The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-09-04
THE GERMAN IN AMERICA
Colonel Henry Watterson Writes An
other Interesting Chapter Showing
cermanys Responsibility for the
War

war;
In its issue of the 9Th of August
the Courier-Jol rnal said:
THE people of German birth resi-
dent in the United States-for the
most part naturalized Americans and
beyond dispute the best of citizens
should realize that the sentiment of
outraged humanity which has met the
attitude and acts of the kaiser, and
which is well-nigh universal is in no
sense racial.
1T does not include them. That
they can so far expatriate themselves
as to feel Indifferent to the fate of
their native country and their fellow
countrymen is scarcely to be expect
ed. Though legal Americans they are
born Teutons- red-blooded men and
women-who would prove false to ma
ture If they did not warm to the
colors and glow to the symbols of
their 'VateTland'
Thoughtful Americans should and
will respect this sentiment 1t is like
ly to be only the more pronounced in
kaiser's arms, but in each and
every event, it should hold itself in
control, remembering always that the
land of their adoption is free land
and has been to them a welcoming
and hospitable land, and that to their
children and their children's children,
it is and is to be another and final
fatherland."
1t was in the foregoing the purpose
of the Courier-Journal to warn its
fellow citizens of German extraction
against demonstrations which, whilst
to the impulse of the moment natural,
and, in the eyes of travelled and toll
Grant Americans, venial, could only
arouse in the minds of the intolerant
and unrefiecting hostility hurtful to
popular good will. nor yet without a
certain justification.
For a long time the Germans in
America complained bitterly of being
called "the dam'd Dutch Carl
Schruz once said to friend: "If
lived to be hunderd years 1 would
always be dam'd Dutchman to those
disagreeing with me-" Forty years of
succeeding intercourse with their de-
velopment of kindred interests and
tastes have fairly obliterated the
memory of such rude chatting. The
German is no longer "a dam'd Dutci:-
man." He has ceased to be an anomaI-
1y. He is in fact most neighborly
matter-of-course.
In the same article the Courier
Journal used the following language:
"The Kaiser is held accountable
for the bloody work that is going for
ward. The doddering old man in
Vienna and the measly little wretch
at st. Petersburg could each have
held to his place except for the War
Lord of, Berlin. He is the ablest of
reigning sovereigns. He knows per-
fectly what he is about. 1t is republi-
canism-social democracy-not Cos
sack, which he fears. If he could win
we should behold the rise of a power
in the heart of Europe quite equal to
that contemplated by the First Ma
poleon.
That is not to be thought of, or
endured. Not merely the German
German people, but all the people
would become vassals to the House of
Hohenzollern. German progress in
arts and science would be struck
down beneath the iron heel of mill
tariism. The clock of civilization
would be set back century. Even
here in America, republicanism
might have to fight to hold its own.
1.-THE world can settle with autocra-
cy in the Russian empire when it has
vanquished the autocracy in the Ger
man empire. Far better for the Ger
man people that the empire created
by the Iron Chancellor should be shat
tered by the four winds of Heaven
to the end that another United Ger
many may be rebuilt upon democra-
tic foundations. Nothing but i'll could
come to the world from the triumph
of the kaiser and the more thoughtful
of Germans should see this and be
willing to make the sacrifice"
1t may be harder for German
than an American to differntiate the
German kaiser and the German peo-
pie. To the Teuton mind the kaiser
stands as the symbol of all that is
loyal in the Teuton heart. This senti-
ment is augmented in the case of a
kaiser admittedly great, a leader OF
men, king amongst kings. Racial
antipathies, too, with respect a. least
to the French interpose to infiame
anew the irresistible conflict o. blood
and ages, witnessing on either side
multiplied offenses and reprisals.
Nevertheless, to the average Ameri
can who considers the institutions Of
his own country as distinguishes
from institutions of German, the
kaiser appears as, though a brilliant
personality, an odious despot His
government is to QUE seeing the sun