Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1918-01-19
AMERICA FIRST IS
SLOGAN OF GERMAN

Kuhun. Loeb & Co., of New Yorl
city, said in part:
Wherever in this fateful time true
Americans are gathered together
their thoughts will turn to pur-
pose which is one and the same
wher ever, throughout the world the
language of free men is spoken.
1t is the purpose of a common de-
termination to fight and to bear and
to dare everything, and never to
cease nor rest until the accused
spirit which has brought upon the
world the unutterable calamity the
devils visitation, Of his appalling
war, is destroyed beyond all posi-
bility of resurrection.
Some there are, small minority
always, and getting smaller every
day, among Americans of German
birth or decent who lack the vision
to see their duty or the strength to
follow it, and who stand irresolute,
hesitant and dazed.
The vast and overwhelming major
ity have acted like true men and 10y
al Americans. They are enlisted TO
claim your sympathetic understand
ing for the heartache which is theirs.
and they are entitled to claim your
trust. 1t will not be misplaced.
One element there is in our popu-
lation which does deliberately
challenge our national unity.
| mean the Bolsheyiki in our midst.
the preachers of liberty run amuck
who would place visionary class in
terest above patriotism and who in
ignorant fanaticsm would substitute
Tor the tyranny of autocracy the still
more intolerable tyranny of mob
rule, as for the time being they have
done in Russia.
IL 1t We're not for the desertion of
Russia, the battle against autocracy
would have been won by now. AS so
often before, liberty has been wound
ed in the house of its friends. Liber-
ty in the wild and freakish hands of
fanatics has once more, as frequently
in the past, proved the effective help
mate of autocracy and the twin
brother of tyranny.
Outczaring the ear, its votaries
are filling the prisons with their pol
ltlcal opponents, are suppressing,
savagely and lawlessly, freedom of
speech, OF the press and of assembly.
and are maintaining the self-con-
stituted rule of minority by the
force of bayonets.
The deadliest foe of democracy is
not autocracy, but liberty frenzied
Liberty is not fool-proof For its be-
neficent working it demands self-re-
straint, a sane and clear recognition
OF the practical and attainable, and
of the fact that there are laws of ma
ture which are beyond our power to
change.
1t fills me with burning indigna-
ton to see the very foundations of
that majestic and benefcent struc-
ture impudently and DANGEROUSLY
assailed by some of those to whom
the great republic generously gave
asylum and to whom she opened wide
the portals of her freedom and her
opportunities.
These people, with many hundreds
OF thousands of their countrymen,
came to our free shores after cen
turtles of oppression and persecution
America gave them everything she
had to give-the great gift of the
rights and liberty of citizenship, free
education in our schools and uni
yersities, free treatment in our clinics
and hospitals, our boundless oppor-
tunities for social and material ad-
vancement
Most of them have proved them
selves useful and valuable elements
IN our many-rooted population. Some
of them have accomplished eminent
achievements in science industry apd
the arts. Certain of the qualities and
talents which they contribute to the
common stock are of great worth
and promise
But some of them there are, spirit
ually and actually kith and kin of
the Bolsheviki, who have shown
themselves unworthy of the trust of
their fellow citizens; ingrates, dis
turbers ignorant of or disloyal to
the spirit of America abusers of her
hospitality.
They have become drunk with the
strong wine of freedom some of these
men who until they landed on Ameri-
cas- coasts had tasted nothing but
the bitter water of tyranny Drunk,
they presume to impose their Keeling
gait upon Americans to whom free
dom has been a pure and refreshing
fountain for century and a half
Brooding in the darkness of age
long oppression, they have evolved
a fantastic and distorted image Of