Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1917-09-13
SON TELLS FATHER
why HE ENLISTED
Father is FINALLY Convinced That
Son Was Right in the Position
He Has Taken in This War

luS Tue war WIFI HIS SUI WHO udu
Just been appointed an officer in the
army Reserve Corps at Fort Smelling.
1t appears that the father was
born and raised in Germany, but un-
der the aspiration of the German
Revolution of 1S4S, came to this
country as a young man, in the late
fifties. He became naturalized, set
tied with his German wife on an
Iowa farm, worked hard, did we'll
and raised large family, every
member of which has made the
most of American opportunity and is
American through and through. I'm
til war was declared, the farmers own
loyalty had never wavered. Indus
trious, peace loving, frugal, law abid-
ing and public spirited, he was a
splendid citizen.
1t was apparent that the war is a
terrible tragedy to him now. In his
declining years, the scenes of his
childhood, lis boyhood playmates and
the graves VT his fathers, stand out
wildly in his memory. On his sew
eral visits to the old country in re-
cent years, those who had remained
made much of him. Many of his
cousins three years ago had written
him of II cir travail and concern for
the faith .land, fighting Gas they
fought for its very existence
against a world of envious, grasping
enem- 5. Many of their boys had
died eroes' deaths on the field of
battle. Some of their girls had met
worse than death at the hands of the
Russian invader. And now this
mans own America, nay, his own
son, was to fight Germany also!
Why had the son been one of the
first to enlist? Why should he kill
his cousins across the sea adding
burdens of sorrow to hearts already
breaking? Why should America
draw England's chestnuts out of the
fire? Why fight for the return Of
Alsace-Lorraine which Napoleon
stole from Germany; why aid Italy
aid Roumania who entered the war
avowedly for conquest, why steal Con-
stinople for Russia, why, even in the
case of Belgium, forget that a Just
God would take toll for the atrocit-
les of the Congo? Had not the son
himself sympathized with Germany
at the beginning of the war? All
these things troubled the old mans
mind.
to argue. Assuming all to be true,
the time to so urge, he said, had gone
by. Other things being equal. be-
tween Prussian Germany and Eng
land with the blood of Boer women
and children and Irish patriots on
her hands one might we'll be for Ger
many. But between an England at
war with that in Germany which in
10 80
Germany at war with the United
States, no true American could hest
tate.
Father" he said. when you came
to this country in '5S and took out
your papers to become an American
citizen. you ceased forever to be a
German. II you were to 60 back to
the old country today. you wouldn't
accept the Kaiser's government, and
1t wouldn't accept you. You know
that they branded you gutter and
a Stacker when you left there. The
American soldier with a German
name who falls into their hands to-
day must expect worse treatment
than hi, comrades. In his case. the
military caste assumes that insult
has preceded injury. When you
American flag you showed what you
thought of American democracy as
compared with German Imperialism.
Germany has not forgotten it. Fund
amentally you have not changed.
You're not a German today. II not
an American, you are a man without
country.
81 enlisted because / have never
In hnt A
atom of my body, every thought OF
my mind and every aspiration OF ny
spirit is American. OF course l SYM
pathized with Germany when the war
began as against arrogant England,
Czar-owned Russia, and covetOus
Italy. I hoped as earnestly as you
that we might keep out of it. But
conditions have changed. And when
wanted war and war was declared,
that settled it for me and for my
children. In Germany, in Russia
in Italy, in Roumania, thousands OF
men went to their death because
their kings told them to. In Amer
lea the people themselves have spok-
en- through their representatives in
Congress. Shall we admit for a
tic king shall be listened to and the
voice of the majority of free people
shall be scorned? Having received
what we have from this country and
its form of government, shall we
deny our obligation when the hour
of service comes? Not l. For the
sake of everything I possess and all
those who come after me, l should
enlist in this war II l knew that
America were altogether in the
wrong. 1t is the only way to be true
to and preserve the democratic prin-
ciple itself. Right or wrong the ma
jority must rule.
but America is not wrong. can
see in the fight now going on, what
Carl Schurz saw in the Revolution
of AS. can feel what you felt
when you left Germany. I believe
this Is a great struggle to decide
whether we shall keep that govern
ment under which you and your
children have multiplied and
prospered in happiness and con.
tentment or whether we shall
all fall under the rule which you dis.
pissed and came away from in SO
The two are altogether different
You can't stand for both. And
whether he will or not, a man Is
either for the American ideal and
against the German, or he is for the
German ideal and against the Amer
lean. l have chosen, as you chose
sixty years ago, to stand by Ameri'
can democracy. Even though II
hurt them. should consider myself
untrue to the very men l go to fight
II did not do my utmost to see that
government of the people, by the peo
pie and for the people shall not per
ish from the earth"
Perhaps German autocrocy would
not come about at once should Ger