The Tupelo journal., 1918-01-18
Germany's Deep-Laid Plot Against Us
From The Literary Digest for December %, 1917.

cities. to interrupt their means of supply, disorganize all
Governmental affairs, assume the control OF all useful
buildings, c~onfscate all war and transport-supplles and
lastly to impose heavy indemnities as q matter OF
fact, Germany is the only great Power which is in a .po-
sition to conquer the United States"
There has been a slight dislocation in this interesting
program, but a still more marked miscalculation was made
regarding the German immigrant and his functions, which
were, of course, to prepare the way for the ultimate abb
sorption of America into the bosom of the Fatherland,
and until that happy day arrived he was to assist by e-
cry means in his power that program of active German
ization of American institutions which we know to have
been directed from Berlin. For example, Wilhelm
Hubbe-Schleiden, writing in the Alldeutsche Blatter in
1903, said:
'Tt is the duty of every one who loves languages to
see that the future language spoken in America shall be
German. 1t is of the highest Importance to>keep up the
German language in America, to establish German uni
versities, improve the schools, introduce German news
papers, and to see that at American universities German
professors are more capable than their English-speaking
colleagues, and make their influence felt Enthusiastically
on thought, science, art, and literature. If Germans bear
this in mind and help accordingly, the goal will eventually
be reached. At the present moment the center of Ger
man intellectual activity is in Germany; in the remote
future it will be in America"
The German emigrant was trained to feel that in
leaving his native shores he was followed by the protect
ing hand of the Fatherland, and we find the Kaiser himself
saying in aspeech as early as June 16, 1896:
"The German Empire has become a world empire.
Everywhere in distant quarters of the earth thousands
of our co~untrymen are living. German guardians of the
sea, German science, German industry, are going across
the sea 49,. 1t is my wish that, standing in closest union,
you help me to do my duty not only to my countrymen
in a narrower sense, but also to the many thousands of
c~ountrymen in foreign lands. This means that 1 may be
able to protect them if I must"
Nearly twenty years after the Kaiser made this ut
terance we still find in the mind of the Al-Highest the
conviction that he can do what he pleases with America.
Just before we threw in our lot with the rest of the world
in this fight for democracy, our Ambassador in Berlin,
Mr.. James w. Gerard, had an interview with the Emperor
of significant import. In his book, "My Four Years in
Germany" he thus describes the incident:
"The Emperor was standing; so naturally ! stood
also; and according to his habit, which is quite Roosevelt
tian, he stood very close to me, and talked very earnestly
.... He showed, however, great bitterness against the
United States and repeatedly said, America had better
look out after this war; and, 4 shall stand no nonsense
from America after the war -. l was so fearful in re-
porting the dangerous part of this interview, on account
Of the many spies not only in my own embassy, but also in
%he State Department, that I sent but a very few words
in a roundabout way by courier direct to the President"
We We're not only to be conquered, but also to be
did not respond gracefully to Germanization is told in
Klaus Wagner's "Krieg," published in 1906:
|EBy the right of war the right of strange races to
migrate into Germanic settlements will be taken away.
By right of war the non-Gerlnanic population in America
and Great Australia must be settled in Africa"