The Illinois Staats-Zeitung was established more than forty years ago. In its development it has kept pace with the growth of the city, in which it is published. It is recognized in general that the Staats-Zeitung is the most outstanding, most influential and the most widely circulated newspaper of the middle West, just as Chicago has become the metropolis between the Allegheny and the Rocky Mountains.

There can be no more impressive testimony to substantiate the above statement than the fact that the Illinois Staats-Zeitung has regular subscribers and readers in thirty-seven states and eight territories of the United States. In some of the states the number of its subscribers is larger than the number of those who read the largest German newspaper published in that particular state. Nearly one thousand copies are sent regularly to Germany, and there are hundreds of subscribers in Mexico as well as in Canada. It has many friends in Hawaii, Japan, East Indian, and Australia.

The Illinois Staats-Zeitung effectively participated in establishing the Republican Party in the West. It has supported this party in good and in bad days, and in many cases it has exercised upon its policies a decisive influence. But after the Republican Party had reached that state of development, where its battles were merely a contest for the possession of public power, it saw fit to strip off the shackles of party affiliation and to become an independent, non-partisan organ, which is at perfect liberty regarding its viewpoints about public affairs. It is not trying, whatsoever, to force its opinions upon its readers, considering it is the reader's privilege to construe his own viewpoint, and arrive at his own conclusions. It does not think of its readers as of a thoughtless herd, which must be led or even forced into a certain party pen, but considers them as independent thinking beings who can make their own deductions, if the facts only, and unvarnished, are presented to them.

On one point, however, the Illinois Staats-Zeitung has always taken a definite stand irrespective of the vicissitudes of party life. It has always defended, with all its energy and persistency, the rights of the German-Americans to perpetuate and cultivate their German customs, the language and traits. It has 3challenged and successfully fought against the arrogance and presumptions of certain Anglo-Saxons, who claim that they are the only genuine Americans.

The Illinois Staats-Zeitung speaks everywhere, and above all, German. For all those degenerated sons of Germany who deny their German descent and language by slavish subserviency to the Anglo-Irish nationality it has nothing but ridicule and profound contempt.

In regard to quantity, quality, variety, careful selection and definite arrangements of reading matter, the Illinois Staats-Zeitung exceeds all other German newspapers in America, including the one, which has a larger number of subscribers due to its favorable geographic location. It is the constant ambition of its publishers to furnish its readers a paper with interesting reading matter, without making concessions to the depraved and rotten taste of the Anglo-Irish-American readers for stories of murder, sex-crimes, and scandals. The steady increase of our readers is evidence that we have been successful in this matter. The publishers of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung are aware of the fact that for the majority of the Germans, which have settled in the Great West, the newspaper 4is the only source of information in regard to progress made in agriculture, trade, science and art in this land of their choice. It is also the only means to remain in continuous connection, intellectually, with the old fatherland.

The publisher of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung recognizes the German-Americans as an undivided totality. They do not discriminate between the Germans from the North and from the South of Germany; nor do they differentiate between Catholics Protestants, Jews and Pagans, as long as these are Germans in reality. The damnable Thirty-years War, which paralized Germany for two centuries, must finally come to an end! Religion must ultimately be recognized as the inviolable private property of every person It can not be forced upon others, nor can it be taken away or handled roughly. This is the attitude of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung. It is not Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan nor Pagan, but simple tolerant and absolutely just toward all, by excluding religious differences from public discussions.

The Illinois Staats-Zeitung has become a German-American family paper in its truest sense. It is just as welcome in the palace of a rich merchant prince 5in a metropolis, as it is in the modest home of a worker or farmer.....The Sunday issue of the Staats-Zeitung (Westen) can not be surpassed as a means of entertainment, due to its abundance of material from German-American journalists, and its careful selections from European papers. It is not equalled by any German paper in America.