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Oregon Exchanges
November, 1917

Germania entitled "House Faces a Tremendous Task." Therein is manifest a sympathic attitude toward the work of the Food Commissioner. The article concludes, patriotically if not grammatically: "Private aims and corporate greed must subordinate itself for the good of the country and that of the world."

On the 29th of August the editor dealt with President Wilson's reply to the Pope 's peace proposal. To give himself more freedom in criticism he truculently ascribes this paper to Secretary of State Lansing, leaving the President 's name wholly out of the discussion. He contends that a political revolution in Germany is impossible and quotes ex-ambassador Andrew D. White to the effect that the German people are more loyal to the Kaiser than the Democrats to President Wilson.

On August 30 he has an editorial discrediting the new Russian government. "'The old tyrant in Russia," he says, "was named Nicholas Romanoff, the new is called Alexander Kerensky; for the rest there is little difference."

September 9 he printed a bitter tirade against the "self styled patriotic" press under the caption "Knownothingism Running Amuck." He calls their editors "fiends and fanatics", "Anglomaniacs," "more British than the British," etc. The article shows some hysteria, but doubtless the editor's recent unfortunate experience in having been haled before a magistrate on a charge of disloyalty preferred by one of the city papers helps to explain it.

On the 13th of September he reprinted two articles having an "anti" tone, the one contending that Wilson 's demand for the democratization of Germany would lengthen the war rather than shorten it, the other that Mr. Gerard has "plunged into a description of German political institutions and has made a mess of it."

Readers of this brief review may be interested to learn that a German language weekly, the St. Joseph's Blatt, of St. Benedict, Oregon, published this unique explanation of America 's entrance into the war, that it was the result of the malign activity of the international society of Free-masons! And when President Wilson for the allies and the United States declined the Pope's peace proposal, the editor exclaimed: "Heaven weeps, Hell laughs, and in the circles of international freemasonry is uncontainable joy because the Pope's peace proposals have been declined by one side."

The editor of that sheet seemed more naively innocent of his national obligations than any other whose writings have been reviewed. Yet even he avers, in a recent number, what would hardly be inferred from his editorials, that with him it is ever "America first."

The cases presented are fairly typical of the papers read. They show, what could have been expected, that the German editors after maintaining for two and a half years the righteousness of Germany's cause in the war, could not quickly readjust themselves to an attitude of hostility to that country. Under those circumstances they had the restricted choice between maintaining silence on the war theme, or of proclaiming their patriotism and discussing the issues of the war as they saw and felt them. They elected to speak out and in doing so they created for themselves exceed-

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