Two years before the war, a Lutheran minister, Rev. Jaeger, was assassinated in his home in Indiana for being pro-German. On April 5, 1918, Robert B. Prager was lynched by a mob of boys and drunken men at Collinsville, Illinois, for being a German. The acquittal of the men was received with public jubilation, bon fires and concert by a Naval Reserve band. At West Frankfort, Ill., according to a press dispatch of March 25, 1918, “500 men seized Mrs. Frances Bergen, a woman of Bohemian birth, from municipal officers, rode her on a rail through the main street of the town, and compelled her to wave the American flag throughout the demonstration. At frequent intervals the procession paused while Mrs. Bergen was compelled to shout praise for President Wilson.”
A law evidently designed to hurt citizens of German descent was passed in Chicago, and a dispatch of March 26, 1918, gleefully announced that “six thousand aliens will lose their rights to conduct business in Chicago, May 1, when the ordinance passed by the City Council refusing licenses to all persons not United States citizens takes effect. Brewers, saloon keepers, restaurant keepers, tailors, bakers, junk dealers and others for whom a license from the city is required will be affected by the new law.” In this manner judges were forced from the bench and even compelled to fly for their lives, teachers were ousted out of their places, and professors frozen out of their professorships in universities. Citizens to the number of thousands were made outcasts in the country of their birth or adoption,and they were asking themselves “why?” without getting an answer. The German plotters spoken of by leading officials of the government as menacing the safety of the government, had not materialized; the danger of the “hyphen” had been exaggerated.
Under the extraordinary power given to irresponsible organizations and individuals by the repressive legislation enacted by Congress, the abuses which ensued were harrowing to any one with the least conscious regard for the institutions of his country. In New York a boy was sentenced to three months in jail for circulating a leaflet containing extracts from the Declaration of Independence, emphasis being laid on the fact by the court that certain passages, construed to be an incitement to sedition, were printed in black type. An appeal to a higher court fortunately nullified the verdict. A woman was knocked down in the streets of New York by a man for speaking German, and the court discharged the brute without a reprimand. From all parts of the country reports of outrages against citizens with German names were of daily occurrence. Men were carried off by groups of hooligans, stripped and whipped, or tarred and feathered. The same individuals who had themselves expressed sympathy for the cause of the Central Powers in conversations with their neighbors, suddenly turned informers, and professed to be proud of their betrayal of confidence. Everywhere men were indicted for treason who on trial were acquitted by the juries who heard their cases.
Not until the mob spirit everywhere assumed such a menacing aspect that no citizen dared trust his own friend, and bloodshed and violence began to run rampant, came any utterance from administration sources designed to check the reign of terror, and then the warnings were couched in such conservative language that they could be applied as a rebuke only to extreme cases of fanatical madness.
Not only was the press doing yeoman’s duty in the suppression of human rights, but the pulpit, the bar and the theaters and film companies combined to lash the ignorant into a state of maniacal fury and incited them to further outrages. A few judges, here and there, stood out in bold relief for their attitude in defense of constitutional government and the right of the individual under the same.
One of the most dastardly outrages was enacted near Florence, Ky., October 28, 1917, when a masked mob seized Prof. Herbert S. Bigelow, a prominent citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio, tied him to a tree in the woods and horse-whipped him for advocating the constitutional rights of American citizens.
The manner in which terrorism was carried out is well illustrated by events in New York City. Bazaars were everywhere held in aid of the cause of army and navy and the associated governments, and committees scoured the city for subscriptions and support. Amongthe events organized for this ostensible purpose was the Army and Navy Bazaar. The sum of $72,000 was taken in, but only $700 went to Uncle Sam’s soldiers and sailors. The rest went for commissions and expenses. This affair was used to terrorize German Americans on a large scale in order to press money out of them. An investigation brought out evidence, supplied by William S. Moore, secretary of the Guaranty Trust Company, who was treasurer of the bazaar, that “German citizens and citizens of German descent had been threatened with accusations of disloyalty by collectors of the bazaar.” An evening paper stated: “He admitted to the prosecutor that during the preparations for the bazaar several complaints that New Yorkers of German blood had been solicited, with the threat that they would be reported for internment if they refused to contribute, had been made to the bazaar officials.”
Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, during the war declared that 600 liberal periodicals had been interfered with by the Post Office Department under the power given the Postmaster General to censor the American press. A large number of papers were harrassed, their editors arrested, some charged with treason or other high crime; and a few—a very few—were indicted. One effectual way of putting a stop to a publication which, though no grounds existed for its suppression, yet proved offensive by its outspoken defense of American principles, was to cancel its second-class mailing privilege. Under this privilege a paper enjoys a pound-rate postage, instead of being obliged to pay one cent or more for every copy mailed.
This was the course pursued toward the weekly, “Issues and Events,” which, with “The Fatherland” (now Viereck’s “American Monthly”), was started in 1914 to combat the pro-Ally campaign under Lord Northcliffe. After some five or six issues were stopped from going through the mails, the paper taking steps to reincorporate, became “The American Liberal,” but after only four issues was denied the second-class mailing privilege, and was forced to suspend.
The issue of March 23, 1918, was stopped for printing Theodore Sutro’s plea before the Senate Committee as attorney for the German-American Alliance, which was having its charter canceled by a bill introduced by Senator King, of Utah. The issue of April 6, 1918, was stopped. It contained a compilation of the outrages against German Americans in all parts of the country under the heading, “A Reign of Terror.” The issue of April 13 was stopped. It contained a quotation from Carl Schurz on the freedom of speech and press, and a statement of Abraham Lincoln on reverence for the law; also an article on the seizure of a list of 40,000 subscribers to the German war bonds by the then attorney general of New York.