The
editors and owners of the older publications were dying out, and new
hands were guiding the editorial pens. Often when there was no
American-born German available, an editor was imported fresh from
Germany. He came as a German from a new Germany--that Prussianized
Germany which unmasked itself in August, 1914, and which included in
its dream of power the unswerving and undivided loyalty of all Germans
who had migrated. The traditional American indifference and good
nature became a shield for the Machiavellian editors who now began to
write not for the benefit of America but for the benefit of Germany.
Political scandals, odious comparisons of American and German methods,
and adroit criticisms of American ways were the daily pabulum fed to
the German reader, who was left with the impression that everything in
the United States was wrong, while everything in Germany was right.
Before the United States entered the Great War, there was a most
remarkable unanimity of expression among these German publications;
afterwards, Congress found it necessary to enact rigorous laws against
them. As a result, many of them were suppressed, and many others
suspended publication.
German pastors, also, were not infrequently imported and brought with
them the virus of the new Prussianism.
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