The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1918-09-04
NORTH DAKOTA
JUDGES TALK
In Sentencing One Rev. y. Fontana,
Judge Amidon Of North Dakota,
Uses Language Understood.
MAN CHARGED WITH sEDITioN
Lecture by Judge Well Worth Read
ing by Every Citizen Of Our Count
try-Fuli Text Follows.

| try-FulI Text Follows.
Judge Amidon of the United States
district court Of North Dakota, in SEN
|tencing one Rev. j. Fontana, minis
ter who had been convicted of using
seditious utterances in a foreign lam
guage, used the following language:
The Oath Of Allegiance.
You received your final papers as 2
citizen in 1898. By the oath which YOU
then took you renowned and abjured
all allegiance to Germany, and TO the
emperor OF Germany. and nd sw s91e,,a sna
to the United States, What did that
mean? That you would set about earn,
estly growing an American SOM, aIa !.
put away your German man. soul SOU I Ina anat =
Have you done that? do not think
you have. You have cherished every
thing German, Sand stified everything
prayed German, read German, sung Ger
! man Every thought of your mind and
every emotion of your heart through 81
body has been in America, but your life
| has been in Germany. If you were SEE
down in Prussia today you would be
in harmony with your environment. lt
would fit you just as a flower hts the
leaf and stem of the plant on which It
grows. F. 3G 8S 9ti
You have influenced others who have
thing hi You said You would cease to
cherish your German soul, and that you
would begin to build up inside Of you
an American an soul H. Thar meant ina.
life and history; that you would open
your mind and heart to all OF its IN
huences; that you would try to under
them; that you would try to build up
inside Of yourself a whole group of feel
ings for the United States, the same as
you felt towards the Fatherland Wnen
.ou ~ aMads in Germany"
| There have been good many Ter
mans before me in the last mInth. Ihey
self, 10, 20, 80, 40 years, and they had
to give their evidence through an inter
prefer. 1t has been an impressive part
! tried as best I could, to- understand
them, there was written all over every
one of them, Made in Germany" Amer
lean life had not dimmed that It, marx MAJ q
fresh as the inscription upon new COIN
L do not blame you and these men
alone. blame myself blame my
country. We urged you to- come; We
welcomed you've gave you opportuni-
| ty; we gave you land: we conferred upon
you the diadem of American cltizen-
no attention toswhat you have been dos.
And now the world war has thrown q
upon o
over the United States, in groups, little
Germanies, little Italics, little Austrfas,
little Norways, little Russias. These These
about themselves, and intsead Of keep
ing the oath they took that they would
try to grow American souls inside Of
exclude everything American, and to-
cherish everything foreign. 9
How we Deceive Ourselves.
caes sey xmegraa he M MI9ie
appealed to our vanity, ana through al
these years we have been seeing ro-
nance instead of fact That's the aw-
stands beside. you today 1t says to
me: DO not blame this man alone.
am partly to blame. Punish him for
things in a new light; that q new era
him and the like of him, and all those
who have been misled by him and his
must be an Interpretation anew Of the
oath of allegiance. It has been IN the
past nothing but q formula Of words:
into living characters incarnate in the
life of every foreigner who has his
dwelling place within our midst. ~
tory, foreign ideals, foreign Loyalty, it8
must be stopped, and they must begin
at once, all over again, to- cherish Amer
lean thought, American history, Amer-
.sThe Picture Of the Kaiser" ssS 81
That means something that is to be-
done in your daily life. 1t does Eots
arms against the United States. 1t goes
deeper than that. 1t means that YOU
will live for the United States, and that
souls inside of YOU It 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 Bismarck
and hang up the picture OF Lincoln 1t
means that you will begin to sing Amer
lean songs; that you will begin earnestly
will begin to open your lives through
every avenue to the influence of Ameri-
can life; it means that You begin first <
this country, 50 that there may be q
door into your souls through which
.merican life may enter. aS55s
/. am not 50 simple as to entertain the
idea that racial habits and qualities can
be put aside by the will in day, in a 1
year. in a generation; but because that
is difficult is all the more reason why
go a11 fs + and as a5er
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 per>
petuate there a foreign life. our situa-&
ton would have been entirely different
from what it is today. You have5violat-5
ed your oath of allegiance in this. that
you have cherished foreign ideals and
tried to make them everlasting That
is the basic wrong Of these thousands OF
little islands of foreigners that have
1een formed through our whole limits.
that instead of trying. to remove the
foreign life out OF their souls, and TOT
build up an American life in them, they
have striven studiously, from year to
year, to stifle American life, and to make
foreignness perpetual. That is disloy-A
atty; and the object, one OF the big OBJ
Jects OF this serious proceeding in this
court, and other like proceedings in 9th
er courts, is to give notice that that Z
must be stopped.
"A Day Of Judgme; G
l have seen before my eyes another a
day of Judgment. When we get through
with this war, and civil liberty 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 institutions which have cher
tshed foreignness, are going to be
brought to the Judgment bar Of this re-
public. That day, of Judgment looks
Judgment than anything that have
thought of for many years. There is
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