Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1918-10-02

him and his life, that a change has
come; that there must be an inter-
probation anew of the oath of allegi-
ance. 1t has been in the past nothing
but formula of words. From this
time on it must be translated into
living characters incarnate in the life
of every foreigner who has his dwell
ing place within our midst. If they
have been cherishing foreign history,
foreign ideals, foreign loyalty, it must
be stopped, and they must begin at
once, all over again, to cherish Amer
lean thought, American history, Am
erican ideals.
"The Picture Of the Kaiser"
"That means something that is to
be done in your daily life 1t does
not mean simply that you will not
take up arms against the United
States. 1t goes deeper than that 1t
means that you will live for the Unit
ed States, and that you will cherish
and grow American souls inside of
you. 1t means that you will take
down from the walls of your homes
the picture of the kaiser, and put up
the picture Of Washington; that you
will take down the picture of Bis
marck, and hang up the picture of
Lincoln. 1t means that you will be-
gin to sing American songs; that you
Will begin to study earnestly Ameri-
can history; that you will begin to
open your lives through every avenue
to the influence of American life: it
means that you will begin first of all
to learn English, the language of this
country so that there may be a
door into your souls through which
American life may enter,
Il am not so simple as to enter
tain the idea that racial habits and
qualities can be put aside by the will
in day, in a year, in a generation;
but because that is difficult is all the
more reason why you should go about
it, and quit cherishing foreign life.
If half the effort had been put forth
in these foreign communities to build
up an American life in the hearts of
these foreign born citizens that has
been put forth to perpetuate there a
foreign lift, our situation would have
been entirely different from what it
is today. You have violated your oath
of allegiance in this, that you have
cherished foreign ideals and tried to
make them everlasting. That is the
basic wrongs of these thousands of
little islands of foreigners that have
been formed through our whole linn
its, that instead of trying to remove
the foreign life out of their souls, and
to build up an American life in them,
they have striven studiously, from
year to year, to stife American life,
and to make foreignness perpetual.
That is disloyalty; and the object, one
of the big objects of this serious pro-
ceeding in this court, and other like
proceedings in other courts, is to give
notice that that must be stopped.
A Day of Judgment.
81 have seen before my eyes an
other day of Judgment When we get
through with this war, and civil lib
erty is made safe once more upon this
earth, there is going to be a day of
judgment in these United States.
Foreign born citizens and the institu-
lions which have cherished foreign
ness, are going to be brought to the
Judgment bar of the republic. That
day OF judgment looks more to me
today like the great day of judgment
than anything that l have thought of
for many years. There is going to be
separation on that day of the sheep
from the goats. Every institution
that has been engaged in the business
OF making foreignness perpetual in
the United States will have to change
or cease. That is going to cut deep,
but it is coming. l recognize the
right of foreign-born citizens to hear
their religion, if they cannot under
stand it in English, spoken to them
in the tongue that they can under
stand. If they have not yet acquired
enough English to read, they are en-
titled to have paper that shall speak
to them the language that they can
understand. / cannot go further than
that
and this is the capital thing that
is going to be settled on that day of
judgment, namely, that the right to
those things is temporary, and il can
not be enjoyed by anybody who is not
willing to regard it as temporary and
to set about earnestly making the
time of that enjoyment as short as
possible. That means a fundamental
revision of these foreign churches.
No freedom of the press will protect
a perpetual foreign press in these
United States. 1t won't protect any
press of or any church who, while it
is trying to meet temper airy need,
does not set itself earnestly about the
business of making that temporary
situation just as temporary as pos
sible, and not making it, as has been