Washington Journal., 1915-10-08
Whose Country is This?
Especial Correspondence for this paper
by a prominent Washingtonian).

1t seems that the time has Gomez to
have a sort Of accounting with our fell
low citizens of British descent, regard
ing the state of the partnership assets.
They, or at least a considerable num-
Der of them, seem to feel hat they have
been exceedingly kind to Americans Of
German extraction by simply allowing
us to come here to live. Now, when
there is a serious dispute between us,
and we do not show ourselves at all
inclined to agree with their plans of
turning the house over to the firm of
Bull & Co, in the hope that they may
allow us to rent it from them for the
future, our kind friends become exceed
ingly angry. They even suggest that if
we don't like the place we might move
out.
We admire their impudence, for any
thing that surpasses the ordinary meas
ure is admirable in a sense, such as the
overload barking of a dog. They say
that ever the moor smiles at that.
However, those of our Anglo-Ameri-
can brethren who feel that way about
the ownership of this country are quite
mistaken.
What is it we call the United States
Of America? Is tia certain vast space
marked off on the map by the English
Kings and claimed for their own long
before anybody knew what lay behind
the narrow fringe of coast settlements ?
Is it so many millions of square miles
of wilderness, rocks, and swanps. and
deserts and trackless forests? mol
These United States of America, the
land we love, we Americans of German
blood, end which WE are ready q az
fend with our lives if ever it should
be attacked by anybody whatsoever,
consists of endless stretches of beautiful
farm land that have been redeemed
from the primeval wilderness by the
sturdy labor Of intelligent human be-
ings of cities built by the ingenuity
and industry of men; of mines dug
deep by human hands. 1t is the work
of its citizens that has created this coun-
try, and we German-Americans have a
right to boast that we have built up a
very large part of it-far in advance
Of the proportion our numbers bear to
those of our fellow citizens of other
racial origin. Would you deny this
claim? Look about you and see what
portions of our country are, the most
prosperous, the most intelligent, the
most peaceful and orderly, the most
highly civilized? Is it not invariably
those in which the German element is
strongest? Are not the best farms, the
most hourishing cities, the best social
conditions, the best public schools and
colleges to be found in the section which
is the peculiar province of German
Americans-the Middle West7 We
ch~eerfully grant that our Anglo-Ameri-
can friends have greater skill than we
in those gambling operations that go by
the name of big business" and in the
intrigues and low Vaccinations which,
on the lips of the loafers at street cor
ners, are called politics; but in all real
honest, efficient work, in the making
and building Of the country, we have
done more, o less than our Anglo
American friends. The products of
ones own labors belong TO him, by all
the principles of right and justice.
Therefore every American of German
blood, whether his ancestors came owe
in the Seventeenth Century, while
many Of his Anglo-American detractors
we're still trucking kinds of some Eng
fish lord, or whether he himself is an
immigrant from the old country, owns
his share in the United States, pro-
vided only that he has done good, hon
est work in helping to build up the
country. And because he owns his
share. he has the right and the duty to
see that it is kept what it should be,
the country with the fairest future Of
any land on the globe. Therefore he
has the duty to combat to the bitter end
the faction that would make it again a
colony in everything but name. That is
what many Anglo-Americans are. striv-
ing to make us: Colonists who have no
right to their own foreign policy, to
their own thoughts and ideas, but must
obediently do what their masters, the
London stock jobbers in and out of the
British government, command.
Not all of our Anglo-American fell
low citizens belong to that treacherous
crew. Thank heaven there are still