New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-13


the thanks of every good American.
Sounding Boards for German Schemes
In backing the popular demand for the
suppression of the German press in this
country Colonel Roosevelt hits on what is
really the essential point in the contro-
versy. an this country now" he says,
"there is no room for $3.50 men, who are
half German or half American. We must
be all American or all German, and nothing
else" Let the papers be published by all
means, but in the English language, that
we shall all know just what they are say
ing and doing"
There is the whole matter in nutshell.
Americans with German blood in their
veins-Colonel Roosevelt himself is one OF
them-are, of course, as he insists, "en-
titled to exactly the same treatment as
other Americans" as long as they are
nothing but Americans; but while we
are at war we can tolerate no enemies
among US and no divided loyalty.
How confidently our avowed enemies
count on the cooperation of the German
American newspapers in creating dis
sension in the United States they them
selves have declared openly. "The Ger
man-Americans," said the Cologne Ga
zette" only few weeks after we went
to war, constitute a sounding board for
the German propaganda such as exists in
no other enemy country, and they intro
duce into American feeling factor of pru-
Gence and reserve which often already has
been a matter of despair for Mr.. Wilson
and his English friends. We can be GER
tain that no,O, also, they 1oil be at their
posts"
Apparently there were Germans who
foresaw some difficulty in keeping these
good servants of the Fatherland at their
posts after war was once declared, the dan
ger being that the whole country would be
united in a common purpose. They were
accordingly treasured as follows: I'm all
this our best allies will continue to be
the German-Americans, whose services to
the German cause can be underestimated
only by Grass ignorance Of American con-
ditions-ignorance which, indeed, is no
rarity in many German circles. Good
Americans as, of course, they are, our fell
low countrymen have hitherto pursued no
separatist policy; accordingly they do not
constitute any self-contained national
group in the political life of the Union,
which is not a state of nationalities. All
the greater, however, is consequently their
indirect influence"
This was putting the case at the worst in
the German sense. If the writer had fol-
lowed more closely the recent endeavors Of
some of the good Americans" he counted
among his fellow countrymen" he would
have had no difficulty in presenting the
future of German propaganda in more
hopeful light. In the early days of the
war his able colleague the late head of the
"New-Y Yorker Staats-Zeitung" spoke plain
" of his desire to draw COMMUNICATIONS
together into compact body, and after the
German bazaar in this town the present
publisher boosted loudly of the establish
ment of ian integrated German America"
which would prove to be a great power
here. Indeed. so confident did he feel of
the future that he did not scruple to warn
ordinary Americans that the new German
confederacy was an achievement of deep
political significance.
1t suits the "Staats-Zeitung" at present,
as it suits Viereck and number of minor
propagandists of his type, TO pose as the
most disinterested and pure't of Ameri-
cans; but long before we went to war they
declared themselves before the world, and
no amount of wriggling now can change
their shape. There is, as Colonel Roose-
welt says, no room here for disloyal men;
nor do we want "a sounding board for
German propaganda" The German edi-
tor who assured his readers that no such
sounding board existed in any other coun-
try was right. 1t would not be tolerated
elsewhere, and least of all would anything
equivalent TO our German press be toler
ated in Germany. Let the German papers
be printed in English, even though the
language of the country that is still ours
may tend TO disintegrate the newly estab-
lished German America"