Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1920 — MUSINGS OF VIERECK [ARTICLE]

MUSINGS OF VIERECK

The American Monthly is almost «S Interesting as yas Its pfedecesww the Fatherland, which was forced to suspend during the war. S '

George Sylvester Viereck, its editor, is, of course, opposed to the Versailles treaty and the league covenant. But his program is, unlike that of another distinguished man, constructive and positive—and comprehensive. In an article in the October issue is this tribute to Mayor Thompson of Chicago: He stood out as no other figure during the blackest period of the war. His refusal to proclaim a public holiday on the occasion of the visit of Marshal Joffre, Balfour and the allied grafters who came over to incite the American people to fanaticism over the war in order to get Uncle Sam’s money, caused Lowden as»governor to order troops to Chicago, and for a whils it looked like civil war. It was this same refusal to extend a welcome to Marshal Joffre that kept the American Legion from holding its conventidn in Chicago. But now we are informed that Mayor Thompson was right in his attitude, and that “he stood out as no other figure during the blackest period of the war”—which is true, though in another sense than that meant by Viereck.

In a questionnaire authorized by the National German-America’n conference, which ought to be widely read by loyal Americans, is this: “Do you favor an immediate equitable peace with Germany and the other powers of central Europe?” It is proposed to elect only congressmen who will vote to make peace apart from our associates in the war, and to reject the Versailles treaty, or else Insist on its revision in the interest of Germany. There is an article attacking Poland and the Poles. A cartoon lampooning Marshal Foch is reprinted from a Berlin paper. French securities are, it seems, .unsafe, and the American, people are cautioned against investing in them. “Is it not,” the American Monthly asks, “wiser for the shrewd investor to purchase German securities instead of French?” None, according to this authority, is righteous save Germany. On the other hand, those, peoples who fought the war with us, and sacri; flees we entered and whose sorrows we shared, are really our enemies, and most dangerous ones. The American Monthly is simply the old Fatherland under another name. Its policy is the same. Now as in the war days, it praises those who opposed she American government —such men as Thompson and Berger—and . denounces those who favored it. It misrepresents the solid American citizenship of “German ancestry. Yet it assumes tp instruct the American people in their I political duties and to tell them what Americanism means. As Viereck was against our associating with Great Britain and France* during the , war, 1 sO he is opposed to a league bf . nations now, and in favor of a separate peace '"With Germany, We db hot believe that the American people have forgotten the war, or, that they are ashamed of their part in it, or that they are prepared to ( turn and rend Great Britain, France,

and Italy, but for whose courage and steadfastness Germany would today Indeed be “ueber alles.” —Indianapolis News (Rep.).