Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1918 — TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OF JASPER COUNTY [ARTICLE]

TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OF JASPER COUNTY

It is known to some of you that certain persons among us have given expression to treasonable, or .as some call it, pro-German utterances. Those of us above the age of thirteen years know that treason Strikes at the very root of our most sacred liberty. And further we know that the person who conceals a knowledge of a treasonable utterance is alike guilty of that crime against our home as the -person who gives utterance to the treasonable sentiment. Now, why not lay one offering at the shrine Of our most sacred liberty: rub the stain from off our honor, and come out and tell our grand jury what we know about the treason that has been voiced in our hearing. Are you an American -—dare you be square with your own Lome government, or would you prefer to see the hun army rape its bloody way through our land? Our land, our country, and why—because oar country’s forefathers glared to pledge “Our lives, our fortunes and our most sacred honor’’ to preserve and maintain the idea of the true liberty Which is the very soul of our nation s being.

Now, what do you pledge for a like purpose? Do you dare to come out and in the sworn secrecy of the grand* jury room give the evidence which we must have to rid us of spies and practically alien enemies? Our men left bloody foot-prints in the snow at Valley Forge white ' fighting for our infant government. Others by the hundred thousand have fought and frozen and bled and died that our Union should remain unbroken. What sublime sacrifice our unen have made that our honor and liberty might be forever maintained. Mothers, of what use is it to send your sons to France if we let dastardly traitors undermine our very government even as they have done in poor old Russia? Give us the evidence. xx