The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-01-21
TO NATIVE BORN PRO-GERMANS

Davenport Times: The other day
the secretary OF the Iowa state coun
ell of defense. speaking at Des
Moines. made the assertion that "the
native born pro-Gernan is the most
dangerous Because of his Ameri'
can citizenship, his freedom of action
gives him greater opportunity to dc
| the detestible things in quiet way.
| He lies about the Red Cross, he buys
little bond and knocks the Liberty
loan among his friends SO as to kill
! larger purchases. Once in while
he makes alleged patriotic addresses
that are saturated with poisoned
ideas, and some times he declares
that the atrocity stories are nine
tenths lies.
Now why is it that the native born
man of German descent is frequently
pro-German when often he has not
even visited Germany in all his life!
What trick of the mind, what influ-
ence, has overcome all his training in
America and has substituted love OF
the kaiser land for love for his ma
tive land?
There are three important infIu-
ences that have served to turn the
heads of such men.
The first is that he has been taught
from childhood that the people OF
Germany are the leaders in education
lin music, in applied science, in
philosophy, and in literature. To a
:. large extent this has been true, but
there is room for debate in regard to
whether the Germans have led the
world in any other than applied
chemistry. The decision of the
debate is unimportant. The fact is
that the young man or young woman
OF German descent of the first gen
Grafton Of native born has been led in
many ways to be proud of his German
ancestry because Of notable achieve
ments of Germans in the fatherland.
Later he discovered the American
politicians vieing with one another
to cater to what was called the Ger
man vote Thus again there was a
tendency at work whirh turned the
heads of some of the young people
born here and made them to feel that
they were somehow a people apart
Mn but not of America, superior be-
ings in a way, entitled to have the
utmost Difference paid to all their
opinions
And then, having known nothing OF
the development in later years of the
vicious military theories of frightful-
ness-a theory based on the assump-
ton that the more horrible the war is
made for an enemy the sooner will
the spirit Of the enemy be broken and
the war ended-having known moth
ing of the development of this atroc-
ious military philosophy. when the
stories concerning how this theory
was applied in Belgium, in occupied
portions of France, in Serbia and in
Russian Poland began to filter
through TO America-when the stories
of atrocities were published, these
few native born lovers OF Germany
declared the atrocity stories to be
lies.
Why Because these native born
young people looked into the faces OF
their fathers and mothers, and into
the faces Of their neighbors who came
from Germany, and saw only kind
ness there; they surveyed the expert
ences Of their childhood in thei:
homes and recalled the wonderful
evidences of family love, the tender
care they received when sick, the
many delightful evidences of the
home spirit, the generosity for others
in time of distress, and they said to
themselves, Here are people | know
who came from Germany; they rep
resent the average of the people OF
Germany, and know my father. and
neighbors Schmidt and Mueller
wouldn't be guilty OF doing anything
such as these atrocity stories say
German people are doing in war