The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-01-04
PATRIOTISM WITH A STRING.

Davenport Democrat: Thousands
of intelligent Americans of German
descent are not Swallowing their
convictions" now that America is at
war with Germany, as Henry Voll-
mer put it in his address to the Ger
nan club of Chicago.
If they have followed at all the
record that Germany has made in
this war, any convictions that they
may have had that the kaiser and his
crowd were right and should win this
var were long ago thrown overheard
Now, like real Americans, they are
saying. openly thai Prussiap mill
,arism is wrong, that they have no
sympathy with it, that they hope the
Hohenzollern house and all it stands
Cor will be overthrow, hat the CEN
trail powers will lose this war and
hat America and it's allies will win.
1t is unfortunate that one may
search from beginning to end of Mr..
Vollmer's speech and not find these
continents voiced anywhere in it.
Loyal Americans of German de-
scent will not appreciate Mr.. voIl-
ner's description of them as Sub
ordinating private judgment to the
contrary verdict of the constitutional
authority" If they have minds of
their own, and if they read the daily
papers and keep anywhere within a
year of the progress of current
events. their private judgment is not
ut variance with the verdict of on
%stitutional authority. That verdict is
for wal with Germany and her allies
until democracy is made safe for the
world-until America as well as
Europe is safe from the menace of
Prussian militarism. Does Mr.. VoIl-
mer wish to say that his audiences
who came, or whose forebears came.
from Germany, are at variance with
this verdict-that their private judg-
ment questions the public judgment
of the great majority of Americans?
Americanism with strings tied to it
is not the brand of A~mericanism that
is called for at the present hour.
No class of our citizens ought to be
coddled or praised because they are
~outwardly for their country, against
their private judgment" and by
swallowing their convictions
No good a come from talking to
audiences who applaud that kind of
reasoning, about the fanatical zealot
who is trying to fight this war with
lies"
NAeH We nave d wal 10 VIII. MI.
Vollmer wastes his time and his elo-
fessional patriots" in protesting
against IAN organized campaign of
villification. and persecution" refer
ring by implication to the statements
of verified German atrocities which
have lately been given out by the de-
partment of public information, with
the approyal of the United States
government.
Mr.. Vollmer needlessly takes the
role of a special pleader for Germany
when he declares that he believes
that "nine-tenths of the atrocity tales
on which people are being fed
until their gorge rises are baseless
~fabrications."
He had u%nsparing denunciation of
atrocity stories but no condemnation
for German atrocities.
He had praise for many things
German, but not a word of denuncia-
ton of any single German crime
against civilization and humanity. of
which the record of the last three
years would afford him abundant,
material.
Mr.. Vollmer's %eloquence ought to
be used to stiffen the backbone of
any German. orleans who are wav-
ering in theil. ,oyalty to this country.
He did urge them to swallow their
convictions" buy Liberty bonds sup
port the Red Gross and other worthy
causes, but he lost a splendid oppor-
to help his hearers to that
straight thinking and truth and depth
of spirit that would make everyone Of
them a red-blooded American, up-