newspapers and the performances of German American citizens be explained: that is, the supposition that the constituencies of the German papers are actually much smaller than we have been led to believe. A census on that point would be interesting, also. May it perhaps be true that the foreign language paper is a solace to the foreign born American only during the process of Americanization, after which he sloughs it off? The writer has in mind a German immigrant of 1841 who read his Illinois Staats-Zeitung religiously for thirty years, and filed it, then in disgust he burned the file and thereafter read nothing but English language papers. This case may possibly be typical.
After making all allowances, however, it remains true that the German language papers exert a powerful influence among an important section of our population, and in times like this we cannot afford to be indifferent to the character of their leadership. What that leadership has been, so far as the local German papers are concerned, I have tried to ascertain by reading the current numbers of papers in that language published at Portland and Seattle, together with "St. Joseph's Blatt" of St. Benedict, Oregon, and occasionally others. These papers are doubtless fairly representative of the tone and spirit of the German press throughout America.
In Portland the most prominent German paper at the outbreak of the war was the Oregon Deutsche Zeitung. Before the declaration of a state of war this paper was decidedly virulent in its tone. The American press charged its editor with virtual treason on account of his bitter attacks on President Wilson, whom he represented to be in an unholy alliance with Wall Street and with British gold. In the first few numbers appearing after the declaration, it is hard to discern any real change of heart, though there is an obvious attempt to "keep on the windward side of treason." There was the same reckless disparagement in England, although we had now become her ally, and the hatred of that well-hated belligerent even mounted higher than before on account of her assumed success in dragging the United States into the war.
With respect to national policies the editor favored whatever course promised least inconvenience to our enemy. If we would not keep out of the war entirely, he seemed to say, let us at least take plenty of time to get ready to go in. Let us not hurry because England, in her alarming predicament, bids us hurry. Rather be more deliberate on that very account. We should keep our food at home, he went on to advise, because if we send it abroad German submarines will sink it. We should keep our troops at home in order that, if any power should venture to attack us after the close of the European war we might be able to beat off the enemy from our shores.
From this state of anger and disgust, the editor of Oregon Deutsche Zeitung gradually passed to a calmer frame of mind. Many of his editorials during June and July were written in a tone void of offense. Yet every step toward the acceptance of the American government 's position was taken in a grudging spirit—not generously, not wholeheartedly, not in the manner of one who makes a decision involving great sacrifice and having put his hand to the plow inhibits the backward look. He still wrote articles about "Kerensky, Czar of Russian Democracy", about how "that great
2
