The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-04-04

Portland last Friday, from which tn
following extracts are taken:
The events. of the past three and {
half years have brought home to us il
startling fashion the truth that in thi.
country the man who is not who'll.
American and nothing but American i.
a traitor to America. There can bt
no such thing as fifty-fifty allegiance
There are no better Americans in this
land than the Americans of German
blood, who are Americans and nothing
else. 1t is a shame and a disgrace not
to treat these men precisely as all
other Americans are treated. They
are fit to serve in our armies in any
position from the major general down;
they are fit to hold any position in civil
life from president down. But the
men of German blood who have tried
to be both Germans and Americans are
not Americans at all. but traitors to
America and tools and servants Of Ger
many against America. Organizations
like the German American alliance
have served Germany against America.
Hereafter We must see that the melt
ing pot really does melt. There should
be but one language in this country,
the English language. We require of
all immigrants who come hither to
become citizens that they shall speci-
fically forswear allegiance to the land
from which they came. as we'll as
swear allegiance to this land. Here
after we must see to it that this oath
Is observed in spirit as well as in let
ter; and that the men born here. of
whatever blood, and whether their an
cestors have lived in this land for gen.
erations or came here from some for
eign land, are brought up as Ameri-
cans and as nothing else, speaking as
their own tongue the speech of Wash
ington and Lincoln, and knowing 10y
atty to but one flag, the flag that
floats over our armies now the flag
that was carried by our fathers when
In their days the storm Of war blew
over the land, the flag that was borne
by their fathers and fathers fathers
up the red heights of danger to the
SUBMITS Of glory and honor.
If we are men and not children, if
we have the right stuff of manhood in
u.s. we will look facts in the face, how
ever ugly they be, and profit by them.
We must face the fact of our shame
full unpreparedness before this war,
and Of the inefficiency with which for
the first year and two months this war
has been waged by us. Many of our
state governments have done extra
ordinarily good work but the mis-
management at Washington has been
such as to cause all good patriots
grave concern. The policy of unpre-
paredness, of watchful waiting, has
borne most evil fruit. For two and a
half years before we drifted stern
foremost into the war we were given
tory was given great nation. Yet
we failed in the smallest degree to
profit by the warning, and we drifted
into war unarmed and helpless, with
out having taken the smallest step to
harden our huge but soft and lazy
strength. In consequence, although
over year has passed. we are still in
military sense impotent to render
real aid to the allies or be a real men
ace to Germany Had we done our
plain duty and prepared in advance
we probably would not have had to
go to war at all, and certainly would
have ended the war almost as soon
as we entered it. If we had even be-
gun seriously to fight last September
Russia would probably not have brok-
en-, and victory would now be in sight. |
Won Hindenburg and Won Tirpitz We're
reported as saying when we went to
war that we would be negligible |
factor in the military situation for IS
months. Fourteen months have since
gone by, and for these IA months the |
facts have borne out their prophecy. |
We utterly failed in our duty to build |
without an hours delay great fleet |
Of cargo ships We have put gallant
little army on the other side but it
is very small army and entirely un-
equipped for modern war. After IA
months this great and wealthy nation
has only been able to put in the field
an army less numerous than poor
wrecked Belgium or ruined Servia has
in the field, an army but little more
numerous than Portugal has sent to
the front. Nor is this alive had to
send that army abroad absolutely un-
equipped with the special weapons Of
modern warfare. No army can take
the field nowadays without abundance
of field artillery, of autorifles and Of
airplanes. Yet we have not as yet
been able to put any field guns, but a
negligible number of autorifles, not
any aeroplanes of our own into action;
and we hold an insufficient number Of
rifles and Of heavy siege or fortress
guns. We have had to get from our
hard pressed allies, from the war-torn
nations, to whose help we nominally