The Colorado statesman., 1918-10-19


(This is the second of three articles by
Mr.. O'IIiggins dealing with the propa-
ganda of the enemy in our country)
In n previous article we have noted
how the German agents in this coun-
try are using their Whispering propa-
gnnda" to set us against the French,
the British and the japanese by cir
culating among us all sorts of ISLANDERS
and i'll reports against these allies. In
the campaign to promote domestic dis
unity the pro-German rumor-monger
has been even buster. He is working
here exactly as he worked in Italy,
upon religious prejudices. He has
spread the report that the Masonic
orders have protested TO the govern
ment against the Knights of Columbus
being permitted to build recreation
huts in the camps. No such protest
was ever made. He has circulated
stories that Catholic nuns were refused
permission to do Red Cross work un-
less they wore Red Cross uniforms,
and that Catholic soldiers-and Jewish
soldiers-were being Disseminated
against by Red Cross officials. All
such stories are outright inventions.
At the same time he passes around
every kind of rumor of Catholic dis
loyalty, such as the famous one that
President Wilson's secretary, a Cath
olic. had been executed for treason.
He has filled the mails with printed
copies of an alleged "bloody oath of
the knights of Columbus" giving it
on the pretended authority of the Con-
gressional Record. 1t was printed in
the Record because it was read into a
debate before the house of repre-
sentatives on an election protest, in
order that it might be denounced as a
forgery and libel upon Catholic
candidate. A prO-German agent has
been caught distributing copies of this
bloody oath" in New Jersey and sent
to prison for it.
How the Kaiser Poses.
In Spain and the Catholic countries
of South America the kaiser poses as
"the champion of Catholic Bavaria and
Catholic Austria against Protestant
England, infidel France. and social
tstic Italy, the enemy of the Vatican"
He does not preserve that pose IN
Catholic Belgium or Catholic Poland.
And in America the kaiSerite uses
this very claim of the kaiser to arouse
enmity against the Catholics, just as
in Italy the German agent used it in
an unsuccessful attempt to seduce the
italian Catholics. and now in Amer
lea accuses the Italian Catholics of
having succumbed to the seduction.
AS matter of fact, the Catholic chap
lains in the Italian army were among
the first to discover this propaganda
among the soldiers, reported it to the
officers, and combated 1t diligently.
Various persons and publications
that made living out of sectarian
animOsities before the war are uncon-
sclously doing the work of the enemy
by assisting the spread of anti-Cath-
olic and anti-Protestant ISLANDERS.
They can only be stopped by an appeal
to public reprobation. They are rep
resentlng the trouble in Ireland as
purely a religious trouble, and the
opposition to conscription in Quebec
as the same sort of thing. Even Rud-
yard Kipling recently fell into the
trap and denounced the pope and the
kaiser and the neutrals in one
breath. Such denunciations overlook
the fact that Cardinal Mercier, the
the most effective popular opponent of
the kaiser that Europe has produced.
This is a war of nations, not of creeds.
Prussia is as Protestant a nation as
England is, and Belgium and Poland
as Catholic as Austria. Anyone who
raises the religious question in Amer
lea today is acting as a German
agent, whether he knows it or not, as
truly as If he were blowing up muni-
tion plants. All loyal citizens should
discourage him.
Aggravating Our Race Problems.
Among the negroes the German prop
agandist first began work in the South
and failed. He has been more sue
cessful in the middle West, where the
presence of large loyal German popu.
lation gives him better cover. He is
promising the negroes that the kaiser
will give them social equality with the
whites. An agent, recently captured In
New York, was Offering the negroes
"Black republic" under German
protection, and he was denounced tc
the authorities by the negroes them
selves. Another was spreading reports
Df determinations against negro sol
Tiers in the camps, reporting that the
negroes were being trained as "shocb
troops" to be sacrificed in the from
lines and even circulating story that
the German military authorities ha6
ordered all negro prisoners killed
Thus far this sort of German effort tc
aggravate a race problem has oeen al
absurd failure. Its only danger is that
1t may lead to charges of disloyalt,
against our colored citizens and a sus
picion of them which is not justified