176 
July 4th, 1917 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
SPECIAL EDITION 
and implied accusations of disloy- 
alty clothed in boisterous demands 
to prove our loyalty; and (3) by 
the failure of the president to ex- 
pressly refute the misconstruction 
of his messages to congress, which 
have been read by many of our 
German- American fellow-citizens 
as carrying the veiled motive to seg- 
regate them for the purpose of de- 
termining their loyalty. 
I cannot believe the president in- 
tended at any time to classify our 
citizenship on the basis of nation- 
ality descent; I believe his mes- 
sages have been misconstrued. 
America is the land of broad minds 
and big souls; the land where ev- 
ery stranger is your friend, — when 
you get to know him. Class dis- 
tinctions on the ground of ancestry, 
as upon any other ground, violate 
the broad spirit that makes our 
country great and strong. Lincoln 
and the civil war established for 
all time the fundamental American 
ideal that we are all one country 
and one people, each citizen a sov- 
ereign in his own right regardless 
of his ancestry or any other thing. 
And it is our sovereign right to as- 
sert that the president is loyal to 
that ideal, as it is our sovereign 
right and duty to be loyal to the 
president and country, and back 
him to the last ditch in his hour of 
need. That is the German-Amer- 
ican sentiment as I know it. 
I hate to use the term Gennan- 
American ; but the necessity of 
self-defense compels us to employ 
it. The distinction has been forced 
upon us by the need of emphasizing 
and combatting the fact that we 
have been unjustly segregated be- 
cause of birth alone. A kicked dog 
is bound to growl. We have been 
called hyphenates and traitors 
without the slightest warrant ; and 
it makes it hard for us to restrain 
our expressions, always, to the ab- 
solute and perfect ideal of loyalty 
that is expected of us, and which I 
know it is our endeavor to main- 
tain. We are not saints, because 
we cannot be any more than any 
other class of citizens. But when 
it comes to the real test it will be 
found that German-Americans are 
loyal, as they have always been. 
The registration records prove it. 
The bond subscriptions prove it. 
And only today the papers bring 
this little item: “No response has 
been received by the Red Cross war 
council with so much genuine en- 
thusiasm as that from the German- 
Americans throughout the coun- 
try”. 
Come, let’s forget these little na- 
tionality bickerings. — before many 
months have rolled by we shall have 
cause to cultivate the American 
spirit of mutual forbearance and 
good will. We are up against a 
hard proposition. We cannot hope 
to win this war unless we hyphe- 
nate all the people and make them 
one compound whole, according to 
the verdict of the civil war, — one- 
third of it German- American. We 
cannot win the war if we continue 
to gratuitous! v offend and ostracize 
