Morris tribune., 1918-10-04
"GROW AN AMERICAN
SOUL" SAYS AMIDON
Notable Remarks Made by Federal
Judge in Sentencing German
/ Pastor

(Rev. ]. Fontana, pastor of the
German Evangelical church of New
Salem, N. D., was convicted at Bis
marck of uttering seditious language
for the purpose of interfering with
the military activities of the United
States. In sentencing him to three
years in the federal penitentiary,
Judge Charles F. Amidon of the
United States district court for
North Dakota, made utterances of
such wide application and sound
craftsmanship that they are repro
duced here in full.
"You received your final papers
: as a citizen in 1898. By the oath
which you then took you renounced
and abjured all allegiance to Ger
many, and to the emperor of Ger
many, and swore that you would
bear true faith and allegiance to the
United States. What did that mean?
Taht you would set about earnestly
growing an American soul, and put
away your German soul. That is
what your oath of allegiance meant.
"Have you done that? I do not
think you have. You have cherished
everything German, and stif1ed every
thing American. You have preached
German, prayed German, read Ger
man, sung German. Every thought
of your mind and every emotion of
- 1oI, oil fhnco ~
has been German. Your body has
been in America, but your life has
been in Germany. If you were set
down in Prussia today you would be
in harmony with you environment.
1t would fit you just as flower fits
the leaf and stem of the plant on
which it grows.
"You have Influenced others who
have been under your ministry to do
the same thing. You said you would
cease to cherish your German soul
and that you would begin to build up
inside of you an American soul. That
meant that you would begin the
study of American life and history;
that you would open your mind and
heart to all it's influences; that you
would try to understand it's ideals
and purposes, and love them; that
you would try to build up inside of
yourself a whole group of feelings
for the United States, the same as
you felt toward the Fatherland when
you left Germany.
"There have been a good many
Germans before me in the last month.
They have lived in this country, like
yourself, ten, twenty, thirty, forty
evidence through an interpreter. II
has been an impressive part of the
trial. AS looked at them and trie6
as best could, to understand them
there was written all over every one
of them, made in Germany" Am,
erican life had not dimmed thai
mark in the least. 1t stood there
as bright and fresh as the Inscription
upon a new coin.
''I do not blame you and these
men alone. blame myself. I blame
my country. We urged you to come
we welcomed you; we gave you op
portunity; we gave you land; we
conferred upon you the diadem Of
American citizenship-and then we
left you. We paid no attention tt
what you have been doing.
"And now the world war has
thrown searchlight upon our ma
tional life, and what have we dis
covered? We find all over these
United States in groups, little Ger
little Norways, little Russias. These
foreign people have thrown a circle
about themselves, and instead O.
keeping the oath they took that the!
would try to grow American souls
inside of them, they have studiousl!
striven to exclude everything foreign
"a clever gentleman wrote 70
nance called America, the Melting
Pot 1t appealed to our vanity, ant
through all these years we have beer
seeing romance instead Of fact. Tha
is the awful truth. The figure of m,
country stands besides you today.
says to me DO not blame this mai
alone. I am partly to blame. Pun
ish him for his offense, but let hin
know that 1 see things in a nev
light; that a new era has come here
Punish him to teach him and tn
like of him, and all those who hav
been mislead by him and his life, tina
a change has come; that there mus
be an Interpretation anew of tn
oath of allegiance. It has been il
the past nothing. but formula o
words. From this time on it mus
be translated into living character
incarnate in the life of every for
eigner who has his dwelling plac
within our midst. If they have bee1
cherishing foreign history, foreign
ideals, foreign loyalty, it must b.