of the Elephant, the Donkey and the Tiger as symbols for the
Republican, Democratic and Tammany organizations, whom Lincoln,
Grant, Mark Twain delighted to honor as their guest, the critic
whose broadsides shattered the careers of hosts of political crooks
and swindlers, the patriot whose faithful service won support for
the cause of the country. One of the greatest fighters for truth
and decency known in American history. He it was who took up the
cudgel single handed against the Tweed Ring, the gang that stole
four hundred millions from the New York City treasury, who answered
a banker’s offer of a half million bribe with the answer: “I made up
my mind not long ago to put some of those fellows behind the bars,
and I am going to do it.” He did it at the peril of his life. His
cartoons roused the public conscience and prodded the police into
action. Boss Tweed, the looter chief, called out in despair: “Let’s
stop them damned pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers write
about me--my constituents can’t read; but, damn it, they can see
pictures!” The pitiless cartooning of Nast finally broke up the gang,
with most of them ending in jail. During the Civil War his cartoons
roused the nation as nothing else. When Grant was asked what man in
civil life had done the best work for America, he answered: “Thomas
Nast. He did as much as any man to save the Union and bring the war
to an end.” This he did by his cartoons in “Harper’s” that carried
messages of cheer and patriotism to the humblest cottages in the
prairie. Thousands of recruits were won for the Northern cause by
the simple patriotism of Nast’s cartoons. His work proved a treasure
trove, during the present war, for pilfering cartoonists, who lifted
copies bodily from the old volumes of “Harper’s.” Nast was born in
1840 at Landau, Bavaria. His great work in the end was ill rewarded,
for having been sent to fill the consulate in Ecuador, he lost his
life through fever contracted in the service of his country.
=National Security League.=--An organization of active patriots who,
with the American Defense Society and the American Protective League,
spread rapidly to all parts of the country during the war to report
acts of disloyalty and soon became synonymous with repression and
terror. It ultimately took on a political character and with its
backing of men interested in war contracts and general profiteering,
started in to defeat the re-election to Congress of members who
had not voted “right.” At the instance of Representative Frear of
Wisconsin, a special Congressional committee was appointed and the
officers and members were summoned to appear before the committee
to give testimony. The investigation revealed the fact that the
secretary of the League had been a Washington lobbyist and that its
backers comprised a group of financiers and heads of trusts who were
using the organization to intimidate or defeat members of the House
who did not vote as they were expected to vote on war measures. The
list was a long one, but included J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller,
Nicholas F. Grady, director of fifty large corporations interested
in war profits; H. C. Frick, of the United States Steel Corporation;
Arthur Custis James, of the Phelps-Dodge Company; Mortimer L. and
Jacob Schiff, H. H. Rogers, of the Amalgamated and Anaconda Copper
Companies; Charles Hayden, representing twenty-six corporations;
the Guggenheimers, Cleveland H. Dodge, William Hamlin and Eversley
Childs, W. K. and E. W. Vanderbilt, George W. Perkins, Clarence H.
Mackay, T. Coleman Dupont, the powder king, and many others. Among
the officers of the League were the late Col. Theodore Roosevelt and
Elihu Root.
Most of these names were connected with the $2,000,000 fund
subscribed, contrary to the laws of the State of New York, to
re-elect John Purroy Mitchel mayor of New York in November, 1917.
The scandal formed the subject of an investigation by the District
Attorney for the southern district of New York, and Assistant
District Attorney Kilroe told the reporters that at a luncheon given
by Cleveland H. Dodge during the campaign to a group of millionaires
one of the participants declared: “The patriotic issue of the
campaign is not doing as well as expected,” and that one member at
the luncheon said: “If between that date and the election a terrible
catastrophe happened to the American forces it would insure Mitchel’s
election--a catastrophe such as the sinking of a transport.”
Mitchel’s campaign was conducted on a purely alarmist platform,
in which the Kaiser was represented as having his whole attention
concentrated on whether Mitchel, the patriot, or Hylan, accused of
disloyalty and pro-Germanism, would be elected; but Mitchel was
buried under an avalanche of votes.
Testifying before the Congressional investigating committee,
Representative Cooper, of Wisconsin, declared: “This organization is
financed by corporations worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and
can hire college professors and secure publication in the newspapers
of articles designed to deliberately mislead public opinion,” and,
referring to the denial of Elihu Root and other officials of the
organization that it had engaged in politics, he said: “If they
are willing to testify under oath, in public, so foolishly, there
is nothing they will not do in secret to serve the great, powerful
corporations which they represent.” Representative Reavis read into
the record a statement that 40 per cent. of the league’s “honor roll”
of forty-seven Representatives voted against measures which would
have made the big interests receiving tremendous war profits bear
their burden of war expenses. All of those who voted for the McLemore
resolution, against war and against the Julius Kahn conscription bill
were put down in a “disloyalty chart,” and large sums were expended
to defeat them.
S. Stanwood Menken, an early president of the league, in his
testimony stated that he favored an American navy which, combined
with that of Great Britain, would “surpass any other two-power navy
in the world,” but that, on the other hand, “he favored a reduction
of armaments.”
The succeeding president of the league, Charles D. Orth, was forced
to admit that in publishing the league’s Congressional “disloyalty
chart” he had conveyed a false impression by recording the vote on
the McLemore resolution as on the merits of the resolution instead
of on the vote to table it. There were innumerable other counts
against the league. One was that it sent its literature to 1,400
newspapers and then read what these newspapers printed in arriving at
the opinion of “the great majority of the people.” In other words,
they first circulated the opinion and then accepted it as that of the
people. Orth was asked if there was any good sound American stock in
Illinois.
“There surely is,” he answered.
“Then how do you reconcile that with the fact that the men who voted
against war were returned to Congress with an overwhelming majority?”
he was asked by Representative Saunders, but failed to reply.
Among the activities of this league was that of dictating the things
to be taught in the public schools. In New York $50,000,000 is
annually spent for the public school system, raised by taxes paid
by all the people, and the schools should represent the people who
pay for them. A New York paper of April 4, 1919, in an editorial,
said: “It has been shown during the past few days that a course
of economics has been adopted by our educators under the tutelage
of an outside body. This outside body is the National Security
League, an organization financed by the big war profiteers, whose
political activity in connection with the last Congressional election
constituted a grave scandal.”
The Congressional committee on March 3, 1919, filed a report
arraigning the Security League, calling it “a menace to
representative government,” “conceived in London,” “nursed to power
by foreign interests,” “used in elections by same interests,”
and revealing “the hands of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, du
Pont, suggesting steel, oil, money bags, Russian bonds, rifles and
radicals.”
In regard to Frederic C. Coudert, a prominent New York lawyer, one of
the league’s leading lights, Mr. Menken testified that he represented
Great Britain, France and Russia in international matters and is
counsel for the British ambassador.
The originator of the league was S. Stanwood Menken, who testified
that he conceived the idea while listening to a debate in the House
of Commons on August 5, 1914. He is a member of the firm of Beekman,
Menken & Griscom, New York lawyers, who represent a large number of
corporations controlling railways and public utilities; also the
Liverpool, London and Globe insurance companies, which proceeded
early in the war to force the German insurance companies out of
business. The firm also represents “some sugar companies and also the
Penn-Seaboard Steel Company.”
Charles D. Orth is a member of a New York firm dealing in sisal,
from which farmers’ binding twine is made, and testified before a
Senate investigating committee that he had been engaged in forming a
combination to increase the price of this product. His firm had an
office in London and he traveled all over Europe in the interest of
his sisal business.
All the heavy subscribers were shown to be men making millions in war
profits and interested in silencing every voice raised to criticise
the conduct of the war. Through the activity of this organization,
pacifists everywhere were denounced and cast into jail. What
baneful influence it was able to exercise is apparent. The Carnegie
Corporation--Andrew Carnegie, president; Elihu Root, vice-president,
holdings in United States Steel Corporation, with income over
$6,000,000--contributed $150,000 to the league. The investigation
showed that the organization had expended the following sums:
July 8, 1915, to December 31, 1915 $ 38,191.59
January 1, 1916, to December 31, 1916 94,840.43
January 1, 1917, to December 31, 1917 111,324.59
January 1, 1918, to December 31, 1918 235,667.56
-----------
$480,014.17
=Neutrality--“The Best Practices of Nations.”=--President Wilson’s
message to Congress in August, 1913:
“For the rest I deem it my duty to exercise the authority conferred
upon me by the law of March 14, 1912, to see to it that neither side
of the struggle now going on in Mexico receive any assistance from
this side of the border. =I shall follow the best practise of nations
in the matter of neutrality by forbidding the exportation of arms
and munitions of war of any kind from the United States=--a policy
suggested by several interesting precedents, and certainly dictated
by many manifest considerations of practical expediency. We cannot
in the circumstances be the partisans of either party to the contest
that now distracts Mexico, or constitute ourselves the virtual umpire
between them.”
=New Ulm Massacre.=--New Ulm, a settlement of Germans in Minnesota,
was August 18, 1862, attacked by Sioux Indians, who in resentment
of their ill treatment by Government agents and for the non-arrival
of their annuities from Washington, took advantage of the fact that
many of the male white population had departed for the war and left
the homes unprotected. The Indians adopted the ruse of entering the
houses of settlers under pretext of begging or trading for bread.
Not suspecting any treachery, they were admitted as usual, and in
an instant turned upon the friendly Germans and murdered upward of
seventy men, women and children. A squad of Germans, who were using
wagons with banners, headed by a band, to recruit for the Union army
along the frontier, were fired upon from ambush and several killed,
seven miles from New Ulm. The men were able to effect their retreat
and to alarm the countryside, while soon the smoke rising from ruined
homes was apprising the settlers in every direction of the occurrence
of extraordinary events and to hasten them into the town for common
protection. The next morning, Tuesday, August 19, the Indians were
roving in every direction throughout the neighborhood; and appearing
before the town, opened an attack on the outposts stationed west and
southwest of the settlement. Ill equipped for such engagement, the
men fell back, with the Indians forcing their way into the center of
the town, where the fighting continued until nightfall, many on both
sides giving up their lives in the fierce battle. On the following
morning the Indians had disappeared in order to surprise the small
garrison at Fort Ridgely and destroy it preparatory to a campaign of
murder and rapine along the Minnesota Valley. Meantime reinforcements
arrived from Mankato and St. Peter, 30 miles distant, and from Le
Sueur, still more remote. But the garrison held out, and strongly
reinforced and greatly embittered the Indians again marched upon
New Ulm, driving everything in their way and evidently determined
to destroy every homestead in the village, which was soon a mass of
flames. On August 23 the whites succeeded in barricading themselves
on a small area of ground, where they were in a better position to
continue the uneven struggle. The fighting was not interrupted until
nightfall, and was resumed the next morning, which was Sunday. After
several hours of fierce fighting the Indians realized that they
were at a disadvantage, and learning from their scouts that strong
reinforcements were on the way, abandoned the siege. A number of
families had either wholly or partly perished and 178 homes had been
destroyed. A train of 150 wagons carried the survivors, including
56 wounded and sick, to Mankato and St. Peter, comparatively few
returning to New Ulm, many scattering throughout the State to begin
life over again. The innocent Germans had thus paid the penalty of
crimes committed by others who were permitted to profit by their
fraudulent treatment of the Indians.
=Lord Northcliffe Controls American Papers.=--Lord Northcliffe
not only owns the London “Times,” “Mail” and “Evening News,” but
the Paris “Mail.” He also owns an important share of stock in the
Paris “Matin” and the St. Petersburg “Novoje Vremja.” His influence
in American journalism has long been known, and J. P. O’Mahoney,
editor of “The Indiana Catholic and Record,” in a statement in the
Indianapolis “Star,” directly charged Lord Northcliffe with owning
and controlling eighteen very successful American papers in order to
use them against the best interests of the American people and in the
interest of Great Britain. With many of the leading newspapers under
the control of a foreign publisher it is not difficult to account for
the persistent misrepresentation of German policies and motives, and
for the general bias of so many of the leading papers in the East.
The following is the extract from Mr. O’Mahoney’s statement referred
to as printed in the Indianapolis “Star” early in 1916.
“Talking about foreign propaganda in our midst, Lord Northcliffe
(then Sir Arthur Harmsworth), told the writer in an interview in the
Walton Hotel, Philadelphia, in April, 1900:
“‘=The syndicate of which I am head owns or controls eighteen very
successful American papers in your leading cities.= We find the
American service they send us very satisfactory, and we, of course,
furnish them with our great European service. As you see, I am not
here on pleasure only, but on business.’
“When asked to name the papers ‘owned and controlled,’ the big,
brainy, handsome Englishman cleverly ’sidestepped.’
“Now, if eighteen or more leading papers are owned and controlled
in England, is it a wonder that the ‘German plots in the United
States’ are being ‘played up,’ and the English plots in the United
States hushed up? Is it surprising that the people, through the news
service, get only the English side of the news?”
=Osterhaus, Peter Joseph.=--Regarded by some critics the foremost
German commander in the Union army, called by the Confederates “the
American Bayard.” He attained the rank of major general and corps
commander. Born in Coblenz in 1823. Served as a one-year volunteer
in the Prussian army at Coblenz and rose to the rank of an officer
of reserves. He participated in the German revolution and fled to
America, settling at Belleville, Ill., and St. Louis. In 1861, at the
outbreak of the war, he enlisted as a private in the Third German
Regiment of Missouri. He soon was appointed major of the regiment and
later was made colonel of the Twelfth Missouri (German) Regiment,
rising to brigadier general in January, 1863, and to major general
after distinguished service at Chattanooga in the same year. On
September 23, 1864, he was given command of the Fifteenth Army Corps,
which he commanded in Sherman’s march to the sea.
He retired January 16, 1866, after continuous service for five years,
rising from the pike to the highest command, never deserting the
Union flag for a day, fighting thirty-four battles without losing
one where he was in independent command. He lived to see the first
year or two of the World War, residing at the age of ninety with a
married daughter at Duisberg in the Rhinelands. His services to the
Union were forgotten and his pension was cut off. Rear Admiral Hugo
Osterhaus, retired in 1913, is his son. He was born in Belleville,
June 15, 1851, and resides in Washington.
=Palatine Declaration of Independence.=--The history of the Tryon
County Committee, identified as it is with the events in New York
State immediately preceding the Revolution and throughout the latter,
and commemorating as it does the name of General Herkimer, is the
more interesting for being probably the first, and surely among the
first, to make a declaration of independence in anticipation of the
formal Congressional announcement of the break with Great Britain of
July 4, 1776. The claim of priority is conceded by William L. Stone
in his work on the “Life of Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea,” (1830) the
Indian chief who proved himself the scourge of the New York and
Pennsylvania frontier settlers. Stone in Volume I, p. 67, says:
It is here worthy, not only of special note, but of all
admiration, how completely and entirely these border-men
held themselves amenable, in the most trying exigencies,
to the just execution of the laws. Throughout all their
proceedings, the history of the Tryon Committees will
show that they were governed by the purest dictates of
patriotism, and the highest regard to moral principle.
Unlike the rude inhabitants of most frontier settlements,
=especially under circumstances when the magistracy are,
from necessity, almost powerless, the frontier patriots
of Tryon County were scrupulous in their devotion to the
supremacy of the laws. Their leading men were likewise
distinguished for their intelligence; and while North
Carolina is disputing whether she did not in fact utter a
declaration of independence before it was done by Congress,
by recurring to the first declaration of the Palatine
Committee, noted in its proper place, the example may
almost be said to have proceeded from the Valley of the
Mohawk.=
“The Minute Book of the Committee of Safety of Tryon County, the Old
New York Frontier” (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1905), contains the
minutes of the meeting at which this German American Declaration
of Independence was adopted. The names, reduced to their German
originals, leave no doubt of the racial character of the majority of
the members. The declaration adopted August 27, 1774, begins with
these words:
Whereas the British Parliament has lately passed an Act
for raising a Revenue in America without the consent
of our Representatives to abridging the liberties and
privileges of the American Colonies and therefore blocking
up the Port of Boston, the Freeholders and Inhabitants of
Palatine District in the County of Tryon aforesaid, looking
with Concern and heartfelt Sorrow on these Alarming and
calamitous conditions, Do meet this 27th day of August,
1774, on that purpose at the house of Adam Loucks, Esq.,
(Lux) at Stonearabia and concluded the Resolves following,
vizt.
King George is acknowledged the lawful sovereign, but
3. That we think it is our undeniable privilege to be
taxed only with our Consent, given by ourselves (or by our
Representatives). That Taxes otherwise laid and exacted
are unjust and unconstitutional. That the late Acts of
Parliament declarative of their Rights of laying internal
Taxes on the American Colonies are obvious Incroachments on
the Rights and Liberties of the British subjects in America.
Sympathy is expressed with the people of Boston, “whom we consider
brethren suffering in the Common Cause,” and that “we think the
sending of Delegates from the different Colonies to a general
continental Congress is a salutary measure necessary at this alarming
Crisis,” etc.
Section 5 of a resolution adopted nine months later, at a meeting of
the Palatine Committee, May 21, 1775, expresses the declaration in
even more specific form, as follows:
That as we abhor a state of slavery, we do Join and unite
together under all the ties of religion, honor, justice
and love for our countrymen never to become slaves, and to
defend our freedom with our lives and fortunes.
Of the 71 names attached to the declaration, 48 were distinctly
German, and six Dutch or Low German. Some of the names appear in
their anglicised form in the minutes, due to clerical errors and
gross indifference of their bearers; but their identification is
based on the careful researches of Friedrich Kapp, the historian
of the German element in New York, and others. Fuchs was changed
into Fox, Teichert into Tygart and Klock into Clock. The change
was also due to an inherent desire to hide the German origin of
the names which assume such important historical value. That the
writing of Loucks for Lux was an error is proved by the discovery
that a descendant of the same family, one Adam Lux, played quite an
important part in the Baden revolution of 1849, while descendants of
the Petrie family are living today in Wurtemberg, Germany. The list
of 54 German signers (inclusive of the Hollanders or Low Germans) is
as follows:
Adam Lux, Johann Frey, Major; Andreas Finck, Jr., Major; Andreas
Reiber, Peter Wagner, Lieutenant-Colonel; Johann Jacob Karl Klock,
Colonel; George Ecker, Nikolaus Herckheimer, Major-General; Wilhelm
Sieber, Major; Johann Pickert, Ensign; Edward Wall, Wilhelm Petrie,
Surgeon; Jacob Weber, Markus Petrie, Lieutenant; Johann Petrie,
George Wentz, Lieutenant; Johann Frank, Philipp Fuchs, Friedrich
Fuchs, Christoph Fuchs, Adjutant; August Hess, Michel Illig,
Captain; Friedrich Ahrendorf, George Herckheimer, Captain; Werner
Teichert, Lorenz Zimmermann, Peter Bellinger, Lieutenant-Colonel;
Johann Demuth, Adjutant; Wilhelm Fuchs, Christian Nellis, Heinrich
Nellis, Heinrich Harter, Hanjost Schumacher, Major; Isaak Paris,
(Elsaesser) Heinrich Heintz, Friedrich Fischer, Colonel; Johann
Klock, Lieutenant; Jacob James Klock, Major; Volker Vedder,
Lieutenant-Colonel; Fried. Hellmer, Captain; Rudolph Schuhmacher,
Hanjost Herckheimer, Colonel; Johann Eisenlord, Captain; Friedrich
Bellinger, Adam Bellinger, Second Lieutenant; Johann Keyser, First
Lieutenant; Johann Bliven, Major; Wilhelm Fuchs, Lieutenant.
Samuel Ten Broeck, Major; Antoon van Fechten, Adjutant; Harmanus van
Slyck, Major; Abraham van Horn, Quartermaster; Willem Schuyler, Gose
van Alstijn.
=Franz Daniel Pastorius and German, Dutch and English
Colonization.=--What the Mayflower is to the Puritans, the Concord is
to the descendants of the Germans who were among the pioneer settlers
of America. It was this vessel that bore to American shores the first
compact German band of immigrants, under the leadership of Franz
Daniel Pastorius.
While the first Dutch settlement, that of Manhattan Island, or New
York, was founded in 1614, and that of Plymouth by the Puritans in
1620, that of Germantown, Pennsylvania, occurred in 1683, although
long prior to that date Germans in large numbers were settled in the
New World, and there is evidence that there were Germans among the
Jamestown pioneers and those of the Massachusetts Bay colony.
But German immigration is reckoned to have begun with the arrival
of thirteen families from Crefeld under Pastorius. They embarked
July 24, 1683, on the Concord, and arrived October 6, 1683, in
Philadelphia.