There is, in a work such as this, no such thing as dividing or apportioning personal or local credit or approbation. Names, portraits, credits, praises—nothing of these is desired or may be begun, for there could be no end; and besides, one man is as big and as good as another in A. P. L. The League existed in countless communities all over the country—so many, it is not possible even to name a fraction of them. There is not even the possibility of mentioning more than a few of the greater centers of the work, and that in partial fashion only.
In this plan, perhaps, the city of Chicago naturally may come first, because, as we have seen, it was there that the League began. Besides, in this great Western hive of all the races, there are far more Germans than there are Americans. Have you not heard that astounding utterance of a sitting Mayor to the effect that Chicago is "the sixth greatest German city on the earth"? One also has heard an earlier Mayor of Chicago say that in his political plans he cared nothing at all for the American vote. "Give me the Austrian and the Italian and the Polish vote," he said; "but above all, give me the German vote!" Perhaps he would not be so outspoken to-day.
Among the unassimilated rabble who make a certain portion of Chicago's polyglot politik-futter, there are perhaps more troublemakers than in any other city of America. It is our own fault that they make so much trouble, but they do make it and they have. Bolsheviki, socialists, incendiaries, I. W. W.'s, Lutheran treason-talkers, Russellites, Bergerites, all the other-ites, religious and social fanatics, third-sex agitators, long haired visionaries and work-haters from every race in the world—Chicago had them and has them still, because she has invited them, accepted them and made them free of the place. Cheap politicians have done the rest; mayors who care nothing for the American vote.
This was the situation when we declared war. We then heard less about the "duty" the foreign-born had reserved when they swore (and then forgot) their solemn Delbrücked oaths of renunciation of all other allegiance, and of loyalty to America alone. But underneath this smug oath of faith to America, all too often the Teuton and his
