New Ulm review., 1918-08-07
MAURICE LEON AGAIN

society was called into life by William
Forster, president Of the New York
Liederkranz, with the avowed object Of
organizing 15,0O0,000 men, women and
children Of German blood in this country
to help win the war. The project has
the endorsement Of Senators Lodge
Lewis and King, and of Representative
julius Kahn and Governor Bamberger
of Utah, and other prominent men.
"Our object is," declare the founders
Ito urge Americans of German descent
to work for the great cause, not as .
group apart, but shoulder to- shoulder
with their fellow-citizens of other racia
strains. Itis our deepest desire to @banisE
the hyphen once for ALL .:.... -. : - \ 1
Against this organization Maurice
Leon, of the faith of Israel, himself a
recent immigrant, has now sent his
protest, we do not know whether in his
capacity as an American citizen or the
legal adviser of the French Government
He writes, according to the Times:
"The necessary effect of the plan
is to help perpetuate these German
American clubs, societies and lodges. /:
This is the inherent vice of the plan
which I venture to call to your at
tention because the article states that
the council has the Endorsement
of the Administration through Sec
retary Lane and it has the further
Endorsement of Senators Lodge,
Lewis and King and others. i +:
''What Americans have the right
to- expect at this time is that the
German American clubs, societies
and lodges instead of being given I
thus new lease of life, shall 60 out =
of existence never to be heard from
again. We know that they have
heretofore constituted aState within
a State. But for these organiza-
tions it is doubtful if our Govern
ment would have felt compelled to
wait nearly three years before decid-
ing that sufficient unity existed
among us to warrant our participant
ing in struggle in which our fate
as free nation was at stake.
It cannot be denied that certain forces
are doing all they can to segregate the
so-called German element into racial
unit and then to label it something apart
from the rest of America, for it appears
that no matter what this element does
to prove it's loyalty, it is apparently
not permitted to enjoy anything but an
anomalous position something distinct
and alien to the rest of the population,
similar to negroes and Cinnamon. The
fact that it subscribes twice the amount
of any other racial unit to the Liberty
Loan, the fact that it's sons make up 28
per cent of the casualties, seems to
count for little or nothing. This element
is forced and compressed into an alien
unit, not by any desire OF action OF it's
own, but by the dictum of those who
compose the present-day Ku7Kllx Klan,
the Knownothings and nativists.
The beautiful tributes which Taft
and Roosevelt paid these men and wo-
men on occasions when they wanted to
be popular with them, the tributes to
their "Gemuthlichkeit" and ideal home
life, the part borne by their predecessors
in laying the foundation of the republic,
when they formed our far-hung battle
line on the borderland Of civilization
when they fought the French and In
dians in the old border wars, when they
were massacred at Schenectady in the
eighteenth as in New Ulm in the nine.
teenth century IS the guardians OF ou1
frontiers, when numbers Of them were
chosen for their loyalty to form tht
bodyguard of General Washington, whe1
they voiced the first protest agains7
slavery on American soil, when they
saved Missouri to the Union and blet
and died for the preservation Of the coun
try in the Civil War are convenient,
ignored and forgotten. They are still
doomed to be an undigested, unassimilat
ed, separate and alien factor in ou
national life by the prescription Of thos
who control the press under God know
what auspices, with hardly as much righ
to the ordinary benefits Of citizenship
as some aliens whom the circumstance
Of war have cast upon our shores, expose'
to the insults and ieers Of every chance
guest, cowed and silenced and harasse'
by their neighbors. Sssisss5.s ss..
Benjamin Franklin more than cen cen