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Secondly, the German-Americans did not go, as they might have done, to Germany, through neutral countries, with American passports, and enter the German army; and, thirdly, the most bitter disappointment of all, the German-Americans have not yet risked their property and their necks, their children's future and their own tranquillity, by taking arms against the government of America in the interest of the Hohenzollerns.
When, therefore, war was declared these German-Americans came together in their clubs, beer gardens and German churches, to pledge unswerving fealty to the Kaiser and to the militarism from which once they had fled as from death itself. Last summer brought the Government draft to the young men of one of these German colonies.
The German-Americans, suppressed during the war, now dared to emerge, hoping to save the Fatherland from the effects of defeat by preventing the ratification of the treaty; the politically active Irish found opportunity to fulminate against British imperialism and "tyranny" which they declared had been sanctioned by the treaty; impractical liberals, who were disappointed because Wilson had not inaugurated the social millennium, joined hands with out-and-out reactionaries.
The quality of the German-Americans that Berlin bribed is set forth in the reminiscences of Witte when he says that the Kaiser and the Foreign Department paid Munsterberg of Harvard University $5,000 a year salary and that Munsterberg was the most successful and efficient spy that the German system had ever developed.
Germans masquerading as German-Americans are planning an attempt against Canada and they intend to carry out that attempt just before the immediate declaration of war. We believe that the meetings of the prime movers are held in Milwaukee, possibly in Chicago. It is important for us to know their plans."
The former was centred at the American Embassy. The latter was inspired by the German-Americans who had lived in Germany most of their lives and by other sympathetic Americans who came from the United States.
The irresistible strength of the popular indignation may be accurately estimated from the fact that even the German-Americans were terror-stricken by its violence. Not only did our propaganda collapse completely, but even our political friends dared not open their mouths, and only ventured to assert themselves once more after the settlement of the Arabic case.
He was being kept minutely advised about conditions here through the German spy system and by German-American envoys, who came to Berlin to report on progress the German-Americans were making here in politics and in Congress.
The stranger arose in his place, but left it uncertain as to whether he was a Secret Service man, a banker or a patriot interested in his country. He began with substantially these words: "Men, you are all German-Americans. I find that not one of you subscribed to the First Liberty Loan. You came to this country poor men.
He was too busy to talk to me, but from one of his aides I learned that the soldiers at the Madison Square Garden were not German-Americans and were not von Hindenburg's men, but were part of that invisible army of German spies that invariably precedes the invading forces of the Kaiser.
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