The Web : $b The Authorized History of the American Protective LeagueHough, Emerson
History
The Web : $b The Authorized History of the American Protective League
Hough, Emerson
American Protective League; Propaganda, German; World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- United States
There is no charge of vain-glory, no charge of inefficiency and
self-seeking attached to the story of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood
and the Argonne, where died thousands of Little Fellows become great
in making good. Neither is there any scandal attaching to the unknown
men, the unnamed Little Fellows who “made good” back home behind the
lines—the men who usually get lost after any war when the glory is
being passed around by the politicians and paid historians.
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 kin,
the Kaiser’s friend and sympathizer, still hid unchanged. To-day, as
thousands of them read these lines, they know that this is the truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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