Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-06
A REMARKABLE PROSPECTUS.

An ultra-Germanic section of Wisconsin
has organized against the native born
Americans in that State. They say in a
prospectus issued by German order, that
the native born Americans hate the Ger
man language, customs and manners,
and that this hatred has developed
in laws aimed against the German
language and the German people, and
that there are wicked" designs and plots
against Germans that the native born
Americans foster and encourage, and
against all such Germans must organize.
This is the rankest folly that has been
manifest in this country yet. If the devil
has not got possession of the wits of the
Germans who are in this new movement,
lie soon will have, and control all their
thoughts and actions. For cool and brazen
falsehood we do not know of any thing to
equal this wonderful pronunciamento.
1t is wholly untrue that native born
Americans hate Germans, their manners,
their tongue or their customs. The man
who penned the sentences referred to knew
that he was writing a lie when he put the
pen to paper. The Germans have hereto
fore everywhere been recognized as law
abiding and frugal, and an altogether de-
slrable element of population. 1t is only
m fhaf IL
ranks, disturbers, anarchists, radical
socialists and revolutionary agitators have
sprung. But when we except these, the
American people have nothing to COM
plain of concerning Germans, but great
deal to be proud of. That in Wisconsin
they have been misled into claunish or
ganization in antagonism to the American
citizen is for the present more to be re-
GREETED than to be feared.
The laws of Wisconsin require that
schools, to be recognized as such, in the
State system, must teach rudimentary
branches in the English tongue in which
the laws are printed. Because of this
simple and reasonable provision, the Ger
mans related to the Catholic and Lutheran
Churches have been priest-led into mani
festations of which their children will
grow to be ashamed. Now, we are told
that because the State that has by lawful
majority of its people decided that the
English language is the language of the
State, that there is made an assault upon
the German tongue. These misguided
people overlook the fact that the same law
of which they complain provides for the
teaching of the German language in
every Grammar school in the State of
Wisconsin. What more would the Ger
mans have? BY their pronunciamento
they practically say we want the English
language forbidden in the schools. That
is the inevitable result of the policy they
are pursuing.
If this clandish disposition augments
much; if foreigners in this country are to
continue to organize to promote foreign
ideas and tongues, and to enkindle race
animosities, there will presently come
about serious and damaging contention
1t seems to us inevitable if policies such
as the Wisconsin Germans are pursuing
are further insisted upon. The American
nation is not to be made up of groups OF
people oontending each for the supremacy
of their particular tongues and customs
When foreigners come among us and
assume the obligations of citizenship, we
expect them, not TO forget fatherland, not
to abandon their love for the old home, not
to cease to speak, if they choose, their
native language, but to be citizens in
spirit and sincerity; to aid us in building
up powerful nation of freemen; to be-
come of us, to intermarry with our daugh.
tiers, and to become absorbed by the Ameri-
can idea We do not expect and cannot
consent that they remain here in clans and
groups, antagonistie to that unity of in
terest, spirit and sincerity among citizens
of which the union of States is typical.
1t ought to be the proudest boast of the
naturalized citizen that he is an Ameri.
can citizen But If behind the oath o.
his allegiance there is reservation of pre-
ference for the Government to which he has
forsworn allegiance If his Americanism
is but cloak and pretense, and he voices
these deceits, he will certainly kindle to a
blaze the spark of discomfort that has been
born of recent manifestations by foreigners
that will sweep the country in fiery
wave of revolution. We ought to pray
devoutly that no such calamity will over.
take us, but if il does it will be chargeable
not TO any antagonism by the native to the
foreign born, but wholly and only to the
insane jealousy and clannishness that is
made manifest in such documents as some
of the Germans of Wisconsin are said tC
have issued.
There is in this whole matter cousola-
ton and safety in the knowledge that by
no means all the Germans in this country
unite in the foolish declarations Of those
in Wisconsin There is very large con-
sentative body of citizens, born Germans,
who are as thoroughly American as il
native to the soil. They view with disgust
and shame the folly of their countrymen
in the State named. They are sincerely
attached to the American idea. and are as