It was borne in upon us in the months following close upon the declaration of war against Germany, that many citizens of German birth, long enjoying the freedom and the opportunities of the Valley of Democracy, had not really been incorporated into the body of American citizenship, but were still, in varying degrees, loyal to the German autocracy. That in States we had proudly pointed to as typically American there should be open disloyalty or only a surly acceptance of the American Government’s position with reference to a hostile foreign Power was profoundly disturbing. That amid the perils of war Americanism should become the issue in a political campaign, as in Wisconsin last April, brought us face to face with the problem of a more thorough assimilation of those we have welcomed from the Old World--a problem which when the urgent business of winning the war has been disposed of, we shall not neglect if we are wise. Wisconsin nobly asserted her loyalty, and it should be noted further that her response in enlistments, in loan subscriptions, in contributions to the Red Cross and other war benevolences have been commensurate with her wealth and in keeping with her honorable record as one of the sturdiest of American commonwealths. The rest of America should know that as soon as Wisconsin realized that she had a problem with reference to pro-Germanism, disguised or open, her greatly preponderating number of loyal citizens at once set to work to deal with the situation. It was met promptly and aggressively, and in the wide-spread campaign of education the University of Wisconsin took an important part. A series of pamphlets, straight-forward and unequivocal, written by members of the faculty and published by the State, set forth very clearly America’s position and the menace to civilization of Germany’s programme of frightfulness. Governor Philipp, in a patriotic address at Sheboygan in May, on the seventieth anniversary of Wisconsin’s admission to the Union, after reviewing the State’s war preparations, evoked great applause by these utterances: “There is a great deal said by some people about peace. Don’t you permit yourselves to be led astray by men who come to you with some form of peace that they advocate that would be an everlasting disgrace to the American people. We cannot subscribe to any peace treaty, my friends, that does not include within its provisions an absolute and complete annihilation of the military autocracy that we have said to the world we are going to destroy. We have enlisted our soldiers with that understanding. We have asked our boys to go to France to do that, and if we quit short of fulfilling that contract with our own soldiers, those boys on the battlefield will have given their lives in vain.”