New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1917-11-21

IhOSe towns winch OBTAIN Cner ngnC
and water service from water power are
lucky these days. The steam power
plants may soon be obliged to curtail the
supply for the lack of coal.
Constitution O. Contract
That the Constitution of the United
States is a contract made by this
government and the people who
come here to make this country. their
home, is the contention of Issues and
Events of New York. That publication
advances the theory that we are net
yet nation, but an agglomeration of
world wide geographic origin and de-
serves to be more fully understood
than it has been up to the present time.
Failure to understand this has led to
many errors and the assumption of the
rights of hegemony on the part of one
or other fragments of our national
composition, amounting to an invasion
of sacred rights.
That colony of Englishmen, driven
out of their native country by religious
prosecutions, should have settled New
England, after passing twelve years of
theor exile in Holland; or that the French
were the first to settle Louisiana and
parts of the south; that Sweden establish
ed a colony at the mouth of Delaware;
that the Hollanders settled New Am
asterdam, or that the Germans and
scandinavians, by taking up unoccupied
lands in the wilderness and on the pra-
tries of Minnesota and Wisconsin, re-
deemed an important part of our country
from savagery and abandonment, gives
neither one or the other a superior claim
or title to preeminance in directing
the spirit and conscience of the whole.
As to every emigrant who came here
during and after the Revolution and t e
adoption of the Constitution there e.
lists an implied contract. The terms
of that contract are laid down in t. e
Constitution defining the rights as well
as the spirit under which the Immigrant
nay live and pursue his happiness
in the United States, and under which
the government admitted him to cit
izenship. Nowhere is it stated that
the descendants of the Englishmen
possess prior or supe Tor rights over t, e
descendants of other nations. 1t will
not and cannot be accepted as practical
doctrine that the former are somehow
directed by superior destiny to manage
the affairs of the nation, and that the
latter must nicer obediance. But this
is precisely what is widely implied.
If this superiority of political, scien-
tific or academic wisdom were the mo-
nopoly of the English race we should
find the names only Of Englishmen
connected with the presidential office,
the leadership in Congress, with i'm u Try,
university life and science, whereas
names such as Van Buren,, Jackson,
Muhlenbreg, Schurz, Weiser, Writ, Lieber
Ereccson, Mergenthaler, Aggasiz, Won
Hoist and thousands Of others who
contributed materially to the political
and intellectual development of the
United States prove the contrary.
Because we daily. hear one element
/ now that we are cooperating with Eng.
land in. great war, presuming to define
restrictions and prescribing forms fol
patriotic expression for the genera
population, the manifestations of these
restrictions and prescriptions on the par
of other elements Of our mixed population
are lightly characterized as racial part
icularism which cannot be tolerated
But the very assumption of the righ'
to make such characterization prove
a pro-Anglican racial particularism ant
a claim to rights under -emptio1
of political hegemony which is nowher,
provided for under the Constitution
the written contract under which ever,
conner here accepts his lot.
! This contract blazons to all the worlt
certain exemptions and immunities from
conditions prevailing ins Europe ant
Asia, among which are the provisions
for free speech, free press, togethe
with the important stipulation that til,
| militia can be employed only in repellini
an invasion, and by extension, freedom
from entangling alliances with European
countries. If opposition to any attempt
!. to invade or evade these doctrines
declared to be the heritage of right O
every American citizen, seems more
manifest amog the non-Anglican element
than among the former, it is possibly
Edue to high reverence for the sanctity
Eof the contract under which their labor
was accepted and their cooperation
in the building of the nation was welcomed
We have been told too often to have
it denied, that German immigration
was tremendously influnced by the desire