The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1917-01-18

To know what America means to the
men from other lands where oppression
reigns, to realize what it holds for
them in hope and promise, one needed
Dnly to gaze upon the faces of the nearly
800 foreign men and women who gath
cred last night in the high school audi
torium Those faces were eager, happy
and sull of courage.
The meeting was for new citizens and
prospective citizens and was held with
the intention of making these new COM
crs feel the warmth of welcome Which
those whose ancestors came little
ahead of them, feel for the stranger
within the gates. 1t was to help them
learn to love the land of their adoption
hut not to forget their mother land
Give Allegiance to America.
Glove your native land as you love
your mother,'' was the admonition of
Judge Il. B. Belden, one of the speakers,
''but love America as you love your
wife. You love your mother well but
when you have taken wife your first
allegiance is to her. You may love
your motherland well but when you
have become an American citizen your
first duty and your whole allegiance is
TO America. +"
To impress upon his hearers the free
dom of this land and at the same time
TO impress upon them that the laws
which exist must be obeyed or society
disorganized, he put forth the principle
of majority rule, a thing unheard-of in
despotic countries.
Whims Don't Cause War in u. s.
'FThere is no man here, who, if his
whim dictates, can cause war and
send forth our citizens to be killed at
his bidding while the mass of the citi-
zonry disapprove the war, as is the case
in countries now at war in Europe.
Not even the president can do such a
thing. Their can be no war unless con-
Press orders it and you may be sure
that congress never will order it until
its members are certain that the people
they represent desire the war.
You know very well, +" he continued,
that the terrible war which is even
now devastating ana desolating Europe
never would have been entered into had
the people in the warning countries
had the privilege of voieing their opin-
ions; nor would it continue were the
men in the trenches to control their
fates," The speaker adjured his hear
ers to be ever ready, however, in case
of war being necessary to give their
lives for the support and maintenance
of the government that means so much
to them and the whole world, for he said
it would be but fair return for what
the government does for them.
Propertyless Man Still Taxpayer.
He urged that the citizens and pros
pective citizens make use of the night
schools. He showed them that they sup
port the schools because although they
may not own land to pay direct taxes
upon, they everyone of them pay tax
because their rent or lodging fee for
their housing is higher than it would
be if their landlord had untaxed land
the materials they buy are higher be-
cause of the taxes paid by those who
produce and handle them. He said they
can rightfully feel that the schools are
theirs and their only means of making
use of their tax investment in them is
by using them.
Mrs. Bradford's Talk Impressive.
Mrs. Mary d. Bradford, with welcome
and love shining in her eyes, made an
address which must have given courage
and Joy to every one of her hearers in
its promise for their own future and
that of their children and their chill
dren s children. She referred to anoth-
er mass meeting, held in 1916, when in
Kenosha il was decided to have the
first public school supported by public
taxes, which had ever existed outside
of New England. And that mass meet
ing of apparently uninhuential pioneers
was the beginning of the greatest and
best thing America has to offer - its
free school system.
Lynn I. Hannahs, president of the In
dustrial Board of Eduaetion, impressed
~