No nation in this world ever attained greatness without having gone through bloody battles. Obstacles, standing in the way of development had to be removed. There is no exception to that rule. Every historian will testify to that. It is a truth that cannot be refuted.

Periods of peace alternate with periods of war. Thus it has been; thus it still is and always will be.

All we have to do is to study the development of our own country. Immediately after the first settlements on this continent, wars with the Indians, the erstwhile masters, began. 2Wherever the white man settled, the nomadic Indian was forced to retreat to new hunting grounds. Then came the War of Independence with England. A few decades later came the War of 1812 with England, and in 1861 the Civil War, because, as Seward put it, "an irresponsible conflict, which could not be solved by compromises any longer, but had to be settled by the sword."

Our wars with Mexico and Spain were matters of necessity. In short, the most important chapters in our national history were written with blood. We "hyphenated" Americans give our sympathies to Germany and Austria, encircled by the most powerful nations in Europe, because we know as a matter of fact that French thirst for revenge, Russian expansionist desired, and British jealousy have clamored for decades to draw the sword and challenge German's position as a world power.

The day has arrived. Why--we are not going to discuss here. But it had to come and so it did. 3If the Anglophile elements in America want to give their sympathies to the Allies, and to England in particular, that is their business and we don't care. But we demand the right to express our sympathies for Germany and Austria.

We "hyphenated" Americans are one hundred per cent Americans. Our citizenship is as genuine and true and positive as that of an Elliot, Choate, or Wilson. All that we own, our work, and our aspirations are American. Our descendants and our future belong to this country.

But we reject with emphasis the accusation that we have violated our citizenship oath [by not being pro-British] or that we would not be reliable in case of an eventual conflict between Germany and the United States.

Such a conflict could be precipitated only by a clash of vital interests between the two nations, and this lies so far beyond any probability that it 4is preposterous even to mention it. It would seem much more probable that some day America and Germany will make common cause to destroy England's tyranny on the seas.

How would it be if we'd turn around and accuse our Anglophile fellow citizens of being unreliable during a conflict of that sort?

At about the same time when Americans fought Americans in our Civil War, Germany's political development made it necessary for Prussia to wage war against Hanover, Saxony, and Bavaria, which racially and culturally were much closer related to each other than we German-Americans are to Germany.

This example may be sufficient proof that our present sympathies for Germany do not take anything away from our Americanism, and that only an insolent Anglophile knownothingism would have the gall to blame us for our sentiment and treat us as second rate citizens.