The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1917-10-25
A THRUST AT KNOCKERS, TRAIT
ORS AND COPPERHEADs.

ieville, Ills, News-Democrat, in an
editorial in his issue of August 2l,
made stand for patriotism and 10y
atty so self evident that it deserve.
publicity in every paper in the Uni
ted States.
Fred ]. Kern is full blooded, nat
ural-born German. He publishes
paper in Belleville, community with
large percentage Of German-Ameri-
can population. Here are a few Of
the things he has to say:
We meet men who we're born and
raised in this country every day who
talk seriously and repeat the thread
bare pro-German arguments which
they derive either directly or indirect
ly from the German language press
published in this country.
The editors of these same newspa-
pers are not loyal to this country
Most of them are not even natura.
ized citizens of the United States.
Some are spies who ought to be shot.
Others are alien knockers who ought
to be deported. Still others are
traitors or copperheads.
They were not for this country BE-
fore the war started. We have sat in
saloons with them and talked with
them for hours. They try to belittle
every institution and other things
that exist In the United States. From
the government and the flag and the
laws and the American people to the
city and the rabbits and the birds and
the grapes and the peaches and the
prunes and the food and the amuse-
ments and the drinks and the insti-
tutions. Nothing in this country is
good cough for them.
When you hear these conceited
braggarts talk everything in finer and
bigger and better in Germany than it
is in the United States.
They talk as If it were punish
ment for them to remain in the Uni
ted States, a sort of Punishment; still
they stick with the tenacity of ticks.
They never go back. But they bite
he hand that feeds them, like the cur
in the story, to borrow the words of
the now famous popular song.
These fellows talk socialism and
even anarchism, but when they arn't
kissing the dust at the feet of the
Kaiser they are carrying cobs not on
ly for the toadies and the flunkies of
royalty who write the "von" between
their first and last names.
We never saw Herr Won" yet
who wasn't down right deadbeat
They are lazy lot Of loafers and
vagabonds. Our parents who were
both born in Germany taught us from
our earliest boyhood years to keep
our hand on our pocketbook when
one of these Adelege Herren, or
sprouts Of the stuck-up, arrogant,
brow-beating German nobility was
around the neighborhood anywhere,
and to avoid and shun him like
rattler.
America is our country. Here is
where we were born and where our
wife and children were born.
This country has been mighty good
to us. It threw open the doors of op-
portunity and bade us enter. 1t gave
us liberty.
Under the protecting wings of the
American eagle we enjoyed security
and peace, until the German warlord
and overload and autocrat and aristo-
crat and despot, whose progenitors
drove our parents out of Germany
and away from their homes, lifted
the lid off of helr' and commenced
the sanguinary saturnalia and orgy of
flendishness and bestiality which des-
troyed the tranquility of the world,
and drenched France and Russia and
the Balkan States Of Europe in blood
and converted Belgium into the
worst human slaughterhouse of which
history makes any record.
Wilhelm Hohenzollern dragged the
United States into war.
We stayed out Of war as long as we
could, but now that we are In it we