The daily commonwealth. (Greenwood, Leflore Co., Miss.) 1916-1919, 1917-07-12
LOYALTY OF OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES.

No one of intelligence any longer questions
the loyalty of our German-American population
"hyphenized" for the sake Of convenience but
Americanized in every sense OF the word.
Before the war their sympathies naturally ran
to Germany; since the outbreak of the war they
have left no stone unturned to prove their fealty
to Uncle Sam.
In rifing its treasury to give the last cent in
it to the American Red Cross, the president of a
so-caIed "German-American Alliance remarked
pointedly:
1--WE are net German americans, we are just
plain Americans. Why shouldn't we be We came
to this country of our own lee will, either because
we felt We could do better or escape military ser
vice. We became citizen of the United States,
and we have married ant quilt our homes here.
Our children have been { lcated in American
schools, and here we have :ound the opportunity
for advancement which W; denied us in our own
country.
Before the United Safes entered the war
our sympathies were naturally with Germany and
we were glad to do anything we could, not to
further the war, but to help the wounded and the
widows and children. But now that America is in
the war Germany is our enemy. Though many
of US have relatives in Germany and in the Ger
man army, more of us perhaps have sons and
.nephews in the American army. How could our
sympathies be against them.'
A Germantown sailor on an American ship
sighted one of he first submarine
destroyed by American gunners. Though one son
of Madame Schumann-Heink, the singer, is in the
German navy, three others are in the American
Army.
And thus it goes. German names are found
throughout the roster of service, and the men who
bear them are not falling down on their duty.
Let us give credit where credit is due. If the
kaiser ever thought the German-blooded people Of
the United States would start a revolution in case
of war, it is evidence that he cid not realize the
Americanizing influence of our institutions upon
his former subjects here and their descendants.
Of that influence and its results we all are proud.
M "A "a IA "a e "a "a
CATS.
The war economy enthusiasts are training the
walls of their wrath upon the waste of cats. Those
harmless house-pets, we are told, consume food
that human beings need, destroy insect-eating
birds and kill the young birds in their nests.
On the other hand, they kill mice and rats
they are not too much spoilt by domes-
ITCHY to do it-and form pleasant companions in
the house to many a woman and child, not to
speak of men and boys, who otherwise would be
engaged in other wasteful ways.
The brief against the cat isn't overwhelming.
The cost of a cats upkeep is not prodigious, and
it frequently lives largely from litter that goes
into the garbage can. People who support cats
usually can well afford to do so, and believe they
get more out Of life by hob-nobbing with their
feline friends.
As harmless luxury, cats will undoubtedly re-
main with us through the war. The row incident
to food regulation and price fixing on coal is a
'nonentity compared with the rumpus that would
be stirred up by monkeying with the family house
cat.
Don't fool with dynamite. Let the cat alone.
American housewives who like cats won't be de-
MED the joy of their pets.
IA "a "a "a