Who and what are we, however, who stand at the edge of the Pacific and look westward? Are we Americans? Who could call us such? We are not the same Homeric breed now that we were when the first rails went west. Taking our arbitrary section herein, west of the Dakotas, and studying the statistical census map of the United States made in 1914—the first year of the war—we find that the population of Montana is more than fifty percent foreign-born, or of foreign-born parentage. The same is true of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, California, Oregon and Washington; all have population thirty-five to fifty percent foreign of birth or parentage! This, in what we have thought was the American West!
There is no American West. There is no America. But for the Grace of God, we are gone. This is no mere rant. Study the census maps yourself—you can have no more thrilling, no more fascinating and no more saddening reading, search how you may. The trouble with most of us Americans was that we did not know our America. For America, this war is not over. It is just beginning. The more we set aside preconceived notions or biased and unctuous conclusions based on suppositions and not facts for premises, and the more we learn the actual facts regarding this country’s problems to-day, the more we shall be obliged to that sobering and wholly distasteful thought that America is at the threshold of her real war. That man does not live who can with any color of authority predict the end of that irrepressible conflict. No Statue of Liberty can avert it; no jaunty melting pot doctrine can conjure it away.
But the great West, which with the great South remains in larger percent American than do the North or the East, was zealously on guard throughout this war. Few of our far-flung marches but had an A. P. L. outpost of Americans, and these were eyes of the same sort that long ago looked down the brown barrels of long rifles in the frontier days. If we had a frontier now, here it would lie, between the Prairies and the Pacific; and the frontier always has been loyal. It was loyal in this war. The next great American will come from the land of the old Frontier. What, think you, will be his message? Will it be of melting-pots?
COLORADO
Denver, Colorado, must have a rather thrifty population, for there were 140 cases of food hoarding reported from that division. Operatives of the League investigated 789 cases of disloyalty and sedition under the Espionage Act, and the division as a whole worked in close coöperation with the local draft boards. The Chief says: “We looked into the German language situation; also vice, liquor, bootlegging, and general lawlessness in coal mining camps. We investigated the loyalty of many individuals who were under consideration for membership in patriotic associations or for City or State positions.”
Delta County, Colorado, had one simple and kindly pro-German section foreman who left spikes sticking up in the wagon road crossing, so that they might possibly destroy some American tires. Very thoughtful, but not very damaging. Apropos of one of the more lurid happenings in this division, the Chief says: “We got a riot call to a small settlement six miles out, and I responded with three details of A. P. L. members. We arrived on the scene at 11:00 p. m. and found thirty armed Americans who were just starting in to clean up a settlement of eleven German families. We quieted things until we could make an investigation, and then found that a poison scare was at the root of the trouble. A German administered a pint bottle of bluing to one of his sick horses. The horse very promptly died. Heated imagination did the rest.” The A. P. L. certainly prevented bloodshed in this instance.
Mancos, Colorado, gives a pleasant little touch of local color: “Just a few days before war was declared with Germany, one G. B. B——, a resident of Mancos, Colorado, made some very derogatory remarks to the effect that the war, if it was declared, would be a rich man’s war, for the benefit of the wealthy class, and that the United States had no business in war with Germany; that the American flag would soon be dragged in the dust, and by the Germans, if war were declared. His wife also stated that the Germans had done nothing worse than the soldiers did in our late civil war. Many remarks were made showing sympathy with the German cause. When the news of the first big victory of the Allied armies was received here, an impromptu celebration was held on the streets of the town, and all of doubtful sympathies were asked to mount a box and wave an American flag. Some half a dozen did so, and did it gracefully and with seeming willingness, but Mr. B—— refused to come out. Later, at another celebration, he was made to come out and wave the flag, though he did it with bad grace and only upon being strenuously urged to do so. He made a long talk trying to tell how loyal he was, but he would not submit to waving the flag until really made to do so, and then in a very insulting way. He made no more violent utterances after the time mentioned.”
Red Cliff, Colorado, had at least one hectic moment: “On October 14, 1918, the County Treasurer’s deputy, Mrs. F——, deliberately tore down the Fourth Liberty Loan poster, remarking that ‘That has been up there long enough; it has almost ruined our flowers in the window.’ It was developed that our County Treasurer, Mr. C——, was a hoarder of food, and the local Food Administrator arrested him and fined him $25 for the benefit of the Red Cross. The County Treasurer called me into his office, caught me by the throat and tried to scare me, saying: ‘I understand you are showing a paper around here trying to ruin my character; that you are saying that I am a dirty slacker. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to circulate such dirty lies about me?’ Then the fun began. I struck him and told him that if he was guilty of hoarding 2,000 pounds of flour in his brother’s attic, he certainly was a dirty, low-down slacker and traitor. He weighs about 225 pounds; I weigh 143. He threw me down and sat on me for fifteen minutes, trying to make me apologize. I didn’t, and never will for any man of pro-German type.”
For a man weighing only 143 pounds, the Red Cliff chief seems to have been active. He sent back three Canadian subjects and caused a decided change of heart in a pro-German who was the son-in-law of a local banker. The suspect got wind of the fact that he was being investigated, and his conversion was very prompt, he making no attempt to sit down on the local Chief.
Prowers County, Colorado, investigated fifty cases of mouth-to-mouth propaganda, a notable case in its annals being that of a German Lutheran minister who refused to answer the question as to which side he wished to win the war. It did not take him long, however, to realize that he had made a blunder. He asked for time. The next day he declared very promptly that he wanted the United States to win. He was instructed to prove this by preaching and praying it in private as well as in public, which he agreed to do.