Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1916-1918, 1917-08-31
THE p,sLoYAL MINORITY.

Sixty Germans IN HUTCHINSON cOuH-
ty, South Dakota, have been arrested
in less than two weeks under the fed
eral espionage law. Thirty of them,
who were taken into custody by gov
eminent officials yesterday, had
signed protest, addressed to the gov
ernor, against the draft law and the
war
Conditions similar to those In Hutch
inson county exist in Brown county,
Minnesota, and to a lesser extent In a
few Iowa counties.
The German farmer and the German
banker and merchant in America are
prosperous. For many years they have
been regarded as among the most solid
citizens, and those communities which
were settled almost exclusively by Ger
mans have been pointed out with pride
by their Neutrality-suspicious.. Thrifty,
jovial, honest in their personal deal
ings, the Germans in America have
won the high respect which has been
accorded them by the native stock, and
they have been accepted into full
fellowship with greater readiness and
with fewer reservations than have the
immigrants from any other European
nation.
They have prospered materially;
they have sought and been accorded
political honors; they have gloried in
their American citizenship which freed
them from the militarist rule of the
land from which they emigrated. They
have realized to the full the dream
which the immigrant from the re-
stricted European countries brings to
America-the dream of riches, OF
equality with all other men, of relig
ious and personal freedom, of political
influence. This applies to their
majority.
And the vast majority Of Germans in
America have shown the proper mea-
sure of gratitude and loyalty to their
adopted country. Those of the minor
ity have accepted all the privileges for
which they came to America, have en-
joyed prosperity to an extent far be-
yond the widest dreams in which they
could have INDUCED before that dream
of life in America changed their lives,
but have refused to pay for the advan-
tages that are theirs by becoming loyal
citizens of the land of their adoption.
They are in exactly the condition OF
child who leaves the home of in
human parents to avoid oppression,
seeks and obtains adoption In family
of wealth and position, grows to man
hood under the protection Of his bene-
factors, accepts their kindnesses and
their money, accepts education at their
expense and then turns traitor when a
crisis comes in their affairs and when
his loyalty and gratitude would aid
them.
These exhibitions of ingratitude and
disloyalty to the nation which deserves
their fealty are the more noticeable
because the great majority of Germans
in America are loyal. The minority
flaunts it's disloyalty while the major
ity goes quietly about the business OF
being patriotic.
And It is due the majority that the
disloyal ones be punished in the most
drastic manner prescribed by the
emergency laws which congress has
provided. First it is the duty of the
courts to mete out punishment in the
name of the government whose conf
dence has been abused. But hardly
less important Is the duty the govern
! ment owes to the loyal American citi
/ zens of German birth or extraction, tc
recognize their patriotism by singing
out the malefactors and making theil
punishment fit their disregard of law