Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
THIE JFATHIERILAND
Fair Play for Germany and Austria-Hungary
Edited by GEORGE SYLVESTI-ZR VIERECK and F inzm-ziucx F, Sc]-[RADER
VOL. I. No. 24
HYPHENATED CITIZENS
HERE is one thing we would like to say to those super-
‘ I patriots who delight to air their spite against “hyphenated
citizens" and “German-Americans," and pretend to be apprehen-
Slvf of the loyalty of such citizens because they dare to express
their opinions about the dubious neutrality observed at Wash-
mgton.
The hyphenated citizens are such because they have been made
filth. ‘ No sooner did people protest against the one-sided manner
in which the war news is handled in the daily press of New York
than the protestants were contemptuously referred to as “hy-
Phenated citizens" and “German-Americans." The classification
“'33 made by those who resented having their rights questioned
by tl1eir.fellow-citizens to poison public opinion, the organs of
:16 British foreign office which printed harrowing details of
merican tourists persecuted in Germany, shot down in the
streets of Berlin, and falsely described American women stripped
and. exhibited naked to the gaze of mobs at German railway
stations because they resented the alleged insults of German
omcers (566 any daily New York paper of early August),-the
Ofgans who day in and day out printed stories of German sol-
fllers cutting off the hands and feet of Belgian children, mutilat-
mg and outi-aging Belgian women, and crippling hospital nurses
and surgeons, and who continue to print accounts of Germans
wantonly destroying churches and historic monuments, and de-
liberately minimize German successes in the battles.
The “hyphenated citizens" are all Americans who dare to ex-
P05? these infamous fabrications and resent the one-sided neu-
"Filly policies of the administration. We are proud of the
distinction.
. Administrations are not sacred. The leaders of the Democrat-
‘C and Republican parties who happen to be placgd in the White
HOUSE by the will of the people are not immune from criticism.
If MI‘. Wilson, Mr. Bryan, or Mr. Daniels is above the reach of
public criticism, the United States is not a republic-not even a
mnstitutional monarchy, but a despotism.
It .15 not treason-not yet-to ask President Wilson how he
cafl Justify himself for putting a censorship over the German
wireless by virtue of his power as Commander-in-Chief of the
army and navy, while he refuses to exercise this power to stop
‘hf Shipment of guns and other war supplies to Germany’s ene-
“"35. the identical means he employed in stopping shipments of
Wat‘ material to Mexico. Nor is it treason to inquire of Mr.
Daniels why he overruled his assistant when the latter suspended
‘he British wireless station in Honolulu for betraying the arrival
9‘ the German gunboat Geier at that port to Japanese and Aus-
tralian cruisers.
If that is disloyalty, then Philander C. Knox should be prompt-
1)’ indicted for publicly accusing the administration of favoring
Ellglimd and her Allies at the expense of Germany, and only
the ‘liars, the American toadies to England, and the subsidized
auxiliaries of the allied cause in this country are true-blue Amer-
10311 citizens.
We Say there is a radical mistake in the assumption that be-
ca“5C you are an American of German descent you are not a
f“”‘llEdged American, nor entitled to the same rights as those
ilyphenates, the Anglo-Americans, or the New York press, which
‘5 h)’Phenated with the British foreign oliice.
JANUARY 20, 1915
PRICE, 5 Cams
The Anglo-American element has had to retract the slander
that American tourists were persecuted in Germany, that Belgian
women and children were wilfully maimed by German soldiers,
and that the Crown Princess of Bavaria kissed her husband's
sword and said: “Bring it back to me covered with blood and I
will kiss it again-" (The Bavarian Crown Prince happens to be
a widower.) If these were lies, how much reliance can be
placed in other similar stories emanating from London? The
Anglo-Americans, the Franco-Americans, and the other hyphen-
ated Americans espousing the allied cause will not deny these
accounts. Any one with German blood in his veins would de-
serve the contempt of a yellow dog if he did not oppose such a
campaign of infamous slander; but if on that account we are
hyphenated citizens, we are such not by our own designation.
We are Americans who believe that a great wrong is being done
to Germany in this country by the paid agents of the British
Government, and that the American people are purposely being
blinded to the danger of the alliance of Japan, Great Britain,
and Russia. It England is our friend why has she surrounded
us with fortified naval stations at St. Johns, Halifax, Bermuda,
the Bahamas, Jamaica, in the Atlantic; Victoria, Christmas Is-
land, Pitcairn, and many others, in the Pacific?
WHO ARE AMERICANS?
O is entitled to call himself American? The average
reader might think that anyone born or naturalized in the
United States is an American. Not so. Only those who were in
the country prior to and during the Revolution. We have it on
the authority of a bred-in-the-bone native gentlewoman who
writes interesting Berlin letters from lvashington, D. C., for a
weekly New York paper-that is, she dates her letters from Ber-
lin and operates in the National Capital. General Jackson, Phil
Sheridan, General Custer, Admiral Farragut, Admiral Dewey.
Admiral Schley, General Grant, General Zach Taylor, and most
of the brave men who fought in the wars of 1812 and 1861-65,
were not Americans. It is quite remarkable how easily so many
distinguished people in our history are pitchforked-literally
pitchforked-out of their birthright. But hear what this favored
daughter of the Revolution has to say:
One of the leaders of the Socialistic party inquired of an
American woman what the people of the United States thought
of the war. She asked him if he meant Americans or citizens
of the United States. . He demanded to know the difference be-
tween them. She explained that Americans were men and women
whose forebears lived in the New World when the thirteen col-
onies were English possessions, who fought for and gained their
freedom from England and founded the government known as
the United States of America. People whose ancestors came to
the United States after the Revolutionary War were citizens of
the United States and were no more Americans than they were
Indians. “But if they are born in the United States are they not
Americans?” he asked. “By no means l" she answered. “The
accident of birth in a certain locality will not change a person
to that nationality." .
This decision may be in conflict with the opinion of the United
States Supreme Court, but it is illuminating of the belief held
by quite a number of people of the better-than-thou type, who
have been growing family trees during the last three generations
that prove that their ancestors came over in the Mayflower and
performed valiant service in the Revolution. In the estimation
of these patriots, citizens of other than English descent are be-
