That is the purpose of the people of Wisconsin as it is the purpose of the people of New York and of every other State in the Union. I give no credence to and have no patience with those who would measure as with a thermometer the loyalty temperature of our communities.
Some dreamers there may be, here as everywhere, so immersed in their dreams that the trumpet call of the day has not yet awakened them.
Some politicians there may be, here and elsewhere, so obsessed by the issues which heretofore were good election assets and so unable to shake off the inveterate habits and the formulas and calculations of a lifetime, that they are unable to recognize and to share in the sudden flaming manifestations springing from the deep of the people's soul—and after a while, looking around for their usual followers, find themselves in chilly loneliness.
Some there are, a small minority always and getting smaller every day, among Americans of German birth or descent 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 majority have acted like true men and loyal Americans. They are entitled to claim your sympathetic understanding for the heartache which is theirs and they are entitled to claim your trust. It will not be misplaced.
I am taking very little account of that insignificant number of men of German origin who, misguided or corrupt, dare by insidious and underground processes to attempt to weaken or oppose the resolute will of the Nation. There are too few of them to count and their manœuvres are too clumsy to be effective. But let them be warned. There is sweeping through the country a mighty wave of stern and grim determination, which bodes ill for anyone standing in its way.
II
One element only there is in our population which does deliberately challenge our national unity. I mean the militant Bolsheviki in our midst, the preachers and devotees of liberty run amuck, who would place a visionary class interest above patriotism and who in ignorant fanaticism would substitute for the tyranny of autocracy the still more intolerable tyranny of mob-rule, as for the time being they have done in Russia.
If it were not for the disablement of Russia, the battle against autocracy would have been won by now. As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends. Liberty in the wild and freakish hands of fanatics has once more, as frequently in the past, proved the effective helpmate of autocracy and the twin brother of tyranny.
Out-czaring the czar, its votaries are filling the prisons with their political opponents, are practising ruthless spoliation and savage oppression, and are maintaining their self-constituted rule by the force of bayonets. Riot, robbery, famine, fratricidal strife are stalking through the land.