As part of the year’s record I may speak from direct knowledge of a situation with which we were brought face to face in Indianapolis, a city of three hundred thousand people, in a State in which the centre of population for the United States has been fixed by the federal census for two decades. Indiana’s capital, we like to believe, is a typical American city. Here the two tides of migration from the East and the Southeast met in the first settlement. A majestic shaft in the heart of the town testifies to the participation of Indiana in all the American wars from the Revolution; in no other State perhaps is political activity so vigorous as here. It would seem that if there exists anywhere a healthy American spirit it might be sought here with confidence. The phrase “He’s an honest German” nowhere conveyed a deeper sense of rectitude and probity. Men of German birth or ancestry have repeatedly held responsible municipal and county offices. And yet this city affords a striking instance of the deleterious effect of the preservation of the race group. It must be said that the community’s spirit toward these citizens was the friendliest in the world; that in the first years of the European War allowances were generously made for family ties that still bound many to the fatherland and for pride and prejudice of race. There had never been any question as to the thorough assimilation of the greater number into the body of American democracy until the beginning of the war in 1914. When America joined with the Allies a silence fell upon those who had been supporting the German cause. The most outspoken of the German sympathizers yielded what in many cases was a grudging and reluctant assent to America’s preparations for war. Others made no sign one way or the other. There were those who wished to quibble--who said that they were for America, of course, but that they were not for England; that England had begun the war to crush Germany; that the stories of atrocities were untrue. As to the _Lusitania_, Americans had no business to disregard the warning of the Imperial German Government; and America “had no right” to ship munitions to Germany’s enemies. Reports of disloyal speech or of active sedition on the part of well-known citizens were freely circulated.