Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1918-08-07


recently written in Tampa, Fla, by q
women who wished her second cous.
in, Roseline Bernard, 230O Washing
ton avenue, Racine, to understand
why her grandfather left Germany
and what an American citizen owes tC
this country:
II had carefully filed your letter OF
last November intending to reply to
it, but my time has been so filled with
duties that now devolve on every
good American that have had to put
aside the things | enjoy doing, such
4 as writing letters to my friends, read
/ ing. ETC., and work every minute.
To-day | shall take little time to
write you for | want to thank you for
sending me the address of couisn Ar
thur Wolf and also to cell you what
we are doing so you may know what
our ideas are as to the duties of good
| Americans at this time of world war.
81 wrote Arthur several times and
had such nice letters from him. The
last came from Camp Merritt, and we
who know, realized that he was. there
waiting for the steamer that would
take him TO Europe. Have not heard
since and am wondering whether he
reached there safely. He said he would
write later but letters are frequently
lost. If you have his present address
| wish you would drop me card with
that on as the boys over there like
to hear from home. He sent me a
small snap shot of himself and | am
very glad he is trying to defend our
country from the dangers which
threaten it.
'Your grandfather Zimplemann
may never have explained to you just
why his father sold his home and
came to this new land and was glad
to be hard working citizen of the
pioneer state of Wiscon sin. 1t was
because he desired liberty of action,
express his own thought and express
in his views on matters that concern
ed him. In Germany, which he wish
ed, to leave, men were not in any way
free and equal You were born in a
certain walk of life and in that walk
of life you must remain, and pay not
only homage and Difference but pay
taxes to support those who were born
in the ruling class. My grandfather
and your great grandfather did not
like the injustice of lie that did not
permit man to rise by the exercise
of his Cwn efforts, neither did he wish
to remain in country that exercised
autocratic control over his sons, TAX
ing them alta age that they deemed
best to serve in the army and keeping
them so long as iteonsidered it wise,
regardless of the needs at home or the
desires of the family. Therefore,
Grandfather Zmplemann shook the
dust of Germany from his feet, jour
neyed to America, elected of his own
free will to become an American cit
izen, to obey its laws and to elect the
men to make the laws which he would
obey. In other words, he became an
integral part of his own country and
his own law. 1t was no longer the
country of ruler that he lived in but
it was a country that he helped rule
for he assisted in sending those men
to the law making bodies who he
thought would make good laws.
Sometimes, no doubt, he voted for a
man that he afterwards found was
not as he supposed, but in a year or
two or three he could vote against
such a man an put him out of power,
something that he could not do in
Germany. There he obeyed the law
that was made not in his interests but
in that OF a ruling class. He hated
that life; he loved the life he came to,
and he always said that he never re-
GREETED for moment his shaking off
the shackles of Germany and becom-
ing of his own free will an American
citizen.
"Having this clearly in mind, it
now becomes the duty of the decend-
ents of man who came to this coun-
try an alien and was received in a
friendly fashion and permitted to en-
iov all the benefits of free govern
ment, to pay something back of the
debt they owe. Had Grandfather
Zimpelmann not had the courage of
his desire for freedom to shake off
the shackles of Germany, you and |
would have been poor, hard-worked
peasants, treated worse than the cat
tie in the field by the over-lords of
Germany, and instead of going our
own way, earning all we are capable
of earning (for it is not the fault of
free America if we fail to Trofit by
her bounty and do not fit ourselves
either by education or trai ling to
make living) we would be peasants
in the field, hitched perhaps with a
COW and horse and pulling heavy
loads, bent double with toll and pay
ing taxes always to support the royal
family in luxury. know whereof |
speak for the summer preceding this