Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1915-02-26
GERMANS PLEDGE LOYALTY.
Would Stand by United States Whelh.
er Right or Wrong.


Congressman Bartholdt, the German
American representative in Congress
from st. Louis, made the following
remarkable speech in congress few
days ago:
Washington. d. c., Feb. 19.-In
farewell address in the House today
Representative Bartholdt, Republican,
of Missouri, denounced the "pro- Brit
ish press" of this country for misrep-
resenting the Germans and German
Americans, and pledged the loyal sup
port of the German Americans to the
United States if she goes to war. He
said:
Let me reiterate the steadfast de-
votion of all citizens of German blood
to American ideals and the flag. They
feel themselves as one with every
other citizen of the Republic, and
right or wrong, they will share the
fate of their adopted country and of
their children's fatherland. Whatever
their secondary sympathies may be.
they are with all other true Ameri
cans for America first, last and all the
time. They are for a united Nation.
and shall ever uphold the ideal of
national unity and dignity with that
loyalty which has characterized their
whole history on American soil.
Because of their sympathies with
the Fatherland, the Americans of
German descent have been openly ac-
cused of divided allegiance and down
rlght dlsloyalty. They know this
wanton insult to emanate from Eng
lsh and French press agents, and
consequently treat it with the con-
tempt ii deserves.
we can best judge the future by
the past, and the lessons of the mast
Justify me in proclaiming it as an
lrrefutable fact that, if, unfortunately
the United States should ever again
be embroiled in war, which the heav-
ems forbid, the Germans of this coun
try would again as Loyalty rally
around the Stars and Stripes as they
did against our enemies i'm every crisis
of the past.
The state of mind of Germans in
TINS country manifests itself in great
mass meetings and in hundreds of
thousands of petitions addressed to
Congress in favor of an embargo on
arms. 1t would not be quite correct.
however. to ascribe the prevailing ex-
element solely to sympathy for Ger
many. In reality it is as much, if not
more, injured pride and an outraged
sense of justice which have caused
their Indignation to rise because of
the outrageous presentations of truth
ana the cruel Misrepresentation of
Germany, her people and institutions
contained IN the manufactured news
from England and reprinted in the
American newspapers.
The war was started with q mon
strous lie and in order to srnnort II =
thousand other lies had to be told
The Germans were denounced as Huns
ana barbarians, as ravishers, plum
derers, and as perpetrators of the
worst Imaginable atrocities. The En-
peror was described as an Attilla. who
on one day had had 10 Socialist den
utieS executed; the Crown Prince as
a thief, and SO forth. If the Interna-
lionai lie should succeed, believe the
world would eventually suffocate in
its lime III
IL seems TO them as if we were
using kid gloves against England and
halled list against Germany.
Rave we protested against Ameri-
can citizens having been dragged from
neutral steamers and thrown into
English prisons simply because those
men, American born, happened to
bear German names? No. Have we
protested against England's inhuman
pohcy to starve to death the non
combaatant population of Germany bv
stopping, in open violation of inter
national law, all food supplies, even
II carried from a neutral country and
IN neutral bottoms? No. Have we pro
tested against England declaring the
whole North sea as war zone?
No; but when Germany did the
same thing in practically the same
language, we Immediately dispatched
stiff note to Berlin, while the milder
one was directed to England, though
it would seem that the latter country
was the chief offender in allowing the
use OF false flags. However, whatever
the administration does in foreign af-
fairs, as Americans it will be our duty
to uphold it.