UNDER the far shock of declared war, the sovereign State of Centralia, unready and unrealizing, was rent and seamed from border to border with seismic chasms across which brother bandied threats with brother, and lifelong friends clamored for each other’s blood. Politicians and newspapers, who live chiefly (and uneasily) by grace of public favor, stepped warily among racial pitfalls set with envenomed stakes. Having so befooled the public, and in thus doing lulled themselves to a false security, they were now in a parlous state, not daring to affront a nation in arms, fearful of the unmeasured power of their alien supporters, afraid alike of truth, falsehood, and silence. But it was the dear-bought privilege and luxury of The Guardian in these great days to speak that which was in its owner’s soul. Straight and clear it spoke, while for the first fortnight after the declaration the editor hurried about the State organizing the trustworthy newspapers into a compact league of patriotism, meantime living, sleeping, and writing on trains, in automobiles, in country hotels, those editorial battle-cries that variously rasped, enthused, infuriated, or inspired, but always stirred and roused, the divided and doubting people of Centralia. After the first stunned inaction and uncertainty of surprise, there crept through the German communities of the United States a waif word of strange import. “Deutschtum is bent, but not broken.” From mouth to mouth it passed. It was spoken in German clubs and societies. It was proclaimed in lodge-rooms. Presently it appeared in print. Bauer’s alien-hearted Herold und Zeitung published it once and again; first, cautiously, tentatively; the second time, building upon its own impunity, and the incredible tolerance of the stupid Yankees, repeating it as the text of an editorial word of good cheer for struggling Germany--with whom the United States was at war! The Reverend Theo Gunst’s religious weekly spread the rallying cry; and fervent theologians preached it in its own tongue from their pulpits. Soon it had permeated the whole German fabric of Centralia, with its message of aid and comfort to the enemy: “Deutschtum is bent, but not broken!” And the Deutschtum of Centralia, unbroken and scarcely bent, set about fulfilling its vengeance upon The Guardian and Jeremy Robson. The first attack was a blast of letters, signed and anonymous. Correspondence enough was daily piled upon the editorial desk of The Guardian to have occupied all of Jeremy’s time had he undertaken to answer it. Most of it was denunciation, protest, warning, threat. Several weak-kneed politicians, followers of “Smiling Mart” Em-bree’s political fortunes, had written pressingly for appointments, evincing in every line their perturbation lest The Guardian’s course might compromise them in one way or another. One correspondent had contented himself with a spirited but unsigned free-hand drawing of a noose overhanging a skull and crossbones.