The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-06-29

S&&% all fasteners About OOUOOIO
- g gsoFss s SS St to ssd feel that nat the he En1 ed
war Rudigers name not legion, but pOpuace; and vet he believed
f fm' ng pto %@S eim "f t 1e sG only dpner in America who Compensated the
his forebodings. "Theyi! seeF' he would predict. They'll wake up and
you they wont know what it means! They're at war with the greatest
i SsdEes sb "a man 6n almost me ST crazy fng. to Ds se, "a Il ! do, what this war means and then
East Yves, North and South, Rudiger got the habit of scolding. He
ne EN- might forget it a little, and go out and play golf. Then another day
he'd see some other Rudger playing golf and Rudiger would watch him
Ne Soh would au spu tter.m,' They I just can't realize it! Nobody doing anything!
-, Yes t. almost all of US had a touch Of Rudger in those days. We fmag
as irritable and there was a vast coIding we nro dm, pm man mVu thons nIs
re e To% al Y ad dnnt snn founded %r d N ct the ,o YOU J,t theme: The he kaiser will
Or if YOU don't buy Liberty Bonds. Are YOU doing your duty? If not
slset ot G sS ssvt s%s setD sEn s%sF TO You %s in sn %a.t a nr osstsp Porous " wa, ssu was con- con-
in te Zig, Light of Later event n. n may venture to express a doubt and to e
its congeniaiy with the ervou irriobIIty Of the time. It was Rudiger-
neither the attack o. You NO YOUR :" Susceptibility p%gn V to % sco GfHs. s SutS ths s
When a poster shouts at me, YOU aren't in the trenches" 1 I'M apt
to Zee a little antagonzed, and my thought may be: What business is
trenches, either. YOU are a safely a home as anybody, and YOU haven't
know what I'm doing or trying to do for u cause. YOU seem to think
up, and YOU make m e tredT Or, hT I'm a a selfish fish and n gnn %bT t Tr pero on
m"v k aSe a" tM wh f%m he you Cnt omf ii nm is chiefly 4gn aimed <, q my emo eln process cess
me to do anything I don't want to do. You can't work ME, boz
and 40 doubt the YOU work helped to get them into line, but the really i'm
p%"aI 1~t r"s w RS01 Us and H"t OUR R'G 5nst reached sS he Those those 't citizens as s% Tnd 11'' %e
left nothing of the nyphen-and the hyphen had only smarted the redder
under the mustard plaster pronoun YOU. When the Communications"
hyphen. They might have remained Recommendations" if we had gone
to wa with n country except Germany, and this is ne great benefit
h is5 Germ s%s e sSnGsr5ed on u ETnog Us -, when he 81 she t attacked %ES ,, u.s.; she killed killed d the
rect But she is not pleased with her success in the matter, for she made
a mistake in a important detail: she thought the Recommendations"
would drop the American side of the hyphen; she thought they were really
any "German-Amercan' citizens any more in u country; there are only
American citizens. From August, 1914, until April, 1917, the German
Americans often said YOU to the rest of US and the resto of is often said
YOU to them; but now all of US say WE. US and OUR.
A young friend of mine. of German descent. told me how it was with
him.. Until April, 1917, he had been proGerman. and at times critical
of u governments attitude toward Germany. Only a week or so after
form. "of course l ami" he said. "oh. yes; everything was different
until my country went to war l loved Germany, and 1 naturally thought
that Germany as right in her struggle with other foreign countries. Don't
you take your old and admired friends side when he gets into q contro-
right to have felt that way and to have taken that attitude up to the time
the United States went to war, and l can't be ashamed of it. wei though
sir! lot from the moment when she became the recognized enemy of
my country. My countrys enemy is my enemy and I'm going to fight
this enemy of my country if it costs my life. Germany is my enemy! I'm
tut to help get the kaiser. and we're going to do itr
The Communications" encountered skeptcsm from people
who found it difficult to see how a viewpoint car change with changed cir
cumstances; and the doubt a Calling and unhelpful is suspicious doubts
nearly always are. A great many good Americans who couldn't get into
uniform and fight Germans felt the need of attacking somebody they could
get at and make vince They suffered from the natural and Just anger
against Germany, but Germany was too far away, and to sheltered behind
Hndenburg, to be directly affected, and a lot of us just couldn't contain
ourselves; W were 30 hot W had % let out and give something OF some
body within or reach a good cushng" We cu@ed the "German.Ameri
cans" and made 1t a little harder for them to decare their loyalty but the
vast majority of them behaved so well under the stress that after a while
W e had 20 abandon this means of blowing off our steam. So we picked
haps e did a little good, here and there, with our Stacker" talk: and
certainly we did some harm. We werev very free with the word, W. editors
writers and speakers, who were not in uniform ourselves. We were espe-
cany bitter against what W e liked to call the "swfvelchair warriors" in
Washington There were men of draft age, it appears serving in some of
tn, departments in Washington, and without pausing % inquire how many
of these were physically unfit for service in the field, or how many had be-
come indispensable in the positions they we're filing We ragged against them.
vlrtuous congressman, who themselves had no intention of aver being ex