the works of industrial investigators and noted economists, and was printed as a matter of news with no idea of propagandizing the cause of the I. W. W.

The paper was rapidly losing its footing under this heroic treatment of the Post Office censorship, although no notoriety was attached to the course. On June 22 the first issue of “The American Liberal” appeared, in which an attempt was made to avoid anything that could give excuse for interference, the chief desire being to protect the stockholders and creditors. But after the fourth issue a peremptory order canceling the second-class mailing privilege put an effectual stop to further efforts to continue the uneven struggle.

Immediately after, the affairs of the paper became a subject of serious concern in various secret service branches of the government. A raid was made on a prominent citizen in the town of Reading and letters were found showing that he had at one time aided the paper in the sum of $100. This was heralded as evidence of some sinister conspiracy to destroy the government. A raid was made on the office of the paper and every letter on file was seized to discover proof of fraud and bad faith on the part of certain employes of the office, and to establish some connection with German plotters. Investigations were instituted; the daily papers were supplied with information that contained one part fact and nine parts suggestion, innuendoes and insinuations. Lawyers who examined the reports said they were vicious, but just within the law—that action for libel would probably not stick. And that was obviously the purpose of the raids. The prominent citizen of Reading was allowed to go the even tenor of his ways, and the seized documents in the office of the paper were returned in due season and pronounced harmless. The public had been lashed into a feverish state of indignation against some imaginary plotters, a legitimate enterprise had been ruined, all the employes of the paper had been turned into the street, some filth had been flung at the head of the editor, and the country was saved!

The paper was instrumental, after its suspension, in raising sufficient money to satisfy an indebtedness of more than $600 due a privatebenevolent institution in which it had placed a large number of children of distressed aliens affected by the rigorous legislation of Congress against alien enemies, and the Mount Plaza Home, which it had started for the same purpose, took care of between 800 and 900 children during the season of 1918 with its own resources. This charity had formed a special object of attack and suspicion.

Even more drastic was the treatment accorded Viereck’s “American Monthly,” though for reasons which need not be detailed here, it was not interfered with by the Post Office Department. The principal cause for the inquisition, which kept the daily press well supplied with Monday morning articles of sensational interest, was Mr. Viereck’s connection with German propaganda before our entrance in the war. The inquisition was conducted by Assistant State’s Attorney Alfred Becker, then a candidate for Attorney General, who was apparently making political capital for himself out of the investigation. Later Senator Reed showed that Becker’s associate in the investigation was an individual named Musica, an ex-convict, who with a number of associates had, also under Mr. Becker’s auspices, sought to “frame up” William Randolph Hearst with Bolo Pasha, the press being furnished with statements that Mr. Hearst, Bolo Pasha, Capt. Boy-Ed and Capt. von Papen had foregathered over a supper at a prominent New York hotel for some undefined evil purpose. The whole story was shown to be a fabrication.

The daily press teemed with headlines like this: “Letters Seized by Millions in Raid—Alleged Seditious Matter Taken After Over 300 Search Warrants Are Issued Secretly—Anti-War Bodies on List.” (New York “Times,” August 30, 1918.) “Teuton Propaganda Board Now Known—Attorney General Promises that Names of Americans Involved Will be Made Public—Kaiser’s Machine Worked Under the Cloak of the German Red Cross;” “Teuton Propaganda Paid for by Rumely—Gave Hammerling $205,000 in Cash for Space in Foreign Language Newspapers—Germans Planned $1,500,000 Good Will Campaign, Expecting U-Boats to End War in June, 1917;” “‘Charity’ Millions a Propaganda Fund—Becker Exposes Fraud of German Agents Here—Deputy Attorney General Says He Expects to Implicate ‘Journalists’ Among Others;” (New York “Evening Post,” August 19, 1918); “Propaganda Hunt by Federal Agents—Homes and Offices Searched in Cities Wide Apart Under Government Warrants—Visit Plants in Reading—Correspondence and Documents of Dr. Michael Singer Seized in Chicago,” etc.

All books bearing on the European struggle, written long before our entrance into the war, many of them of a sociological character, others dealing with historical subjects, were placed in an index expurgatorious. Books discontinued the day we entered the war were sent for by reputable persons in the hope of obtaining evidence of violation of law against those issuing them. Indiscriminately, everywhere,names of well-known citizens of German descent, many of them native-born, were bandied about in the newspapers as spies and plotters, their homes and offices were raided, their papers seized—and there matters ended. Among the books described as seditious were works by Prof. John W. Burgess, Frank Harris, Prof. Scott Nearing, Frederic C. Howe, W. S. Leake, Sven Hadin, Theodore Wilson Wilson, Arthur Daniels, E. G. Balch, Capshaw Carson, E. F. Henderson, Roland Hugins.

The reaction came when before the Overman Senate Committee a list of “suspects” was given out by an agent of the Department of Justice. It was headed by Miss Jane Addams. People began to realize that if the efforts of this great American woman, actuated in her philanthropic work by the most impartial and benevolent motives, could be impudently pronounced those of a German plotter and propagandist, the indictment against every other person on the list must be of uncertain consistency. By slow degrees it became apparent that certain officials had blundered. When “The Nation” had an issue held up for criticizing Samuel Gompers, the zealous Solicitor for the Post Office Department, William H. Lamar, was suddenly overruled by the President. In addition, Lamar made a bad impression by excluding “The World Tomorrow,” representing the Fellowship of Reconciliation, of which Jane Addams is president. It was practically ordered to cease publication. By the President’s order it was restored to its rights.

DeWoody, in charge of the Federal investigations in New York, resigned and disappeared from public notice. Bielaski, head of the secret service at Washington, resigned. Many of the officials had been handsomely advertised but had failed to effect convictions. They had been principally occupied in loading odium on American citizens who had acted wholly within their rights.

Much blame fell to them that attaches legitimately to the American Protective League, the National Security League and other voluntary spy organizations, whose members did not know the difference between testimony and evidence and were continually embarrassing the federal officers with over-zealous efforts to convict people, so that ultimately Attorney General Palmer, on succeeding Gregory, issued notice repudiating these private organizations.

A fatal blunder was made on a certain day in New York; thousands of young men were halted on the streets by men in khaki and publicly dragged to a station as “slackers.” Attorney General Gregory repudiated all responsibility and soon after retired from office.

The principal agent in keeping the excitement at fever heat in New York City was Deputy Attorney General Alfred L. Becker, and much of his activity was due to his candidacy for the position of Attorney General of the State. His “revelations” were all timed with his eye on the primary election, to take place September 3,1918. When the United States entered the war he helped to draft the radical “Peace and Safety Act,” and took charge of investigations under its authority. A campaign pamphlet issued by him, entitled “A Brief Account of the Exposure of German Propaganda and Intrigue by Deputy Attorney General Alfred L. Becker, Candidate for Attorney General at the Republican Primary,” cites the following cases having come under his investigations: Bolo Pasha, Joseph Caillaux, former Premier of France; Adolf Pavenstedt, Hugo Schmidt, Eugen Schwerdt, German ownership or affiliation of two great woolen mills placed under control of the Alien Property Custodian; German secret codes, Dr. Edward A. Rumely’s ownership of the New York “Mail;” German and Austria-Hungarian war loan subscribers, George S. Viereck, Dr. William Bayard Hale and Louis Hammerling, and he dwelt on his efforts toward “fearlessly exposing the activities of the above and many others who sought to keep the United States out of the war.” Among the subjects investigated by him were enumerated the following offenses: “Praising German ‘kultur’;” “defending Germany against the charge of instigating the war;” “cursing England and Japan and sneering at Italy;” “advocating war with Mexico;” “whining that France was ‘bled white’;” “hypocritical appeals for German peace;” “preaching that Germany was sure to win.” The pamphlet carried the endorsement of Col. Roosevelt: “I am heartily in favor of the nomination of Mr. Becker because as Deputy Attorney General in charge of investigating war conspiracies, he has done more to expose and stamp out German propaganda than any other city, state or federal official.”

When Becker’s unscrupulous methods were exposed by Senator Reed before the Overman Committee of the United States Senate and it was shown that he had been employing a number of ex-convicts parading under assumed names as his assistants, in order to procure evidence on which to convict men summoned before him, his star began to set. In the primaries he was decisively defeated and shortly after he retired to private practice as a lawyer.

England Threatens the United States.

England Threatens the United States.—On September 7, 1916, some remarkable statements were made in the Senate by Senator Chamberlain, of Oregon, and later replied to by Senator Williams.

The moment for war had not arrived, the Presidential election was still two months off. Senators were speaking their minds concerning the arbitrary acts of England against the United States, and Senator Chamberlain, representing the great salmon and other fishing interests of the Northwest, told how they were being destroyed by the Canadian railways and other agencies. “How?” asked Mr. Chamberlain, “not by any act of Parliament of the Canadian Government, but by orders in council, pursuing the same course in Canada that the British Government pursues in England and on the high seas for the purpose of destroying not only the commerce ofour own country but the commerce of any other neutral country that it sees fit to destroy.”

The Senator said: “There is absolutely too much Toryism in the Congress of the United States, both in the House and in the Senate.”

In the course of his speech, he reviewed in detail England’s aggressions and diplomatic victories over the United States, and it developed that in the most high-handed manner England was actually threatening us. Senator Jones, of Washington, being conceded the floor by his colleagues, said:

“I read the other day an extract from a letter I received from the Acting Secretary of State, in which he said this:

“‘On July 12 the department received an informal and confidential communication from the British Ambassador stating that the Canadian Government has requested him to say that the passage of the House Bill 15839 would affect the relations of the two countries, and might cause the Canadian Government to enact retaliatory legislation.’”

Nominally a question of issue between this country and Canada, the part that England was prepared to play in the matter was shown by the fact that the British Ambassador was acting as the agent of Canada, a British colony.

Senator Chamberlain resumed his speech, saying:

“It is the same old threat that is always made when America undertakes to assert her rights against the British Government. We do not want to get into trouble with Great Britain, nor any other country, but we do want to protect our own rights; and if in order to do it we must suffer retaliation in some other line or at some other place, why, Mr. President, let us at whatever cost make the effort to protect ourselves and let these retaliatory measures come whenever and wherever they see fit to bring them.

“Why, there are some of our friends so tender-footed and so fearful of offending the majesty of Great Britain that they do not want to retain any of these so-called retaliatory provisions in this bill; and, yet, in violation of every treaty obligation, we find that Great Britain has not only been interfering with our commerce but is doing the very things that this measure is intended to relieve against; not only blacklisting our merchants but opening and censoring our mails. Only a few days ago I got a letter from a constituent of mine inclosing a letter from his good old mother in Germany, who wrote him that she had not heard from him for months, and yet he has been writing to her every week. Why? Because on the plea of military or other necessity Great Britain is invading the mails of the United States even when addressed to neutrals or neutral countries, and taking from the mail pouches private letters and every other kind, except such as may be protected not by international law—because they violate international law—but by special agreement between that country and this; not only letters but drafts and money and papers and everything else. I have letters from a prominent man in Pennsylvaniawho tells me that letters containing orders to his house from neutral countries are opened, the orders taken out and sent to British manufacturing establishments, and there filled; and the Government that has done these things has the impudence, as suggested by the letter addressed to the Senator from Washington, to insist that if we enact such legislation as that proposed and which we deem necessary to protect our people and our country, she will retaliate in some way. She can not retaliate any worse than she has done, Mr. President, without law, without authority, and in violation of every national and international right.

“I know that there are Senators here who do not agree with me. I heard a distinguished gentleman say tonight that Great Britain was fighting our battles. If that be true, does she find it necessary, in fighting our battles, to destroy our commerce, to rifle our mail sacks, to take our money, to prevent our intercourse with neutrals, and to do everything or anything to our injury, whether sanctioned by the laws of nations or in spite of them?

“I get tired of hearing this, Mr. President. Until the United States has the courage that Great Britain has always had to assert her rights and dare maintain them, the United States may expect to be imposed upon. One of my reasons for advocating preparation for self-defense was to let the world know that from this time on the United States expected to protect her citizens and her country and her country’s interests at all hazards; and the very fact that she is prepared to assert those rights when occasion requires and demands is all that it will be necessary to do. She will never have to utilize her resources for war.

“Mr. President, I serve notice on the Senate now that I propose to introduce a bill at the next session of Congress embodying the provision under consideration and try to call it to the attention of the Senate, and, if necessary, to the attention of the country, and to show the country who is responsible for this base surrender of our rights to the demands of the Canadian Government. I want to protest as loudly as I can against Sir Joseph Pope or any other Canadian official or the representatives of any other foreign Government coming over here, either to the Executive Chambers or to the Department of State or to any other department of the Government, unless duly accredited, and interfering with the enactment of laws by the American Congress that the American people feel are necessary for their protection and the protection of their commerce. I think if any American citizen ever dared to enter upon such a course without an invitation, there ought to be some way found to punish him for attempting to interfere with the legislation proposed by a foreign government in its own way and for its own purposes.”

Was the Senator, in the closing sentence, referring to any particular American citizen—to a citizen acting as the attorney for a foreign government and sustaining close relations to a distinguished member of the Cabinet?

On September 7 Senator Williams, of Mississippi, undertook to defend the Canadian Government, and incidentally described a hypothetical condition which eventually became a reality as to the German element—that of their children killing the children of their kin, against which, as to Canada, Williams forefended with religious protestations.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr President, there is just one thing that even my friend George Chamberlain cannot do. He cannot create war between us and the men and the women and the children of Canada. We are too near akin to one another in blood and in language and in literature and in law and in everything else that makes men and women akin to one another for that.

The greatest crime that the world could possibly witness would be a war between the people of the United States and the people of Canada. It is unthinkable from a sane man’s standpoint, no matter what happens, no matter what occurs....

The Senator says that we assert and we dare to maintain our rights. Of course we do. So do they assert and so do they dare maintain their rights, and they are weaker than we. All the more reason why we should be considerate in our treatment of them, and by God’s blessing we are going to be. We are not hunting retaliation with Canada, either from her ports or from ours. We are seeking nothing except justice in the world.

There is one more thing to be said, Mr. President. A pathway of commercial retaliation is a pathway of war. In the long run it means that. It can not mean anything else. What we want is the old Democratic standpoint of the utmost free-trade relations with everybody on the earth. The utmost they grant us we ought to grant them. That spells peace; that spells amity; that spells friendship. The opposite course spells war in the long run, and to attempt to convert these 3,000 miles of boundary between us and Canada into an area of retaliation and trade hostility is to convert it ultimately into a relationship of war.

I, for one, have been opposed to it all the time, and I am opposed to it now. I can not conceive of a greater crime than having our children kill the children of the Canadians or have their children kill our children in an absolutely useless species of hostility. If we start with trade hostilities, we will wind up with warlike hostilities.

Senator Williams was one of the foremost in defending Great Britain and inciting to war with Germany. Senator Chamberlain had said that there was entirely too much Toryism in the Senate as well as in the House; but though he had mentioned no names, the Toryism of which he had referred stood self-revealed the next day.

France’s Friendship for the United States.

France’s Friendship for the United States.—The “French and Indian wars” with which the American settlers had to contend in theearly history of the colonies long antedated the Revolution, and massacres were instigated by French policy of conquest and retaliation. In the Revolution a number of patriotic Frenchmen, nursing a long grievance against France’s ancient enemy, England, saw opportunity to enfeeble their country’s hated rival. Encouraged by Frederick the Great, who had a score to settle with England for the treachery which Bute had practiced against him in paying secret subsidies to Frederick’s enemy, Austria, while England was allied with him, by heroic efforts they succeeded in sending succor to the colonies in the form of troops (many of them Germans) under Lafayette. This is so well understood that the American historian, Benson J. Lossing, specifically points out in his writings what he calls the “superstition” that we owe our “being as a nation to the generosity of the French monarch and the gallantry of French warriors.” Revealing the motives that governed France, he writes:

In the Seven Years War, which ended with the treaty of 1763, France had been thoroughly humbled by England. Her pride had been wounded. She had been shorn of vast possessions in America and Asia. She had been compelled, by the terms of the treaty, to cast down the fortifications of Dunkirk and to submit forever to the presence of an English commissioner, without whose consent not a single paving stone might be moved on the quay or in the harbor of a French maritime city. This was an insult too grievous to be borne with equanimity. Its keenness was maintained by the tone of English diplomacy, which was that of a conqueror—harsh, arrogant, and often uncivil. A desire for relief from the shame became a vital principle of French policy, and the most sleepless vigilance was maintained for the discovery of an opportunity to avenge the injury and efface the mortification.

The quarrel between Great Britain and her colonies, which rapidly assumed the phase of contest after the port of Boston was closed, early in the summer of 1774, attracted the notice and stimulated the hope of the French government. But it seemed hardly possible for a few colonists to hold a successful or even effective contest with powerful England—“the mistress of the seas;” and it was not until the proceedings of the First Continental Congress had been read in Europe, the skirmish at Lexington and the capture of Ticonderoga had occurred, and the Second Congress had met, thrown down the gauntlet of defiance at the feet of the British ministry and been proclaimed to be “rebels” that the French cabinet saw gleams of sure promise that England’s present trouble would be sufficiently serious to give France the coveted opportunity to strike her a damaging blow.

Lossing sums up our debt to France in the following words:

That all assistance was afforded, primarily, as a part of a State policy for the benefit of France;

That the French people as such never assisted the Americans; for the French democracy did not comprehend the nature ofthe struggle, and had no opportunity for expression, and the aristocracy, like the government, had no sympathy with their cause;

That the first and most needed assistance was from a French citizen (Beaumarchais), favored by his government for State purposes, who hoped to help himself and his government;

That, with the exception of the services of Lafayette and a few other Frenchmen, at all times, and those of the army under Rochambeau, and the navy under De Grasse, for a few weeks in the seventh year of the struggle, the Americans derived no material aid from the French;

That the moral support offered by the alliance was injurious because it was more than counterpoised by the relaxation of effort and vigilance which a reliance upon others is calculated to inspire, and the creation of hopes which were followed by disappointment;

That the advantages gained by the French over the English, because of their co-operation with the Americans, were equivalent to any which the Americans acquired by the alliance;

That neither party then rendered assistance to the other because of any good will mutually existing, but as a means of securing mutual benefits; and

That the Americans would doubtless have secured their independence and peace sooner without their entanglements with the French than with it.

A candid consideration of these facts, in the light of present knowledge on the subject, compels us to conclude that there is no debt of gratitude due from Americans to France for services in securing their independence of Great Britain which is not cancelled by the services done by the Americans at the same time in securing for France important advantages over Great Britain. And when we consider these facts and the conduct of the French toward us during a large portion of the final decade of the last century, and of the decade of this just closed—the hostile attitude, in our national infancy, of the inflated Directory, sustained by the French people, and the equally hostile attitude, in the hour of our greatest national distress, of the imperial cabinet, also sustained by the French people, Americans cannot be expected to endure with absolute complacency the egotism which untruthfully asserts that they owe their existence as a nation to the generosity and valor of the French.

Though President Wilson brought back from Paris a treaty of alliance between the United States, England and France, which he asked the Senate, on July 29, 1919, to ratify, and declared that “we are bound to France by ties of friendship which we have always regarded and shall always regard as peculiarly sacred,” he stated in a much earlier work, “The State,” that though the Congress at Philadelphia had explicitly commanded Franklin, Adams and Jay, the American commissioners, to be guided by the wishes of the French court in the peace negotiations, “it proved impracticable, nevertheless, to act with France; for she conducted herself, not as the ingenuous friend of the United States, but only as the enemy of England, and, as firstand always, a subtle strategist for her own interests and advantage. The American commissioners were not tricked, and came to terms separately with the English.”

Having accomplished the object of giving aid in humbling England through the loss of her colonies, the French, far from remaining our friends, became our enemies, and from 1797 to 1835 we find the messages of the Presidents abounding in complaints of the treatment France was according our young merchant marine on the high seas. In 1798 we found ourselves in a state of war with France. “Such an outburst had not been known,” says the historian, Elson, “since the Battle of Lexington.” Patriotic songs were written, and one of these, “Hail, Columbia,” still lives in our literature. Washington was again called to the command of the American army, but beyond some engagements at sea, no blows were actually struck.

But ere long France was again at her old tricks. In 1851 we were on the eve of war over the Hawaiian Islands, which France had seized, though knowing that she could never hold them save as the result of a successful war. On June 18, 1851, Secretary of State Webster instructed the American minister in Paris to say that the further enforcement of the French demands against Hawaii “would tend seriously to disturb our friendly relations with the French government.”

The third conspicuous instance of France’s persistent enmity to us was at a time when President Lincoln was harrassed by the distressing events of the most critical hours of the rebellion and the possibility of England and France together undertaking the cause of the Confederacy. England had been approached by the Emperor, Napoleon III, with a proposal for an alliance, and in both countries the Union cause was at its lowest ebb.

Justin McCarthy in his “History of Our Own Times” (II, p. 231) says: “The Southern scheme found support only in England and in France. In all other European countries the sympathy of the people and government alike went with the North.... Assurances of friendship came from all civilized countries to the Northern States except from England and France alone.”

While the Northern and Southern States were engaged in a death grapple, Napoleon III was defying the Monroe Doctrine by invading Mexico, and in 1862 was sending instructions to the French general, Forey, as follows:

People will ask you why we sacrifice men and money to establish a government in Mexico. In the present state of civilization the development of America can no longer be a matter of indifference to Europe.... It is not at all to our interest that they should come in possession of the entire Gulf of Mexico, to rule from there the destinies of the Antilles and South America, and control the products of the New World.

After Lee’s surrender General Slaughter of the Confederate army opened negotiations with the French Marshal Bazaine for the transferof 25,000 Confederate soldiers to Mexico, and many distinguished Confederate officers cast their lot with the French to establish Maximilian on the throne. General Price was commissioned to recruit an imperial army in the Confederate States. Governor Harris of Tennessee and other Americans naturalized as Mexicans and now took the lead in a colonization scheme of vast proportions. The North became thoroughly alarmed. A French army co-operating with Confederate expatriates could not be tolerated on the Mexican border.

The government at Washington lodged an emphatic protest with the French government, and an army of observation of 50,000 men under General Sheridan was dispatched to the Rio Grande, ready to cross into Mexico and attack Bazaine at a moment’s notice. The American minister in Paris was instructed by Seward to insist on a withdrawal of the French forces from Mexico, and as the French government was in no position to engage in a war in a distant country against a veteran army of a million men it was forced to yield.

“The Emperor of the French,” writes McCarthy (p. 231), “fully believed that the Southern cause was sure to triumph, and that the Union would be broken up; he was even willing to hasten what he assumed to be the unavoidable end. He was anxious that England should join with him in some measures to facilitate the success of the South by recognizing the Government of the Southern Confederation. He got up the Mexican intervention, which assuredly he would never have attempted if he had not been persuaded that the Union was on the eve of disruption.”

The French populace was enthusiastically on the side of Napoleon in the Mexican adventure, as attested by the proceedings in the French legislature, especially by the scenes in the Senate, February 24, 1862, and in the Corps Legislatif, June 26 of the same year, when Billault, Minister of Foreign Affairs, spoke on French aims in Mexico. On March 23, 1865, Druyn de Lluys, the French Premier, notified Mr. Seward, our Secretary of State, that American intervention in favor of Juarez, the Mexican patriot, would lead to a declaration of war on the part of France. The necessary military preparations had been made by Marshal Bazaine, who, as related by Paul Garlot in “L’Empire de Maximilian” (Paris, 1890), had erected “fortified supports” at the United States frontier and made certain “arrangements” with Confederate leaders.

“In our dark hours and the great convulsions of our war,” said Charles Sumner, then chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Senate, in New York, September 11, 1863, “France is forgetting her traditions.”

Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin.—In his pointed comments on the disfavor with which practical politicians regard the independent voter inpolitics, Prof. A. B. Faust, of Cornell University, in his valuable work, “The German Element in the United States,” says of conditions in Pennsylvania preceding the Revolution: “The Germans, with few exceptions, could not be relied upon either by demagogues or by astute party men to vote consistently with their party organization. The politician catering to the German vote often found himself strangely deceived. He never expected that the German might think for himself and vote as seemed right to him. The politician in his wrath would declare the Germans politically incapable. From his point of view they were un-American. They did not cling to one party. The fact of the matter is, they were independent voters, and they appeared as such at a very early period. Benjamin Franklin made the discovery before the Revolutionary War, and he was provoked to an extent surprising in that suave diplomatist.” In a letter to Peter Collinson, dated Philadelphia, May 9, 1753, Franklin says:

I am perfectly of your mind that measures of great temper are necessary with the Germans, and am not without apprehension that through their indiscretion, or ours, or both, great disorders may one day among us.

Then he speaks of the ignorance of the Germans, their incapability of using the English language, the impossibility of removing their prejudices—“not being used to liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it,” etc.

They are under no restraint from any ecclesiastical government; they behave, however, submissively enough to the civil government, which I wish they may continue to do, for I remember when they modestly declined to meddle in our elections, but now they come in droves and carry all before them except in one or two counties.

The last sentence, comments Faust, betrays the learned writer of the letter; the uncertainty of their votes is the cause for his accusations of ignorance and prejudice.

On the point of ignorance we get contradictory evidence in the same letter. “Few of their children in the country know English. They import many books from Germany and of the six printing houses in the province, two are entirely German, two are half-German, half English, and but two entirely English. (This large use and production of books disproves want of education. Their lack of familiarity with the English language was popularly looked upon as ignorance.—Faust.) They have one German newspaper and one half German. Advertisements intended to be general are now printed in Dutch (German) and English. The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages, and in some places, only German. They begin of late to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in theirown language, which (though I think it ought not to be) are allowed good in our courts, where the German business so increases that there is continued need of interpreters; and I suppose within a few years they will also be necessary in the Assembly, to tell one half of our legislators what the other half say. In short, unless the stream of importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so outnumber us that the advantages we have will, in my opinion, be not able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”

GERMAN PIONEERS
Group of the Monument Erected to the Memory of the Settlers of Germantown, Pa., by Albert Jaegers.

It is obvious from many indications that Benjamin Franklin did not adhere to his point of view and learned to regard the Germans in a far more favorable light than in 1753, twenty-three years before the Declaration of Independence. The Revolution, as Bancroft relates, found no Tories among the German settlers of Pennsylvania, but a unanimous sentiment for independence, and their full quota of fighting men in the American ranks.

When queried before the English Parliament concerning the dissatisfaction of the Americans with the Stamp Act, he was asked how many Germans were in Pennsylvania. His answer was, “About one-third of the whole population, but I cannot tell with certainty.” Again the question was put whether any part of them had seen service in Europe. He answered, “Many, as well in Europe as America.”

When asked whether they were as dissatisfied with the Stamp Act as the native population, he said, “Yes, even more, as they are justified, because in many cases they must pay double for their stamp paper and parchments.”

If the German element felt the injustice of the Stamp Act more keenly than their neighbors, the conclusion is patent that they could not have been ignorant, as the illiterate and ignorant were least affected by its harshness. Even the honor of being the first printer of German books belongs to Franklin, for he furnished three volumes of mystical songs in German for Conrad Beissel, 1730-36. When the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia (1743) agitated for the foundation of the “Public Academy of the City of Philadelphia,” the institution that later developed into the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin designed its curriculum and recommended the study of German and French, besides English. In 1766 he attended a meeting of the Royal Society of Science in Göttingen while on a trip through Germany and visited Dr. Hartmann in Hanover to see his apparatus for electrical experiments. He was made a member of the Göttingen learned society.

Conclusive proof of Franklin’s change of view is furnished by his testimony before a committee of the British House of Commons in 1766. Referring to the Germans, who, he said, constituted about one-third of the population of 160,000 whites in Pennsylvania, he described them as “a people who brought with them the greatest of wealth[—]industry and integrity, and characters that had been superpoised and developed by years of suffering and persecution.” (Penn. Hist. Magazine, iv, 3.)

Frederick the Great and the American Colonies.

Frederick the Great and the American Colonies.—Because Frederick the Great was a Hohenzollern and a Prussian, it became the fashion early in the course of the war to frown upon all mention of his connection with the revolutionary struggle of our American forefathers, and his statue before the military college, which was unveiled with so much ceremony during President Roosevelt’s term, was discreetly taken from its pediment and consigned to the obscurity of a cellar as soon as we entered the war. Yet Frederick was the sincere friend of the Colonies and contributed largely if not vitally to the success of the struggle for American independence. The evidence rests upon something better than tradition. A more just opinion of his interest in the success of the Colonies than has been expressed of late by his detractors is contained in the works of English and American writers of history having access to the facts, who were not under the spell of active belligerency and the influence of a propaganda that has magically transformed George III into a “German king.”

Had Russia in 1778 formed an alliance with England, Russian troops would have swelled the forces arrayed against the American patriots to such proportions that the result of the struggle presumably would have been different. The influence of Prussia in that relation is a chapter of history practically closed to most students. But for immense bribes to Count Panin, Catherine the Great’s premier, paid by Frederick the Great, as testified by British authorities, Russia would have extended aid to England in her struggle with the Colonies which might have proved decisive.

It was England’s interest to secure, if possible, the alliance of Russia, and, as in the Seven Years War, to involve France in continental complications. In 1778 there seemed every reason to expect the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. The continuance of the war gave an increased importance to an alliance with Russia, and while the Dutch appealed to Catherine on the ground that Great Britain had broken with Holland solely on account of the armed neutrality, the English government offered to hand over Minorca as the price of a convention.

In 1778 Catherine was approached by the English government through Sir James Harris and invited to make a defensive and offensive alliance. But the opposition of the Premier, Nikolai Ivanovich, Count Panin, influenced by Frederick the Great, prevented any rapprochement between England and Russia, and Catherine declared her inability to join England against Franceunless the English government bound itself to support her against the Turks.

“The Prussian party, headed by Panin at St. Petersburg,” writes Arthur Hassall, M. A., in “The Balance of Power, 1715-1789,” p. 338; (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907), “had won its last triumph, and all chance for an Anglo-Russian alliance had for the moment disappeared.... Since 1764 Count Panin had been the head of the Prussian party at the Russian capital, and the Prussian alliance had been the keystone of Catherine’s policy.... Frederick the Great, partly by immense bribes to Panin, had kept Catherine true to the existing political system, and had contributed to prevent Russian assistance from being given to England during the American struggle.” (P. 361.)

Writing to his minister in Paris, Goltz, in August and September, 1777, Frederick said: “You can assure M. de Maurepas that I have no connection whatever with England, nor do I grudge France any advantage she may gain in the war with the Colonies.... Her first interest requires the enfeeblement of Great Britain, and the way to do this is to make it lose its colonies in America.... The present opportunity is more favorable than ever before existed, and more favorable than is likely to occur in three centuries.... The independence of the colonies will be worth to France all which the war will cost.”

Bancroft writes: “While Frederick was encouraging France to strike a decisive blow in favor of the United States, their cause found an efficient advocate in Marie Antoinette.” On April 7, 1777, Frederick wrote: “France knows perfectly well that it has absolutely nothing to apprehend from me in case of war with England.... If it (the English crown) would give me all the millions possible I would not furnish it two small files of my troops to serve against the colonies. Neither can it expect from me a guaranty of its electorate of Hanover.”

Bancroft comments: “The people of England cherished the fame of the Prussian king as in some measure their own. Not aware how basely Bute had betrayed him, they unanimously desired the renewal of his alliance; and the ministry sought to open the way for it through his envoy in France.” Frederick replied, “No man is further removed than myself from having connections with England. We will remain on the same footing on which we are with her.” Bancroft says: “Frederick expressed more freely his sympathy with the United States.”

The port of Emden could not receive their cruisers for want of a fleet or a fort to defend them from insult; but he offered them an asylum in the Baltic at Danzig. He attempted, though in vain, to dissuade the Prince of Anspach from furnishing troops to England, and he forbade the subsidiary troops both of Anspach and Hesse topass through his domains. The prohibition which was made as public as possible, and just as the news arrived of the surrender of Burgoyne, resounded through Europe; and he announced to the Americans that it was given him “to testify his good will to them.”

Every facility was afforded to the American commissioners to purchase and ship arms from Prussia. Before the end of 1777 he promised not to be the last to recognize the independence of the United States, and in January, 1778, his minister, Schulenburg, wrote officially to one of the commissioners in Paris: “The king desires that your generous efforts may be crowned with complete success. He will not hesitate to recognize your independency when France, which is more directly interested in the event of the contest, shall have given the example.”

“I have no wish to dissemble,” Frederick wrote in answer to the suggestion of an English alliance; “whatever pains may be taken, I will never lend myself to an alliance with England. I am not like so many German princes, to be gained for money.” Of the Landgrave of Hesse, he said: “Do not attribute his education to me. Were he a graduate of my school he would never have sold his subjects to the English as they drive cattle to the shambles. He a preceptor of sovereigns? The sordid passion for gain is the only motive of his vile procedure.”

Foerster, in “Friederich der Grosse” (1871, viii) quotes the great King as follows: “This subject leads me to speak of princes who conduct a dishonorable traffic in the blood of their people. Their troops belong to the highest bidder. It is a sort of auction at which those paying the highest subsidies lead the soldiers of these unworthy rulers to the shambles. Such princes ought to blush at their baseness in selling the lives of people whom, as fathers of their countries, they ought to protect. These little tyrants should hear the opinion of mankind, which is one of contempt for the misuse of their power.”

The “Fourteen Points.”

The “Fourteen Points.”—On January 8, 1917, less than sixty days before we found ourselves in a state of war with Germany, President Wilson presented to Congress the following fourteen specific considerations as necessary to world peace:

1. Open covenants of peace without private international understandings.

2. Absolute freedom of the seas in peace or war, except as they may be closed by international action.

3. Removal of all economic barriers and establishment of equality of trade conditions among nations consenting to peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

4. Guarantees for the reduction of national armaments at the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

5. Impartial adjustment of all colonial claims based upon the principle that the peoples concerned shall have equal weight with the interest of the government.

6. Evacuation of all Russian territory and opportunity for Russia’s political development.

7. Evacuation of Belgium without any attempt to limit her sovereignty.

8. All French territory to be freed and restored, and France must have righted the wrong done in the taking of Alsace-Lorraine.

9. Readjustment of Italy’s frontiers along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

10. Freest opportunity for the autonomous development of the peoples of Austria-Hungary.

11. Evacuation of Rumania, Servia and Montenegro, with access to the sea for Servia, and international guarantees of economic and political independence and territorial integrity of the Balkan States.

12. Secure sovereignty for Turkey’s portion of the Ottoman Empire, but with other nationalities under Turkey’s rule assured security of life and opportunity for autonomous development, with the Dardanelles permanently opened to all nations.

13. Establishment of an independent Polish State, including territories inhabited by indisputably Polish population, with free access to the sea and political and economic independence and territorial integrity guaranteed by international covenant.

14. General association of nations under specific covenants for mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to large and small states alike.

This was the programme laid down for the attainment of peace and was accepted by both sides, the Allied powers as well as Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The total disregard of the Fourteen Points in the peace treaty proved a grievous disappointment to the majority of the thinking people of America. In the final analysis of the work of the Paris peace conference it was found that we had achieved not a single point of our programme, except as to the last provision, from which evolved the so-called League of Nations, subsequently defeated in the Senate.

Instead of “open covenants openly arrived at,” the treaty was made in secret conference; we did not gain the freedom of the seas, but helped Great Britain to strengthen her command of the seas by eliminating her greatest rival; we witnessed no removal of economic barriers—not even among the Allies, as the President himself recommended an American tariff on dyes; disarmament was decreed for Germany and Austria only; self-determination of small nations became a dead letter at once as to Ireland, German Austria, the German Tyrol, Danzig, Egypt, India, the Boers, Korea, Persia, andnumerous others, especially where the question involved the self-determination of Germans; Hungary’s borders were at once invaded by Rumania, Serbia and Czecho-Slovakia; Russia was not permitted to determine her own fate, as Kolchak was formally recognized and supported by the powers; Belgium remains a vassal of England and France; in addition to righting the wrong of 1871 by the recession of Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar Valley was taken away from Germany and a plebiscite was ordered in Schleswig, Silesia, and German-Poland under the guns of the Entente; Italy’s borders were not readjusted along national lines, for the Brenner Pass, the Voralsberg, parts of Dalmatia and a lease on Fiume provided; the autonomous development of Austria-Hungary was interpreted to mean that the German-speaking part of Austria was forbidden to unite with Germany; the independence of the Balkan States was made subject to the invisible government of the Big Four; autonomy for Turkish vassal states and the internationalization of the Dardanelles was construed to mean that these States should become mandatories of the Allies and the strait to be under Allied control; Polish freedom celebrated its advent with Jewish pogroms, while the League of Nations became a league of victors, in which Japan was bribed to enter by the cession to her of the Shantung peninsula.

“Germany has accepted President Wilson’s fourteen points,” said Dr. Mathias Erzberger, “but so have the Allies.”

That President Wilson fully recognized his responsibility and that of his European associates under the Fourteen Points is shown by his own statement. On December 2, 1918, he said in addressing Congress:

“The Allied Governments have accepted the bases of peace which I outlined to the Congress on the 8th of January last, as the Central Empires also have, and very reasonably desire my personal counsel in their interpretation and application, and it is highly desirable that I should give it in order that the sincere desire of our government to contribute without selfish aims of any kind to settlements that will be of common benefit to all the nations concerned may be fully manifest.”

In an interview printed in the Paris “Temps” of March 25, 1919, Count Bernstorff, former Ambassador to the United States, said:

“The armistice of November 11 was signed when all the Powers interested had accepted the program of peace proposed by President Wilson. Germany is determined to keep to this agreement, which history will regard, in a way, as the conclusion of a preliminary peace. She herself is ready to submit to the conditions arising from it, and she expects all the interested Powers to do the same.”

The President’s reversal was diplomatically covered under various specious pretexts by the staff of English journalists at the peace conference. Sir J. Foster Frazer put it this way: “Mr. Wilsonhas broadened in vision since he came to Paris. He has abandoned his purely national point of view.”

The same writer discoursed entertainingly of the methods pursued in the conference. “Except at intervals,” he wrote, “the conferences are not in public, that is when a certain number of journalists are permitted to be present. The great things are debated in private, and at these private conversations in M. Pichon’s room at the French Foreign Office, the full representation of the five powers is not in attendance.... The full conferences of the seventy delegates will have but little option but to acquiesce with the conclusion of the ten.... It is a perfectly open secret that the three men who are ‘running the show’ are M. Clemenceau, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George.”

The noble writer frankly admits that the conferences revolved around the secret treaties among the Allies instead of the Fourteen Points. He reports:

“We already know there were three secret treaties made during the war and to all of which Great Britain was a party; (1) conceding to Italy the Dalmatian coast in return for her help, (2) the concession of the former German islands in the North Pacific to Japan, (3) the promise of Damascus to the King of Hedjaz.”

Again he says: “Japan is in possession of the Marshall and Caroline groups of islands in the Pacific, and has a document signed by both France and Britain that she shall retain them.”

So much for “open covenants openly arrived at,” though they do not cover all the secret pacts which determined the conditions of peace.

Only once Mr. Wilson rose to the importance of his mission, when he declared that Fiume must go to the Jugo-Slav Republic. His announcement was soon followed by an invasion of Fiume under d’Annunzio, the Italian poet-patriot, with the apparent secret connivance of our associates in the war.

At the peace conference, when it was Germany’s turn to be heard, it was decided that the interests of all concerned were best served by precluding any discussion, and the German delegates, with revolution and starvation in their back, and with arms wrested from their hands by a promise, were left no alternative but to affix their signatures to the most violent peace treaty ever consummated. The commission, headed by Brockdorf-Rantzau and Scheidemann, resigned rather than sign, and a new delegation was named, which signed the treaty without being given an opportunity to discuss it. In the streets the German delegates were stoned.

Thus was realized the golden promise held out in the speech Mr. Wilson made on the very day that Congress met to declare war:

“We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering the war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old unhappy days when people were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interests of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.”

When Germany, in 1871, had France prostrate at her feet, the French people were represented at the peace conference by their statesmen, just as France was represented at the Peace of Vienna after the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Mr. Wilson had said peace must not be determined as it was in the Congress of Vienna. Sir Foster Frazer furnishes the answer. In 1871 the terms of peace were arranged by Bismarck on one side and a full delegation of French statesmen on the other. Bismarck relented so far as to release back to France the great fortress of Belfort, claiming only the recession of Alsace-Lorraine and a war indemnity of five billion francs. So far from seeking to crush France, everything possible on the German side was done to enable her to recover from the war, and no sooner had Paris surrendered, than trainloads of foodstuffs were rushed into the city by the Germans to feed the starving population.

The European allies had first starved Germany, with a loss of 1,000,000 souls by famine, then severed portions of her territory whose possession antedated the American Revolution, on the ground of Mr. Wilson’s point in behalf of the self-determination of small nations, and on top of all left the country in helpless vassalage to her enemies, under a war indemnity that staggers humanity. Erzberger cried out in despair:

“I appeal to the conscience of America by reminding her of the American famine conditions in the years 1862-65. At that time it was Germany who sprang to America’s aid, and steadied her, sending her not only money, but clothes, shoes and machinery as well, thus making it possible for the United States to recuperate economically.

“Today, after half a century, the situation is reversed. Germany needs American wheat, fats, meats, gasoline, cotton and copper.

“Germany’s credit is low. If America today stood by Germany as Germany stood by America fifty years ago, she could furnish us foodstuffs and raw materials against German credits and thus help us to work ourselves out of debt—and, besides, make money in doing so.

“The German people cannot live on the promises they are getting.”

Fritchie, Barbara.

Fritchie, Barbara.—Immortalized by Whittier in a patriotic poem bearing her name, in which her defense of the Union flag during theCivil War is celebrated, came of an old German family which settled in Pennsylvania in colonial times, and her own life spanned the two great crises in the history of her country, the founding of the republic and the struggle for the preservation of the Union. She was born in Lancaster, Pa., December 3, 1766. Her maiden name was Hauser.

First Germans in Virginia.

First Germans in Virginia.—Jamestown, Va., the cradle of Anglo-Saxon America, is the place where the Germans are met with for the first time. The earliest incidents on record are cases of imported contract laborers. Those sent to Virginia in 1608 were skilled workmen, glass-blowers. Capt. John Smith (“John Smith, the Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, the Summer Isles,” London, 1624, p. 94), characterizing his men, gives the following account of them: “labourers ... that neuer did know what a dayes work was: except the Dutch-men (Germans) and Poles, and some dozen others.” In 1620 four millwrights from Hamburg were sent to the same settlement to erect saw mills. (“The Records of the Virginia Company,” ed. S. M. Kingsbury, Washington, 1906, I, pp. 368, 372, 428.) In England timber was still sawed by hand. (Edward Eggleston, “The Beginners of a Nation,” New York, 1896, p. 82.) The Germans who settled in the Cavalier colony in large numbers about the middle of the seventeenth century seem to have been attracted chiefly by the profitable tobacco business. The most highly educated citizen of Northampton county in 1657 was probably Dr. George Nicholas Hacke, a native of Cologne. (Philip Alexander Brue, “Social Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century,” Richmond, Va., 1907, p. 260.) Thomas Harmanson, founder of one of the most prominent Eastern Shore families, a native of Brandenburg, was naturalized October 24, 1634, by an act of the Assembly. (William and Mary College Quarterly, ed. L. G. Tyler. Williamsburg. Va., I, 1892, p. 192.) Johann Sigismund Cluverius, owner of a considerable estate in York County, was ostensibly also of German birth. (From “The First Germans in North America and the German Element of New Netherlands,” by Carl Lohr, G. E. Stechert & Co., New York, 1912.)

First German Newspapers.

First German Newspapers.—The oldest German newspaper in the U. S., the weekly “Republikaner,” at Allentown, Pa., ceased publication December 21, 1915, after an existence of 150 years. Another old paper in the German language, the “Reading Adler” ceased in 1913, after continuous publication since November 29, 1796.

German Americans in Art, Science and Literature.

German Americans in Art, Science and Literature.—An analysis of a comparatively recent edition of “Who’s Who in America” shows a list of 385 German-born persons in the United States who have achieved fame in art, science and literature, against a total of 424 English-born persons so distinguished, a remarkable bit of evidence,considering that the former were initially handicapped by the necessity of having to learn a new language in their struggle for recognition. Nor does this list include a number of Germans credited to Austro-Hungary by reason of their birth.

Dating back to the early decades of 1600 down to the present day, the German element has produced a formidable literature, ranging from travel descriptions to political works, like Schurz’s “Life of Henry Clay,” von Holst’s important work on American constitutional government, George von Bosse’s comprehensive volume on the German element, A. B. Faust’s “The German Element in the United States,” Seidensticker’s and Kapp’s books on the early settlements of Pennsylvania and New York, and further including scientific books by eminent authorities, original explorations, discussions of the fauna and zoology of certain regions, novels and contributions to the poetry of America in both languages.

One of the most active minds in political circles was Carl Nordhoff, who came to the United States with his father in 1835 at the age of five, and in his later years represented the New York “Herald” as its Washington correspondent through numerous sessions of Congress. At the age of nineteen he enlisted in the United States Navy, visited many parts of the world during his term of three years’ service, and after publishing some books about the sea, he worked for many years for Harper Brothers in a literary capacity and for ten years was employed in the editorial department of the New York “Evening Post.” In the interval he published several books, notably his popular “Politics for Young Americans” and then acted as Washington correspondent of the New York “Herald.” His chief literary work was published in 1876 as the result of a six months tour of the South, “The Cotton States,” in which he exposed the Republican misrule in the South.

While Steinmetz, Mergenthaler and Berliner rank high among American inventors, Herman George Scheffauer, George Sylvester Viereck and Herman Hagedorn are among the foremost poets of the present day, to cite those writing in the English language, without taking account of a generation of German-writing poets of the distinguished lineage of Conrad Kretz and Konrad Nies. Theodore Dreiser is one of the best-known novelists. Bret Harte had a strong German strain in his blood; Bayard Taylor had a German mother; the second name in Oliver Wendell Holmes indicates German relationship; Joaquin Miller was of German extraction; Owen Wister owns to German antecedance, while one of America’s greatest actors, Edwin Forrest, was the son of a German mother, and Mary Anderson is likewise credited with this racial admixture; Maude Powell, the famous violinist, had a German mother to whom she attributed her genius for music.

The greatest American historical painter is still Emanuel Leutze, whose “Washington Crossing the Delaware” and “Westward the Star of Empire” are among the most cherished art possessions of the American people. Save Remington, none has pictured the stirring life of the frontier as Charles Schreyvogel, notably in his painting, “My Bunky,” while a host of others, like Albert Bierstadt, Carl Marr, Carl Wimar, Toby Rosenthal, Henry Mosler, Henry Twachtman, F. Dielman, Robert Blum and Gari Melchers, have permanently taken their place in the gallery of famous artists. A. Nahl was selected to perpetuate in historic paintings the frontier days of California, and his works may be seen in the capitol at Sacramento and in the Crocker Art Gallery of that city.

Hiram Powers’ name is one of the most familiar in the art history of America, but few are aware that the sculptor’s instructor was Friedrich Eckstein, who went to Cincinnati in 1825 and opened an academy where Powers obtained the training that enabled him to create his masterwork, “The Greek Slave.” In fact, one of the most enduring influences exercised by the German element has at all times been as teachers and instructors.

American musical history would have had an entirely different aspect had it not been for the pioneer work of Theodore Thomas in carrying the cult of classic music into the remotest corners of the land under all kinds of physical discouragements, and had it not been for the numerous brilliant conductors who passed various periods in America to give it the best products of their genius, but particular credit is due to the host of individual Germans who scattered throughout the country and became part of town and village life as tireless instructors in music and art. Their influence was similar to that of the countless thousands of skilled chemists and mechanics who contributed so vastly to the development of our industries.

The number of distinguished architects, sculptors and engineers is legion, though a few can be named here, famous architects like Johannes Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz, the architects of the Congressional Library in Washington, and other public buildings; Alfred Ch. H. C. Vioch, Ernest Helffenstein, G. L. Heins, Otto Eidlitz and Carl Link. Famous sculptors: Karl Bitter, Joseph Sibbel, Charles Niehaus, Albert Weinmann, Albert Jaegers, F. W. Ruckstuhl, Otto Schweitzer and Prof. Bruno Schmitz, the designer of the Indianapolis monument.

The great engineers and bridge builders of America are Johann August Roebling and Gustav Lindenthal. The former built the first suspension bridge over Niagara Falls, the Brooklyn bridge and Ohio River suspension bridge, and was the first manufacturer of bridge cables; Lindenthal constructed the new railway bridge across Hellgate from Manhattan to Long Island, said to be the most perfect piece of bridge construction in the United States.

Famous among novelists, whose works were translated into all languages, was Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postel) who wrote equally well in both languages, writing in English “Tokeah, or The White Rose,” and several other works. Friedrich Gerstaecker and Otto Ruppius lived many years in the United States and wrote novels of American life which were translated into English, French and Spanish. A female writer of considerable repute was the wife of Professor Robinson, known by her pen-name of “Talvj.” She was born in Halle, Germany, and was a friend of Washington Irving, and, after publishing “Ossian not Genuine,” a story of Captain John Smith and a work on the colonization of New England, wrote in English “Heloise, or The Unrevealed Secret,” “The Exiles” and “Woodhill.”

Such names are selected at random out of hundreds, like that of Julius Reinhold Friedlander, of Berlin, who founded the first institute for the blind in Philadelphia in 1834, subsequently taken over by the State. He is called the father of the institutions for the blind in America. Dr. Konstantin Hering was the father of homeopathy in America. Friedrich List was one of the pioneers in the advocacy of a protective tariff, writing in 1827 “Outlines of a New System of Political Economy,” which attracted wide attention. Philip Schaff soon after his arrival in 1844, attained fame in miscellaneous and religious literature, writing in English “The Principles of Protestantism,” “America, Its Political, Social and Religious Character,” “Lectures on the Civil War in America,” etc. Demetrius Augustin Gallitizin, better known as Father Schmidt, founded the Catholic mission Loretto in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, in 1798, and his life is commemorated by a statue. Johann N. Neumann wrote “The Ferns of the Alleghanies” and the “Rhododendrons of the Pennsylvania and Virginia Mountains”—and so an almost endless array of German names troop in review before our minds to show the influence of this element on our literature and our institutions. From no European source have we received a stronger accession of intellectual currents than from Germany, and whether the field be literature, art, science or music, among their foremost figures are men with German names. They never belonged to the coolie class; they were never identified with the various movements for the suppression of rights, they have had fewer of their race figure in the crime records and more in the ranks of those who stood for liberty, education and progress than any others. Their literature would fill a library, and as Professor Scott Nearing has shown, the American people are a conquering race because they are composed of the descendants of conquerors, the English and Germans.

German-American Captains of Industry.

German-American Captains of Industry.—Kreischer, Balthasar, of Kreischerville, Staten Island, N. Y., born March 13, 1813, at Hornbach, Bavaria. In December, 1835, occurred the great fire whichdestroyed more than 600 buildings in the business part of New York City. Young Kreischer, who had learned brick manufacture, was struck with the opportunity that the disaster afforded to one of his trade. He arrived in New York June 4, 1836, and helped to rebuild the burned district. Discovered in New Jersey suitable species of clay for the making of fire brick, which, up to this time had been imported from England. Kreischer began to fight against the British monopoly, and after discovering further valuable clay beds in Staten Island, drove the English fire brick from the American market. He soon established large works in New Jersey, Staten Island, Philadelphia and New York, and by a constant study of new improvements built up the industry on a lasting foundation. He was not only the discoverer of the valuable deposits of clay, but became the founder of the fire brick industry in the United States.

Seligman, Joseph, founder and head of the banking house of J. W. Seligman & Co., New York, New Orleans and San Francisco, was born in Bayersdorf, Bavaria, September 22, 1819. At the age of nineteen he came to America. In 1862 he and his brothers founded their banking house, which soon acquired a high reputation. During the darkest hours of the rebellion, Mr. Seligman never swerved in his allegiance to the National Government. In 1863, when the National credit was in its most precarious condition, and when many even of the stoutest hearts, began to fear for the ability of the Federal authorities to successfully maintain the National integrity, Mr. Seligman introduced the United States bonds to the people of Germany. His attempt was crowned with the most gratifying success, and resulted in securing for the Federal cause not merely money, but also foreign sympathy, of which, it will be remembered, the nation had till then received but little. The Government gratefully recognized the Seligmans as government bankers.

Steinway, Henry Engelhard, of New York City, who, with his sons, became founder of America’s greatest piano manufacturing industry and inventor of the “grand piano,” was born February 15, 1797, in Wolfshagen, Duchy of Brunswick, North Germany. The original spelling of the name was Steinweg. He came to this country on June 5, 1850, with his family. “Steinway & Sons” were destined to become the leading piano manufacturers in this country, whose fame became world-wide, whose house was the rendezvous of the leading musicians and whose activities are felt to this day. (Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Biography of New York, Vol. II, 1882.)

Starin, Hon. John Henry, ex-member of Congress, whose name for many decades was so prominently identified with New York’s railroad and steamboat transportation, was born in Sammonsville, N. Y. His paternal ancestor, Nicholas Starin (or Sterne, as the name was then spelled), was a native of Germany, and came to America about the year 1720, and settled in the Mohawk Valley, upon the German Flats.John Starin, his seventh son, fought in the Revolutionary War, being one of ten members of the Starin family who served in the American army under Washington.

William Havemeyer, founder of America’s great sugar refining industry, came here from Germany in 1799, and settled in New York. He brought with him a knowledge of his business from Bückenburg, Germany, and started what was one of the earliest refineries in New York, and has later developed into the Sugar Trust with which his descendants have been identified as leaders. (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)

Bergh, Henry, founder of the first society in America for the prevention of cruelty to animals, was born in New York, 1823. He was of German descent, the family having come to America about 1740. Christian Bergh, father of the philanthropist, was a ship builder. (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)

Gunther, Charles Godfred, mayor of New York in 1864, was born in that city in 1822. His father, Christian G. Gunther, a German by birth, was for more than half a century the leading fur merchant in the metropolis. (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)

Mayer, Charles Frederick, former president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., was a son of Lewis Mayer, one of the first men to develop the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania. The father of Lewis Mayer was Christian Mayer, who emigrated from Germany and settled in Baltimore, where he became one of the leading merchants. (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)

Ottendorfer, Oswald, was born at Zwittau and educated at Vienna. He came to New York in 1850, having been involved in the revolutionary outbreak in Vienna. He became eminent as the editor and proprietor of the “New Yorker Staats-Zeitung.” (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)

Ziegler, William, born of German parents, in Beaver County, Pa., in 1843, was the founder of the baking powder industry in this country, in which he accumulated a fortune. (Makers of New York, Hamersly & Co., Philadelphia, 1895.)

Windmueller, Louis, a prominent merchant and reformer of New York, was born in Westphalia, emigrating to this country in 1853. He was one of the founders of the Reform Club and of many of the leading banking institutions in the city.

Eberhard Faber, founder of the American lead pencil industry, born near Nuremberg in 1820; Friedrich Meyerhaeuser, the American lumber king, born 1834 in Hessia; Klaus Spreckels, founder of the American beet sugar industry, in Hanover in 1828; G. Martin Brill, largest car manufacturer, born February, in Cassel.

John Valentin Steger, for whom a well-known piano is named, came to the United States from Germany at the age of 17 in the steerageand died in Chicago, June 14, 1916, aged 62, founder of the town of Steger and president of the J. V. Steger & Sons Mfg. Co., and of the Singer Piano Mfg. Co., the Reed & Sons Mfg. Co., the Thompson Piano Mfg. Co., and of the Bank of Steger; also vice-president of the Flanner Land & Lumber Co. In his will he left a large sum for a hospital and library for his employees.

From the earliest period of New York’s financial district, Germans and men of German blood have occupied a predominant part in the financial life of this country, firstly because fundamental banking principles are taught in Germany as nowhere else, and secondly for the reason that subjects, such as foreign exchange, necessitate such deep technical knowledge that it would appear only German minds can thoroughly grasp them. It is an actual fact that even today, the foreign exchange business of Wall Street, even that part of the business handled and controlled by Morgan & Company and the National City Bank, is in the hands of Germans.

Among the greatest of Wall Street operators of the end of the last century, the days of Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Addison Cammack, etc., Germans predominated and were triumphant victors in most of the great Wall Street speculative battles. Henry Villard, who came to this country from Germany, was the chief center of American railroad finance in the historic period from 1879 to 1884. He it was who captured the Northern Pacific Railroad from the Wall Street banking groups.

Another figure of this time was the great bear operator, probably the most powerful and successful bear operator that Wall Street has ever seen, Charles Frederick Woerishoffer, who died in 1886. He was born in Gelnshausen, Germany, and coming to this country, founded the firm of Woerishoffer & Company. He was connected with the famous campaigns in Wall Street conducted by James R. Keene, Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Addison Cammack, etc., for the control of the Kansas Pacific Railroad in 1879. Henry Clews, the English stockbroker, says of him in his reminiscences of Wall Street: “Woerishoffer had the German idea of fighting in the open, as against the secret operations of Commodore Vanderbilt and the others. He lost some battles but won most of those in which he engaged and made millions out of the conflicts.”

Joseph Drexel came to this country from Germany in 1787. He is the real founder of the house of Morgan & Company. Drexel founded the banking house of Drexel and Company in Philadelphia and Drexel, Morgan & Company, New York. He built up a successful banking business, in which his sons became interested, and at his death they inherited his fortune.

August Belmont, the elder, was born in Alzey, Prussia, in 1816, and died in 1890, leaving his son to manage the banking house he founded.He had been a clerk in the Rothschild banking house in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, and when he came to this country, he was the American representative of that world historic firm, which position his son of the same name occupies today. The elder Belmont was the founder of the Manhattan Club in New York.

Henry Bischoff, founder of the banking house of Bischoff & Company, was born in Baden, Germany. Lazarus Hallgarten, of Mayence, Germany, was the founder of the banking house of Hallgarten & Company. Isaac Ickelheimer, a native of Frankfort, Germany, was the founder of the banking firm of Heidelbach, Ickelheimer & Company. Frederick Kuehne, who was born in Magdeburg, Germany, established the banking house of Knauth, Nachod & Kuehne. Jacob Schiff, one of the foremost bankers of Wall Street at the present time, was also born in Frankfort. He is the head of Kuhn, Loeb and Company. Ernst Thalmann, who died recently, was one of the founders of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Company. He was also of German birth. James Speyer, head of Speyer & Company, is a member of the old Frankfort family of that name, and obtained his financial education in Germany. In fact, the majority of banking houses in Wall Street as they exist today were founded by Germans.

Adolphus Busch, the great brewer and philanthropist, was born at Mayence-on-the-Rhine, July 10, 1839; education at gymnasium, Mayence, and academy, Darmstadt, and high school, Brussels. Came to United States, 1857. Served in the Union army under Gen. Lyon and became associated with his father-in-law, E. Anheuser, in the Anheuser Brewing Co., and later became president of the famous Anheuser-Busch Brewing Assn. of St. Louis, largest brewing concern in the world. At the time of his death was president of five large concerns, including a local bank and Diesel Engine Co., and director St. Louis Union Trust Co., Third National Bank, Kinloch Telephone Co., Equitable Surety Co., and several other strong organizations. Mr. Busch was a high type of the self-made German-American. He gave a large sum (twice) to the Harvard German Museum, the Germanistic Society of Columbia University, and to other public institutions of science and learning, and his death, Oct. 10, 1913, was universally regretted.

John D. Rockefeller and John Wanamaker are both descendants of German immigrants.The forefather of the Standard Oil King, Johann Peter Roggenfelder, came over in 1735 from Bonnefeld, Rhenish Prussia, and is buried at Larrison Corners, N. J., while Mr. Wannamaker, former Postmaster General and the father of the department store, is descended from a Pennsylvania German family named Wannenmacher.

The German American Vote.

The German American Vote.—The following table shows the vote of the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians (according to the census of 1910) in ten states where their vote is above 40,000, the figures beingcompounded of those naturalized and those having applied for their first papers:

These figures are but remotely representative of what is called “the German vote” or the vote of the Austro-Hungarians, as no account is here taken of the first generation born in the United States, the sons of these naturalized Americans, nor of their grandsons.

With the first generation of German Americans, the total vote in 1916 of this element in New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, New Jersey, California, Nebraska, Kansas and the two Dakotas amount to 1,860,500.

New England, which was the center of anti-German sentiment as it is the center of puritanism and Anglo-American hyphenation, contains the smallest number of Germans and the largest number of aliens of any section in the United States; in other words, the lowest percentage of naturalized citizens among the foreign-born white men of the age of 21 and over—40.7 per cent. The highest proportion of naturalized foreign-born above 21 years was in the West North Central division, that is Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, where the Teutonic element is largely settled. Table 25 of the U. S. Census Bulletin on Population (1910) “Voting Age, Military Age, and Naturalization,” shows that the German aliens 21 years and over, all told, number only 127,103, and the Germans stand at the foot of the list of twenty-nine (alien immigrants) or 9.9 per cent., the highest being 83 per cent. The French aliens in the United States numbered 27.8 per cent., the Scotch 21.8, and the English 19.6. In other words, only 9.9 in every hundred of Germans could not be forced to go to war, but nearly 28 out of every hundred Frenchmen, 21.5 out of every hundred Scotchmen, and more than 19 out of every hundred Englishmen were immune from military duty in the United States, also from the payment of taxes.

There are more German-born persons in the United States of the age of 21 and over than there are persons of any other foreign nationality. Of the total number of foreign-born (6,646,817), Germanyis represented by 1,278,667, of whom 69.5 per cent. had been naturalized in 1910. Russia comes next, with 737,120, of whom only 26.1 per cent. were naturalized. There were 437,152 Englishmen of voting age, 59.4 of whom were naturalized, while only 49.6 per cent. out of a total of 59,661 Frenchmen of voting age were entitled to vote.

The following table shows the States containing the largest number of Germans of voting age of all foreign-born citizens:

In the following States the German-born citizens of voting age constitute the second largest number of foreign-born citizens:

In Michigan the Germans and Austrians together outnumbered the Canadians 3,588. In Minnesota the Swedes came first, with a total of 67,003, and in Texas the Germans were outnumbered only by Mexicans.

The German-born of voting age in New York State are outnumbered by Russians and Italians, but as 68.2 per cent. of the 215,310 are citizens, only 17.5 per cent. of the Italians and only 24.4 of the Russians had acquired the franchise in 1910, the Germans outclass them numericallyas voters. They are third also in Washington with a total of 17,804, next after the Canadians with 20,395 and the Swedes with 19,727. Of the Germans, however, 66.9 per cent. were naturalized while only 55.1 per cent. of the Canadians had their franchise, giving the Germans the advantage when the votes are counted.

In Pennsylvania Germans of voting age are outnumbered by Austrians, Russians and Italians in the order named; but only 12.4 per cent. of the Austrians, 21.9 per cent. of the Russians and 13.7 per cent. of the Italians had the franchise, whereas 66.5 of the Germans were citizens.

In North Dakota the Norwegians, Russians and Canadians outnumbered the Germans in the order named, and here all had become citizens in fairly relative proportion, as also in Montana, where the Germans of voting age were outnumbered by the Canadians, Irish and Austrians.

In New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut the total number of German-born voters was only 33,011, Austrians 29,686 and Hungarians 6,377, and these were principally in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Maine had none.

The following table shows the number of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians who were citizens in 1910, including those who had taken out their first papers:

In addition, the citizenship of a total of 240,953 Germans, Austrians and Hungarians had not been reported. The following shows the number of Irish, Swedes, Swiss and Hollanders of voting age in 1910, including those who had applied for their first citizenship papers:

Other States in which German-born naturalized males of 21 or over lead all other foreign-born are:

In West Virginia the total number of Italians was 11,561 against only 3,392 Germans, but only 748 Italians had become citizens against 2,137 Germans; and in Arizona there were 2,196 English as compared with 1,324 Germans, but 825 Germans had become citizens as compared with 832 English-born.

Of the 234,285 Russians in New York only 92,269 had become naturalized and taken out their first papers. In Minnesota were 52,133 Swedish voters, in Illinois 43,618, in Iowa 10,636, in Wisconsin 11,532, in Nebraska 10,000, in Washington 13,393, and in California 11,076.

The German Element in American Life.

The German Element in American Life.—The following commentary of Carl Schurz on the influence of the Germans in America is worthy of note:

“Friedrich Kapp, in his ‘History of the Germans in the State of New York,’ says: ‘In the battle waged to subdue the new world, the Latins supplied officers without an army, the English an army with officers, and the Germans an army without officers.’ This is signally true as regards the Germans. They emigrated to America and settled here as squatters without eminent official leadership. They became parts of already existing communities, in which a majority population of other nationality played a dominant role. Unlike ‘the army with officers,’ they possessed no official writers of history to record their deeds and sayings in regular reports. They had lost their political connection with their native land, and whatever interest they inspired at home was of a personal or family nature. Besides this, they were strongly isolated from communion with the predominating nationality by the difference in language and frequently were forced into the unfavorable position of an alien element. These various circumstances combined to accord them a rather superficial, stepmotherly treatment in the history of the American people, as written by the dominant nationality.”—From the introduction to Kapp’s “Die Deutschen im Staate New York.”

While Prof. Nearing, Douglas Campbell, Dr. Griffis and others have shown that the Americans are not an English people, the latter[—]including Scotch and Welsh—constituting only 30 per cent. of the American people, the advantage as historians, which the English-speaking element enjoyed from the beginning of our life as a nation, prompted them to assume the name of “Americans” and to regard the people of all other races and their descendants as usurping an unwarranted right in calling themselves Americans, so that today an American with a German name, as the war has shown, is somehow in a tolerated class distinct from his Anglo-American neighbors.

“Yet the first distinctive American frontier was not created alone by the movement of population westward from the older settlements; like every successive frontier in our history it became the Mecca of emigrants from British and Continental lands. Before 1700 exiled Huguenots and refugees from the (German) Palatinate began to seek the new world, and during the eighteenth century men of non-English stock poured by thousands into the up-country of Pennsylvania and of the South. In 1700 the foreign population of the colonies was slight; in 1775 it is estimated that 225,000 Germans and 385,000 Scotch-Irish, together nearly one-fifth of the entire population, lived within the provinces that won independence.”—“The Beginning of the American People,” by Prof. Carl L. Becker, University of Kansas; Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1915; p. 177.

Elson, in his “History of the United States,” p. 198, says that in New England and the South the people were almost wholly of English stock, though New England was of more purely English stock than was the South, with a sprinkling of Scotch-Irish and other nationalities, and especially in the South, of French Huguenots and Germans. “In the middle colonies less than half the population was English; the Dutch of New York, the Germans of Pennsylvania, the Swedes of Delaware and the Irish of all these colonies, together with small numbers of other nationalities, made up more than half the population.” He gives the total population of the colonies in 1760 at approximately 1,600,000.

Pennsylvania is sometimes called “The American German’s Holy Land.” Let us see why.Today, as the tourist visits Heidelberg on the Neckar, sails down the Rhine from Spires or Mannheim to Cologne, he sees many ivy-mantled ruins, which show how terribly Louis XIV of France desolated this region during his ferocious wars. Angry at the Germans and Dutch for sheltering his hunted Huguenots, he invaded the Rhine Palatinate, which became for a whole generation the scene of French fire, pillage, rapine and slaughter. Added to these troubles of war and politics, were those of religious persecutions; for, according as the prince electors were Protestants or Catholics, so the people were expected to change as suited their rulers, who compelled their subjects to be of the same faith. Tired of their long-endured miseries, the Palatine Germans, early in the eighteenth century, fled to England. Under the protection and kindly care of theBritish government, they were aided to come to America. About 5,000 settled in the Hudson, Mohawk and Schoharie valleys in New York, and over 25,000 in Pennsylvania, chiefly in the Schuylkill and Swatara region between Bethlehem and Harrisburg. Later came Germans from other parts of the Fatherland, making Colonists rich in the sturdy virtues of the Teutonic race.

Though poor, these Germans were very intelligent, holding on to their Bibles and having plenty of schools and schoolmasters. In the little Mennonite meeting house at Germantown, on the 18th of February, 1688, they declared against the unlawfulness of holding their fellowmen in bondage, and raised the first ecclesiastical protest against slavery in America. In Penn’s Colony also the first book written and published in America against slavery was by one of these German Christians. The Penn Germans also published the first Bible in any European tongue ever printed in America. It was they who first called Washington “the father of his country.” In their dialect, still surviving in some places, made up of old German and modern expressions, some pretty poems and charming stories have been written. Tenacious in holding their lands, thorough in method, appreciative of most of what is truest and best in our nation’s life, but not easily led away by mere novelties and justly distrustful of what is false and unjust, even though called “American,” the Germans have furnished in our national composite an element of conservatism that bodes well for the future of the republic.... Here worked and lived the first American astronomer, Rittenhouse, and here (Pennsylvania) originated many first things which have so powerfully influenced the nation at large.... Here lived Daniel Pastorius, then the most learned man in America. (“The Romance of American Colonization,” by Dr. William Elliot Griffis.)

The disposition of the New England school of historians, with some distinguished exceptions, to glorify everything of Puritan origin and belittle everything of non-English origin in American life, is strongly manifest in their writings about the early Palatine immigration. They were merely hewers of wood and drawers of water, or coolies. But the evidence of Franklin, Washington and Jefferson is to the contrary, and their history in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North and South Carolina puts the New England historians to shame. With their disparaging comments may be contrasted the words in which Macaulay describes the same people:

Honest, laborious men, who had once been thriving burghers of Mannheim and Heidelberg, or who had cultivated the wine on the banks of the Neckar and the Rhine. Their ingenuity and their diligence could not fail to enrich any land which should afford them an asylum.

Sanford H. Cobb says: “The story of the Palatines challenges our sympathy, admiration and reverence, and is as well worth telling as that of any other colonial immigration. We may concede that theirinfluence on the future development of the country and its institutions was not equal to the formative power exerted by some other contingents. Certainly, they have not left so many broad and deep marks upon our history as have the Puritans of New England, and yet their story is not without definite and permanent monuments of beneficence toward American life and institutions. At least one among the very greatest of the safeguards of American liberty—the Freedom of the Press—is distinctly traceable to the resolute boldness of a Palatine.” (“The Story of the Palatines,” Putnam’s Sons, 1897, p. 5, Introduction.)

And very emphatic are the words of Judge Benton in his “History of Herkimer County:”

The particulars of the immigration of the Palatines are worthy of extended notice. The events which produced the movement in the heart of an old and polished European nation to seek a refuge and a home on the western continent, are quite as legitimate a subject of American history as the oft-repeated relation of the experience of the Pilgrim Fathers.

Germans were among the first immigrants in the South along with the English, and many a proud Virginian has German blood in his veins. President Wilson’s second wife is a Bolling. The first attempts to colonize Virginia were discouraging failures. Of the first 105 bachelor colonists sent out from England in 1606, half called themselves “gentlemen,” young men without a trade and with no practical experience as colonists. The others were laborers, tradesmen and mechanics, and two singers and a chaplain. Among the leaders Capt. John Smith was the most noted as he was the most able. The Jamestown colony was reduced to forty men when Captain Newport on his return from England brought additional numbers of colonists, and the “Phoenix” later arrived with seventy more settlers and the languishing colony was still later reinforced by seventy immigrants, among whom were two women. The marriage of John Laydon and Ann Burras was the occasion of the first wedding in Virginia.

“Better far than a batch of the average immigrants,” writes Dr. Griffis, “was the reinforcements of some German and Polish mechanics brought over to manufacture glass. These Germans were the first of a great company that have contributed powerfully to build up the industry and commerce of Virginia—the mother of states and statesmen!There still stands on the east side of Timber Neck Bay, on the north side of the York River, a stone chimney with a mighty fireplace nearly eight feet wide, built by these Germans.”

American’s great historian, George Bancroft, in his introduction to Kapp’s “Life of Steuben,” writes: “The Americans of that day, who were of German birth or descent, formed a large part of the population of the United States; they cannot well be reckoned at less than a twelfth of the whole, and perhaps formed even a larger proportion of the insurgent people. At the commencement of the Revolution wehear little of them, not from their want of zeal in the good cause, but from their modesty. They kept themselves purposely in the background, leaving it to those of English origin to discuss the violations of English liberties and to decide whether the time for giving battle had come. But when the resolution was taken, no part of the country was more determined in its patriotism than the German counties of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Neither they nor their descendants have laid claim to all the praise that was their due.”

In 1734 a number of German Lutheran communities were flourishing in Northern Virginia, and in a work dealing with Virginia conditions, which appeared in London in 1724, Governor Spotswood is mentioned as having founded the town of Germania, named for the Germans whom Queen Anne had sent over, but who abandoned that region, it seems, on account of religious intolerance. The same work mentions a colony of Germans from the Palatinate who had been presented with a large section of land and who were prosperous, happy and exceedingly hospitable.Many of their descendants attained to fame and fortune, as B. William Wirt, remembered as one of the most distinguished jurists in America, and Karl Minnigerode, for many years rector of St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, among whose parishioners was Jefferson Davis.

Many Germans immigrated to the Carolinas from Germany as well as Pennsylvania, before the Revolution. A large number came from Pennsylvania in 1745, and in 1751 the Mennonites bought 900,000 acres from the English government in North Carolina and founded numerous colonies which still survive. One colony on the Yadkin, known as the Buffalo Creek Colony, at the time sent abroad $384 for the purchase of German books. After 1840 the interrupted flow of German immigration was resumed.

When the German immigration into South Carolina began is a matter of dispute, but when a colony of immigrants from Salzburg reached Charleston in 1743, they found there German settlers by whom they were heartily welcomed. As early as 1674 many Lutherans, to escape the oppression of English rule in New York, settled along the Ashley, near the future site of Charleston.

It is probable from printed evidence that the first German in South Carolina was Rev. Peter Fabian, who accompanied an expedition sent by the English Carolina Company to that colony in 1663.

In 1732, under the leadership of John Peter Purry, 170 German-Swiss founded Purrysburg on the Savannah River, and were followed in a year or two by 200 more. Orangeburg was founded about the same time by Germans from Switzerland and the Palatinate. Likewise Lexington was founded by Germans, and in 1742 Germans founded a settlement on the island of St. Simons, south of Savannah. In 1763 two shiploads of German immigrants arrived at Charleston from London.

Before the Revolution the Gospel was preached in sixteen German churches in the colony, and at the outbreak of the Revolution the German Fusiliers was the name given to an organization of German and German-Swiss volunteers which still exists. As early as 1766 a German Society was founded in Charleston and numbered upward of 100 members at the beginning of the Revolution. It gave 2,000 pounds to the patriotic cause, and after the conclusion of peace erected its own school, at which annually twenty children of the poor were taught free of charge. Dr. Griffis speaks of the ship “Phoenix,” from New York, “which brought Germans, who built Jamestown on the Stone River.”

Many of the Palatine Germans and Swiss had already settled in the Carolinas, he continues; now into Georgia came Germans from farther East, besides many of the Moravians. In the Austrian Salzburg, prelatical bigotry had become unbearable to the Lutherans. Thirty thousand of these Bible-reading Christians had fled into Holland and England. Being invited to settle in Georgia, they took the oath of allegiance to the British King and crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

In March, 1734, the ship “Purisburg,” having on board 87 Salzburgers with their ministers, arrived in the colony. Warmly welcomed, they founded the town of Ebenezer. The next year more of these sober, industrious and strongly religious people of Germany came over. The Moravians, who followed quickly began missionary work among the Indians. After them again followed German Lutherans, Moravians, English immigrants, Scotch-Irish, Quaker, Mennonites and others. “Thus in Georgia, as in the Carolinas and Virginia, there was formed a miniature New Europe, having a varied population, with many sterling qualities.”

The first whites to settle within the territory comprising the present State of Ohio were the German Moravians who founded the towns of Schoenbrunn, Gnadenhütten, Lichtenau and Salem. David Zeisberger on May 3, 1772, with a number of converted Indians, founded the first Christian community in Ohio. Mrs. Johann George Jungmann was the first white married woman. She and her husband came from Bethlehem, Pa. At Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhütten, Zeisberger wrote a spelling book and reader in the Delaware language which was printed in Philadelphia.

In Gnadenhütten was born July 4, 1773, the first white child in Ohio, John Ludwig Roth; the second child was Johanna Maria Heckewelder, April 16, 1781, at Schoenbrunn, and the third was Christian David Seusemann, at Salem, May 30, 1781. The Communities, largely composed of baptized Indians, in 1775 numbered 414 persons, and their record of industry and peaceful development is preserved in Zeisberger’s diary, now in the archives of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio at Cincinnati.

The peaceful settlements excited the jealousy of powerful interests,and the British Commissioners, McKee and Elliot, and the renegade, Simon Girty, reported to the commander at Detroit that Zeisberger and his companions were American spies. The German settlers and their Indian converts were carried to Sandusky in 1781, where they suffered great privations until permitted, after winter had come, to send back 150 of their Indian wards—all of whom spoke the German language—to gather what of their planting remained in the fields. But a number of lawless American bordermen under Col. David Williamson, acting on a false report that the peaceful Indians had been concerned in a raid, surprised the men in the fields and after disarming them by a trick, murdered men, women and children in cold blood. The details, as related by Eickhoff (“In der Neuen Heimath,” Steiger, New York, 1885, and by Col. Roosevelt in “The Winning of the West”) are among the most ghastly on record and make the blood run cold. Some of these slain had German fathers and all were peaceful, industrious and well-behaved natives who had learned to sing Christian hymns and German songs in their humble meeting houses.

Independent of these communities, the first settlement of Ohio at Marietta was the work of New Englanders, in April, 1788; but the second, that of Columbia, was under the direction of a German Revolutionary officer, Major Benjamin Steitz, the name being later changed by his descendants to Stites.

Space is lacking for fuller details regarding the great share of the Germans in settling the Middle West and West. German names predominate in the history of early border warfare in the fights with the French and the Indians; the Germans were among the most conspicuous of the pioneers, as they continued to be for generations in settling the Far West and Northwest, the great number of Indian massacres culminating in that of New Ulm in 1862, in which German settlers again formed the outposts of American civilization.

One thing is notable in the annals of our early history, the striking fact that the frontier settlements in Pennsylvania and the West and also the Northwest teemed with Germans, and that every Indian massacre and every border fight with the French, before the Revolution as well as after, brings into prominence German names. In the defense of the borders against Indians and French, forts were built by the German settlers above Harrisburg, at the forks of the Schuylkill, on the Lehigh and on the Upper Delaware. They bore the brunt of the Tulpehocken massacre in 1755, just after Braddock’s defeat; the barbarities perpetrated in Northampton county in 1756, and the attack on the settlements near Reading in 1763. Against these forays the Germans under Schneider and Hiester made stout resistance. As early as 1711 a German battalion, mainly natives of the Palatinate, was part of the force, a thousand strong, which was to take part in the expedition against Quebec.

Berks, Bucks, Lancaster, York and Northampton were then the Pennsylvania frontier counties, and from them came the men who filled the German regiments and battalions in the Revolutionary War. In the South, Law’s Mississippi scheme brought more than 17,000 Germans from the Palatinate, who made settlements throughout what was then the French colony. Theirs was a life of hardship and constant battle with the Indians.

In 1773 Frankfort and Louisville, Kentucky, were settled by Germans, the former by immigrants from North Carolina, and led to “Lord Dinsmore’s war” in which they fought the Indians and gained a foothold.

In 1777 Col. Shepherd (Schaefer), a Pennsylvania German, successfully defended Wheeling from a large Indian force. In the operations under Gen. Irvine, to avenge the massacre of the Moravian settlers in Ohio, his adjutant, Col. Rose, was a German, Baron Gustave von Rosenthal.

At the outbreak of the Old French War (1756-1763), the British government, under an act of Parliament, organized the Royal American regiment for service in the Colonies. It was to consist of four battalions of one thousand men each. Fifty of the officers were to be foreign Protestants, while the enlisted men were to be raised principally from among the German settlers in America. The immediate commander, General Bouquet, was a Swiss by birth, an English officer by adoption, and a Pennsylvanian by naturalization. This last distinction was conferred on him as a reward for his services in his campaign in the western part of Pennsylvania, where he and his Germans atoned for the injuries that resulted from Braddock’s defeat in the same border region.

The German settlers were ardent American patriots before and during the Revolution. In 1775, says Rosengarten, the vestries of the German Lutheran and Reformed churches at Philadelphia sent a pamphlet of forty pages to the Germans of New York and North Carolina, stating that the Germans in the near and remote parts of Pennsylvania have distinguished themselves by forming not only a militia, but a select corps of sharp shooters, ready to march wherever they are required, while those who cannot do military service are willing to contribute according to their ability. They urged the Germans of other colonies to give their sympathy to the common cause, to carry out the measures taken by Congress, and to rise in arms against the oppression and despotism of the English Government. The volunteers in Pennsylvania were called “Associators” and the Germans among them had their headquarters at the Lutheran schoolhouse in Philadelphia. In 1750 the German settlers in Pennsylvania were estimated at nearly 100,000 out of a total population of 270,000, and in 1790 at 144,600.

The Springfield (Mass.) “Republican,” although an outspoken pro-Britishpaper, since the outbreak of the war paid deserved tribute to the share of the German settlers in the early history of the Republic, rebuking the spirit of envy and detraction evinced in certain quarters, by saying that those who hold these belittling views can have no knowledge of the history of the Palatines who settled the Mohawk Valley. Anyone having a cursory acquaintance with the elementary text books of American history, the paper thinks, must recall the massacre of Wyoming and the Cherry Valley. Neither in New York, nor in Pennsylvania nor in the South did the Germans evade the dangers and hardships of the wilderness. It is not generally known how large a share they had in the settling of the West. They poured into Ohio from the Mohawk Valley as well as from Pennsylvania. On the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky they vied with Daniel Boone in fighting the Indians—Steiner and the German Pole, Sandusky, preceded Boone in Kentucky. One of the most famous among the pioneers was the “tall Dutchman,” George Yeager (Jaeger), who was killed by Indians in 1775, continues the “Republican.” In the valleys of Virginia there were more German pioneers than any other nationality. Along the whole border line from Maine to Georgia they occupied the most advanced positions in the enemy’s territory, and their large families included more younger sons who went forth to look for new lands than of all others. A Kentucky observer declared at the close of the eighteenth century that of every twelve families, nine Germans, seven Scotchmen and four Irishmen succeeded when all others failed.

Michael Fink and his companions were the first to descend the Mississippi on a trading expedition to New Orleans, where the officials in 1782 had never heard of their starting point, Pittsburg. Germans again—Rosenvelt, Becker and Heinrich—were the first to descend the Ohio in a steamboat in 1811. (Rosengarten.)

“In our Colonial Period almost the entire western border of our country was occupied by Germans,” writes Prof. Burgess. “It fell to them, therefore, to defend, in first instance, the colonists from the attack of the French and the Indians. They formed what was known in those times as the Regiment of Royal Americans, a brigade rather than a regiment, numbering some 4,000 men, and the bands led by Nicholas Herkimer and Conrad Weiser.”

Germany and England During the Civil War.

Germany and England During the Civil War.—The attitude of England during the Civil War contrasted strangely with that of the German States, and this attitude is rather clearly shown by the “Investment Weekly,” of New York, for June 21, 1917, though not intended as a reproach to England. In the course of an article, headed “Bond Market of the Civil War,” the “Investment Weekly” says:

Another difference is that the United States until recently had been the greatest neutral nation in the world, whereas then Great Britain was the greatest neutral nation. Still a thirddifference is that whereas Great Britain was able to borrow freely from us even before we entered the war, our government during the Civil War was unable to obtain any help from Great Britain. In March, 1863, an attempt was made to negotiate a loan of $10,000,000 there, but the negotiations utterly failed.

The significance of this paragraph will appear from reflection on the state of distress prevailing in 1863, a period when the outlook for the success of the Union was veiled in gloom, and many of the most stout-hearted trembled for the outcome. England was sending fully-equipped and English-manned warships over to aid the Confederacy; the “Alabama” and the “Florida” were sinking our ships and sweeping American commerce from the seas. Justin McCarthy, in “The Cruise of the ‘Alabama’” (“A History of Our Own Times,” II, Chap. XLIV), says:

The “Alabama” had got to sea; her cruise of nearly two years began. She went upon her destroying course with the cheers of English sympathizers and the rapturous tirades of English newspapers glorifying her. Every misfortune that befell an American merchantman was received in this country with a roar of delight.

At that time England was on the eve of entering the war on the side of the South, and only the news of General Grant’s decisive victory at Vicksburg and Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg brought the House of Commons to a more sober reflection.

McCarthy shows that a motion for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy, which Minister Adams had said would mean a war with the Northern States, was already in process of passing in the House of Commons, for he writes:

The motion was never pressed to a division; for during its progress there came at one moment the news that General Grant had taken Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, and that General Meade had defeated General Lee, at Gettysburg, and put an end to all thought of a Southern invasion.... There was no more said in this country about the recognition of the Southern Confederation, and the Emperor of the French was thenceforth free to follow out his plans as far as he could, and alone.

It was during these dismal hours of trembling hope that Germany proved herself the friend of the Union. Whereas England would not loan the Lincoln administration $10,000,000, six times that amount was forthcoming from Germany.

When in 1870 a disposition developed here to supply France with arms against Germany, some heated debates took place in the Senate, in which events of 1861-65 were naturally brought up for review, and it is interesting to quote from the debates of that period as reported in the “Globe Congressional Record,” 3rd Session, 41st Congress. Part II. From pp. 953-955:

Mr. Stewart, Senator from Nevada: “Allow me to call the attention of the Senator from Tennessee to the fact, which he must recollect, of the amount of our bonds that were taken inGermany at the time we needed that they should be taken, and when they were prohibited from the Exchange in London and from the Bourse in Paris, and not allowed to be on the markets there at all on account of the state of public opinion there, while Germany alone came in and took five or $600,000,000 at a time when we needed money more than anything else, to sustain our credit. That is a fact showing sympathy, certainly.”

Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, quoted on p. 954, said:

They (the Germans) sent us men; they recruited our armies with men; they helped to save the life of this nation. Though the French were our ancient allies, the Germans have been our modern allies.

And well did Senator Charles Sumner put it when he declared in the United States Senate, (“Congressional Record,” 3rd Session, 41st Congress, Page 956): “We owe infinitely to Germany.”

A formal acknowledgement of our debt to Germany during the most critical stage of our history was made by Secretary of State William H. Seward through the American Minister at Berlin, in May, 1863, as follows:

You will not hesitate to express assurance of the constant good will of the United States toward the king and the people who have dealt with us in good faith and great friendship during the severe trials through which we have been passing.

At the close of the war, the Prussian deputies, some 260 in number, on April 26, 1865, submitted an address to the American Minister in Berlin, in which the following language occurs:

Living among us you are witness of the heartfelt sympathy which this people have ever preserved for the people of the United States during the long and severe conflict. You are aware that Germany has looked with pride and joy on the thousands of her sons, who, in this struggle, have arrayed themselves on the side of law and justice. You have seen with what joy the victories of the Union have been hailed and how confident our faith in the final triumph of the great cause of the restoration of the Union in all its greatness has ever been, even in the midst of adversity.

While there is a strong tendency in certain directions to ignore or obscure the facts of American history by imputing some vaguely unpatriotic motive to those who prefer to see the United States travel the same conservative path which has made it the dominating power of the world, after 140 years of devotion to the patriotic standards established by the founders of the Republic, it shall not deter us from calling attention to the testimony of a great American, James G. Blane, by quoting certain passages from his book, “Twenty Years in Congress,” which leave no doubt what his attitude would be to-day. The quotations are taken from Vol. II, p. 447:

From the government of England, terming itself liberal with Lord Palmerston at its head, Earl Russel as Foreign Secretary, Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Duke ofArgyll as Lord Privy Seal, and Earl Cranville as Lord President of the Council, not one friendly word was sent across the Atlantic. A formal neutrality was declared by government officials, while its spirit was daily violated. If the Republic had been a dependency of Great Britain, like Canada or Australia, engaged in civil strife, it could not have been more steadily subjected to review, to criticism, and to the menace of discipline. The proclamations of President Lincoln, the decisions of Federal Courts, the orders issued by commanders of the Union armies, were frequently brought to the attention of Parliament, as if America were in some way accountable to the judgment of England. Harsh comment came from leading British statesmen; while the most ribald defamers of the United States met with cheers from a majority of the House of Commons and indulged in the bitterest denunciation of a friendly government without rebuke from the Ministerial benches.

(Vol. II, Chap. 20): March 7, 1862, Lord Robert Cecil, in discussing the blockade of the southern coast, said: “The plain matter of fact is, as every one who watches the current of history must know, that the Northern States of America never can be our sure friends, for this simple reason: not merely because the newspapers write at each other, or that there are prejudices on each side, but because we are rivals, rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to the same position. We both aspire to the government of the seas. We are both manufacturing people, and in every port, as well as at every court, we are rivals to each other.”

March 26, 1863, Mr. Laird of Birkenhead: “The institutions of the United States are of no value whatever, and have reduced the very name of liberty to an utter absurdity.” He was loudly cheered for saying this.

April, 1863, Mr. Roebuck declared: “That the whole conduct of the people of the North is such as proves them not only unfit for the government of themselves, but unfit for the courtesies and the community of the civilized world.”

Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of England, asserted that: “As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union.”—“I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Union should not take place.”

February 5, 1863, Lord Malmesbury spoke disdainfully of treating with so extraordinary a body as the government of the United States, and referred to the horrors of the war—“horrors unparalleled even in the wars of barbarous nations.”

England confidently believed that the North would suffer a crushing defeat, and the same opinion was held by the French government. Napoleon the Third felt absolutely confident that the South would triumph. (See “[France’s Friendship for the United States].”)

The London “Times” in 1862 voiced English sentiment against the Union in a manner that has been paralleled only by its denunciations of Germany at the present time. It said:

“To bully the weak, to triumph over the helpless, to trample on every law of country and customs, wilfully to violate the most sacred interests of human nature—to defy as long asdanger does not appear, and as soon as real peril shows itself, to sneak aside and run away—these are the virtues of the race which presumes to announce itself as the leader of civilization and the prophet of human progress in these latter days.”

A clear statement of the English Parliament’s attitude toward the United States in the Civil War is contained in the autobiography of Sir William Gregory, K. C. M. G. (Member of Parliament and one-time Governor of Ceylon), edited by Lady Gregory (London, 1894), pp. 214-6: “The feeling of the upper classes undoubtedly predominated in favor of the South, so much so that when I said in a speech that the adherents of the North in the House of Commons might all be driven home in one omnibus, the remark was received with much cheering.”

Among those who invested in the Confederate bonds were many Members of Parliament and editors of London newspapers. Prominent among them was Gladstone. “Donahoe’s Magazine,” April, 1867, published a list of prominent investors in Confederate bonds, which shows that 29 persons lost a total of $4,490,000 in such investments. The list follows:

The present holders of these bonds have never despaired of being able some day to collect the amounts from the United States Treasury, and it will only need a closer alliance between the United States and Great Britain, as proposed by the advocates of an Anglo-Saxon amalgamation, to bring these claims to the front.

Germans in Civil War.

Germans in Civil War.—Four authors have dealt exhaustively with the subject of the German-born soldiers in the Union army. They are Wilhelm Kaufmann in his valuable work, “The Germans in the AmericanCivil War” (R. Oldenbourg, Berlin and Munich, 1911), J. G. Rosengarten, “The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States” (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1890), Frederic Phister, “Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States” (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883) and B. A. Gould, “Investigations in the Statistics of American Soldiers” (New York, 1869).

The first three are more or less founded on the latter, but in Kaufmann, particularly, many errors of computation on the part of Gould are shown up which increase the number credited to the German participants in the Civil War. Rosengarten is particularly valuable as reference in regard to the share of the Germans in the Revolutionary War. According to Gould, more Germans served in the Union army than any other foreigners. This is substantiated by all the writers. Kaufmann proves that the colossal total of 216,000 native-born Germans fought in the Union army. In addition the army included 300,000 sons of German-born parents and 234,000 Germans of remoter extraction. Besides the Germans fighting in the ranks, Kaufmann holds that the roster of generals and other high officers of the Union army contained more names of German than of any foreign nationality. He also calls attention to the fact that a large number of German aristocrats, including such eminent names as von Steuben, Count Zeppelin, von Sedlitz, von Wedel, von Schwerin, and one German prince (Prinz zu Salm-Salm) took the field in behalf of the Union. Prince Salm-Salm was accompanied by his wife who performed valuable service as a nurse.

Professor Burgess writes: “The German and German American contingent in our armies amounted, first and last, to some 500,000 soldiers. They were led by such men as Heintzelmann, Rosecrans, Schurz, Sigel, Osterhaus, Willich, Hartranft, Steinwehr, Wagner, Hecker and a thousand others. Mrs. Jefferson Davis, the wife of the Confederate President has often said to me that without the Germans the North could never have overcome the armies of the Confederacy; and unless that had been accomplished then, this continent would have been, since then, the theatre of continuous war instead of the home of peace.”

Gould’s figures of the relative number of foreign-born soldiers in the Union army are as follows:

According to these figures, the Germans constituted upward of 37% of the foreign-born soldiers in the Union army, while the English numbered less than 8%. The Anglo-Saxon, therefore, is not representedin a critical stage of the nation’s struggle for survival in proportion to the importance assigned him in our affairs at the present day.

Kaufmann, in analyzing these figures, shows that the number was understated as regards the Germans and overstated as regards the Canadians. More than 36 per cent. of the Union troops furnished by the State of Missouri were born in Germany, and the Germans furnished more troops pro rata, according to the census of 1860, than any other racial element, including native born Americans.It is interesting to note that the States in which the Germans were largely represented made the largest response to President Lincoln’s first call for volunteers. The call, issued April 15, 1861, was for 75,000 volunteers to serve three months. New England was the center of the agitation and the hot-bed of the abolition movement. Lincoln’s call was responded to by 91,816 men.

Taking Gould’s figures, the State of Missouri and the State of New York each sent more German-born soldiers to the war than either Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, West Virginia, Minnesota or Kansas sent native-born troops, and the German-born Union soldiers from these two states together (67,579 men) formed a larger contingent than the native-born contingent of either New Jersey or Maine, and larger than New Hampshire, Vermont and Delaware together (64,600 men). Pennsylvania furnished more German-born troops than Delaware, District of Columbia or Kansas separately furnished native Americans. Six States—New York, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—furnished more German-born soldiers to defend the country than Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut did native sons. More German-born Union soldiers came from New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Missouri than native-born from Massachusetts. The effort of Provost Marshal Fry to charge about 200,000 desertions and innumerable cases of bounty jumpers to the account of foreign-born element in the Union army leaves the Germans unscathed, since he showed that “especially in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey the number of deserters is especially large.” In the New England States there were but 5,077 German enlistments out of 369,800 (Gould) all told, and the desertions in those states as well as New York and New Jersey, in view of the large German enlistments in the Western States not named as noted for desertions, must be charged to some other element. It was the practice to blame all the evils during thewar on the foreign-born and to shift to their patient shoulders the sins of commission and omission of others.

It is impossible for lack of space to name more than a comparatively few of the Germans who as officers distinguished themselves in the Civil War. Several omitted in the list below will be found under their names in separate paragraphs. In many instances the German officers who by their efficiency and splendid training in Germany had laid the foundation of notable victories were callously deprived of all credit, and in the case of others jealousy and a deeply grounded racial antipathy intervened to prevent them from obtaining the rank to which they were by education, experience and achievements entitled. In any case where it was an issue between a native and a foreigner, the latter was sure to suffer. Those named below were born in Germany and do not include American-born Germans like Generals Rosecrans, Heintzelmann, Hartrauft, Custer, etc.

Franz Sigel, Major General and Corps Commander; born 1824, at Sinsheim, Baden; died in New York in 1902. His memory is honored by two equestrian statues. A detailed account of his achievements is not considered necessary here. His name has been a household word.

Adolf von Steinwehr, probably the best-grounded military officer among the Germans in the Union army, Division Commander and Brigadier General; born 1822 in Blankenburg, in the Harz, died 1877 in Buffalo. Prussian officer and military instructor in Potsdam. Served in the Mexican war. Distinguished himself at Gettysburg, where he held Cemetery Hill, (for which Gen. Howard received the thanks of Congress), gathered the remnants of the 11th and 1st corps, and continued the defense July 2 and 3.

August von Willich, one of the most famous fighters in the Union army, a typical “Marshal Forward.” Brevet Major General and Division Commander; born in Posen 1810, died at St. Marys, Ohio, 1878. Made possible the advance of Rosecrans’s army upon Chattanooga by taking Liberty and Hoover’s Gap in the Alleghanies. Earned laurels at Chickamauga and set an heroic example to the whole army by leading his nine regiments up Missionary Ridge and sharing the great victory with Sheridan.

Julius Stahel, German-Hungarian. Perfected the organization of the Union Cavalry. Generals Hooker and Heintzelmann pronounced Stahel’s cavalry regiment to be the best they had ever seen. At Lincoln’s request, to this cavalry was confided the defense of Washington. Was made Major General simultaneously with Schurz. Commanded the vanguard of Hunter’s army in the Shenandoah Valley, was attacked by the Confederate Cavalry under Jones on the march to Staunton, repulsed the attack and pursued his opponent to Piedmont, where he found the enemy strongly entrenched. Stahel repulsed all attacks until Hunter’s arrival and won the medal for bravery. Though seriously wounded, he led his squadron in a brilliantassault, broke through the enemy’s lines and scattered the opposing forces.

Gottfried Weitzel; Major General and Corps Commander; born in the Palatinate; educated at West Point; lieutenant in the engineer corps, U. S. A. Commanded a division under Grant, and at the head of the 25th army corps was the first to enter Richmond, April 3, 1865, where the next day he received President Lincoln. The following dispatch explains itself:

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, April 3, 10 A. M.

To Major General Dix:

It appears from a dispatch of General Weitzel, just received by this Department, that our forces under his command are in Richmond, having taken it at 8:30 this A. M.

E. M. STANTON,
Sec’y of War.

August V. Kautz; Brevet Major General; born in Pfarzheim, distinguished cavalry leader. Served during the Mexican war. Commanded the 24th army corps, with which he entered Richmond with Weitzel. Became Major General in the regular army after the war. Admiral Albert Kautz was his brother.

Colonel Asmussen, Chief of Staff to General O. O. Howard; former Prussian officer. Resigned as the result of serious wounds.

Ludwig Blenker, born 1812 in Worms, died 1863 in Pennsylvania. Served in Greece and in the Baden revolution. Became famous for covering the retreat at the first battle of Bull Run.

Heinrich Bohlen, born 1810 in Bremen; killed in battle at Freeman’s Ford on the Rappahannock, August 21, 1862. Brigade Commander under Blenker; distinguished himself at Cross Keys.

Adolf Buschbeck, Brigadier General; a Prussian officer from Coblenz; military instructor at Potsdam. Died 1881.Distinguished himself in the two battles of Bull Run and at Cross Keys, and became the real hero of Chancellorsville; fought gallantly at Gettysburg and Missionary Ridge, and was in Sherman’s march through Georgia, gaining new laurels in the bloody battles of Peachtree Creek, and at Ezra Church, July 28, 1864, where Buschbeck repulsed the enemy three times. With Willich and Wangelin the most noted German American fighter in the Union army.

Hubert Dilger, a former artillery officer in Baden, although never attaining a rank beyond that of captain, distinguished himself in numerous battles for the Union. By many considered the ablest artillery officer in the northern army.Commanded the only gun which was effectively served in the defense of Buschbeck’s brigade at Chancellorsville. Its escape from destruction was almost miraculous. Was famous throughout the army.

Leopold von Gilsa, former Prussian officer; brigadier general; rendered distinguished service in numerous campaigns, but failed of promotion through the admitted intrigues of the Princess Salm-Salm.

Wilhelm Grebe; born in Hildersheim. Received from Congress medal for personal bravery; was cashiered for fighting a duel, but restored twenty years after by an act of Congress.

Franz Hassendeubel, one of the most distinguished engineer officers in the Northern army; born 1817 in Germersheim, Palatinate. Came to America in 1842; engineer officer in Mexican war; built the ten forts that defended St. Louis. Brigadier General in 1863. Fatally wounded on a tour of inspection around Vicksburg, died July 17, 1863. Hassendeubel Post, G. A. R., St. Louis, perpetuates his memory.

Ernst F. Hoffmann, former Prussian engineer officer, born in Breslau. Chief engineer 11th army corps. Highly praised by General J. H. Wilson.

George W. Mindel, brevet major general, twice awarded the medal for bravery, the first time for directing the assault of a regiment which pierced the enemy’s center in the battle of Williamsburg, May 3, 1862, the second time in the march through Georgia; officer on McClellan’s and Phil Kearney’s staffs; distinguished himself at Missionary Ridge. Born in Frankfort and buried in Arlington.

Edward G. Salomon, brevet brigadier general, organized a Hebrew company in Hecker’s 82d Illinois, and became its Colonel when Hecker was wounded; rendered distinguished service throughout the war, and was appointed governor of Washington territory.

Alexander von Schimmelpfennig, one of the most noted German-American fighting generals; died 1865 from the hardships of the war. Former Prussian officer. Recruited the 74th Pennsylvania regiment, one of the elite regiments in the Army of the Potomac. In the second battle of Bull Run his brigade hurled General Jackson’s crack troops back over the railroad beyond Cushing’s Farm. Fought with distinction at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg and was the first to enter the hotbed of secession, Charleston, S. C. He was an officer, one of many Germans, whose memory deserved to live for their deeds, and whose deserts were minimized by those who envied them.

Theodore Schwan, general in the regular army, from Hanover; rose from the ranks; fought against the Mormons and took part in twenty battles during the Civil War. Received the medal for personal bravery from Congress, and after the war became an Indian fighter; military attache to the American embassy in Berlin 1892; published his military studies, which were highly praised. Was the real conqueror of Porto Rica, Spanish-American War, in which he commanded a division of 20,000 men under General Miles.

Hugo von Wangelin descended from an old Mecklenburg noble family; educated in a Prussian military school; came to America at the age of 16. Fought almost continually alongside of Osterhaus throughout the war. His brigade earned undying glory at Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and Ringgold, Ga., where he lost an arm. He whistled “Yankee Doodle” while the surgeons were sawing throughthe bone. Wangelin held Bald Hill before Atlanta, after the Union troops had been previously driven off. Engaged in fifty battles and was four years continually on the firing line. His “vacations” were periods of convalescense from wounds.

Max von Weber; fought under Sigel in the Baden revolution. Colonel of the 20th New York (Turners) 1861, until appointed brigadier general. Commanded Fortress Monroe and won distinction in the fights around Norfolk. At Antietam he commanded the third brigade of the third division French in Sumner’s corps, and still held the position at Rulett’s House after Sedgwick’s left had been enveloped, exposed to a murderous fire until relieved by Kimball’s brigade and after repeatedly repulsing the enemy. He was seriously wounded.

Germans in the Confederate Army.

Germans in the Confederate Army.—Among the German-born officers in the Confederate army the most distinguished was General Jeb Stuart’s chief of staff, Heros von Borcke, a brilliant cavalry leader. Prussian officer. Came to America 1862 to offer his services to the Confederacy and was immediately assigned to duty with the great Confederate cavalry chief, Gen. Stuart, and became his right hand. Was seriously wounded at Middleburg and for months his life hung by a thread; was rendered unfit for service and in the winter of 1864 was sent to England on a secret mission by the Confederate government, but peace interrupted his activity. Was highly popular in the army and received more recognition than any German officer on the Northern side; his visit to the South twenty years after the close of the war was turned into a public ovation. His sword hangs in the Capitol at Richmond.—John A. Wagener, brigadier general and later mayor of Charleston, S. C. Born in Bremerhaven 1824. Defended Fort Walker, which he had built. Two of his sons, one aged 15, here served under their father. Half of the garrison was killed or wounded. It was Wagener who surrendered Charleston to his countryman, General Schimmelpfennig.—Gust. Adolf Schwarmann; Colonel in Gen. Wise’s Legion.—J. Scheibert; major in the Prussian Engineer Corps; came over as an observer but became an officer in Stuart’s Cavalry. Wrote a military book on the war, published in Germany. Gen. Lee told him on the battlefield of Chancellorsville: “Give me Prussian discipline and Prussian formation for my troops and you would see quite different results.”—Gustav Schleicher, born in Darmstadt. Well-known Congressman from Texas, after the war; commemorated in a memorial speech by President Garfield; chiefly active in devising fortifications.—Baron von Massow (see under“[M.]”).—Schele de Ver, Maximillian; born in Pommerania; Prussian reserve officer; professor at the Virginia State University, Richmond; Colonel of a Confederate regiment and emissary to Germany to espouse the Confederate cause.—R. M. Streibling; battery chief in Longstreet’s Corps; former Brunswick artillery officer.[—]August Reichard; former Hanoverian officer,tried to form a unit of German militia companies and after many disappointments succeeded in organizing a German battalion consisting of Steuben Guards, Capt. Kehrwald; Turner Guards, Capt. Baehncke; Reichard Sharpshooters, Capt. Muller; Florence Guards, Capt. Brummerstadt. The battalion with four Irish companies was merged into the 20th Louisiana with Reichard as Colonel and served with distinction in many battles, the regiment suffered frightful losses at Shiloh.[—]Karl F. Henningsen, in 1860, appointed advisor to Governor Wise of Virginia; born in Hanover; fought in the Carlist army in Spain at 17, then in Russia, participated in the Hungarian revolution and became leader of a filibuster party in Nicaragua.—August Buechel, Confederate brigadier general, former officer at Hesse-Darmstadt, killed in the battle of Pleasant Hill, La., struck by seven bullets; also served in the Mexican war.—W. K. Bachmann, Captain, Charleston German artillery; rendered distinguished service.

Germantown Settlement.

Germantown Settlement.—On March 4, 1681, a royal charter was issued to William Penn for the province of Pennsylvania, and on March 10, 1682, Penn conveyed to Jacob Telner, of Crefeld, Germany, doing business as a merchant in Amsterdam; Jan Streypers, a merchant of Kaldkirchen, a village in the vicinity of Holland, and Dirck Sipmann, of Crefeld, each 5,000 acres of land, to be laid out in Pennsylvania. On June 11, 1683, Penn conveyed to Gavert Remke, Lenard Arets and Jacob Isaac Van Bebber, a baker, all of Crefeld, 1,000 acres of land each, and they, together with Telner, Streypers and Sipmann, constituted the original Crefeld purchasers.

The present generation is indebted to former Governor Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker, LL.D., of Pennsylvania, at one time presiding judge of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, and senior vice president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, for important information on the settlement of Germantown, and directly to his book, “The Settlement of Germantown, Pa., and the Beginning of German Emigration to North America,” a valuable historical compilation, now out of print. “The settlement of Germantown, in 1683,” he writes, “was the initial step in the great movement of people from the regions bordering on the historic and beautiful Rhine, extending from its source in the mountains of Switzerland to its mouth in the lowlands of Holland, which has done so much to give Pennsylvania her rapid growth as a colony, her almost unexampled prosperity, and her foremost rank in the development of the institutions of the country.”

From the pages of his book we learn that the “Concord,” which bore the Germantown settlers to our shores, was a vessel of 500 tons, William Jeffries, master. She sailed July 24, 1683, from Gravesend, with the following passengers and their families:

Lenard Arets, Abraham Op den Graeff, Dirck Op den Graeff, Hermann Op den Graeff, William Streypers, Thonas Kunders, ReynierTyson, Jan Seimens, Jan Lensen, Peter Keurlis, Johannes Bleikers, Jan Lucken and Abraham Tunes, all Low Germans. The date of her arrival was October 6, 1683.

The three Op den Graeffs were brothers. Herman was a son-in-law of Van Bebber; they were accompanied by their sister Margaretha, and their mother, and they were cousins of Jan and William Streypers, who were also brothers. The wives of Thonas Kunders and Lenard Arets were sisters of the Streypers, and the wife of Jan was the sister of Reynier Tyson (Theissen).Peter Keurlis was also a relative, and the location of the signatures of Jan Lucken and Abraham Tunes on the certificate of the marriage of the son of Thonas Kunders with a daughter of William Streypers in 1700 indicates that they, too, were connected with the group by family ties. “It is now ascertained definitely,” writes Governor Pennypacker, “that eleven of these thirteen emigrants were from Crefeld, and the presumption that their two companions, Jan Lucken and Abraham Tunes, came from the same city is consequently strong. This presumption is increased by the indication of relationship and the fact that the wife of Jan Seimens was Mercken Williamsen Lucken.”

Pastorius had sailed six weeks earlier and had arrived in Philadelphia August 20, 1683. Governor Pennypacker has traced with remarkable minuteness the movements of the first concrete German settlement, and his invaluable work should not be allowed to slumber in a few surviving copies, now selling as high as $50 as literary curiosities, on the shelves of a few large libraries, but should be reprinted and made accessible to a larger reading public. The influence of this settlement in later generations is discussed elsewhere. (See under “[Pastorius].”) The history of the “Concord” is given in Seidensticker’s “Bilder aus der Deutsch-Pennsylvanischen Geschichte” and valuable information is contained in “The German Element in the United States,” by Albert B. Faust, (Houghton Mifflin Company), who has done more than any other American author to gather the scattered records of German immigration, culture and influence and to present them within the convenient compass of two volumes.

THONAS KUNDERS’ HOUSE,
5109 Main Street, Germantown, Pa.

Thonas Kunders’ house, 5109 Main street, Germantown, is the only house of the original settlers that can be accurately located. Thonas Kunders was a dyer by trade. His death occurred in the fall of 1729. He was the ancestor of the Conard and Conrad families. Among his descendants is included Sir Samuel Cunard, founder of the Cunard line of steamships. Here the first meeting of the Society of Friends in Germantown was held, and it was from the members of this little meeting that a public protest against slavery was issued early in 1688. Following is a summary of Germantown events:

• 1683—August 16—Pastorius reaches Philadelphia.
• 1683—October 6—Thirteen families from Crefeld reach Philadelphia and settle Germantown.
• 1688—First protest against slavery issued here.
• 1690—First paper mill in America established here.
• 1705—First portrait in oil painted in America, made in Germantown by Dr. Christopher Witt.
• 1708—First Mennonite meeting house in America built in Germantown.
• 1719—February 17—Death of Pastorius.
• 1732—April 8—David Rittenhouse born at Germantown.
• 1743—First Bible in America in a foreign tongue printed in Germantown by Christopher Sauer.
• 1760—Germantown Academy founded.
• 1764—Sauer begins publication of first religious magazine in America.
• 1770—First American book on pedagogy published.
• 1772-73—First type ever cast in America made in Germantown.
• —(“Guidebook to Historic Germantown.”)

Why Germany Strengthened Her Army, Told by Asquith.

Why Germany Strengthened Her Army, Told by Asquith.—(From a London dispatch by Marconi wireless to the New York “Times” under date of January 1, 1914): “The ‘Daily Chronicle’ this morning publishes the conversation with the Chancellor’s consent.... Another reason which the Chancellor (Asquith) gave was that the continental nations were directing their energies more and more to strengthening their land forces. ‘The German army,’ he said, ‘was vital to the very life and independence of the nation itself, surrounded as Germany was by nations each of which possessed armies almost as powerful as her own.... Hence Germany was spending huge sums of money on the expansion of her military resources.’”

Hagner, Peter.

Hagner, Peter.—First to hold the position of Third Auditor of the U. S. Treasury upon the creation of that office in 1817 under President Monroe. Served the government 57 years and died at Washington, July 16, 1849, aged seventy-seven. Born in Philadelphia, October 1, 1772.

Hartford Convention, The.

Hartford Convention, The.—In no section of the country was there louder acclaim of President Wilson’s public insinuations of disloyalty against German Americans than in New England. The Boston papers particularly distinguished themselves in applauding this unwarranted sentiment. And it came with particularly bad grace from this section, which long antedated the South in measures designed to embarrass and disrupt the Union. During the War of 1812 the New England banks sought to cripple the federal government in securing the necessary money to prosecute the war against England, and late in 1814 the legislature of Massachusetts called a convention of the New England states to meet at Hartford in December of that year. The sessionswere secret and while the discussion was never published they were commonly held to be treasonable and intended to destroy the Union.The Convention recognized the principle of secession by proclaiming that “a severence of the Union by one or more states, against the will of the rest and especially in the time of war, can be justified only by absolute necessity.” The Convention made demands, the apparent intention of which was “to force these demands upon an unwilling administration while it was hampered by a foreign war, or in case of refusal to make such refusal a pretext for dismembering the Union.... An additional object of the Convention was to hamper and cripple the administration to the last degree, and at a moment when the country was overrun by a foreign foe, to overthrow the party in power, or to break up the Union. The men of this Convention were among the leading Federalists of the country, and with all their good qualities it is evident that their patriotism was shallow.” (“History of the United States” by Henry William Elson, Ph. D., Litt. D., The MacMillan Company, p. 446-447.) The work of the Convention came to naught. Peace put a stop to its intended mischief.

Hempel.

Hempel.—German American inventor of the much patented iron “quoin,” used to lock type in the form, and in common use by printers.

New York Herald Urges Hanging of German Americans.

New York Herald Urges Hanging of German Americans.—The New York “Herald,” owned and directed by James Gordon Bennett, since deceased; who for thirty-five years was a resident of Paris, in its issue of July 12, 1915, advocated the lynching of German Americans by referring to them as “Hessians” and adding: “A rope attached to the nearest lamp post would soon bring to an end their career of crime.”

Hereshoffs and Cramps.

Hereshoffs and Cramps.—Who in the great yachting world of America has not heard of the Hereshoffs, the famous builders of racing yachts whose achievements won international fame for the United States? The original Hereshoff, Karl Friedrich, was born in Minden, Germany, and came to this country an accomplished engineer in 1800, establishing himself at Providence, R. I., where he married the daughter of John Brown, a shipbuilder. Their son and their grandsons took up naval architecture, and their remarkable achievements culminated in the fast racing yachts designed by John B., famous as the blind yacht builder, whose vessels successfully defended the American Cup against English contestants in several great international trials. The Cramps, great American ship builders, are also of German descent. Johann Georg Krampf, the founder, was a native of Baden, who came to the U. S. in the middle of the 17th century, and members of the family established what is now one of the greatest shipbuilding firms in the world.

Herkimer, General Nicholas.

Herkimer, General Nicholas.—Won the battle of Oriskany, which many regard as the decisive battle of the Revolution. Was the eldestson of Johann Jost Herkimer (or Herchheimer), a native of the German Palatinate, and one of the original patentees of what is now part of Herkimer County, N. Y. Was commissioned a lieutenant in the Schenectady militia, January 5, 1758, and commanded Fort Herkimer that year when the French and Indians attacked the German Flats. Appointed colonel of the first battalion of militia in Tryon County in 1775, and represented his district in the County Committee of Safety, of which he was chairman. Was commissioned brigadier general Sept. 5, 1776, by the Convention of the State of New York, and August 6, 1777, commanded the American forces at the battle of Oriskany, where he received a mortal wound but directed the battle from under a tree until its successful conclusion, dying ten days later at his home, the present town of Danube, N. Y.

Congress testified its appreciation of his service by twice passing resolutions requesting New York to erect a monument at the expense of the United States. A statue of the famous German American has finally been erected at Herkimer, N. Y., through the liberality of former U. S. Senator Warner Miller. The battle of Oriskany was fought by the Mohawk Valley Germans without assistance, other reports notwithstanding. A part of the American troops under Herkimer refused to co-operate and left the Germans to the number of only 800 to engage the enemy alone.

Quoting an American writer: “The battle of Oriskany was one of the most important battles of the Revolution, and General Washington said it was ‘the first ray of sunshine.’ The British forces, under Col. St. Leger, had landed at Oswego, coming from Canada, under orders to march through the Mohawk Valley to Albany, there to join Burgoyne, who was coming down from Canada with a large army, by way of Lake Champlain. These two forces were to meet at Albany and then go down the Hudson River, thus dividing the forces of the Americans. If this plan had succeeded doubtless the Revolution would have failed. However, the defeat of St. Leger at Oriskany sent his army back to Canada, and the defeat of Burgoyne later at Saratoga ended the entire movement and led to the final victory at Yorktown.”

H. W. Elson, in his “History of the United States of America,” says, “Oriskany was without exception the bloodiest single conflict in the war of the Revolution.... Nothing more horrible than the carnage of that battle has ever occurred in the history of warfare.”

GENERAL HERKIMER

In the Magazine of American History for August, 1884, was printed an exhaustive article, “The Story of a Monument,” dealing largely with General Herkimer, the Battle of Oriskany, the character of its hero and the details of his personality and his surroundings. The author, S. W. D. North, quotes ex-Governor Dorsheimer as declaring at the Centennial Celebration: “Oriskany was a German fight. The words of warning and encouragement, the exclamations of praise andof pain, the shouts of battle and of victory, and the command which the wounded Herkimer spoke and the prayers of the dying, were in the German language.” The author holds, however, that even then the admixture of races had played pranks with the German names, until today the descendants of many of the participants in that “German fight” would not know the names of their ancestors if spelled on the roster as they were spelled correctly at the time Oriskany was fought. The problem was further complicated by the fact, says North, that the original Palatinates and their descendants who comprised the bulk of the yeomanry of the Mohawk Valley in the Revolution, were not an educated people. General Herkimer would be called an ignorant man these days. One of the most curious of the few existing specimens of his manuscript is preserved by the Oneida Historical Society, and throws a strange light on the mixed jargon in which even the hero of Oriskany issued his military orders and incidentally proves that the present spelling of his name was not his own way:

“Ser you will order your bodellyen do merchs immeedeetleh do fordedward weid for das brofiesen and amonieschen fied for on betell. Dis yu will dis ben your berrell—from frind.

NICOLAS HERCHHEIMER.

“To Cornell pieder bellinger

“ad de flets

“Ochdober 18, 1776”

Rendered into English, the order reads as follows:

“Sir: You will order your battalion to march immediately to Fort Edward with four days’ provisions and ammunition fit for one battle. This you will disobey (at) your peril.

From (your) Friend,
NICOLAS HERCHHEIMER.

“To Colonel Peter Bellinger, at the Flats.

“October 18, 1776.”

The Herkimer homestead is still preserved, and has now become an institution under the care of the State of New York. Agitation to bring this about was initiated by the German American Alliance, which raised the money to make the homestead a national memorial. The legislature granted a charter placing it under the care of the German American Alliance and the Daughters of the American Revolution, who for years co-operated peacefully in the loving task entrusted to them. Late in December, 1919, the last German American connected with the committee was forced out as a result of the desire to obliterate every reminder of the share of the German element in the memorial. (See “[Palatine Declaration of Independence]” elsewhere.)

The Hessians.

The Hessians.—The bitter partisan feeling during the war has led to a widespread misrepresentation of the share which the Germans took in the Revolutionary War. The employment by England of some thousands of mercenaries recruited in Anspach and Hessia against the American colonies has been extended to include all Germany,regardless of the fact that there was no more ardent supporter of the cause of the colonists in Europe than the King of Prussia. The Hessians were sold to Great Britain at so much per head by their ruler. Their traffic was scathingly denounced by Frederick and the infamous transaction severely condemned by Schiller in his play, “Cabal and Love.”

Hessia represented to the rest of Germany, at that time composed of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and other States, about what Delaware represents to the whole of the United States. To blame all Germany for the misconduct of an unconscionable princeling is the extreme of injustice. Counting the German regiments under Rochambeau, nominally designated as Frenchmen, and the large number of German settlers in the ranks of Washington’s army under Herkimer, Muhlenberg, Steuben, Woedtke, Pulaski, etc., the Hessian-Anspach contingent was more than offset by the Germans fighting for the cause of American independence.

Thousands of Hessians were induced by their German countrymen to come over and enlist under the banner of the colonists. Pulaski’s flying squadron was recruited from these deserters. Some of the best troops in Washington’s immediate surrounding were former Hessians, and a Hessian deserter became one of Washington’s most trusted messengers in matters of war.

At the end of the war the country was full of Hessians. Many settled in Lebanon, Lancaster and Reading, Pa., and about 1,600 settled four miles from Winchester, Va., in 1781. Some of the sterling troops which made up Jackson’s Stonewall brigade in the Civil War were made up of the descendants of the Germans, many of them Hessians, who settled in the Shenandoah Valley.

If the Hessians, fighting reluctantly for a cause in which they had no heart, must be condemned by public sentiment, what shall be said of the native Americans, the Tory element, 26,000 of whom fled to Canada, while thousands of others fought in the English ranks against their own kin? Among the troops surrendered at Yorktown under Lord Cornwallis and General O’Hara, we find enumerated a body of South Carolina militiamen called “Volunteers,” “the Royal American Rangers,” etc., not counting the American deserters who had joined Cornwallis during the siege. (See “[Frederick the Great and the American Colonies.]”)

Hillegas, Michael.

Hillegas, Michael.—First Treasurer of the United States, appointed July 29, 1776; son of German parents; born in Philadelphia, where his father was a well-to-do merchant. Served till Sept. 2, 1789. Hillegas with several other patriotic citizens came to the aid of the government in the Spring of 1780 with his private means to relieve the distress of Washington’s soldiers, and in 1781 became one of the founders of the Bank of North America, which afforded liberal support to the government during its financial difficulties. When a man namedPhilip Ginter submitted to him a piece of coal which he had found on Mauch-Chunk Hill, Hillegas pronounced it genuine coal, and with several others founded the Lehigh Coal Mining Co. and acquired 10,000 acres of coal land from the State of Pennsylvania. Died in Philadelphia, Sept. 29, 1804.

House, Col. E. M.

House, Col. E. M.—It is claimed that the part played by Col. E. M. House in the diplomatic history of the war has been correctly gauged by but few persons, and these attribute to him the exercise of a greater influence in shaping the program of the Wilson administration than any one else, not excepting the President. Some have sought to trace an intimate connection between the policies that invested the Chief Executive with more power than any president before him with an anonymous novel, “Philip Dru, Administrator,” generally attributed to Colonel House, in which a comprehensive program is laid down for the government of the United States by Dru after finishing a successful war.

It is undeniable that a more than casual analogy may be found between the lines of policy defined in the novel and those seemingly followed by the administration down to the Versailles conference.

“Philip Dru” is the story of an American Cromwell, who prevented an alliance between England and Germany and made one between England and the United States. In the novel Dru wages a successful civil war and sets himself up as the administrator of the country, establishing a dictatorship, remodels our system of government, conquers and incorporates Mexico, remodels our relations with Canada, establishes a close bond with England, wipes out all memories of the Civil War by having Grant and Lee clasp hands on the same pediment, elects his own president and assigns to each of the powers its allotted space in the universe, after which he disappears like the good fairy of the books.

A passage from the novel affords fair insight into its philosophy. On page 156 the author makes Dru say: “For a long time I have known that this hour would come, and there would be those of you who stand affrighted at the momentous change from constitutional government to despotism, no matter how pure and exalted you might believe my intentions to be. But in the long watches of the night I conceived a plan of government which, by the grace of God, I hope to be able to give to the American people. My life is consecrated to our cause and, hateful as the thought of assuming supreme power, I can see no other way clearly, and I would be recreant to my trust if I faltered in my duty.”

The book thus takes on a strange prophetic character, considering that it was published in 1912, two years before the outbreak of the war, as though the writer had laid down a great plan of action which he was in the process of carrying out when the elections of 1918 raised an unexpected obstacle to its further execution.

The close friendship between President Wilson and Colonel House, according to the latter’s biographer, dates from the time when, after having considered Mayor Gaynor of New York and found himself disappointed in his expectations, Colonel House decided to make Wilson President in 1912. In the selection for the Cabinet two prominent Texans, Attorney General Gregory and Postmaster General Burleson, were named, and many others were by him designated for responsible positions. It has been pointed out in certain quarters that many of the most important measures leading up to and including the war bear a more or less striking resemblance to those outlined in “Philip Dru,” even to the investment of the President with almost absolute powers. Colonel House’s residence in New York became the calling place of foreign ambassadors, where vital questions of State and our international relations were dealt with before they reached the President. Count Bernstorff, former German ambassador to the United States, testified before the Reichstag Commission investigating the war that he handed Colonel House an important note on peace which was never heard of afterward.

Colonel House has been called “the mysterious;” he seeks distinction in doing his work in secrecy, rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies in ways not readily apparent, laying out his policies without revealing his hand and executing well-devised plans without the noise and trumpery of cheap publicity. In this manner he is credited with shaping the policies of the administration at the peace conference, where he was, next to the President, the principal representative of the United States, working congenially with Clemenceau and Lloyd George and acting as moderator on the President in the latter’s earlier demands for a stricter observance on the part of the Allies of his Fourteen Points. As related in a Paris correspondence in the New York “Tribune,” dated April 16, 1919, “President Wilson, realizing that he had not sufficient ground for further refusing to meet the demands of the three European allies, accepted the formula which Clemenceau and Lloyd George had worked out for reparations and accepted the plan which Colonel House had previously approved for the surrender of the Saar Valley by Germany for a long period of years, after which a plebiscite shall be held.”

A biographer of Colonel House says that the colonel’s father was born in England and came to the United States during the Texas war for independence against Mexico, in which he participated. Texas having attained its independence, the elder House wanted Texas to become a colony of England, a project which, fortunately, did not materialize. During the Civil War, it is claimed, he acted for England in facilitating British blockade runners. As a boy Colonel House attended a school in England taught by the father of Lloyd George and the friendship between the latter and Colonel House dates back to their youth. During his stay in England he formed many closeattachments for prominent young Englishmen, and, on coming into his father’s extensive property in Texas, he led the life of an English country gentleman and entertained many English gentlemen of family and fortune. His brother-in-law is Dr. Sydney Mezes, president of New York City College, who acted as chairman of the Frontier Commission at the Paris Peace Conference, and his son-in-law is Gordon Auchincloss, who acted as secretary to Colonel House.

The Humanity of War.

The Humanity of War.—About the time of the sinking of the Lusitania, our official notes on this and other subjects in the negotiations with Germany teemed with appeals to humanity. No such view was accepted by England. In the British note of March 13, 1915, Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, told the President: “There can be no universal rule based on considerations of morality and humanity.”

Illiteracy.

Illiteracy.—As a related element of interest in the study of the war from a cultural as well as a military angle the illiteracy of some of the contesting and neutral nations bears strongly on the question:

United States, 7.7% population over 10 years. Of this, the native white population of native parents furnished 3.7% of the illiterates; the native white of foreign or mixed parentage, 1.1%. The negroes are down with 30.4% illiteracy, less than that of Italy or Greece and several other European States engaged in the task of making the world safe for democracy. Even our Indian population (45.3%) shows less illiteracy than Greece, Serbia or Roumania. The illiteracy of our white foreign-born population is recorded at 12.7%.

Immigration.

Immigration.—How much does the United States owe to immigration, as regards the growth of population? Frederick Knapp, worked out a table covering the period from 1790 to 1860, the beginning of the Civil War, intended to show what the normal white population at the close of each decade would have been as a result of only the surplus of births over deaths of 1.38 percent each year, compared with the result as established by the official census figures.

The natural increase of the white population in 160 years would have been only 5,203,952, whereas it was 24,257,732, an increase of 19,053,780 over the natural growth. Statistics show that in 1790 an American family averaged 5.8; in 1900 but 4.6. During the earlier period each family averaged 2.8 children, in 1900 but 1.53, a decline of nearly 50 per cent.

Wilhelm Kaufmann (“Die Deutschen im Am. Burgerkriege,”) makes an ingenious calculation of the value of the immigration of the nineteenth century to the U. S. in dollars and cents. Fifty years ago, he says, a human being had a market price. An adult slave about 1855 was valued at an average of $1,100. Estimating, for the sake of argument, a white immigrant at the same price, the 19,500,000 immigrants for the stated period would represent a value of $21,450,000,000; but as a white man performed three times as much work as a slave, besides having a larger claim on life and a much higher intelligence, a white immigrant represented four times the value of a slave. What value, for instance, was an Ericson to the Union army in the summer of 1862, or a Lieber, a Schurz, a Mergenthaler or a Carnegie? But 22 percent of the total immigration was made up of children under 15 years of age. According to the New York Immigration authorities (1870) every German immigrant averaged a possession of $150 cash on his arrival, representing a total value, as regards German immigration alone, of $750,000,000. A famous English economist says: “One of the imports of the U. S., that of the adult and trained immigrants, would be in an economic analysis underestimated at £100,000,000 ($500,000,000) a year.”—Thorold Rogers, Lectures in 1888, “Economic Interpretations of History,” (p. 407). And the American, James Ford Rhodes (Vol. I, p. 355): “The South ignored, or wished to ignore, the fact that able-bodied men with intelligence enough to wish to better their conditions are the most valuable products on earth, and that nothing can redound more to the advantage of a new country than to get men without having been at the cost of rearing them.”

Because the working conditions in Germany were exceptionally favorable, immigration from the German Empire before the war had reached by far the smallest stage of that of any of the leading nations, save France, where the birthrate has been stationary for many years. The figures for 1914 were only 35,734, while the immigration from Greece was 35,832; Italian immigration in that year reached a total of 283,738 and from Russia 255,660, while England sent us35,864, Scotland 10,682 and Wales 2,183. In 1915 only 7,799 Germans arrived, while England sent us 21,562. The money brought by the Germans totaled $1,786,130, or $221.50 a head, while money brought by the English totaled $3,467,458, a little over $160 a head.

German immigration was never a pauper immigration and of itself refutes the assertion that German immigration was due to fear of military service or political oppression.

The first German immigration from the Palatinate, 237 years ago, was mainly due to the criminal ravages of the French under Louis XIV; that of 1848 was incident mainly to the revolution in Baden, based upon a longing of all thinking Germans for a united Germany, and that of the subsequent period was the spontaneous outpouring of an overpopulated country not yet adjusted to commercial and industrial expansion and the great spread of German enterprise in ship-building and manufacture. As soon as this development had reached a decisive stage, immigration practically ceased. Those who came here obeyed a great economic law by which every man seeks to supply an existing vacancy for his industry; they did not come as beggars, but were welcomed because they were needed. There was no religious oppression in Germany, and in Prussia Frederick the Great proclaimed in the middle of the eighteenth century the doctrine, “In my country every man can serve God in his own way.” If immigration is an infallible sign of the dissatisfaction of the immigrant with conditions at home which drives him to go to another country, the fact that less than 36,000 German immigrants arrived in America in 1914 against a total of 73,417 from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, proves that conditions were vastly better in Germany than in the United Kingdom. (The figures are from the “New York World Almanac” for 1916.)

Anthony Arnoux gives the following table of the total German immigration into the United States for five years, from 1908 to 1912:

The latest statistics available, made public in December, 1919, place the total number of immigrants arriving at American ports for the past 100 years at 33,200,103.

For the fiscal year ending in June, 1919, 237,021 immigrants were admitted and 8,626 were turned back, a net total of 245,647. Duringthe same period 216,231 immigrants left the country. The immigrants arriving totaled a per capita wealth of $112, a total of $15,831,247. Foreign-born soldiers serving in the army during the war were given citizenship to the number of 128,335.

Indians, Tories and the German Settlements.

Indians, Tories and the German Settlements.—The descendants and successors of those who form the very foundation of the government of the United States, bled and died for its existence, cannot suffer themselves to be segregated into a class of tolerated citizens whose voices may be silenced at will. The history of the German element is too closely interwoven with the records of the past and as an element it is too much a part of the bone and muscle of the American nation to remain silent when told that the history of the United States is to be rewritten and the deeds of their forefathers are to be forgotten for the glorification of the Tories who, with their Indian allies, burned the homes of German settlers and dragged their women and children into captivity.

A gruesome chapter of their endurance is supplied by the events in New York State during the Revolutionary War, and notably those events that transpired in the Schoharie and Mohawk valleys. It was the German element in New York State which stood the brunt of the forages of Joseph Brant, the Indian chief, educated by Sir William Johnson and renowned as no other Indian in the history of America for his atrocities under the direction of his English and Tory patrons.

He began operations in July, 1778, by surprising a little settlement of only seven families at Andrustown, Herkimer County, killing two and dragging the women into captivity. It was followed by the attack on the German Flats. This was a settlement of nearly 1,000 souls with about 70 houses, protected by two forts, Fort Dayton and Fort Herkimer. The rich harvest of summer had just been gathered when Brant invaded the valley. Three of the four scouts sent out to report his movements were killed by the Indians; the fourth, John Helmer, returned the last day of August, 1778, and reported the approach of the enemy. The inhabitants, so far as they were able, fled to the protection of the forts with everything movable. With the approach of darkness the next day Brant arrived near the forts with 300 Indians and 152 Tories. He immediately set fire to the abandoned houses with their barns, stables and other buildings and drove off the horses and cattle without daring to attack the forts. The attack resulted in the destruction of 63 houses, 57 barns, three flour and two saw mills, and the loss of 235 horses, 229 head of cattle, 269 sheep and 93 oxen. Two men only lost their lives.

In the Schoharie Valley the summer of 1778 passed without any notable events, but the Indians under Brant in June of that year destroyed Cobelskill. The Indians lured the local company of defenders under Captain Braun into an ambush and practically wiped it out.No less than 23 of the men were killed, others were seriously wounded and only six escaped. The women and children fled into the woods, from which they were able to watch the Indians set fire to their homes and barns. Brant here did not follow up his success, but returned to the Susquehanna, where he and his loyalists wrought the fearful historic carnage among the settlements in the Wyoming Valley, and in July attacked the Mohawk Valley settlements.

About this time the English government offered a prize of $8 for every American scalp. In consequence of this barbarous edict, the border war, which had so far been mainly conducted between regular military forces, degenerated into a series of savage melees. Indians and Tories sought to bring in as many scalps as possible, and murdered children, mothers and old men in order to earn the promised reward of eight dollars. More than one German settler found, on returning home from his fields in the evening, his family butchered, wife and children lying scalped and mutilated in their dwellings or in front of their doorsteps, their skulls crushed if the scalping process was too slow. Scalping became a recognized industry and was conducted for business.

In the evening, after a successful raid, the Indians would stretch the scalps on sticks to dry during the night, while the captured relatives, bound hand and foot, were compelled to witness the revolting process, exposed to a similar fate at the least betrayal of grief, or doomed to suffer a slow death by torture from fire.

An entire bundle of dried scalps, amounting to 1,062 in number, taken by the Seneca Indians, fell into the hands of a New England expedition against the Indians. It was accompanied by a prayer and a complete inventory addressed to the British Governor, Handimand. There were eight items, as follows:

• Lot 1: 43 scalps of soldiers of Congress killed in battle. 62 scalps of farmers killed in their houses.
• Lot 2: 92 scalps of farmers killed in their houses surprised by day, not by night, as the first lot. The red color, applied to the hoops of wood, which were used to stretch the scalp, indicated the difference.
• Lot 3: 97 scalps of farmers killed in their fields, different colors denoting whether killed with tomahawk or rifle ball.
• Lot 4: 102 scalps of farmers, mostly young men.
• Lot 5: 88 scalps of women, those with blue hoops cut from the heads of mothers.
• Lot 6: 193 scalps of boys of different ages killed with clubs or hatchets, some with knives or bullets.
• Lot 7: 121 scalps of girls, large and small.
• Lot 8: 122 scalps of various kinds, among them 29 babies’ scalps, carefully stretched on small white hoops.

The accompanying prayer was worded as follows:

Father, we wish that you send these scalps to the Great King that he may look at them and be refreshed at their sight[—]recognize our fidelity and be convinced that his presents have not been bestowed upon a thankless people.

It was written by James Crawford (spelled Craufurd), January 3, 1782, from Tioga, seeming to indicate that most of the scalps came from the New York frontier. The information is based on Campbell’s “Annals of Tryon County,” pp. 67-70 (appendix).

During 1779 the Schoharie and Mohawk valleys were not molested. In order to punish the Indians for their atrocities in the Wyoming Valley, as well as the western part of New York, Washington had induced Congress to fit out an expedition against the Indians under Sullivan.In August, 1779, General Sullivan and his aide, General Clinton, invaded the valley with 5,000 men, moved against the Six Nations and devastated their territory, crushing them August 29 at Newton, near Elmira, and pursuing them as far as the Genesee Valley, where he destroyed more than forty of their villages. The lack of provisions drove the Indians and their Tory friends into Canada, where they remained quiescent until 1780.

But Sullivan’s course had lacked the requisite energy and, while they had suffered severely, the Indians were by no means discouraged, but, on the contrary, filled with bitter resentment, and as early as the spring of 1780 they reappeared in New York and resumed their former raids.

On April 3 they surprised Riemenschneider’s Bush, a few miles north of Little Falls, burned the flour mill and carried off nineteen prisoners, among them John Windecker, George Adler, Joseph Neumann and John Garter. The latter died from mistreatment; the others were taken to Canada, but released when peace was restored.

During a scouting expedition commanded by Lieutenant Woodworth of Fort Dayton the Americans came into contact with Indians double their number. A fierce hand to hand conflict ensued and only 15 of the Germans escaped; several were taken prisoners and Woodworth fell with more than half his men, who were later buried in a common grave on the spot.

This encouraged the Indians to new atrocities, as this style of warfare was most to their liking. No settler was henceforth safe from surprise and attack; he slept with his gun beside him and at the least sound bounded from his bed to be prepared and to sell his life at least as dearly as possible. Now and then more extensive raids occurred. Brant was the soul and inspiration of every enemy movement. His real purposes were always disguised by skilful manouvers. His spies were everywhere and he was always well informed of everything going on in the valley. He would pretend to attack one place while, in reality, reserving his blow for another, thus keeping the settlers in a constant state of terror and doubt.

In this manner he learned, toward the end of July, 1780, that General Clinton had sent the troops in Canajoharie to Fort Schuylerfor the protection of the stored supplies at that place, and on August 2, at the head of 500 Indians and Tories, suddenly hurled himself upon Canajoharie and instituted a perfect bloodbath. No effective resistance could be rendered, as the entire male population capable of bearing arms was absent. Sixteen men remained dead where they had fallen, 60 women and children were taken prisoners, the church, 63 houses, with their barns and stables, were reduced to ashes, upward of 300 cattle were killed or driven off. All the agricultural implements and tools were lost, so that the survivors were even prevented from gathering their crops ripening in the fields. The fate of Canajoharie was impending over the heads of every other settlement, and nowhere was there the least hope of assistance or the least prospect of peace and quiet.

It would be tiresome to enumerate the many Indian attacks on German settlers in the valley, and these examples out of innumerable instances of heroic deeds (see “[Schell]”) performed by our German ancestors must suffice.

The frontier history of our country abounds in such examples down to the period of the Civil War, when the Germans of New Ulm, Minnesota, again, practically for the last time as settlers, were exposed to Indian massacres in their march to extend our far-flung battle line of civilization into the regions of the primeval wilderness. This border history is dominated by the names of the German, Dutch and English race. No Frenchmen, Russians, Italians or any of the races of southwestern Europe have any share in the reduction of the forests and prairies to the spirit of American sovereignty. French and Spanish settlements remained always a thing apart with never diminishing attachments to Europe, and before and after the Revolution the French were our enemies.

Inventions.

Inventions.—Among the many evidences of German moral and intellectual obliquity cited to justify our indignation was their lack of inventive genius, Prof. Brander Matthews in particular alleging that the Germans had contributed nothing to making possible the automobile, the aeroplane, the telephone, the submarine, the art of photography, etc.

The aeroplane, the automobile and the submarine were each made possible by the invention of the gas engine, and the gas engine was invented by Gottlieb Daimler. By combining Lillienthal’s “glider” with Daimler’s gas engine, the aeroplane became feasible. The first employment of the modern gas engine was by Daimler in running a motorcycle.

Wilhelm Bauer, a Bavarian corporal, in 1850 constructed a submersible craft at Kiel, which though it eventually came to grief, was practically operated and served to spread terror in the Danish navy, which discreetly withdrew from its blockading operations. It was equipped with torpedoes but was navigated by manual operation, noother power being available at that early period. (Boston Transcript.)

The first man to speak over a wire with the aid of electric power and to call his instrument a “telephone,” was Philipp Reis, of Frankfort. In 1868 the inventor wrote as follows: “Incited thereto by my lessons in physics in the year 1860, I attacked a work begun much earlier concerning the organs of hearing, and soon had the joy of seeing my pains rewarded with success, since I succeeded in inventing an apparatus by which it is possible to make clear and evident the functions of the organs of hearing, but with which one can also reproduce tones of all kinds at any desired distance by means of the galvanic current. I named the instrument ‘telephone.’” In Manchester, before the Literary and Philosophical Society, Reis’ telephone was shown in 1865 by Professor Cliften. The invention was however too soon for the world. To Reis’ great disappointment, the Physical Society of Frankfort took no further notice of the invention, the luster of which shone upon them. Other societies treated it as a scientific toy. The Naturalists’ Assembly, including all the leading scientific men of Germany, had, indeed, welcomed him at Giesen; but too late. His sensitive temperament had met with too many rebuffs, and the fatal disease with which he was already stricken told upon his energies. In 1873 he disposed of all his instruments and tools to Garnier’s Institute. To Herr Garnier he made the remark that he had shown the world the way to a great invention which must now be left to others to develop. On January 14, 1874, he was released by death. In December, 1878, a monument was erected to him in the cemetery of Friedricksdorf with the inscription under a medallion portrait: “Here rests Philipp Reis, born January 7, 1834; died January 14, 1874. To its deserving member, the Inventor of the Telephone, by the Physical Society of Frankfort-on-Main. Erected 1878.” (See “Philipp Reis, Inventor of the Telephone; a Biographical Sketch with Documentary Testimony, Translation of the Original Papers of the Inventor and Contemporaneous Publications,” by Sylvanus Thompson, B. A. DSc., Professor of Experimental Physics in University College, Bristol.)

The first modern photographic lens was invented by J. Petzval, of Vienna; the rectilinear lens by Steinheil; the Jena glass and anastigmatic lens by Abbe and Schott, of Jena, Prussia.

English View of Paul Jones.

English View of Paul Jones.—In the process of rewriting the history of the United States, as now in progress, in what light will American school children be taught to regard their great naval hero, John Paul Jones, whose remains in a Paris cemetery were exhumed about twenty years ago by order of our government and brought back to America with all the solemn pomp paid to the greatest of men? England’s estimate of him is evidenced by clippings of the contemporary English press, which Don C. Seitz a few years ago compiled into “Paul Jones, His Exploits in English Seas.” It contains clippingsof three types: first, slanders on Jones’ personal character; secondly, false reports as to his activities and capture; thirdly, editorial comment in which political morals are deduced or the consequences of his raids are touched upon.

In the first category come such passages as the following:

“Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser,” May 8, 1778: The captain of the Ranger, John Paul, was some time ago master of a vessel called the John, belonging to Kirkudbright, stood a trial in London for the murder of his carpenter and was found guilty, but made his escape.

This is the seed, evidently, from which grew the following tale:

“Morning Post and Daily Advertiser,” Thursday, September 30, 1779: “Paul Jones, or John Paul, which is his real name, is a man of savage disposition. He was for many years a commander of a coasting vessel, in which time he committed many barbarities upon his crew—one of which will forever stamp his character as a dark assassin. Between Whitehaven and Bristol he took a deep dislike to one of his crew and meditated revenge, which he performed as follows: One evening upon deck he behaved with more than common civility toward him, and calling him aside to do something of the ship’s duty, the unsuspecting man went, when Jones desired him to lay hold of a rope which was out of reach; Jones then desired him to stand on a board (the board having been so balanced that a small weight would overturn it), which he did, when he fell into the sea and was drowned.... Thus he got rid of an innocent man without being suspected of murder.”

This story was repeated in a number of other papers with suitable variations, and once, on the authority of a “reliable lady of our acquaintance,” the then equivalent of our “reliable, well-informed sources.” Some of the news sheets accuse him, moreover, of being the son of a gardener, of owing his watchmaker money for several years, of knocking down his schoolmaster with a club, of cold-bloodedly sinking a boat-load of deserters with solid shot; of cowardice in refusing to fight a duel; of dishonesty in money matters; of “concealing a quantity of lead in his clothes to sink himself, should he be overcome by the English.”

Jefferson on English Hyphenates and English Perfidy.

Jefferson on English Hyphenates and English Perfidy.—Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates, Pennsylvania: “Those who have no wish but for the peace of their country and its independence of all foreign influence have a hard struggle indeed, overwhelmed by a cry as loud and imposing as if it were true, of being under French influence, and this raised by a faction composed of English subjects residing among us, or such as are English in all their relations and sentiments. However, patience will bring all to rights, and we shall both live to see the mask taken from their faces and our citizens be made sensible on which side true liberty and independence are sought.”

Thomas Jefferson to John Langdon, the Governor of New Hampshire: “But the Anglo-men, it seems, have found out a much safermeans than to risk chances of death or disappointment. That is that we should first let England plunder us, as she has been doing for years, and then ally ourselves with her and enter into the war. This, indeed, is making us a mighty people and what is to be our security, that when embarked for her in the war she will not make a separate peace, and leave us in the lurch. Her good faith! The faith of a nation of merchants! The PUNCIA FIDES of modern Carthage! Of the friend and protectress of Copenhagen! Of a nation which never admitted the chapter of morality in her political code and is now avowing that whatever she can make hers, is hers by right! Money and not morality is the principle of commerce and commercial nations. But in addition to this the nature of the English nation forbids of its reliance upon her engagements and it is well known that she has been the least faithful to her alliances of all nations of Europe, since the period of her history wherein she has been distinguished for her commerce and corruption and that is to say, under the Houses of Stewart and Brunswick.”

Jefferson’s Tribute to German Immigration.

Jefferson’s Tribute to German Immigration.—From Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Gov. Claiborne: “Of all foreigners I should prefer Germans.”

Kultur” in Brief Statistical Form.

“Kultur” in Brief Statistical Form.—A brief statistical abstract of comparative data which vitally illustrates German “kultur” before the war, has been compiled by D. Trietsch and published by Lehmann of Munich under the title of “Germany: A Statistical Stimulant.”

Knobel, Caspar.

Knobel, Caspar.—It was Caspar Knobel, a German-American, eighteen years of age, who, in command of a detachment of fourteen men of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, arrested President Jefferson Davis of the Southern Confederacy, near Abbeville, Ga., and it was a German-American, Maj. August Thieman, who was in command of Fortress Monroe while Mr. Davis was confined there. Knobel, after two days’ march without food, discovered the camp of the Confederate leader, and, throwing back the flap of his tent, placed him under arrest. He received a part of the reward offered by the Union for President Davis’ capture, and was given a gold medal. (Washington “Herald,” May 10, 1908.) Maj. August Thieman died at Valentine, Nebr., in utter destitution. He had served as an enlisted man and officer continuously for over forty-two years. His record, on file in the War Department, shows that he took active part in 242 battles, and was wounded seven times. He served in the United States, Mexico, Egypt, and other places, and held autograph letters from, and was well acquainted with Lincoln, Davis and Stonewall Jackson. It was Gov. Thieman who was in charge of Fortress Monroe while Mr. Davis and his family were prisoners there.

Know Nothing or American Party.

Know Nothing or American Party.—A political party which came into prominence in 1853. Its fundamental principle was that the government of the country should be in the hands of native citizens. At first it was organized as a secret oath bound fraternity; and from their professions of ignorance in regard to it, its members received the name of Know Nothings. In 1856 it nominated a presidential ticket, but disappeared about 1859, its Northern adherents becoming Republicans, while most of its Southern members joined the short-lived Constitutional Union party. It was preceded by the Native American party, formed about 1842, an organization based on hostility to the participation of foreign immigrants in American politics, and to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1844 it carried the city elections in New York and Philadelphia, and elected a number of Congressmen. It disappeared within a few years, after occasioning destructive riots against Catholics in Philadelphia and other places. In St. Louis a Know Nothing mob, led by E. C. Z. Judson (“Ned Buntline”), attempted to destroy Turner Hall, the German Athletic Club, but was easily repelled by a group of resolute Germans, who guarded the approaches by stationing guns at the four street corners and riflemenon top of the adjacent houses. T. W. Barnes, in his life of Thurlow Weed, writes: “If a member of the order was asked about its practices, he answered that he knew nothing about them, and ‘Americans’ for that reason soon came to be called Know Nothings!”

Koerner, Gustav.

Koerner, Gustav.—One of the most conspicuous fighters in the Civil War period, “whose important life is well documented,” Prof. A. B. Faust, of Cornell University, says, “in his two-volume memoirs. They furnish abundant evidence of the fact, well established by recent historical monographs, that the balance of power securing the election of Lincoln, with all its far-reaching consequences, lay with the German vote of the Middle West. Koerner’s modesty and unselfishness were extraordinary. He repeatedly sacrificed his chance for political preferment in deference to others less capable, and he surprised his political friends at the opening of the war by refusing high military rank, because, he said, he had not had the training needed for an officer. Koerner was elected lieutenant-governor of the State of Illinois, 1853-56, and in 1861 was appointed by Lincoln to succeed Schurz as minister to Spain. Koerner had the honor of being one of Lincoln’s pall-bearers, for few men had been closer to the martyr President before the election. Schurz, Koerner and Lieber,” declares Prof. Faust, “represent at their best, the idealism and independence, the honest, unselfish patriotism, and the intelligent action of the Germans in American politics. Their existence in American politics had not been marked by the holding of many offices, but on great national issues their presence has always been strongly felt. In the fact that they were not seeking anything for themselves lay their strength, their independence and their power for good. The independent voter is the despair of the politician and the salvation of the country.”

Kudlich, Dr. Hans, the Peasant Emancipator.

Kudlich, Dr. Hans, the Peasant Emancipator.—The name of Dr. Hans Kudlich has been coupled with that of Abraham Lincoln as “the great emancipator.” Through measures carried by him through the Austrian Parliament, attended with revolutionary outbreaks, violence and bloodshed—he himself being wounded in the struggle—14,000,000 Austrian peasants were finally relieved from serfdom.Dr. Kudlich fled to the United States in 1854 and died at Hoboken, N. J., November 11, 1917, aged 94.

He was born in Lohenstein, Austrian Silesia, October 23, 1823.He studied jurisprudence at the University of Vienna and joined the students’ revolutionary movement, and, failing to secure consideration for a petition for the freedom of the press, of religion and of speech, he participated in the students’ revolt in 1848 against Metternich. The government’s draft of a constitution affording no satisfaction, the Academic Legion and the workmen marched under arms and forced the suspension of the constitution and of the popular assembly. Hewas sent as delegate to the first Austrian Parliament when still under 25 years of age after being severely wounded.

In his three-volume “Memoirs and Reviews,” published in Vienna in 1873, he describes the peasant as simply without rights, bound to the soil—half serfs—ruled by nobles who were nearly free to do with them as they liked, compelled to work on their landlord’s estates without wages three days a week, boarding themselves and furnishing their own implements, horses, wagons, plows and other tools. Added to this were countless interests, money and titles, all of which were paid by the poor peasant to his rich master. The heirs of a peasant who died had to pay to the landlord 10 per cent. of the realized value of the farm. On top of this the landlord was at the same time his own policeman and court of last resort, with power to incarcerate the peasant and even to condemn him to be flogged, while the suffering peasants were further subjected to the assessment of tithes by the church and to payment of taxes to the communes, road improvements and quartering of troops.

“In near-by Prussia,” he writes, “those oppressive measures had long been abolished. Looking across the border, the Austrian peasants of Silesia became still more clearly conscious of their degradations.”

His first parliamentary act was to introduce a bill to abolish involuntary servitude. It was debated six weeks in open session, but in the end a fully satisfactory law was passed and approved by the Emperor.

The bold course of the young parliamentarian created a sensation throughout Austria, and a colossal ovation to the “peasant emancipator” was instituted in Vienna, taking the form of a torchlight procession with twenty-four deputations of peasants from all parts of Austria participating.

A new revolutionary movement was soon inaugurated because of the course of the government toward Hungary. In the riots Count Latour, the Minister of War, was brutally murdered and the ungovernable populace scored a temporary victory until Vienna was invested and taken by Field Marshal Windischgraetz. Kudlich’s attempt to recruit a peasant legion to relieve Vienna ended dismally and led to his indictment for high treason. Parliament was forcibly dissolved and Kudlich fled to Germany, where he was joined by one of his confederates, Oswald Ottendorfer. The young revolutionist was received with open arms by the revolutionary party of Baden, and he was appointed secretary to the Minister of Justice, Fries. Here he made the acquaintance of his later friends, Carl Schurz and Franz Sigel. The revolution failed and Dr. Kudlich, with the remainder of Sigel’s Baden army, fled to Switzerland. Here he remained four years, studying medicine, but even here the long arm of the Austrian reactionary government reached him, and, being ordered by the Swissgovernment to leave the country, he came to the United States and at Hoboken established a lucrative practice. He was active in politics and an outspoken abolitionist before the Civil War, but never accepted an office.

Repeatedly he revisited his old home across the sea; first in 1872, after the passage of the amnesty act of 1867, on which occasion he was received with princely ovations in many cities. Everywhere pains were taken to commemorate his service as the peasant emancipator by monuments and other evidences of the respect and love with which he was regarded.

Langlotz, Prof. C. A.

Langlotz, Prof. C. A.—Composer of famous Princeton College song, “Old Nassau,” one of the songs of which it is said that they will never die, and sung by fifty-four Princeton classes. Was born in Germany, the son of a court musician at Saxe-Meiningen. Prof. Langlotz came to the United States in 1856, already a distinguished musician, opened a studio in Philadelphia, and later became instructor of German at Princeton. He composed “Old Nassau” in 1859. Died at Trenton, N. J., November 25, 1915.

Lehman, Philip Theodore.

Lehman, Philip Theodore.—Born in the electorate of Saxony, emigrated to this country and became one of the secretaries of William Penn; and in that capacity wrote the celebrated letter to the Indians of Canada, dated June 23, 1692, the original of which is framed and hung up in the Capitol at Harrisburg.

Lehmann, Frederick William.

Lehmann, Frederick William.—Solicitor General of the United States, December, 1910-12, and prominent lawyer, resident of St. Louis. Born in Prussia, February 28, 1853. Government delegate and chairman committee on plan and scope Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists, St. Louis, 1904; chairman commissions on congresses and anthropology, Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company; president St. Louis Public Library, 1900-10; chairman Board of Freeholders City of St. Louis; president American Bar Association; second vice president Academy of Jurisprudence.

Leisler, Jacob.

Leisler, Jacob.—The first American rebel against the British misrule in America to die for his principles. When the people of the Colonies heard of the revolution in England, they at once made movements to regain law and freedom. In New York, on May 31, 1689, Jacob Leisler a (German) Commissioner of the Court of Admiralty, took the fort on Manhattan Island, declared for the Prince of Orange, and planted six cannon within the fort, from which the place was ever afterwards called “The Battery.” A committee of safety was formed which invested Leisler with the powers of a governor. When, however, a dispatch arrived from the authorities of Great Britain, directedto “such person as, for the time being, takes care for preserving the peace and administering the laws in his majesty’s province in New York,” Leisler, considering himself governor, dissolved the Committee of Safety and organized the government throughout the whole province. There was division among the New Yorkers. The minority, being mostly the English aristocracy, were against Leisler; but the people in great majority were in sympathy with him. It was the old conflict between the few and the many, with “all the people” sure to win in the end.... Jacob Leisler was probably among the first of far-sighted men to see the necessity of union against the French.... To him, the importance of a federation of all the colonies seemed vital. After vainly trying to get other governors to unite with him, Leisler, early in 1690, sent a small fleet against Quebec.

From the very first New York was infested with that sentiment for unison which she has shown in all political disturbances and wars throughout all her history. Very appropriately, on her soil, was held the first Congress to propose an elaborate plan of union.... A hard-drinking Englishman, named Sloughter, was appointed the royal governor of New York. On his arrival Leisler refused to surrender the fort and government, until convinced that Sloughter was the regularly appointed agent of the King. Those who hated Leisler seized this opportunity of having him and Milborne, his son-in-law, imprisoned. After a short and absurd trial, they were condemned, and the governor, when drunk, signed an order of execution. On May 16, 1691, Leisler and Milborne were hanged on the spot east of the Park in New York City where stands the “Tribune” building, opposite which are the statues of Benjamin Franklin and Nathan Hale, and near which the figure of Leisler may yet come to resurrection in bronze. The outrageous act of the King was disapproved. In 1695, by an act of Parliament, Leisler’s name was honored, indemnity was paid to his heirs, and the remains of these victims of judicial murder were honorably buried within the edifice of the Reformed Dutch Church. No unprejudiced historian can but honor Leisler, the lover of union, and the champion of the people’s rights. (“The Romance of American Colonization,” by William Elliot Griffis, D. D.)

A bust of Leisler was unveiled a few years ago at New Rochelle, N. Y., as Governor Leisler had given welcome to the French refugees coming to New York, and made provision for them by purchasing land at New Rochelle. Leisler sought in 1690 to do what Benjamin Franklin tried to accomplish in 1740 toward a union of the colonies for mutual protection.

Benson J. Lossing calls Leisler “the first martyr to the democratic faith of America.”

Lieber, Francis.

Lieber, Francis.—One of the most distinguished German Americans of the Civil War period, was born in Berlin in 1793, and as a schoolboyenlisted under Blücher and participated in the battle of Ligny, which immediately preceded the battle of Waterloo, and was wounded, returning home to resume his work as a schoolboy. Studied at Jena, Halle and Dresden, and taking part in public movements which were characterized as dangerous, was twice arrested, and at twenty-one took part in the Greek struggle. He left Germany in 1825 and spent a year in England, after which he came to the United States. After passing a short time in Boston, he went to Philadelphia, where he engaged in the preparation of the “Encyclopedia Americana,” modeled upon “Brockhau’s Conversations Lexikon;” it was published in Philadelphia. After preparing an elaborate scheme for the management of Girard College, he engaged on independent authorship, went to the University of South Carolina in 1835 as Professor of History and Political Economy, and there wrote and taught until 1857, when he gladly left the South.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he was quietly settled at Columbia College in New York, but one of his sons entered the Confederate service, another joined the Illinois troops in the Union army, and a third was given a commission in the regular army, while he himself began the work of legal adviser to the Government on questions of military and international law. In this capacity he prepared a code of instructions for the government of the armies of the United States in the field, and thenceforth was in constant employment in that direction, putting his vast store of learning at the disposal of the authorities on every fitting occasion. Although at an earlier period he had written in a somewhat disparaging tone of the aims and status of the German Americans, he saw that his apprehensions were at fault, as some 200,000 German-born Americans and above 300,000 German Americans of the second and third generations served in the Union Army.

He maintained a close correspondence with the leading German professors, Bluntschli, Mohl and Holtzendorff, and did much to secure in Germany a proper appreciation of the great work done for the world by securing the perpetuation of the American Union, and later on to make America alive to the merits of the struggle with France which secured German unity. His busy life ended in 1872.

His services, says one biographer, were of a kind not often within the reach and range of a single life, and his memory deserves to be honored and kept green in both his native and his adopted country. He was well represented on the battlefields for the Union by his two sons, Hamilton, who served in the 92nd Illinois, and died in 1876, an officer in the regular army, and Guido, who long after perpetuated Lieber’s name in the register of the regular army institution. The death of another son on the Confederate side was another sacrifice to the Union cause.

His “Instructions for the Armies in the Field,” General Order No. 100, published by the government of the United States, April 24, 1863, was the first codification of international articles of war, and marked an epoch in the history of international law and of civilization, says Rosengarten, and his contributions to military and international law, published at various times during the Civil War, together with his other miscellaneous writings on political science, were reprinted in two volumes of his works, issued by J. B. Lippincott & Co., in 1881, and these, with his memoirs and the tributes paid him by President Gilman and Judge Thayer, are his best monuments. A memoir by T. S. Perry also deserves attention.

Light Horse Harry Lee.

Light Horse Harry Lee.—Delivered the famous eulogy on Washington, in which occur the words, “First in peace, first in war, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” Dec. 27, 1799, in the German Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. (Representative Acheson of Pennsylvania.)

Lincoln of German Descent.

Lincoln of German Descent.—For some years a very interesting discussion has been going on among historians as to the ancestry of President Lincoln. Some claim that he was of English descent and others that his forebears were German. Each disputant gives facts to uphold his theory and is unconvinced by the other, so that the discussion is not yet closed.

When Lincoln became a candidate for President, one Jesse W. Fell prepared his campaign biography. When he asked Lincoln for details as to his ancestors he received this reply: “My parents were born in Virginia of undistinguished families—second families, perhaps I should say. My parental grandfather emigrated from Rockingham County, Va., to Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in which both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, etc.”

Nicolay and Hay, who were secretaries to the President and intimate with him, published an extensive biography in 1890. Prof. M. D. Learned, editor of the German-American Annals, made a special study of the subject, and published the results in 1910. Both of these authorities uphold the English descent. L. P. Hennighausen, of Baltimore, is the leading advocate of the German descent.

Both parties agree that the grandfather of the President was also named Abraham; that he came from Rockingham County, Va., to Kentucky; that his father, John, came to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania; and that these ancestors were Quakers, or non-combatants. Grandfather Abraham bought 400 acres in Kentucky, and on his Land Warrant in 1780, and also in the Surveyor’s Certificate in 1785, the name is spelled “Linkhorn” in each instance.

The first named biographers claim that John’s father was Mordecai,who came from Hingham, Mass., to Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1725. His father was Samuel Lincoln, who emigrated from England in 1635, and settled in the above named New England town. The descendants of this family spread over New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The German name “Linkhorn” is brushed aside as the blunder of a clerk.

The argument for a German ancestry does not go so far back in genealogy, and bases itself more on geography and spelling. It so happens that Berks County and Rockingham County were solid German settlements. In the Pennsylvania county the German dialect is still in general use, and the “Reading Adler,” a German newspaper established in 1796, was issued until 1913, still being one of the few journalistic centenarians in the country. When Washington, as a young man, was surveying Rockingham County, “he was attended by a great concourse of people, who followed him through the woods and would speak none but German.” Many of these settlers were non-combatants, that is, Quakers or Mennonites.

That the name “Linkhorn” in the two documents mentioned is not a mistake is shown by the fact that in the Surveyor’s Certificate is the signature, “Abraham Linkhorn.” And what is even more puzzling and curious, the two witnesses sign as “Josiah Lincoln” and “Hananiah Lincoln.” A search of Virginia records from 1766 to 1776 shows that Clayton Abraham Linkhorn was the youngest officer in the militia, and his name, appearing on many different pages, is always spelled in that manner. On the census lists and tax lists in Pennsylvania the names Benjamin, John, Michael, and Jacob Linkhorn appear, and Nicolay and Hay state that in Tennessee and Kentucky the family name is also thus spelled.

This divergence of opinion is not confined to historians, but has even innoculated the Lincoln family. Some years ago David J. Lincoln, of Birdsboro, Berks Co., Pa., published a pedigree of the Lincoln family. This was at once challenged by Geo. Lincoln, of Hingham, Mass., who published a wholly different pedigree.

The evidence in favor of Lincoln’s German descent cannot be waved aside as the error of a clerk. The purchaser of a strip of land would not expose his title to future legal complications without insisting on a correction of his name, whereas five years and two months elapsed between the issue of the landoffice warrant and the surveyor’s certificate, in which the alleged error is distinctly duplicated. Again the name “Linkhorn” appears under the name of two witnesses spelling their names “Lincoln,” conclusive proof that the distinction was a conscious performance and not an accident. A reasonable conclusion would be that other members of the family had begun to spell their name “Lincoln” instead of “Linkhorn,” probably following popular use in a community predominantly of English ancestry, as is the caseof so many names in the German counties of Pennsylvania.When Koester is anglicised into Custer, Hauk into Hawke, Reyer into Royer, Greims into Grimes and Brauer into Brower, as evidenced by many tombstones of long-dead ancestors, it is a most plausible inference that the same process evolved “Lincoln” from “Linkhorn.”

Land Warrant No. 3334, Issued to Abraham Linkhorn, 1780. The Original in Possession of Colonel R. T. Durrett, Louisville, Ky.

Surveyor’s Certificate Issued to Abraham Linkhorn, 1785, from Record Book “B,” Page 60, in the Office of Jefferson County, Ky.

A bit of interesting collateral evidence in favor of the Linkhorn hypothesis is supplied the editor of the present book by Mrs. G. W. Garvey, who resided in Hoboken, N. J., until 1919, when she removed to California. Mrs. Garvey’s maiden name was Bennett. Her grandparents resided in close proximity to the family of the Lincolns in Illinois. Her grandmother, Mrs. Dameron, often spoke of the Lincolns as neighbors who were referred to as “Dutch” people, “because the Lincolns were in the habit of killing a hog in the fall and making sausages and sauerkraut,” which were among the delicacies exchanged among their neighbors and friends, a typical German custom.

Leutze, Eugene Henry Cozzens.

Leutze, Eugene Henry Cozzens.—Rear Admiral, U. S. N., born in Dusseldorf, Germany, 1847. Appointed to U. S. Naval Academy by President Lincoln, 1863; graduated 1867. While on leave of absence from academy volunteered on board “Monticello” on N. Atlantic Squadron in 1864. Served on numerous surveys, at Naval Academy, 1886-90; Washington Navy Yard, 1892-96; commander “Michigan,” “Alert,” “Monterey,” and participated in taking city of Manila; commandant Navy Yard, Cavite, P. I., 1898-1900; sup’t naval gun factory, Washington, 1900-02; commander “Maine,” then member Board of Inspection and Survey; then commandant Navy Yard, Washington, and sup’t naval gun factory; retired by operation of law, Nov. 16, 1909, but continued on active duty; commandant Navy Yard and Station, New York, 1910.

Long, Francis L.

Long, Francis L.—Was a sergeant in Custer’s command. On the day before the massacre, Long volunteered to carry a message from Gen. Custer through the Indian lines to Major Reno, calling for help. Long got through and Reno moved, but camped at night, and thus failed to save the heroic command. Long was the first trooper to arrive on the scene of the massacre. He was also one of the six survivors of the ill-fated Greely arctic expedition. The New York “Sun” said of him the day after his death, June 8, 1916.:

His Viking constitution and an utter absence of nervousness rendered him almost impervious to the ills of most explorers put on a short diet in a desolate land. He became the hunter of the Greely party, and it was chiefly through him that the commander himself was saved. He never tired of adventure, making several Arctic trips after his first hazardous polar experiment, the last being when he was past 50. Except Rear Admiral Peary, it is said he spent more time north of the Arctic circle than any other white man.

For the last dozen or more years Sergeant Long had charge of the local weather bureau at night, making up the chart and telling the newspapers what folks hereabouts might expect next day. He was an expert meteorologist and frequently made better local predictions than his superiors at Washington.

Born at Wurtemberg, Germany. Came to the United States as a boy and entered the army at 18.

Ludwig, Christian.

Ludwig, Christian.—Purveyor of the Revolutionary Army. Born in Giessen, Germany, 1720; fought in the Austrian army against the Turks, and under Frederick the Great against Austria. Sailed the oceans for seven years and settled in Philadelphia in 1754. Served on numerous committees during the Revolution, and was popularly called the “governor of Latitia Court,” where he owned a bakery. When a resolution was passed by the Convention of 1776 to raise money for arms, and grave doubt was expressed in regard to the feasibility of the plan, Ludwig addressed the President of the Convention in these words: “Although I am only a poor ginger-bread baker, put me down for £200,” which silenced all further objection. By a resolution of Congress (May 3, 1777), Ludwig was given the contract to supply the American army with bread. Here he demonstrated his sterling honesty. His predecessors had furnished 100 pounds of bread to 100 pounds of flour. He declared: “Christoph Ludwig does not intend to get rich out of the war; 100 pounds of flour make 135 pounds of bread, and I shall furnish that.” He was very friendly with Washington, and the commander in chief repeatedly entertained him at table, calling him his “honest friend.” Ludwig bequeathed his not inconsiderable fortune to the object of establishing a fund for a free school for poor children without distinction as regards religion or previous condition.

Liberty Loan Subscriptions.

Liberty Loan Subscriptions.—The German element passed heroically the test of their loyalty in the amounts subscribed to the Third Liberty Loan for the prosecution of the war, and, as usual, they far exceeded the record of other racial elements. The Central Loan Committee gave out a summary on May 3, 1918, which showed the following subscriptions:

The subscriptions of the English and French are not given. A letter addressed to the Central Committee for a more complete report, embodying the subscriptions of all foreign-born citizens, brought the reply that the figures were not available, and no comparison is therefore possible of the relative amounts given by the French and English-born.

Ideals of Liberty.

Ideals of Liberty.—When discussing the question of liberty and the ideals of political freedom, it is safer to consult the recognized authorities on ancient and modern history, famous students of constitutional affairs, than to accept the dictum of political opportunists whose judgments and pronouncements vary with the shift of the wind.

The World War over night transformed the stupid, slow-going, dull-witted German, the “Hans Breitmann” of Leland, and the familiar “Fritz and his little dog Schneider,” into a world figure of adroitness and supernatural finesse in all the arts of deception. From a sodden, beer-guzzling, sauerkraut-eating Falstaff, he was suddenly changed into a finished product of macchiavelian cleverness, or into a knight errant charging around the world to suppress other people’s liberty, and the embodiment of all that stands for autocracy.

While we were at war a good deal of this sort of figure painting was tolerable; but long before we entered the war, it was dangerous for the plain American citizen to express any view that did not describe every German as a Hun and Boche.Yet all the time our libraries were littered with the Latin classics, with Hume, Montesquieu, Guizot and other famous authors, who actually contradicted this verdict of Rudyard Kipling and his followers, and who, we presume, may now be safely taken from the shelf and opened without exposing one to the risk of being prosecuted for high treason, since they speak rather well of our late enemies.

“Liberty,” said the Roman poet Lucanus, “is the German’s birthright.” “It is a privilege,” wrote the Roman historian Florus, “which nature has granted to the Germans, and which the Greeks, with all their art, knew not how to obtain.” Hume, the great English historian, says: “If our part of the world maintain sentiments of liberty, honor, equity and valor, superior to the rest of mankind, it owes these advantages to the seed implanted by those generous barbarians.” “Liberty,” observed Montesquieu, “that lovely thing, was discovered in the wild forests of Germany.” And Guizot, the French historian and statesman, in his “History of Civilization” (Lecture II), makes this observation:

It was the rude barbarians of Germany who introduced this sentiment of personal independence, this love of personal liberty,into European civilization; it was unknown among the Romans, it was unknown in the Christian Church; it was unknown in nearly all the civilizations of antiquity. The liberty that we meet with in ancient civilizations is political liberty; it is the liberty of the citizen. We are indebted for it to the barbarians who introduced it into European civilization, in which, from its first rise it has played so considerable a part and has produced such lasting and beneficial results that it must be regarded as one of the fundamental principles.

Mr. Walter S. McNeill tells us that “in some respects the German (Constitution) is more democratic than our own,” while Professor Burgess (author of the standard work, “Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law”) teaches us that “of the three European constitutions which we are examining, only that of Germany contains in any degree the guarantees of individual liberty which the Constitution of the United States so richly affords” (Book II, chapter 1, page 179, Vol. 1), whereas his opinion of England, as expressed in “The European War of 1914,” is that “there is no longer a British Constitution according to the American idea of constitutional government.... In this only true sense of constitutional government, the British Government is a despotism.... The Russian economic and political systems have more points of likeness with the British than is usually conceived.”

Frank Harris (“England or Germany?” p. 30) writes: “Great Britain is among the least free of modern nations. Her chief titles to esteem belong to the past.” Prof. Yandell Henderson (Yale): “Modern Germany is as unlike the Germany of Frederick the Great, out of which it has developed, as America of to-day is unlike the America of the stagecoach.”

Germany cannot be at once the country painted by Mr. Wilson in 1917 and the country he painted in 1919. In his speech before the A. F. of L. convention in November, 1917, he said:

“All the intellectual men of the world went to school to her. As a university man I have been surrounded by men trained in Germany; men who have resorted to Germany because nowhere else could they get such thorough and searching training, particularly in the principles of science and the principles that underlie modern material achievement. Her men of science had made her industries perhaps the most competent industries of the world, and the label ‘Made in Germany’ was a guarantee of good workmanship and sound material.”

In his address to the French Academy of Moral and Political Science, Paris, May 10, 1919, the same speaker said:

“A great many of my colleagues in American university life got their training, even in political science, as so many men in civil circles did, in German universities.... And it has been a portion of my effort to disengage the thought of American university teachers from the misguided instruction which they had received on this side of the sea.”

And this is the tribute he pays to Prussia in his chapter on Prussian government in his “The State:”

“Prussia has achieved a greater perfection in administrative organization than any other European State.... The modern Prussian constitution is one which may be said to rest on a scientific basis.”

Marix, Adolph.

Marix, Adolph.—Rear Admiral U. S. N. Born at Dresden, Germany, 1848. Graduated Naval Academy 1868. Served on various European and Asiatic stations; Judge Advocate of “Maine” court of inquiry; Captain of port of Manila, 1901-03; commanded “Scorpion” during Spanish-American war and was promoted for conspicuous bravery; chairman Lighthouse Board, retired May 10, 1910. Died in 1919.

Massachusetts Bay Colony Contained Germans.

Massachusetts Bay Colony Contained Germans.—The first Germans in New England arrived, as far as we know, with the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. The proof of this fact, as well as the influence of this first small group, is found in one of the most important pamphlets published in connection with New England colonization, “The Planter’s Plea” (1630). This tract, published in London shortly after the departure of Winthrop’s Puritan fleet, and supposed to have been written by John White, the “patriarch of Dorchester,” and the “father of Massachusetts Bay Colony,” contains the following statement: “It is not improbable that partly for their sakes, and partly for respect to some Germans that are gone over with them, and more that intend to follow after, even those which otherwise would not much desire innovation, of themselves yet for maintaining of peace and unity (the only solder of a weak, unsettled body) will be won to consent to some variations from the forms and customs of our church.”

Some of the early New England Germans reached there via New Amsterdam; we find them in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston, etc. In 1661 the ship surgeon, Felix Christian Spoeri, of Switzerland, paid a visit to Rhode Island. His narrative of New England (“Amerikanische Reisebeschreibung Nach den Caribes Inseln und Neu Engelland”) is one of the few of German pen on early American colonial times still extant—(From “First Germans in North America and the German Element of New Netherland,” by Otto Lohr, G. E. Stechert & Co., New York, 1912.)

Massow, Baron Von.

Massow, Baron Von.—Member of Mosby’s Men on the Confederate side during Civil War. According to a statement of Gen. John S. Mosby, Baron von Massow joined his command on coming to this country from Prussia, where he was attached to the general staff; was severely wounded in an engagement with a California regiment in Fairfax County near Washington, D. C., on which occasion he displayed conspicuous gallantry. He was then discharged and returned to Germany, serving later in the Austro-Prussian and the Franco-Prussian wars. The last that Col. Mosby heard of him wasthat he was commanding the Ninth Corps in the German army. (From a statement of Gen. Mosby, Feb. 12, 1901.)

McNeill, Walter S.

McNeill, Walter S.—Prominent lawyer and law lecturer at Richmond, Va., discussing the “Burgerliches Gesetzbuch,” which is the codified common law of Germany, says:

“As a crystallization of human, not divine, justice, let our lawyers compare the German Code with the Federal statutes and decisions, or the legislative or judicial law of any of our States. Then we can get at something definite, not imaginary, concerning civil liberty in Germany.... The less said by way of comparing German with American criminal law the better.”

Memminger, Christoph Gustav.

Memminger, Christoph Gustav.—Secretary of the Treasury in the Confederate Cabinet, appointed 1861. Born in Mergentheim, Wurtemberg.

Mergenthaler, Ottmar.

Mergenthaler, Ottmar.—Inventor of the Mergenthaler Linotype machine, used in almost every printing office throughout the world. Born in Wurtemberg, Germany, and arrived in Baltimore in 1872, working at his trade of clock and watch manufacturer. The Linotype was the result of years of study and experimentation and represents as great an advance over hand composition as the sewing machine does over the sewing needle.

Military Establishments of Warring Nations.

Military Establishments of Warring Nations.—Germany, occupying the third place in population of eight leading powers, stood in the second place in regard to enlistment in her army and navy, behind Russia and England, respectively. Her expenditures for maintaining the armed force, however, were surpassed by those of England, Russia and France, and in the case of the navy, by those of the United States as well. The per capita cost of her armaments was $4.54, while that of France was $7.91 and that of England $9.97, or twice the capita expenditure of Germany. The following table gives a comparison of population and enlistment in army and navy of eight of the leading countries: (E. Dallmer.)

The estimated expenditure for the year 1913-14 was as follows:

Germany maintained a navy larger than that of the United States and a standing army of 810,000, at an expense of but $1.24 per capita more than that of the United States with a standing army of 75,000. In addition the United States is burdened with a pension system involving large expenditures.

Under President Wilson the United States in peace outstripped the great military powers of the world in militarism, and the 64th Congress passed bills appropriating a larger sum of money for army and navy purposes than Germany did in anticipation of being attacked by a coalition of France, England, Russia and Japan, as will appear from the following table of comparative appropriations:

Minuit, or Minnewit, Peter.

Minuit, or Minnewit, Peter.—Director General of the New Netherlands, purchased the island of Manhattan, the present site of New York City, from the Indians for 60 guldens. Born in Wesel on the lower Rhine. According to a report of Pastor Michaelis, who opened the first divine service in the Dutch language in New Amsterdam in 1623, Peter Minuit acted as deacon of the Reformed Church in Wesel and accepted a similar assignment in the newly founded church of Manhattan. Later entered the service of Sweden, and in 1637 commanded an expedition which founded New Sweden in the Delaware River region near Cape Henlopen and Christian Creek. (See “[Dutch and German].”)

Morgan, J. Pierpont.

Morgan, J. Pierpont.—American banker and financier, appointed by the British Government to look after British interests in America and known as “Great Britain’s ammunition agent.” In a speech in Parliament, Lloyd George stated that D. A. Thomas would “co-operate with Messrs. Morgan & Co., the accredited agents of the British Government.”Morgan floated the famous Russian ruble and $500,000,000 English-French loans and was the chief promoter of the armsand ammunition industry to supply the Allies. The trade in munitions before we entered the war was upward of two billion dollars, of which the Morgan interests received 2 per cent., or $40,000,000 in commissions, exclusive of large additional profits from the companies engaged in the manufacture of munitions in which he and his friends were interested. Under a just construction of neutrality, for Morgan to act against a friendly power under a commission from a foreign government would subject him to arrest under a specific statute of the United States. His niece, nee Burns, is the wife of First Viscount Lewis Harcourt of Nuneham Park, Oxford.

Missouri, How Kept in the Union.

Missouri, How Kept in the Union.—Everyone, even only slightly acquainted with the history of the Civil War, knows that the question of first and greatest importance which arose and demanded solution was that of the position in the struggle of the border slave states, namely, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, writes Prof. John W. Burgess. Mr. Lincoln’s administration gave its attention most seriously and anxiously to the work of holding these slave states back from passing secession ordinances, and preventing them from being occupied by the armies of the Southern Confederacy.

The most important among these states was Missouri. It was the largest; it reached away up into the very heart of the North; it commanded the left bank of the Mississippi for some 500 miles, and the great United States arsenal of the west, containing the arms and munitions for that whole section of our country, was located in St. Louis. It had been stocked to its utmost capacity by the Secretary of War of the preceding administration, Mr. Floyd of Virginia, in the expectation that it would certainly fall into the hands of the South. The Governor of the State, C. F. Jackson, manifested the stand he would take in his reply to President Lincoln’s requisition for Missouri’s quota of the first call for troops. He defied the President in the words: “Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary in its object; inhuman and diabolical and cannot be complied with.”

It happened most fortunately, however, that the Commandant of the arsenal was a staunch Unionist, Nathaniel Lyon. He immediately recognized the peril of the situation. He had only three men to guard the arsenal and there was in the city a full company of secessionist militia calling themselves Minute Men. Moreover, two companies of the State Militia composed of Germans had shortly before been disarmed by the general of the state militia. Under these conditions Lyon turned to F. P. Blair for advice. Blair was acquainted with the views and sympathies of the inhabitants perfectly, and knew that he could rely only upon the Germans to save the arsenal and then the city and the State for the Union.

Thus far Prof. Burgess. The first step toward secession was the establishment of Camp Jackson, at St. Louis, with a view to taking the State out of the Union. General Lyon, who had been recently transferred from Fort Riley, resolved to leave nothing undone to thwart the Confederate plot, and soon had his plans ready. The officers in command of the first four regiments loyal to the Union were Frank P. Blair, Heinrich Baernstein, then publisher of “Der Anzeiger des Westens;” Franz Sigel, of the revolutionary army of Baden, who had distinguished himself at Heppenheim, in Hessia, and at Waghausel and Kuppenheim, and Col. Schuttner. The Turn Verein, located on Tenth, between Market and Walnut streets, was animated by a fighting spirit. Four companies of Turners had assembled early in the night at the St. Louis Arsenal and placed themselves at the disposition of General Lyon. A constant stream of German volunteers added to the regiment, who were provided with arms by the commander. There were approximately 800 men, of whom nine-tenths were of direct German blood.

This was the situation on May 10, 1861. A council of war was held by General Lyon, Blair, Sigel and their associates, and General Lyon decided to strike a blow before the rebels were ready to act. The volunteers were assigned to their posts during the night. By 10 o’clock the next morning Camp Jackson found itself surrounded and General Lyon demanded its surrender. There was no way out, but the full wrath of the defeated rebels turned upon the Germans. As the prisoners were being marched to the arsenal, street riots broke out at many places along the line, and the Germans were assailed on every hand with cries of “dirty Dutch” and other insulting epithets. Almost at the first movement on Camp Jackson, Constantin Standanski, the master-at-arms of the St. Louis Turn Verein, was wounded from ambush, and died several days later.

After the capture of Camp Jackson, Lyon took his troops to Jefferson City, capital of the State, and forced the Governor to fly. Jackson never returned. Lyon took Boonville, where he was reinforced by the First Iowa, and two weeks later moved on Sedalia by way of Tipton. He was there joined by two regiments from Kansas, and went into camp at Springfield.

Meanwhile, General Sigel, with the Second and Third Missouri, took a course toward the southwestern part of the State, coming up with the rebels at Carthage. His artillery, largely composed of the Baden artillerists of 1848, soon got the better of the enemy. A battle took place August 10 at Wilson’s Creek, where the heroic Lyon, recklessly exposing himself, was killed. An imposing monument marks his memory in St. Louis.

This is in brief the story of how Missouri was saved to the Union.

Muhlenberg, Frederick August.

Muhlenberg, Frederick August.—German-American patriot, brother of General Peter Muhlenberg. Elected to the Continental Congress by the Assembly of Pennsylvania 1779 and 1780; Speaker of the Assembly 1781 and 1782; Chairman Pennsylvania Convention to ratify the Constitution of the United States 1787. Member of Congress for four terms, and the first Speaker of the American House of Representatives; also Speaker in the third Congress.

Muhlenberg, Heinrich Melchior.

Muhlenberg, Heinrich Melchior.—Founder of the Lutheran Church in America. Born Sept. 6, 1711, at Eimbeck, Hanover. Sailed 1742, and after paying a visit to the Salzburg Protestants near Savannah, Georgia, settled in Pennsylvania. Erected what is known as the oldest Lutheran Church of brick in America at Trappe, where it is still preserved. He built the Zions Church, dedicated 1769, in which by order of Congress the memorial services to George Washington were held, attended by the Senate, House and Supreme Court and many generals, and where Light Horse Harry Lee first used the phrases “First in peace, first in war and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Muhlenberg’s three sons, all German Lutheran pastors, became famous in war, politics and natural science.

Muhlenberg, Johann Gabriel Peter.

Muhlenberg, Johann Gabriel Peter.—American general in the Revolutionary war. Born in Montgomery Co., Pa., October 1, 1746, son of Heinrich M. Muhlenberg. With his two younger brothers, Frederick August and Heinrich Ernst, he went in 1763 to Halle, Germany, to study for the ministry, returning to Philadelphia in 1766. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was pastor of the German Lutheran Community of Woodstock, Virginia. Participated actively in the measures preceding armed resistance to the unjust measures of Parliament, and on the recommendation of Washington and Patrick Henry was appointed Colonel of the Eighth (or German) regiment of Virginia. He preached to his congregation for the last time in January, 1776, on the duty of the citizen to his country, concluding with the memorable words: “There is a time for everything, for prayer, for preaching and also for fighting. The time for fighting has arrived.” He had scarcely concluded the benediction when he cast off his clerical gown and stood revealed in full regimentals. An indescribable scene of patriotic enthusiasm followed, and many of his parishioners crowded around him and enlisted for service. On February 21, 1777, he was promoted to brigadier general by order of Congress. After the defeat of the American army at Brandywine, his brigade covered the retreat with invincible bravery, and in the battle of Germantown he performed his duty with distinction, causing the enemy’s right wing to give way but unable to prevent the loss of the battle. In the storming of the redoubts at Yorktown he played a conspicuous part, commanding the light infantry which capturedthe left bulwarks of the British fortifications and decided the battle. After the war he was vice-president of the high executive Council of Pennsylvania and was elected to a seat in the first, second and sixth Congress. He was elected eight times to the position of president of the German Society of Pennsylvania. He is represented in Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington by a monument of marble presented by the State of Pennsylvania.

The following interesting story of the career of General Muhlenberg, by Mrs. Elizabeth Gadsby, Historian of the Daughters of the American Revolution, is taken from the Washington “Post” of July 5, 1903:

The father, John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, located at Trappe, Pa., and was the founder of the Lutheran Church in America.

During the Revolution the armies passed and repassed their home so frequently they never knew when the table was set whether the food prepared for themselves would be eaten by the English or American soldiers. They were frequently in great danger from the skirmishing which constantly took place all around them, and often suffered the pangs of hunger, every field of grain and forage being devastated by the armies.

Peter was sent to the University of Halle, in Prussia, where, tiring of his studies and the strict confinement, he ran away and joined the Prussian dragoons, which gave him his first military ardor and ambition. After several years of hardship he left the army and studied for the ministry. He returned to America, going back to Europe to be ordained in England in 1771, and was then called to the pastorate at Woodstock, Va., to preach to the Germans who had settled on the frontier of that State.

In March, 1773, the Virginia Assembly recommended a committee of correspondence, and the House of Burgesses passed a resolution making the first day of June a day of fasting and prayer in sympathy with Boston, whose port Parliament had ordered closed. Governor Dunmore declared this resolution treason, and indignantly dissolved the House of Burgesses. Great excitement prevailed. The governor, finding the people of his colony in great sympathy with the cause of freedom, aroused himself for immediate action, and endeavored to bring the Indians in hostile array against the colonists, also causing a rumor to be spread that the slaves would rise in insurrection against the colonists.

In April he removed the powder from the old magazine at the Capitol. His ships were laden and ready for flight or defense. The powder was put on board the governor’s ship.

The people demanded the return of the powder to Williamsburg. Dunmore became alarmed when Patrick Henry marched at the head of his volunteers toward the Capitol to capture the powder. Arrivingat Great Bridge, the first conflict took place between the English and the colonists.

Dunmore kept the powder, but ordered the Receiver General to pay its full value, which sum Patrick Henry turned into the public treasury.

The closing of the port of Boston caused great indignation throughout the land; memorable resolutions were introduced by George Mason, and were adopted by the Assembly.

Jefferson truly said, “The closing of the port of Boston acted as an electric shock, placing every man in Virginia on his feet.”

Patrick Henry was warmly supported by the Rev. Muhlenberg, who had been quietly working among his people. A meeting of patriots was called in the assembly room of the old Apollo Tavern at Williamsburg, where delegates were appointed to meet in Fairfax County, where a convention was determined upon. Muhlenberg was chosen colonel of the Eighth Regiment, he and Henry being the only civilians of the Virginia line to whom regiments were assigned.

Muhlenberg was at this time only twenty-nine years of age. His well-known character gave the convention confidence that he was worthy of the trust.

Hence he abandoned the altar for the sword. His people were scattered miles along the frontier of Virginia, but the news spread like fire, and the Sunday he was to preach his last sermon the rude country church could not hold the tenth of them. The surrounding woods were filled with people, horses and every sort of vehicle. It was a scene long depicted in their memories and oft told to their descendants until every schoolboy is familiar with the story.

The decided step was taken by their pastor; the exciting times called forth the highest feelings in man, the love of country! Patriotism! and “Liberty or death!” was the cry.

They needed but the spark to burst into flame and needless to say he supplied the flint and tinder to kindle that spark.

His concluding words were:

“There is a time for everything, a time to preach and a time to pray, but that time has passed away. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come.”

He pronounced the benediction, and, turning back his robe, appeared in martial array, his soldierly form clad in the uniform of a colonel.

The scene beggars description and has no parallel in history.

The people flocked around him, eager to be ranked among his followers.

The drummers struck up for volunteers and over 300 enlisted that day.

Throughout the war for independence General Washington depended on him to recruit the army in Virginia, which he never failed to dounder the most trying circumstances; men seemed to spring up like mushrooms when he needed them to replenish his oft depleted ranks.

Lord Dunmore was ravishing the country; Colonel Muhlenberg followed closely on his heels. Dunmore built Great Bridge and took up quarters in Norfolk; finding himself closely hemmed in, he burned the town, then one of the finest cities in the South, for which act he was severely criticized by the British. After his defeat he took refuge in Portsmouth, still holding command of the sea, harrowing the people, destroying property, until, finding his quarters too hot, he hurriedly set sail for Grogans Island in the bay. Gen. Andrew Lewis drove him from there, and he sailed for New York, and soon after returned to England.

The North now claimed the attention and eager eyes were watching there, the South resting comparatively quiet.

At this time General Clinton marched South, Ben. Lee following closely in his tracks, arriving at Williamsburg March 29, 1776, just twelve days after the surrender of Boston.

Colonel Muhlenberg had been in command at Suffolk. He now joined General Lee, with him following up Clinton to South Carolina. This led on to the battle of Sullivan’s Island, and Charleston, which was so disastrous to the enemy they returned at once to New York.

General Lee, in his official report, says:

“I know not which corps I have the greatest reason to be pleased with, Colonel Muhlenberg’s Virginians or the North Carolina troops; both are equally alert, zealous and spirited.”