The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1916-03-25

The foregoing is an Associated Press dispatch re-
ceived by the Tribune and other newspapers Saturday
night. 1t is doubtless a sample OF the half-ripe
traits OF the propaganda spread from Berlin through the
movement OF which Captains Boy-Ed and Won Papen
were so potential a part until they were handed their
hats and their passports and asked to return to the mon
arch who sent them.
Mr.. Wilson may not be reelected president, but if
he shorld be nothing will have contributed more to that
end than such conventions and such resolutions as are re-
ported above.
And the same people who want Wilson and Roose-
Welt defeated want something else. They want free Ger
man schools. All OF which recalls a story:
Prior to about 1880 most of the states lett to the dis
erection of the parent whether the child should attend
school. And then it dawned upon them that they, as well
as the parent, were concerned in the education OF the fu-
ture citizen. And so they passed compulsory education
laws and truancy laws. And later it was found that in
certain communities and certain schools, notably IN WIS
consin and northern Illinois and in Minnesota, while par
ents were complying with the letter of the law the child
was receiving no instruction in English, the language. in
which the Declaration OF independence, the Constitution
and the laws of the republic and all the states, and the
decisions of the courts and the proceedings and enact
ments Of every legislative body were printed-in other
-totdsy tre~4aHguage OF the law which every citizen was
expected to know and OBEY and help to enforce-that 3" 5
not taught. Instead the child was learning the language
OF Germany or of Scandinavia, or Of Holland.
And so the legislature of Wisconsin specifically re
CURED that the language in which the laws OF the state
and the nation were enacted and published should be
taught to the child who might later be punished if he
failed to know and obey them. And thereupOn the Ger
man newspapers and many Scandinavian newspapers
joined in a campaign for the repeal of this law and the
defeat OF the administration responsible for it. In the
latter they succeeded, but in the former they tailed, Tor
the people had become aroused. And Minnesota and
Illinois later followed the lead of Wisconsin.
This campaign against the compulsory teaching OF
English was led by Herman Raster, then the editor of
the Illinois Stats Zeitung, the most powerful German
newspaper west of New York, if not in America. The
policy was denounced as sumptuary, as a contravent1on
OF the right of the parent, as a species OF meddlesome
tyranny. and about everything else that did violence to
the German ideals of personal liberty as these ideals were
interpreted by Raster and his following. They made 1t an
issue III the campaign IN three states.
And Just at this time, in June, 1890, a sub committee
of the senate and house committees on immigration came
to Chicago in pursuit of an inquiry it was making. And
Mr.. Raster, who, by the way, was an expatrlate from Ger
many, along with Carl Schurz, DR.. Emil Pretorius and
others following the PruSSlan revolution OF IS4S-Alr.
Raster was invited to appear before the committee for an
expression of his views on immigration problems. lie
made a strong statement from his viewpoint, Tor he was
a strong man. But at the close his humiliation was more
complete than falls to the lot of the average man OF
his standing.
On questions of policy affecting education and the lib
ertv of the individual, Germany had blazed the way tor the
higher civilization, and the millennium was almost in
sight. But alas! Just as Mr.. Raster was about to leave
the witness stand a member of the committee, the Hon.
Mark S. Brewer of Michigan, who had sat silent under
the spell of the Raster tribute to German ideals, indicated
some curiosity. And the questions and answers ran
about as follows:
Mr.. Brewer-You contend, Mr.. Raster. that the compulsory teach
ery OF the individual?
Mr.. Brewer-Wu you tell the committee whether the teaching of
h German language 10 the children of French parents in the prov
inces of Alsace and Lorain is compulsory.
MI. RaTer-t is.
Mr.. Brewer-Is not the speakin as we'll as the teaching of
French prohibited in the schools?
Mr.. Raster-t is.
MI. Brewer-whne the German is requred9
Mr.. Raster-Yes
Mr.. Brewer-And does not this same policy apply to German Po-
land in relation to the native language of that country?
Mr. Raster-It Ices.
Mr.. Brewer-That is all.
The writer, who was present as an attache of the
committee, has seldom witnessed so clever a hosting Of