The ‘Hun’, the ‘Reds’ and World War One
Imagery and Prejudice; the effect of the First World War on German and
Russian minorities in early twentieth century America
Master Thesis; History of International Relations By: Annelieke Wognum, 10077790
Advisor: Dr. E. A. Buettner Date of submission: 01-07-2016
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Table of Content
Chapter 1: The realities of immigration and immigrant life before 1914
7
Rules, Restrictions, and Regulations
7
Prejudices and Perceptions of the different ‘races’
10
Chapter 2: The Great War and Immigration
23
Changes in perception and the effects of war propaganda
24
Revolution and the clash of political systems
32
Chapter 3: The Aftermath
41
The Great Red Scare
42
The Americanization movement and the integration debate
48
Conclusion and Discussion
56
Literature
60
Primary:
60
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Introduction
During the early twentieth century, America experienced one of its largest immigration waves, acquiring an even more ethnically diverse society than it already had. But, as human history teaches us, multiple ethnicities often have difficulties living together, resulting in prejudice towards minorities. As Eric Foner puts it: “The ‘new immigrants’ were often described by native born Americans as members of distinct ‘races’, whose lower levels of civilization explained everything from their willingness to work for substandard wages to their supposed inborn tendency toward criminal behavior.”1 These races that Foner speaks of are now
described as ethnicities, ‘a highly elastic concept applied to groups who say they share or are perceived to share some combination of cultural, historical, radical, religious, or linguistic features.’2 This is a concept that can easily be applied to the ‘melting pot’ of different cultures
that cumulated in America in the early twentieth century.
In addition to the immigration influx, America took part in another great event during the 1910’s: The First World War. This war primarily impacted Europeans, who fought or lived through it from beginning to end, but it did not leave Americans unscathed. Even before they entered into the conflict in 1917 due to German submarines and an intercepted telegram, there were lively debates going on in Congress between those in favor of joining the war and those against.3 So even though it was still relatively far from their beds, especially before their participation, the First World War was most definitely a hot news item. This war not only affected American politics, it also had an impact on its population. In addition to producing an influx of immigrant refugees; it also altered perceptions of these different ethnicities, specifically the Germans who were now viewed as the ‘enemy’ and the Russians who, after their 1917 Revolution, had adopted an ideology that clashed with American capitalism; communism.
America’s immigration history is most often separated into four eras: the open door era between 1776-1882, the era of regulation of 1883-1916, the era of restriction from 1917-1964, and the era of liberalization between 1965-2000.4 All of these eras are defined by the
events that took place within the time period. For example, the open door era is so named
1 Eric Foner, Give me liberty, an American History 4th ed. (New York: Norton & Company Inc., 2014) 659.
2 Elisabeth Buettner, ‘Ethnicity’, in: Craig Calhoun (ed.), Dictionary of the Social Sciences (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002) 148.
3 Koen Koch, Een kleine geschiedenis van de Grote Oorlog 1914-1918 (Antwerpen: Manteau, 2010) 289. 4 Jeremiah Jaggers, W. Jay Gabbard, Shanna J. Jaggers, ‘The Devolution of U.S. immigration Policy: An
Examination of the History and Future of Immigration Policy’ Journal of Policy Practice vol. 13 no. 3 (2014) 4.
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because there were no or very few laws that governed immigration in that period, and each state had its own policies. The open door era became the era of regulation in 1882, for in that year, the first two federal immigration laws were approved by Congress. These laws were the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Immigration Act. The first of these laws prohibited every person of Chinese descent to enter the USA. The second law levied a tax on immigration, stating that every immigrant who wished to enter the United States would have to pay a tax before they were allowed to enter. In addition, it also provided a list of ‘undesirables’, who from that point on were no longer allowed to enter the US, e.g. convicts, lunatics and idiots.5 They were the first but definitely not the last restrictions on immigration within in this time period.
The next turning point in immigration eras can be found in 1917, the year that America joined the First World War, for in 1917, the (new) Immigration Act was accepted by Congress and signed by President Woodrow Wilson on 5 February. This act can be viewed as a combination of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the previous Immigration Acts (the immigration act of 1882 had been adapted a few times before 1917). It was mostly an extension of the list of ‘undesirables’, but this act had a new and controversial dimension to it: entry into the US was now denied to Asians who originated from the ‘Asiatic Barred Zone’. This zone included most of Asia and some of the Pacific Islands.6 It was the first time an entire
race of people had been singled out for exclusion, not just a nationality, as had been done with the Chinese in 1882. These laws remained in effect until the era of liberalization, when immigration policy changed to allow immigrants easier access to the United States.
The law might have restricted only Asians as an entire group, but racism surrounding immigrants was not restricted to the Asian community. Europeans, and especially Eastern- and Southern Europeans were also considered unworthy of joining America, as David M. Reimers reports in his book Unwelcome Strangers, American Identity and the turn against
immigration. He states that Italians for example, were believed to be a particularly violent
race who were all part of Mafia families. Immigrants from Eastern Europe, on the other hand, were believed to come from backward countries that had been lagging behind in terms of progress for years due to the lack of work ethic from its inhabitants. In short, Americans
5 E. P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy 1798-1965 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1981) 83-86.
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believed that these people were simply unfit to become part of America and its workforce.7 In today’s society we are less familiar with this form of racism, for the racism of today is primarily focused of skin-color and the overall outward appearance. This is even true for today’s religious racism; if an immigrant of today does not look like a middle eastern Muslim, and shows no outward signs their religious motivation, they are largely left alone. In contrast, the racism of the early twentieth century was based mainly on the attitudes or behavior of people/an ethnicity, and only in part about their appearance. That does not mean that color racism did not exist; the African Americans were still heavily discriminated against for example and there were immigration laws that excluded ‘Asians’ and ‘Latinos’ as distinct racial groups since the turn of the century.8
Joe Feagin states that, due to America’s past with slavery, it has a deep-rooted systematic form of racism that is nearly unconsciously applied by everyone, even those who fervently shout that they are not racist.9 This is undoubtedly a factor that needs to be considered. However, he only focuses on the division between black and white, and links everything to the history of slavery. Matthey Frye Jacobson provides a different viewpoint in his book Whiteness of a Different Color, in which he states that in the early twentieth century, a form of systematic racism was applied to groups of Irish, German, Italian, Jewish and Slavic decent.10 These people were all ‘white’, which meant that the racism applied to them was
more a form of racism based in culture rather than color. It is this last form of racism that will be applied to this analysis.
Another point on which the immigrants were singled out was criminality. Most of the ‘native’ population believed that most of the immigrants coming to America’s shores ‘had an inborn tendency toward criminal behavior’, or that their children would be more inclined to violence than the children of native born Americans.11 Edward Ross described these tendencies by race in 1914; “The French and Hebrew stand out in bad eminence as offenders against chastity, the Italians lead in murder and blackmail, the Americans in burglary, the
7 David M. Reimers, Unwelcome Strangers, American Identity and the turn against immigration (New York;
Columbia University Press, 1998) 15-16.
8 Hutchinson, Legislative History, 155-160.
9 Joe R. Feagin, Racist America, roots, current realities, and future reparations, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge
Taylor & Francis group, 2014) xvi.
10 Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race
(Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) 5. Matthew Frye Jacobson, ‘Becoming Caucasian: Vicissitudes of Whiteness in American Politics and Culture’, in: Spickard, Paul, Race and Immigration in the
United States (New York: Routledge Tylor & Francis Group, 2012) 131-147.
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Greeks in kidnapping, the Lithuanians in assault, the Irish in disorderly conduct.”12 A recent
study by Moehling and Morrison suggests that there were no grounds for these assumptions. In fact, according to their research, when it came to the more serious crimes, ‘native’ Americans were just as likely to be found guilty as immigrants.13
Not everyone within American society was against immigration or the integration of immigrants, however. Within the intellectual community, there were three camps that could be discerned. The first were those in favor of the restriction of immigration and their beliefs ran along the lines of the racism outlined above. The second were those in favor of ‘Americanization’, which meant that they were in favor of integrating immigrants into American society through the ideal of the ‘Melting Pot’, which in short meant that they wanted immigrants to become completely ‘American’ and leave their native cultures behind. The third and last group were the ‘radicals’, or those who supported neither idea and were in favor of allowing immigrants not only to enter the United States but also to retain their native culture. They even suggested that the immigrant should integrate their culture with the American one, thus creating a new ‘transnational’ or ‘multi-cultural’ society.14
There are two groups of immigrants that are of particular interest to this thesis: Germans and Russians. Both groups had been coming to America’s shores since before the First World War, and both were greatly impacted by the war. Firstly, the Germans, who were singled out as the ‘enemy’ during this conflict. The war propaganda painted the Germans as a nation filled with barbaric ‘Huns’ who supported an authoritarian regime.15 This presentation
of the German people led to a nearly complete rejection of the German culture across America. Entire enclaves of ethnic Germans living in America, who up until then had mostly been speaking German, rejected the language and culture. It even went as far as renaming ‘sauerkraut’ and ‘hamburgers’ to ‘liberty cabbage’ as ‘liberty sandwiches’ respectively.16 The
second group are the Russians. As stated above, the Slavic people had never been welcomed
12 Edward A. Ross, The Old World in the New, the significance of past and present immigration to the
American People (New York: The Century Co., 1914) 62.
13 Carolyn Moehling, Anne Morrison, ‘Immigration, Crime, and Incarceration in Early Twentieth-Century
America’ Demography vol. 46 no. 4 (Nov. 2009) 739-740, 760-761.
14 Desmond King, Making Americans, Immigration, Race and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2000) 19-21, 27-29, Randolph S. Bourne, War and the
intellectuals, collected essays 1915-1919, Carl Resek eds. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998) 186-187, John Higham, Strangers in the Land, patterns of American nativism 1860-1925 (New Brunswick; Rutgers University Press,
1992) 234-263.
15 Foner, The Story of American Freedom, 170. 16 Foner, Give me liberty, 727, 748.
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with open arms, condition which the Russian Revolution only strengthened. Communism was on the rise, the antithesis to the American capitalist dream. It could not have been easy for either group to live in America during these times, for not only were they immigrants and subject to the racism that surrounded immigrants of the time, they were also part of a race that was deemed undesirable among the general American population due to the events of the First World War and the Russian Revolution.
In the existing literature on the subject of the First World War and American immigration, neither of these immigrant groups are discussed in relation to each other and their specific connection to wider international events. Therefore, this thesis will focus on the following question: How did the First World War and Russian Revolution affect Russian and German ethnic minorities in American society? Since this is a very broad subject it will be divided into three parts: before, during and after the Great War. Each chapter will discuss the events in both their home countries and America which shaped the perception of the Germans and Russian. Chapter one focuses on immigrant legislation and the prejudice surrounding the two groups before 1914. Chapter two discusses the effects of war propaganda on the Germans and the Russian Revolution on the Russians between 1914-1918. Finally, chapter 3 discusses the Americanization movement in relation to the Great Red Scare and race inequality between 1918-1930.
The literature on which this thesis is based consists of both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources are the written works by multiple intellectuals who fall within the three categories discussed above. Well-known examples of these intellectuals are; Randolph S. Bourne, a radical, Jane Adams, who advocated Americanization, and Edward A. Ross, a Nativist. These will be augmented by the works of President Woodrow Wilson, the
Dictionary of Races or Peoples published in 1911, The passing of the Great Race by Madison
Grant, a bestseller published in 1916 and articles published in the New York Times between 1900 and 1930. The secondary literature consists of relevant historical works, generally published after the mid 1980’s. The most significant of these are Eric Foner’s books on general American history, Reimers’ book Unwelcome Strangers, Jacobson’s books and articles on the significance of skin color, a collection of works on German-American and Russian-American culture, and Davis’ and Trani’s work named The First Cold War, in which they speculate on America’s reaction to the rise of communism.
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Chapter 1: The realities of immigration and immigrant life before 1914
The period of American immigration history that is now known as the ‘Great Wave’ or ‘Third Wave’, falls roughly between 1880 and 1914. As stated in the introduction, this period is also named the era of regulation, due to the ever increasing amount of laws regulating and restricting immigration. Hopeful immigrants arriving on America’s shores were no longer guaranteed entry and many were sent back to their homelands. Yet for those who were admitted, it was not an automatic guarantee for a better life than what they had left behind. They were hopeful, believing that a new world filled with opportunities had been opened to them, only to be bitterly disappointed by the realities of being a ‘foreigner’. Prejudice and racism ran rampant, preventing immigrants from creating the new life they had so longed for when they arrived. What were the realities in terms of regulations, restrictions, and prejudice that German and Russian immigrants faced before the First World War?
Rules, Restrictions, and Regulations
The main immigration port of the early twentieth century was a tiny island located in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor: Ellis Island. Between the years 1892 and 1954, nearly twelve million immigrants from across the Atlantic had passed through its halls, looking for a better life in the fabled America. The vast majority of these twelve million landed between 1890 and 1915.17 It was at this port that most of the new policies of the era of regulation were implemented, and immigrants there bitterly realized that getting into America would not be as easy as stepping off the boat. Why did Congress see the need to implement these new regulations?
At the end of the 19th century, America was struggling with an ever increasing amount of immigrants. During the Civil War and the decade following it, America had encouraged immigration in order to stimulate the depleted workforces of the cities. Immigrants provided cheap, unskilled labor that was needed for the ever increasing amount of factories of the industrial Revolution. Of the ‘old’ immigrants, only 55 percent had consisted of unskilled
17 Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK, 1. Archdeacon, Thomas J. Becoming American, and Ethnic History (New
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laborers; in contrast, 81 percent of the ‘new’ immigrants were deemed unskilled.18 These ‘new
immigrants’ were seen as inferior to the original immigrants, for not only were they unskilled, but they no longer came to find a new life. A life free of persecution, as the old immigrants had pursued and found. They came for the available jobs, without having the intention of settling permanently within America’s borders.19 In addition, the labor unions were worried
that these immigrants would not only take the jobs of ‘native’ Americans because of their willingness to work for lower wages, but that they would also be used as ‘strike breakers’. This meant that factory managers could ‘break’ a strike by simply hiring immigrants who were willing to work, which would decrease the impact of the strike, and keep the wages down.20 Despite these protests, immigrants were generally made welcome until the demand for cheap labor waned and the immigrant flood refused to cease, forcing the government to implement laws that regulated the ever-increasing immigration stream.
As stated in the introduction, there were two acts that kick-started and defined the era of regulation: The Chinese Exclusion Act and the Immigration Act of 1882. The immediate significance of these acts was not their content but their scope, for they were the first immigration acts that were adopted on a federal level. Before these two acts were accepted, immigration was organized on a state level, meaning that every state had their own immigration laws, and therefore an immigrant could be welcome in one state, but not in another. From 1882 onward, this changed, for every immigration law adopted after this point would be implemented on a federal level, and immigration was no longer regulated by the different states.21
These first two laws seem very significant, yet they changed very little for immigrants, since most of their policies had already been in effect in most states. In the years following 1882 a number of new laws were adopted and implemented, most of which were updated versions of the Immigration Act, providing an extension of the list of undesirables and the implementation of the Head Tax, which every immigrant had to pay, in an attempt to deter the extremely poor from emigrating.22 None of these measures had a significant effect however,
18 Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues, the United States encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and
Abroad, 1876-1917 (New York; Hill and Wang, 2000) 65.
19 Fitzgerald, Keith, The Face of the Nation, Immigration, The State, and the National Identity (Stanford CA:
Stanford University Press, 1996) 97-98.
20 Drew Keeling, The Business of Transatlantic Migration between Europe and the United States, 1900-1914
(Zurich: Chronos, 2012) 148.
21 Hutchinson, Legislative history, 83. 22 Hutchinson, Legislative history, 157.
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for the list of undesirables and the Head Tax excluded and deterred only a small percentage of European migrants. It was for this reason that Congress established the Dillingham Commission in 1907, with the task of investigating this extreme flow of immigration and giving advice on policies the state should implement to dampen the stream.23
The Dillingham report, which consisted of 42 volumes, was published in 1911. The main body of this report was comprised of mostly unanalyzed data on the economic and social impact of immigrants in the US. The little data that was analyzed supported the prevailing idea that the different racial backgrounds explained the difference in general living conditions among immigrants. If they came from a relatively wealthy country (race), they would pursue better jobs, increasing their living conditions, and vice versa.24 In addition, the report published there was no evidence to support the claim that immigrants were more inclined toward criminal behavior than the previous immigrants. However, it did assert that the children of these immigrants would be inherently more inclined to adopt criminal pursuits, and that immigration in general had increased the amount of criminality.25 The report of the commission concluded with two recommendations to decrease the immigration flow. It advised to add radical thinkers to the list of undesirables, for they could inflame unrest, and to implement a literacy test to the immigrant screening process. The commission believed that literacy would be the defining factor in weeding out the ‘undesirables’.26 That this idea was
quite popular is strongly illustrated by the inaugural address of President William McKinley in 1897.
“Our naturalization and immigration laws should be further improved to the constant promotion of a safer, a better, and a higher citizenship. A grave peril to the Republic would be a citizenship too ignorant to understand or too vicious to appreciate the great value and beneficence of our institutions and laws... Illiteracy must be banished from the land if we shall attain that high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations of the world which, under Providence, we ought to achieve.”27
McKinley’s address was not the first time a literacy test had been suggested as a means of selecting immigrants and it was mentioned again in 1898 and 1902, but each time it had
23 Reimers, David M., Unwelcome Strangers, American Identity and the turn against immigration (New York;
Columbia University Press, 1998) 14, 17.
24 Fitzgerald, The Face of the Nation, 128. 25 Reimers, Unwelcome Strangers, 17-18. 26 Fitzgerald, The Face of the Nation, 128.
27 Inaugural address by William McKinley, Yale Law school; the Avalon Project,
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not been able to pass through Congress.28 The literacy test was eventually added to the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1917, stating that every immigrant above the age of 16 had to be literate to be allowed passage through Ellis Island. President Wilson tried to veto it, but Congress overruled him.29 This literacy test was based on the idea that it would exclude the intellectually inferior, who would mostly originate from Southern or Eastern European countries., who were considered more undesirable than those originating from Western Europe.30 This belief was based on the following numbers, as reported by Thomas Archdeacon: “Among immigrants who were at least fourteen years of age and who arrived between 1899 and 1909, the Germans, the Scandinavians, the English, and the Irish had illiteracy rates of 5.1 percent, 0.4 percent, 1.1 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively. By contrast, the Italians, the Jews, the Poles and the Slovaks had rates of 46.9 percent, 25.7 percent, 35.4 percent, and 24.3 percent, respectively.”31 The flood of immigrants did wane after the implementation of the new law in 1917, but it had been dropping significantly ever since 1914 and could therefore be attributed to the outbreak of the First World War, instead of the literacy test.
Prejudices and Perceptions of the different ‘races’
The Dillingham Report provides tangible evidence that racial thinking was a defining factor when it came to immigrant policy before the First World War. Prejudice and misconceptions surrounding immigrants ran rampant, especially the conviction that all ‘new’ immigrants were inherently lazy and inclined toward criminal behavior. However, these were general ideas and beliefs that applied to every immigrant of every background, so what were the prevalent prejudices surrounding immigrants of specifically Russian and German descent?
The distinction between the image of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ immigrants at this time was great. The old immigrants were seen as the giants of the past, as they were the pioneers who had laid the groundwork that made America great. These early immigrants were believed to have had a strong work ethic, to strive towards assimilation, to have good family values
28 Foner, Give me Liberty, 749.
29 John Higham, Strangers in the Land, patterns of American nativism 1860-1925 (New Brunswick; Rutgers
University Press, 1992) 162, and: Reimers, Unwelcome Strangers, 18.
30 King, Making Americans, 61.
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and be people of the book, that is the Bible (be they Jews or Christians). In contrast, the new immigrants were believed to resist integration into American culture, for they had not come with the intent of settling permanently, and they were only coming for the government handouts. As E. A. Ross defined the distinction, “America’s free land was gone, and ruder peoples, with lower standards of living, were crowding into her labor markets…The current runs still, but it is a current of ‘job seekers’ rather than ‘home seekers’”32 The main worry
among the critics of immigration however, was that these ‘new’ immigrants would undermine the values on which America was build and pollute its population with inferior genes.33
It was on this belief, the pollution of a race, that the book The passing of the Great
Race by Madison Grant was founded. This book, originally published in 1916, was a best
seller at the time. It was based on the idea that the mixing of races through immigration was extremely undesirable, for it would pollute the progressive spirit of America. The preface of the book opens with:
“European history has been written in terms of nationality and of language, but never before in terms of race; yet race has played a far larger part than either language or nationality in moulding the destinies of men; race implies heredity and heredity implies all the moral, social and intellectual characteristics and traits which are the springs of politics and government.”34
It is quite clear from these words that Grant believed that a person was shaped by the race that they belong to, and that that person in turn shapes society. If one follows this logic, the conclusion follows that if a person’s race is polluted, they would automatically become lesser human beings than if their racial background was pure. It was in essence the application of Darwin’s biological evolution theory, applied to social development: The survival of the fittest, best adapted, smartest and purest race. The theory was therefore called Social Darwinism.35 In keeping with this logic, the Germans were believed to be hardworking and desirable immigrants at this time, for they were part of the Western European races. In contrast, the Russians were part of the Eastern European races who were considered lazy and backward, stunted in their development and altogether undesirable.
32 Ross, Edward A., The Old World in the New, the significance of past and present immigration to the
American People (New York: The Century Co., 1914) 48, 68.
33 Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK, 3. King, Making Americans, 59.
34 Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race or the Racial Basis of European History, fourth Edition
(New York; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923, original 1916) vii.
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In the period between 1876 and 1915, nearly two and half million Germans and nearly three million ethnic Russians (of which about 300,000 originated from Russia, the remainder were ethnic Russians form other states) emigrated to the United States. Of these numbers however, only 40% of Germans settled permanently, whereas 96% of Russians would become permanent residents.36 The greatest distinction between these two groups, had nothing to do with the number of immigrants however, but rather with their origins and if they had been part of the first immigration waves or not. Germans had been emigrating to the United States since the First Wave in the 18th century. They would often travel with their entire family and found a German enclave in an unsettled area of the East Coast, most often somewhere in Pennsylvania. The people living within these enclaves would speak the German language and retain much of the German culture. They thought of themselves as Germans first and Americans second, founding what is now known as German-American culture. These German enclaves persisted well into the beginning of the twentieth century, which meant that the Americans had become used to their presence.37 By contrast, the Russians did not come to the United States in any significant numbers until the ‘Third Wave’ of the early twentieth century.38 This was mainly due to the new anti-Semitic ‘May Laws’, implemented by the Tsar in 1881-82, which greatly restricted the freedom of Russian Jews, causing many to flee to America.39 E. A. Ross describes this development as follows:
“The first stream of Russo-Hebrew immigrants started flowing in 1882 in consequence of the reactionary policy of Alexander III. It contained many students and members of scholarly families, who stimulated intellectual activity among their fellows here and were leaders in radical thought…The second stream reached us after 1890 and brought immigrants who were not steeped in modern ideas but held to Talmudic traditions and the learning of the rabbis. The more recent flow taps lower social strata and is promoted by economic motives. These later arrivals lack both the idealism of the first stream and the religious culture of the second.”40
36 Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues, the United States encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and
Abroad, 1876-1917 (New York; Hill and Wang, 2000) 64. Archdeacon, Becoming American, 118-119.
37 Marianne Wokeck, ‘German Immigration to Colonial America: Prototype of a Trans-Atlantic mass
migration’ in: Trommler, Frank, Josheph McVeigh, American and the Germans, an assessment of a
three-hundred-year history, volume one: immigration, language, ethnicity (Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1985) 4. Foner, Give me Liberty, 112-114, 748-749.
38 Vladimir Wertsman, The Russians in America, A Chronology & Fact Book (New York: Oceana Publications,
1977) 8.
39 Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues, 64. 40 Ross, The Old World in the New, 145-146.
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The reason that most of the Russian migrants were Jews was mostly due to the anti-Semite May laws, but as John Commons, professor of political economy at the University of Wisconsin in 1907, describes in his book Race and Immigrants in America, Russia had a tendency to create laws that excluded minorities. Commons reports that due to the constraints of the Russian serf system, which does not allow anyone to move without permission, the main body of Russian immigrants existed of those people Russia no longer desired or tolerated within its borders. Commons describes the Russians migration habits as follows: ‘…does not migrate across the water, but drives away those whom he cannot or will not assimilate.’41 Therefore, those who emigrated from Russia before the First World War mainly consisted of Russian-Jews, Russian-Poles, Russian-Finns, Russian-Lithuanians, and Russian-Germans.42 This development, compared with Ross’s statement above, illustrates the prevailing idea that earlier immigrants were of a better quality than those that followed them, that skilled immigrants were better than unskilled and that most of the migrants which came to America at this time were people who had been rejected by their own societies, which made them ‘undesirables’ in the eyes of the American people.
E. A. Ross was a professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin between 1906 and 1936, who possessed an outspoken opinion on immigration and the different immigrant races and their usefulness to America in general. He documented these opinions in his book
The Old World in the New, published in 1914. Ross’ ideas on immigration are those of one
who truly believes that the tide of immigration needs to be curtailed. As he states in his preface:
“I am not of those who consider humanity and forget the nation, who pity the living but not the unborn. To me, those who are to come after us stretch forth beseeching hands as well as the masses on the other side of the globe. Nor do I regard America as something to be spent quickly and cheerfully for the benefit of pent-up millions in the backward lands. What if we become crowded without their ceasing to be so? I regard it as a nation whose future may be of unspeakable value to the rest of mankind, provided that the easier conditions of life here be made permanent by high standards of living, institutions and ideals, which finally may be appropriated by all men.”43
41 Commons, John Roger, Races and Immigrants in America (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1907) 35. 42 Commons, Races and Immigrants in America, 120-121.
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Ross clearly did not look favorably on immigrants, yet that is exactly what makes his book so valuable when it comes to discovering the imagery and prejudices surrounding the different immigrant ‘races’. Ross ordered his book in terms of the different immigrant groups, and in every chapter, he describes the different immigrant races in terms of desirable and undesirable characteristics that he attributes to every member of that particular ethnic origin, which is the very definition of a stereotype. The three chapters of this book that are of particular interest in this analysis are Chapter III, the Germans, Chapter VI, The Slavs and Chapter VII, The
Eastern European Hebrew. The latter two chapters combined provide the image of the
Russian migrant, for as stated above, the Russian migrants consisted mostly of Jews, and it is clear from Ross’s description of the Slavs that he considered the Russians to be a part of that group as he names them among the Poles, Bohemians, Moravians, Slovakians, Croatians etc. at the start of that particular chapter.44
Ross’s opinion of the Slavs can only be described as unfavorable which is illustrated from his general description of this group:
…the bulk of the Slavs remain on a much lower plane of culture. In ignorance and `illiteracy, in the prevalence of superstition and priestcraft, in the harshness of church and state, in the subservience on the common people to the upper classes, in the low position of women, in the subjection of the child to the parent, in coarseness of manner and speech, and in low standards of cleanliness and comfort, a large part of the Slavic world remains at the level of our English forefathers in the days of Henry the Eighth.45
In this paragraph Ross summarizes all the problems he believed the Slavic people to have, which he described in detail in the rest of the chapter. According to Ross, the Slavs mostly worked as unskilled laborers, for they did not possess the education or intelligence to fill any other kinds of jobs, and they were used to taking orders due to the serf systems their home countries still employed. In addition, they were all physically strong and hard-muscled which made them ideal as “the unskilled laborer in the basic industries”. Ross is particularly vocal on his disapproval of their family dynamics. He described in detail how the Slavic man considered his wife his property and that her only use was to bear him children, of which the Slavs had too many in Ross’s opinion. They also behaved in a barbaric and uncivilized manner and consumed alcohol to excess. On their criminal behavior Ross states: “The Bohemians have about the same criminal tendencies as the Germans. The other Slavs reveal the
44 Ibidem, 124. 45 Ibidem, 123-124.
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propensities of a rude, undeveloped people of undisciplined primitive passions. Animosity rather than cupidity is the motive of crime. When the Slav seeks illicit gain, he takes the direct path of violence rather than the devious path of chicane; he commits robbery or burglary rather than theft or fraud or extortion.”46 Ross concludes his chapter by stating that America should
fear a further influx of Slavic immigrants, especially the Russians, for they had not come in force until that point, preferring to send their unwanted citizens ahead of them, but the “true Russian” had so far not emigrated to the United States.47
Overall Ross was very negative about the Slavic people, as the only part he seems to admire was their willingness to work in very dangerous circumstances, and even then he alluded that the only reason they were willing to do that was the fact that they simply did not understand the danger. This description however, does not give us a clear view of the prejudice concerning the Russian immigrants, for Ross does not discuss the Russians in detail in his chapter on the Slavic races. He does however, discuss the Russian-Hebrews in detail in his next chapter.
Ross described the Russian-Hebrews in terms of occupations, morals, crime and racial traits. According to Ross, two-fifths of the Russian-Hebrews worked in the garment industry. The other three-fifths are either occupied in the tobacco industry or the distilleries, “…the Jewish distiller is almost as typical as the German Brewer.”48 The majority however is
occupied in the Sales industry, be it peddler, pawnbroker, bankers or heads of department stores. In Ross’s view, “None can beat a Jew at a bargain, for through all the intricacies of commerce he can scent his profit.”49
The job proclivities that this group displayed were according to Ross due to their race-traits and morals. The moral code of the Eastern European Jew was steeped in a sense of strong family values. They were a close knit community, and the cooperation among them was great. However, their attitude towards outsiders seemed to be based, according to Ross, on a belief that they deserved more than everyone else. “The Jewish… are always seeking something extra… The last thing a son of Jacob wants… is a square deal.”50 He also stated that the Easter
European Jew displayed four distinct racial traits. The first is a high measure of intelligence; “On the whole, the Russo-Jewish immigration is richer in gray matter than any other recent
46 Ibidem, 129. 47 Ibidem, 140. 48 Ibidem, 147. 49 Ibidem, 147-148. 50 Ibidem, 149.
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stream, and it may be richer than any large inflow since the colonial era.” Ross was however, less positive about the manner in which these immigrants used their intelligence, which becomes clearer in his description of their second trait: abstractness. What he meant with this is that the Jew, more than any other race, was capable of thinking in an abstract manner, which made them excel in literature, music, acting and theology, yet fail at the manipulation of materials and the study of nature. For the Jew “does not relish his work […] what he cares for is the value in it … he makes his craft a mere stepping-stone to business…” The third racial trait was defined as ‘little feeling for the particular’, which indicates a certain level of adaptability that brands the Jew as ‘no gentleman’, yet; “flexible and rational the Jewish mind cannot be bound by convention” Lastly the Jew displays a tenacity of purpose, which in essence means that they were extremely stubborn. This trait originated, according to Ross, from their nomadic background, and it served them well when it came to their careers but it has also earned them the epithet of ‘stiff necked’.51
These racial traits and morals combined with criminal behavior, Ross called “criminals of cunning [rather] than criminals of violence”52 Jews at this time had a reputation of being
un-commonly law-abiding. Ross however, did not believe that this was because they truly were less inclined toward criminal behavior. In his opinion it had more to do with the type of criminality they practice; “gambling, larceny, and the receiving of stolen goods rather than…crimes of robbery and burglary”.53 In his last paragraph, Ross described the prejudice
that these Russian Jews experience in the following manner;
“In New York, the line is drawn against the Jews in hotels, resorts, clubs and private schools, and constantly this line hardens and extends. They cry ‘Bigotry’ but bigotry has little or nothing to do with it. What is disliked in the Jews is not their religion but certain ways and manners. Moreover, the Gentile resents being obliged to engage in a humiliating and undignified scramble in order to keep his trade or his clients against the Jewish Invader.”54
It is evident from Ross’s description that the Russian-Jews were considered to have strong family values and a keen intelligence, but that their manner toward others was considered selfish, rude, ill-considered and sneaky, where the latter is mostly applicable to their
51 Ibidem, 159-164. 52 Ibidem, 155. 53 Ibidem, 155. 54 Ibidem, 164.
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businesses and criminal tendencies. Yet how much of Ross’s description of the Russian-Hebrew applies to the Russians immigrant in general and how much to anti-Semite ideas?
Anti-Semitism was common during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and just as in Europe it ran rampant from the 1920s to 1940s in America. This Anti-Semitism was based on a number of negative images and preconceptions that surrounded the Jewish people at this time. The first was that the Jew was always associated with money. The average American believed that the average Jews was richer than they were. However, this was not always seen as a negative image, as long as they had come by their wealth in an honest manner. The true Anti-Semite saw the Jews not simply as richer, but as money mad and un-ethical in the way that they came by their wealth. This allegation of un-ethical behavior was also attributed to the Jewish businesses, a quarter of the American public believed Jewish businesses to be dishonest and unethical in their dealings with others. A third prevalent prejudice about the Jews was that they were clannish people. Ever since the middle ages, Jews were often forced to live in their own communities and neighborhoods, a practice they maintained even after it was no longer mandatory. Applying this practice when they came to America made about twenty-six percent of Americans believe that they did not wish to become a part of American society and that they only cared about their own kind. The fourth and fifth prejudices stated that the Jews were prideful and conceited, because the Jews saw themselves as ‘Gods Chosen People’. This is directly stated in the Tora, but made the American think that the Jews saw themselves as better than Christians. The sixth and most prevalent prejudice surrounding Jews was that they were power hungry. Fifty-four percent of Americans believed that they Jews wished to always be on top of things and that they controlled the movie and television industry, and thirty percent believed that they controlled international banking. The last prejudice, and the least widespread, states that the Jews were pushy, aggressive and intrusive. About eighteen percent of Americans believed that Jews were pushy and aggressive in their business dealings and that they often intruded where they were not wanted.55
Many of these prejudices directed at the Jewish community are similar to Ross’s description of the Russo-Hebrew, for they are both seen as communal, anti-social to outsiders, greedy, profit oriented, opportunistic and intrusive. This means that those traits cannot be attributed specifically to the Russians as an ethnic group but rather is should be seen as the
55 Quinley, Harold E., Charles Y. Glock, Anti-Semitism in America (New York: The Free Press, A division of
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anti-Semite believes being projected onto the Russian Jews, thereby making the American see the Russians in the same light as the Jews, and making it nearly impossible to separate one group from the other. The Slavs too are viewed as communal and anti-social, however, when Ross’s description of the Jews is put in comparison to the Slavs, two great distinctions emerge. The first is that he views the Slavs as cruel to their families, while he does not hold a similar opinion on the Russian-Hebrews, all he states on the subject concerning the Jews is that they are very family oriented but not cruel to one another. The second distinction concerns their level of intelligence. Ross clearly believes the Slavs to be very unintelligent, yet he waxes poetic on the cranial capacity of the Russian-Jews. Which then is true about the general American view of the Russian immigrant?
In a New York times article published 27 February 1907, the author describes the Russian intelligence levels as follows: “I am told by well posted people that public education, especially in high school and colleges is in fearful shape. Nobody has studied for the last three years, and for a decade previous to 1904 only purely formal rules were enforced so ignorance is on the increase”.56 These words corroborate Ross’s assertions that the Slavs and by extension the Russians, were less intelligent due to a lack of education. This description viewed in connection with the fact that Jews in general were considered intelligent, lead to the conclusion that the Russians were on average considered an unintelligent people. The only aspect that can be stated as an absolute fact based on these two sources however, is that the Russian immigrants were viewed in a negative light, and seen as an undesirable group of immigrants who were unwanted in their own countries as opposed to Jews who were viewed in a more positive light.
The German experience with immigration and integration into the American culture was quite different from that of the Russians, which was mostly due to their far more extended history with the country. The Germans had been emigrating to America in large numbers since before the Civil War, and had retained much of their culture. As John Roger Commons noted in 1907, if America existed of 14243 people, 10376 of them would be English, 1439 would be Irish, and 659 would be German, making them the third largest racial group in America.57 In the same logic, only 1 person would be Russian. This means that the ratio of Germans to
56 Newspaper article: ‘New Duma’s life may be short’, 27 February 1907, The New York Times digital
archives, http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/02/27/106742023.html, (last accessed on 26-06-2016).
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Russians in early twentieth century America was 659 to 1, making the German presence in America far larger than the Russian, and therefore more visible to the average American. In addition, Commons also reported that the Germans did not integrate with the other cultures, ‘…they were compelled to move to the interior, to become frontiersmen, to earn their living directly from the soil, and to leave to their English-sprung predecessors the more prominent occupations of politics, literature, law, commerce, and the army. The Germans, … were further handicapped by their language and isolation, which continue to this day in the counties of Pennsylvania where they originally settled.”58 These German immigrants however, had
long been settled and were therefore no longer a part of the increased immigration of the early 20th century. That did not mean that there were no more Germans coming to America during that period, however, for as Commons states, in 1882 nearly 250,630 Germans arrived in America and in 1902 another 26,304. Most of these immigrants were relatives of the previous group, seeking to reunite their families. Others fled to America in the hope of escaping military service.59
The fact that Germans had been a part of America’s colonial history meant that they were seen in a more favorable light than the Russians. This is clearly reflected in Ross’s description of their race. Just as with the Russians, Ross describes their proclivities toward jobs, trivial pursuits and criminal behavior. He mainly states that the German identifies strongly with farm life:
“Thanks partly to good farming and frugal living, and partly to the un-American practice of working their women in the fields, the German-American farmers made money, bought choice acres from under their neighbors’ feet, and so kept other nationalities on the move. This is the reason why a German settlement spreads on fat soil and why in time the best land in the region is likely to come into German hands.”60
Yet that they are mostly farmers, does not mean that their culture was simple or left nothing to admire. Ross emphasizes that the Germans have spread their love of good music and high-quality drama. According to Ross, it was due to the German influence that many Americans lost the puritan stiffness and learned to enjoy the pleasures of life. This included the enjoyment of fine spirits, for he writes that although the German loves a good beer, he knows his limits,
58 Ibidem, 46-47. 59 Ibidem, 98-99, 101.
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in stark contrast to the Irish or even the Native Americans.61 Not only did the Germans provide a new form of enjoying life, but they also introduced America to a wealth of thought, through their philosophy and ‘dignity of science’, although Ross does state that this was mostly introduced by Americans who studied at German universities.62 Even in the German political aptitude Ross finds something to admire: ‘No immigrants have been more apt to look at public questions from a common-welfare point of view and to vote for their principles rather than for their friend.’63
Ross’s idea on the superiority of German culture is most evident in his description of their criminal activities; ‘…the German lacks distinction in evil, never coming near either the top or the bottom, of the scale in predilection for any form of crime. On the whole the criminal bent is very close to that of the Native American.’64 In contrast, Ross describes the other races
as all having a clear flaw, the French and Hebrews violate chastity laws, the Italians lead in murder and blackmail, the Greeks in kidnapping and the Irish in disorderly conduct, yet the Germans can do no wrong, something that becomes even more evident when Ross describes the Germans’ racial traits. Ross names the Germans as a stocky race who, when blended with the lankier American should produce fine offspring. The German is a social creature who takes his pleasures sitting down, he can often be hardheaded but apt to gain skill and deliver good work. Ross notes that the German displays a complexity of thought that often leaves him silent, yet makes sure he is comprehensive and thorough before voicing his thoughts, which according to Ross makes him a born investigator. The only true critique that Ross expresses is that the German is often materialistic and that the German-Americans of later generation lose the idealism, spirit and resemblance to the Germans of the old country that their ancestors displayed.65 Overall it is quite clear that Ross believed the Germans to be a superior race, however when you read between the lines, you get a sense that he still sees them as inferior to the Americans, for he often compares the two, and always finds the Germans slightly lacking, or in need of education.
That the Americans thought highly of the Germans and valued its German-American citizens is further evidenced by the fact that the New York Times published a generous amount of articles on matters concerning this group. On 2 October 1900 it published an article in
61 Ibidem, 54, 60. 62 Ibidem, 58. 63 Ibidem, 57. 64 Ibidem, 62. 65 Ibidem, 63-66.
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which they stated that the German-Americans would be voting for the Republican presidential candidate William McKinley, proving that this demographic group was considered important when it came to winning electoral votes.66 In another article, published 6 October 1907, The
New York Times reported on the Fourth Biennial convention of the German-American
National Alliance, where the topic of discussion is the Germany influence in American history.67 This proves that the Germans were aware of their influence in American society. A development that is underscored by the report of a German-American protest against the new consular regulations, which prevented them from doing business in both Germany and America, published 2 February 1908.68 Evidently, the German-Americans were understood to be a large part of the American population, important enough to publish on their opinions concerning presidential elections and they were aware of the fact, for they felt that their protests concerning new legislation would be heard and headed.
Ross’s and Commons descriptions of these two distinct races are the very definition of stereotypes. However, they provide us with the most likely way in which the American of the early 20th century viewed these two immigrant groups. This is evidenced by the fact that many of the assertions Ross and Commons made about the different races are corroborated by the way these two groups are discussed in the New York Times in the year leading up to 1914. As well as the fact that they are nearly identical, if more subjective, to the description of both races and the Jews in The Dictionary of Races and Peoples, published by the Immigrant commission in 1911.69 This was a view is further supported by Frederick Luebke in his essay
on the stereotypes of German immigrants in America. However, Leubke adds a further dimension to the discussion by stating that there was a distinct difference in the way that upper class and lower class Americans viewed the immigrants, for those of the upper class mostly dealt with those who had either been to German universities or university educated Germans, where the lower classes formed their image by rubbing elbows with the barbers, farmers and shopkeepers. In the overall and generalized view of the Germans however, he echoes Ross’s
66 Newspaper article: ‘German-Americans vote’, 2 October 1900, The New York Times Digital Archives,
http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/10/02/101067326.html, (last accessed on: 26-06-2016).
67 Newspaper article: ‘German-Americans’ plans, alliance discusses recognition of German influence in our
history’, 6 October 1907, The New York Times Digital Archives,
http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/10/06/106764294.html, (last accessed on: 26-06-2016).
68 Newspaper article: ‘German-Americans Protest, naturalizes citizens of this country annoyed by consular
regulations’, 2 February 1908, New York Times Digital Archives,
http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1908/02/02/104716861.html, (last accessed on: 26-06-2016).
69 The Immigrant Commission, Dictionary of Races or Peoples (Washington: Government printing office,
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description.70 Despite the fact that these are stereotypes, it is quite clear that before the First World War the German was in general accepted as part of America, where the Russian (specifically the Russian-Hebrew) was still very much a newcomer and a social outsider. However, the events of the First World War would adversely affect these perceptions.
70 Frederick Luebke, ‘Images of German Immigrants in the United States and Brazil, 1990-1918: Some
comparisons’, in: Trommler, Frank, Josheph McVeigh, American and the Germans, an assessment of a
three-hundred-year history, volume one: immigration, language, ethnicity (Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania
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Chapter 2: The Great War and Immigration
The First World War broke out in 1914; it would last until 1918 and become the most devastating conflict that the world had seen to date. Yet until 1917, it was to remain largely a European and imperial conflict, for the United States did not participate in a military capacity until after the Russian Revolution in 1917. However, the fact that it came into the conflict late did not mean that the United States remained unaffected by it between 1914 and 1917.71 During the first years of the war, President Wilson was a staunch supporter of American neutrality and he tried diligently to be a peace arbitrator between the Allied and Axis powers, thereby involving the country in the conflict, if not in a military fashion. In addition, by placing himself in this position, he broke with the American policy of nonintervention that had been prevalent throughout the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Wilson hoped that by remaining neutral and brokering peace between the European nations, he could save Europe from itself as well as gain the financial benefits that walked hand in hand with war. However, as the war progressed, Wilson realized that this idealistic attitude could not be maintained. The sinking of the Lusitania, an American passenger ship, by the German unrestricted submarine warfare around the British Isles in May 1915, adversely affected American public opinion toward the Germans. Also, by 1915, the allied powers had become so dependent on American aid that Wilson could no longer remain completely neutral.72 Therefore he implemented a policy of ‘preparedness’, steadily increasing the US armed forces in preparation for war and with the intention of scaring Germany into leaving America alone.73 This policy worked for a time, for it briefly ended the Germans’ submarine threat, but also compromised America’s position as a peace arbitrator.
America maintained this mostly neutral position until March of 1917, when Germany resumed their unrestrained submarine warfare around the British Isles, sinking several more American passenger vessels. In addition, the British intercepted a German telegram intended for Mexico, in which the Germans promised Mexico the territories they lost to the US in the 19th century if they joined the Axis powers. These two measures combined meant that Wilson
was now forced to declare war on Germany, a motion which passed through Congress without
71 Foner, Give me Liberty, 734. Koch, Een Kleine Geschiedenis, 293-296.
72 Floyd, M. Ryan, Abandoning American Neutrality, Woodrow Wilson and the Beginning of the Great War,
august 1914-december 1915 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) 3-6.
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much opposition.74 In his speech before Congress, Wilson stated that he meant to answer Germany’s aggression with war for it was the only solution possible, yet the most famous and also most interesting part of this speech were the following words: ‘The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundation of political liberty.’75 Both the moment at which Wilson declared war and these words specifically are curious, for in nearly the same month that America declared war on the German Empire (not the Axis powers in general), there was another momentous event: The Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution took place at the end of February and beginning of March, 1917. It was not an organized event but sprung up out of the public unrest caused by heavy war losses and food shortages. The unrest lasted until the 15th of March when Tsar Nicolas abdicated the throne and Russia became a republic. Instead of the imperial regime, a provisional government was formed which intended to continue the war effort on the eastern front. That Wilson spoke of making the world safe for democracy, while declaring war on an imperial state, and Communism being on the rise in Russia seems like more than a coincidence. This chapter will therefore focus on the changes these two events brought about when it came to the perception of Russians and Germans within America.
Changes in perception and the effects of war propaganda
Wilson’s ‘preparedness’ policy of 1915 meant that most of the armed forces required more recruits to fill their ranks. And the most effective recruitment policy is to give people an enemy to fight against. It is clear from Wilson’s speech to Congress that the US found this enemy in the German nation, for he employed the word ‘German’ or a variation thereof twenty times in a speech of sixteen paragraphs.76 It is therefore unsurprising that the image of the German as the enemy surfaced quite often on the face of propaganda and recruitment posters. How did the government portray the Germans on these posters and how did this affect the life of the German-Americans? The posters in which the German as the enemy played a central role that were employed between 1914-1918, enticed people to do two things: to enlist in the armed
74 Foner, Give me Liberty, 735.
75 Woodrow Wilson in: John Braeman, Wilson, Great lives observed, (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall
INC., 1972) 67.
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forces, or to buy war bonds and thus raise money for the war. A theme can be discerned from the strategies the posters employ in order to entice the American masses. To start with, the recruitment posters attempt to recruit young men by enlisting one of three options. Either scare people by portraying the Huns as monsters, make them proud of the accomplishments of the men that serve in the armed forces, or use humor to ridicule the enemy.
One of the most well-known and iconic posters of this time portrayed the ‘Hun’ as a very large ape, carrying a half-naked and distressed woman in one arm, and a club with the word ‘Kultur’ in the opposite hand. On his head sits an imperial German helmet on which the word ‘militarism’ is written. Behind the ape, on the horizon of the poster, a ruined city is shown and the ape is standing on the sand of a beach, and beneath his feet the word ‘America’ is displayed. Above and beneath the ape are the words ‘Destroy this mad brute, enlist US Army.’77 It is clear from this image that the Ape is supposed to be a German soldier walking
into America, there to bring a militaristic political system, destroy the cities, beat their ‘Kultur’ into the American people and violate the American women. It is an image that clearly clashes with the image of the jovial, hardworking and cultured German that had been prevalent before the war. Yet we cannot assume that the image of the German so drastically changed based on only one image.
The poster described above was, however, far from being the only recruitment poster that displayed the German as a brutal and uncivilized ‘Hun’, although it was the only one that displayed them as apes. Another poster was perhaps even more unsettling for it was subtler in its display of German brutality. The main image was that of a pirate who looked suspiciously like the German Kaiser with a skull and crossbones on his imperial helmet and a bloodied scimitar and dagger in both hands. Like the ape, he is stepping onto the beach out of the tumultuous waves of the ocean. The brutality of the image however cannot be found in the main figure but what is displayed at his feet. It is easy to miss at first glance but beneath the waves, there were shapes of dead people, and all are women or children. At the bottom of the poster the words ‘only the navy can stop this’ are emblazoned. The fact that only the swords, the Kaisers’ nose and the words are in red, where the rest of the image is black and white makes the entire image feel eerie.78
77 First World War Propaganda Posters, 1914-1918, comprehensive website on the First World War,
http://firstworldwar.com/posters/usa.htm (last accessed on: 29-5-2016)
78 First World War Propaganda Posters, 1914-1918, comprehensive website on the First World War,
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The other recruitment and war bond posters of the time employ a combination of pride and humor in their strategy. For example, one of the posters proudly proclaims that the German soldiers call the American troops ‘teufel hunden’ or ‘devil dogs’ with the image of an American bulldog chasing a German dachshund. Or they are attempting to recruit pilots, by showing them two eagles fighting, the American eagle is a healthy, even beautiful bird, clearly superior to the gray and sickly looking German version of the same species. Another tactic they employ is to incite anger by displaying the way the Germans treat and ridicule their prisoners of war. This poster tells the story of how some ‘fishermen’ were caught and sentenced to be ridiculed without trial. Their heads were shaved of hair on one side and they were marched through town to be laughed at by the German people. And lastly they display humor, when the image of a giant boot, clearly worn by uncle Sam, in coming down on a tiny and ridiculous image of the German Kaiser.79
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These posters portray a very different image of the German people from the one that surrounded the ethnicity before the war. The German had gone from a sociable, hardworking and culture rich people, to a ‘Hun’, portrayed as violent apes, burning, raping and pillaging everything in their way. These posters were visible throughout the United States and people were confronted with them every day, instigating a period of rejection and prosecution of the German-Americans, causing many that had been so proud of their background before the war to now distance themselves from their ethnic heritage.
Before the war, nearly a quarter of all high school children in the U.S. studied German and many people still spoke German to each other in the Pennsylvanian enclaves, but it did not take long into the war years for it to be prohibited to speak any language other than English. After the war only one percent of high school children still studied German. In addition, many communities banned German music or any other form of German culture.80 This separation from anything to do with the German language and culture even went so far that they renamed persons, food, streets, parks and towns that were even remotely connected with anything German. When America officially declared war on Germany, this behavior toward the Germans escalated, and Americans imagined that they saw signs of German sabotage everywhere. For example, believing that German Red Cross volunteers were putting glass in the bandages or purposely spreading influenza, or they thought that every German who they came in contact with were German spies.81 This is evidenced by a newspaper article, published 11 May 1915: “Lindell T. Bates, son of Lindon W Bates of New York…was arrested at Kinsale yesterday on the charge of espionage while searching for the body of his brother, Lindon W. Bates, Jr., who is believed to have perished on the Lusitania…The Sergeant who made the arrests accused them of being officers of a German submarine. After having been confronted with a Captain, they were being detained at the Barracks half an hour, until United States Consul Frost, at Queenstown, vouched for their innocence.”82 Besides accusing them of espionage, many Americans forced German-Americans to kiss the American flag, buy war bonds or sing the anthem in a show of patriotism. German language newspapers
80 Foner, Give me Liberty, 748-749. 81 Higham, Strangers in the Land, 207-208.
82 Newspaper article: ‘Hold Searchers as Spies, soldiers mistake American for German submarine officers.’, 11
May 1915, New York Times Digital Archives,
