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The Place of Germans Within American Society, Part 2 (1878-1920)

  • bryhistory13
  • Mar 25, 2023
  • 23 min read

I broke off my story of the German-American community, in my first post on the topic, roughly in the late 1870s. I had described in brief the first wave that created the community (in the late 1600’s- early 1700’s, which for one created the Amish and Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania that still exist there today). And I also described the much larger second wave of the 1830s to 1850s, which created the vast Midwest settlement network, both rural and urban, that centered on the “German Triangle” (St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati). That wave, overcoming some nativist hostility, contained a host of enterprising and skilled entrepreneurs, who established businesses such as Steinway (pianos) and Bausch and Lomb (high-quality glass lenses), as well as countless successful farms, and beer breweries (their best-known occupation) by the thousand. The perception of this wave, and of German-Americans generally, by fellow Americans was markedly improved by the remarkably large and enthusiastic enlistment of German-Americans, in tens of thousands, as volunteers in the Union Army during the Civil War (1861-65).

By the late 1870s, the German-American community seemed to be truly benefiting from the best features of both nationalities, culturally and economically. In the case of the home country, members could take pride in their ties to a Germany that unified for the first time in modern history in 1871, after it had defeated the old enemy France in the Franco-Prussian War. The new German Empire was dazzling the world with its prestigious universities and its spectacular industrial growth. At the same time, politically and economically German-Americans avoided the negative features of Imperial Germany, which had a much more limited democracy (led as it was by a still-powerful monarchy, headed by the Kaisers or emperors, and an autocratic prime minister, Otto von Bismarck). That government drafted young men into military service from the beginning, and it would become increasingly aggressive and militaristic after 1890. In contrast, German-American men, and increasingly (by state) more and more women, could readily vote and participate in politics, and the U.S. (other than a brief victorious war with Spain in 1898) was at peace, with no conscription, from 1865 to 1917. And the whole community could benefit from, and play a big role in, an industrial growth in the U.S. that was even faster and on a larger scale than Germany’s. As discussed in the previous post, the community was led by a relatively small group of multimillionaire “beer barons,” who not only employed many in the community, but who were also popular for their charitable giving and spending on beer gardens, amusement parks, landmark buildings, and social organizations. Those “barons”, led in particular by Adolphus Busch of St. Louis and Frederick Pabst of Milwaukee, were embarking on their period of greatest success, as pasteurization and refrigeration enabled them to spread their products across the vast nation, boosting beer consumption to record levels. All of this general good news about life in America made its way back to Germany, resulting in the largest migrant wave of all in the 1880s (1.5 million arriving between 1881-90, and mostly joining the established communities). In the peak year of 1882, 250,000 Germans came to America! An additional smaller wave of “German Russians” came at the same time, plowing up the Great Plains grasslands seized from Native Americans after the final “Indian wars.”

German-Americans were also culturally in an enviable place. They could individually choose to keep their “Germannness” (“Deutschtum”): retaining their language in schools as well as at home; maintaining their variety of religious practices and festivals; and continuing their wide array of distinctively German social groups (singing groups, shooting competitions, and the Turnverein fitness clubs). Annual celebrations of “German Days” drew thousands in major American cities. They also had what was by far the biggest foreign-language press (which at its peak in the 1880s included 74 daily newspapers and nearly 400 weeklies, not counting magazines!). Because of their large numbers and tendency to clump together, German-Americans had an unusual degree of freedom about choosing to “stay German.” They could also, without a high degree of pressure, choose to assimilate: by intermarrying with non-Germans; by adopting English at home as well as in public; and by even changing their last names (similarly, the Uihlein family that ran the big Schlitz Brewing of Milwaukee kept the Schlitz name because it was easier for English speakers to pronounce!).

I have now summarized the “feel good” part of this post! That’s because, from the 1890s, through American participation in the First World War (1917-18), and on to national alcohol Prohibition in 1920, this large and flourishing ethnic community would come under unprecedented attack, resulting by the end of the period in irrevocable economic and cultural suppression. German-Americans would, with only a single attributable death, make it through that suppression, and on through a second war with Germany; but that subculture that I’ve described, that they created from the 1850s to 1910s, would vanish. That story is the focus of this post.

In thinking about what I’ve learned in researching this story, I have come to see that the suppression was the result of two converging factors, “pincers” as it were, that, when they intersected in 1917, “crushed” German-American culture. Those two factors had completely separate origins. The most important “pincer” was the growth of the Prohibition movement, which, while it dated back to the temperance movement of the early 1800s, accelerated with the founding of the Anti-Saloon League in 1893. That movement for a national alcohol ban was a direct, and for many years underestimated, existential threat to the single most prominent and lucrative German-American business, the brewing of beer.

The second “pincer” was an increasingly negative perception of Imperial Germany as being a dangerously expansionist, and even brutal, government, by the top levels of American politicians (especially Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, respectively a Republican and a Democrat). That perception was almost entirely created by the erratic and aggressive foreign policy rhetoric and actions of one man, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who pushed Germany into confrontation with the world’s greatest power, the British Empire, from the 1890s onward. The American government quickly came to perceive the Kaiser as a dangerous destabilizer in world politics. This political backlash against the German Empire did not at first negatively affect American public perception of German-Americans- but that perception would change very quickly, after Germany invaded Belgium and France in August 1914, in the first days of World War I, and especially after the U.S. entered the war against Germany in April 1917.

Portrait of Adolphus Busch, undated- from Wikipedia, Public Domain.

Time to introduce the top two “beer barons,” Adolphus Busch (1839-1913) and “Captain” Frederick Pabst (1836-1904); both founders of beer dynasties. By the way, the “beer baron” phrase is not a modern invention; the “barons” in general were so self-conscious of their status that they had themselves buried, in grand marble mausoleums, in their own areas of cemeteries- one in the Bronx, and the other in Milwaukee!

Their success connects to the much broader story of the post-Civil War Gilded Age era of unregulated capitalism and cutthroat competition. German-American brewers brought about a broad shift in American drinking habits with the introduction, by the 1850s, of the lager process for beer-making (typified still today by Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser, still one of the world’s most popular brands). Basically that process involves the use of corn and American barley, plus less use of the hops plant (which, along with a distinctive taste, creates the foamy head on beer). The pale gold beer (with a relatively low alcohol content and blander taste), known as pilsner, that this produced rapidly gained in popularity through the 1860s and 1870s, with Americans as a whole were moving rapidly away from their older favorites, distilled spirits (such as rum and whiskey). As mentioned in the last post, the German immigrants also introduced the concept of consuming the beer with the whole family, on Sundays (the usual only free day for industrial workers) in “beer gardens”, as well as in the thousands of saloons found in just about every American town. Pabst arrived from Germany first, at the age of 12 in 1848 (the year of revolutions across Europe), already destined to become a brewer. Busch arrived at the age of 18 in 1857, already educated, personable, and experienced as a brewer.

What gave them ultimate mastery and vast wealth, in competing with thousands of other brewers, was their understanding of how to turn brewing into an industry of unprecedented mass production, to the point of each big brewery’s production exceeding 1 million barrels per year (just as other so-called “robber barons” were creating similar dominance in oil refining, steel, banking, railroads, etc.). Busch in particular, from the point in 1869 when he began to take over management from his senior partner Eberhard Anheuser (having married Anheuser’s daughter), made the crucial decision to go all-in for “vertical integration” of the business. That meant creating full control of manufacturing at every level. He didn’t just own the massive St. Louis brewery- he built the connecting rail lines to the national rail network, and both built and owned the refrigerated cars that carried his pasteurized beer to the far corners of the U.S. He not only owned the coal-fired power plant that supplied electricity to his brewery, but even the mine that fed the plant! Another big factor in his (and his company’s) long-term success was his diversification into other areas outside of beer (including making diesel engines!).

So- how did each man use his millions, in an era of generally very low wages and no taxing of incomes? Each built grand mansions close to their breweries in St. Louis and Milwaukee (Pabst’s still survives). Busch also had a mansion and hunting estate in his home area back in Germany, and a lakeside mansion in the hop-growing area around Cooperstown, NY. He bought Missouri farms that had once belonged to General (and President) Ulysses Grant (where the famous Budweiser Clydesdale horses would later be raised). And, in his old age, in 1904, he bought a large area in Pasadena, California, and had the grounds elaborately landscaped, with statues of characters from the famous German Grimm Brothers fairy tales (this was the original “Busch Gardens”!). He also gave lavishly to charities (of which more later), especially to a Germanic Museum in the heart of America’s most prestigious campus, Harvard.

Pabst gave lavishly too, within Milwaukee, including fostering the continuation of German language and culture through building and financing a large theater (still standing), and he paid for the relief of people made homeless by a neighborhood fire. He had particular affection for animals, not only buying a large dairy farm outside Milwaukee, but also cofounding the Wisconsin Humane Society. To quote from the website of his mansion:

"This charitable spirit was especially felt around Christmas time. He and Mrs. Pabst would create gift baskets filled with groceries for more than 100 families in the immediate community that would be delivered over the holiday season. They would be filled with essential foods and snacks of the time including crackers, nuts, apples, rice, oats and eleven pounds of beef. This was not just a present for the Christmas season, but helped these families survive throughout the long, cold Wisconsin winters."

(https://www.pabstmansion.com/2021/02/the-pabst-familys-impact-on-the-milwaukee-community/)

While I could not find explicit confirming statements by either man, another key benefit of all this generosity was certainly labor peace- no strikes! Their heyday was also the heyday of the “labor wars,” with many violent confrontations between workers and the security forces of employers- but not at their breweries. Neither resisted unionization. Indeed at one point 500 workers turned out in a torch-light procession to welcome Pabst back from a European trip in 1890 (he promptly rewarded them with free beer from a 200-foot-high barrel!).

Now- how did threats emerge to this time of “gemutlichkeit” (a favored expression of the time- loosely “a pleasant cheerful atmosphere”)? First, to the threat posed by the movement to create a “dry” America, free of alcohol. The general context is that America at this time was experiencing its largest immigration wave ever, primarily from central and eastern Europe- for example Italians, Czechs, Poles, and Russian Jews. Protestant Americans of English descent had never been welcoming to immigrants overall; they took particular exception to the earlier Potato Famine Irish Catholic wave of the 1840s, in particular criticizing their alcohol use. Alcohol grew to be more and more stigmatized for many reasons: as a cause of industrial accidents, as contributing to domestic violence toward women, and as linked to perceived violation of the Christian Sabbath. As more and more Germans arrived, and brought with them more beer use, especially in the form of social drinking on Sundays, they were seen by temperance and Prohibition advocates as “part of the problem.” That movement began to swell from 1873 on (as immigration was surging), with the founding of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (the WCTU). There was considerable overlap with another political movement, which aimed to restrict immigration in general (and which had its first major success with the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882). It was also true that American socialism, which sought to oppose the rampant exploitation of workers, was largely the creation of German immigrants (Milwaukee would be the first city to elect a Socialist to Congress).

The anti-alcohol crusaders started to have some success in two regions first (the Far West and the Deep South). In neither case did this particularly worry the “beer barons” at first, since their customers were largely in the Midwest and in Eastern cities. General German-American morale was boosted by the victory of the community in Wisconsin; its united votes forced a quick repeal of the state Bennett Law, which in 1889 attempted to restrict the teaching of German in the public schools.

But the threat dramatically increased with the advent of the Anti-Saloon League, organized in Ohio in 1893, and which started a national campaign in 1895. Rather than the previous incremental (state and county) approach, and the tactic of shaming politicians, the ASL, with massive funding (including from devout Methodist billionaire John D. Rockefeller, Sr., as well as tens of thousands of Protestant churches) “was structured like a corporation, and staffed by lawyers, statisticians, publicists, fundraisers, and researchers. It used modern advertising techniques and printed millions of pieces of literature…” (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/septemberoctober/feature/going-dry) It became even more effective with the leadership of master lobbyist Wayne Wheeler (as detailed in Ken Burns’ fine documentary series on Prohibition). The sole goal was national Prohibition, which would require a constitutional amendment (passage by both houses of Congress and ratification by at least 3/4 of the states).

Another issue that did cause considerable concern in the ethnic community was that, after 1900, immigration from Germany dropped off sharply (most likely due to improved economic conditions there). Between 1901 and 1910, only just over 340,000 entered the U.S. (a drop of almost a third compared to the previous decade, and a much smaller percentage of overall immigration). That concern, combined with increased assimilation, resulted in self-conscious attempts to resist assimilation and foster German “Kultur”, including the formation of the only organization ever to claim representation at the national level, the National German-American Alliance (NGAA), set up by a small group of intellectuals in Philadelphia in 1901. It never had a mass membership, but it did start to put out a journal, and founded an offshoot (the German American Historical Society). The brewers also gradually began their own propaganda campaign (see below) to counter the torrent of ASL materials, though it never matched the opposition in volume. Its basic theme was that beer was a “healthful” drink, or even a “food”. You’ll note that one brewer even tried to connect beer to what we’d now call “first-wave feminism”! But the industry’s main reason for confidence was that the federal government derived 20-40% of its entire income from alcohol taxes; so why would it support Prohibition?? That complacency explains why the counter-propaganda didn’t really get started until very late in the Prohibition debate (about 1907).


Ruppert Brewery ad, 1914



Now to the other “pincer” factor: deteriorating relations between the German and American governments. From the unification of Germany in 1871 until the late 1890s, there had been no divisive issues (the closest one to friction had been a debate about the export of American pork!). The U.S. government and public, relying on the vast oceans separating us from Asia and Europe, and on the long-standing Monroe Doctrine (a firm statement of opposition to European interference in our hemisphere), remained much more interested in domestic affairs. But the situation suddenly changed with the advent of American imperialism and quick victory in the Spanish-American War. Suddenly the U.S. had far-flung colonial interests, in the Caribbean and Pacific (acquiring Hawaii and the Philippines), and a new sense of itself as a world power. Germany’s unifier, Otto von Bismarck, had recognized the way that Germany’s emergence had upset the status quo, and had pursued a cautious foreign policy after 1871, including making alliances. All of that went by the wayside when young Kaiser Wilhelm II, fiercely nationalistic, came to the throne and then dismissed Bismarck (1890). He asserted German power, loudly and aggressively, at every opportunity, provoking alliances against Germany (starting with France and Russia).

And, with the assassination of Pres. McKinley in Sept. 1901, an equally assertive young leader, Teddy Roosevelt, came to power in the U.S. Roosevelt, who had already been the Navy’s assistant secretary, immediately began a dramatic expansion of our battleship fleet, seeing Germany as the leading threat to U.S. security. In 1902, two important events took place: the Kaiser’s younger brother, Prince Heinrich, came to the U.S. (the Kaiser himself never visited). He not only met a wary Roosevelt, but did a dramatic train tour of German-American communities, all the way from New York to Milwaukee and back. The beer barons (Pabst in particular) led the German community in warm welcomes everywhere. A few months later, there was a peak of U.S.-German tension, when the Kaiser sent warships in our direction to threaten the Venezuelan government (which owed Germany and Britain massive debts). Roosevelt deployed almost the entire U.S. Navy in the area, and the Germans peaceably withdrew. But for the first time there would be significant and lasting tension in the relationship (though less so under Roosevelt’s successor, William Taft, 1909-13; he was a personal friend of Adolphus Busch).

Also during this time, the German American community was fundamentally changing. Not only were there fewer immigrants, but now the great beer barons were dying off, passing their businesses on to (mostly) American-born sons: Valentin Blatz (1894); Frederick Pabst and William Lemp, Sr. (1904); and August Uihlein (head of Schlitz- 1911). The king of all brewers, Adolphus Busch, was frail and wheelchair-bound from 1904 on, but lasted until Oct. 1913. His death was a very important event, not just for the German-American community but also for his large hometown city of St. Louis, and his funeral can be seen in retrospect (of course no one knew of the imminent Great War) as a kind of funeral for the old immigrant way of life. Busch was so wealthy (worth about $600 million in today’s dollars) that, on his 50th wedding anniversary in 1911, he gave each of his 8 surviving children six-figure sums to enable each to build his or her own giant mansion (one built a 60-room castle in Germany!). For his funeral, all business stopped in St. Louis; the procession, which included a representative from the German embassy, was 20 miles long, and was watched by 100,000 mourners! The flower arrangements alone required 25 trucks!

By that time, the momentum toward Prohibition was markedly increasing. When Busch died, there were 9 “dry” states (including 46 million Americans, almost half of the population!), whereas there had been only 3 at the start of 1906. Five more went dry in 1914, and most by significant popular majorities. And the firewall that the brewers had relied on was gone: in Feb. 1913, the federal income tax had begun (the 16th Amendment, soon 60% of revenue), which meant that alcohol taxes were no longer an essential revenue source. In Dec. 1914, a vote on a resolution to ratify the Prohibition amendment would fall just short of the necessary 2/3 in Congress!

The story of the onset of World War I is well known, starting with what would be seen as the trigger event (the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by a Serb, on June 28, 1914). When that happened, the U.S. had its first Southern president since before the Civil War, Democrat Woodrow Wilson (who up to that time had had little interest in foreign policy, other than in Mexico). He was grieving the death of his wife when much of the world went to war in August (the major “Allies” being then France, Russia, and Britain, with the colonial empires, vs. Germany and Austria-Hungary as the “Central Powers”). Wilson was quick to declare U.S. neutrality; much of the German-American press, and some of the community’s leaders expressed support for Germany (at first). In the absence of opinion polls, it’s impossible to know what the millions of ordinary German Americans felt in 1914.

It seems to have been in mid-1915 that the anti-German and anti-brewer currents, the “pincers” mentioned (to mix my metaphors!), seem to have intersected, beginning a short but intense period of persecution of the community (even before the U.S. entered the war in Apr. 1917). In late 1914 most Americans still seemed to favor neutrality, while becoming giddy over the sudden war-caused surge in the economy. There were already some German actions, though, that began to sway public opinion: the execution of Belgian civilians in Aug. 1914; the destruction and looting of the Belgian town of Louvain, including its priceless library; and the execution of British nurse Edith Cavell (for helping in the escape of Allied prisoners). In Apr. 1915, the Germans also introduced one of the ugliest features of the war: poison gas. With the start of the war, German ships in U.S. ports had their crews interned (in effect imprisoned for the duration or until exchanged for Americans), and some German citizens were interned as well. By Dec. 1914 in Europe, the deadly trench stalemate had begun, signaling that the war was likely to be a long one (it was already far more bloody than any before in world history).

But the decisive public opinion event seems to have been the sinking of the huge British passenger liner, “Lusitania,” in May 1915, by a German submarine. The idea that a tiny warship could, cold-bloodedly and covertly, destroy a civilian ship, killing over 1,100 people (including 128 Americans), seems to have generated a new level of public revulsion (for all that the Germans argued that they had published a warning ad). Prominent German Americans made public statements about their loyalty, a clear sign that they were under pressure (simply having the characteristic German “umlaut” pronunciation mark on one’s name was now unacceptable). Pres. Wilson made it clear to Germany that unrestricted sub attacks on our ships would with certainty bring the U.S. into the war on the Allied side, and the Germans generally kept their pledge to desist through 1916 (which was a U.S. presidential election year). However, given the ever-increasing help that the U.S. was providing to their enemies, they also began to organize a campaign to sabotage American shipments to the Allies. Meantime, in 1915, another 5 states went dry, and 4 more in 1916, further eroding the brewing industry (even though both political parties ignored the Prohibition issue in the election, which was very narrowly won by Wilson).

It was former Pres. Teddy Roosevelt, still very popular, who as we’ve seen had long thought of Germany as a threat (and who now wanted immediate U.S. entry into the war), who led the charge against German Americans. He, in Oct. 1915 (on the same day Cavell was executed), publicly and loudly, turned his rhetoric against his own countrymen: “The German-Americans who call themselves such and who have agitated as such during the past year, have shown that they are not Americans at all, but Germans in America.” But he more broadly demonized the vast mass of what he called “hyphen” Americans- any of those with one foot in the “old country” and one in the new; to him, there was no room for any form of dual loyalty. In Oct. 1915 and Sept. 1916, the last truly large-scale German-American cultural events were held: bazaars in St. Louis and Milwaukee to raise money for the German and Austrian branches of the Red Cross and for widows and orphans of German and Austrian soldiers. From here on, for the rest of the war and even beyond (to 1920), German Americans would not dare to hold any more such public events, even if for charity. To have German heritage was to be labeled as unpatriotic; even to drink beer was increasingly seen as unpatriotic as well (a serious matter, given that an average American adult consumed 30 gallons a year in 1917!).

Speaking of beverages, the two leading brewers did try to escape the Prohibition targeting by introducing alternative drinks (Bevo in the case of Anheuser-Busch, and Pablo by Pabst). Bevo, a “near-beer” which lasted from 1916 to 1929, was the more advertised and successful, as it apparently tasted almost like the real thing (the company built the largest bottling facility in the world!). Pablo, just water and malt, was introduced in 1917 as “the Happy Hoppy Drink”!

But the rising domestic hysteria against Germans received another boost on July 30, 1916. Three-quarters of the ammunition and explosives that the U.S. was exporting to the Allies passed through tiny Black Tom Island at the mouth of New York Harbor. On that day all of those munitions, 1,000 tons, detonated at once. In an instant 6 piers, 13 warehouses and dozens of railcars simply vaporized, leaving only a crater. The blast, equivalent to a major earthquake, shattered windows in Manhattan and shot bits of steel into the Statue of Liberty. Amazingly, only four people died. The explosion was unquestionably German sabotage (though American suspicion was not confirmed for decades; (West) Germany finally paid compensation in 1953).

In Jan. 1917, faced with continuing stalemate on the battlefield and impending starvation at home, German authorities made the fateful decision to resume unrestricted sub warfare, which they knew would cause American intervention. Wilson broke relations on Feb. 4, and, when confronted with both the sinking of U.S. freighters and a deciphered telegram by the German foreign minister that offered Mexico an anti-American alliance, went to Congress on Apr. 2, 1917 to call for entry into the war, famously “to make the world safe for democracy.” Congress approved on Apr. 6, though not without significant opposition (not surprisingly, many of the “no” votes were from states with many Germans, such as Illinois and Wisconsin).

That same day Wilson issued an “alien enemies” proclamation, putting male non-citizen resident Germans under a host of restrictions (women would be added a year later). The great entry port for German transatlantic shipping, Hoboken, New Jersey, which employed thousands, was shut down. Wilson knew that an exceptional government effort would be needed to convince most Americans that their young men should go forth (to France) to kill Germans; to that end he created a massive propaganda agency (the Committee on Public Information) to push that message, soon followed by conscription, drafting men on a much larger scale than in the Civil War. His attorney general called on Americans to inform his department of any suspicious activities (setting off a steadily rising wave of vigilante actions against German Americans). A new law required the host of German papers to start printing parallel columns in German and English, and the postmaster general was given the authority to approve or disapprove which papers could use the mail system. Wilson gave a clear indication of his wartime policy in two speeches in the summer: in June, he announced that “the military masters of Germany…have filled our unsuspecting communities with vicious spies and conspirators.” On July 4th, he declared: “We must have in this country but one flag, and for the speech of the people but one language, the English language.” Over a dozen states banned the teaching of the German language.

Soon the Prohibition pressure intensified as well. In August another law, on the excuse of conserving grain, banned its use for distilling alcohol and restricted beer and wine production in wartime, and Congress passed the Prohibition amendment in Dec. 1917, sending it to the states. Even more seriously for German Americans, Congress passed the Trading with the Enemy Act in October, which created an Alien Property Custodian with the power to confiscate any property deemed “a threat to the United States”! Wilson appointed an ambitious Quaker lawyer, J. Mitchell Palmer, who immediately targeted the beer barons. He was successful in confiscating the estate of one, George Ehret, who had been trapped in Germany when the war broke out. But he was unsuccessful in going after the Busch estate, even though Adolphus Busch’s widow, Lilly, had also been trapped in Germany (and two Busch daughters had married German nobles). Palmer’s greatest success was in seizing patents held by German companies, including for Bayer aspirin. The record of what his Alien Property office, which soon employed hundreds, did in 1917-19, seems never to have been examined in detail by historians. Palmer (who as attorney general would lead a "Red Scare" after the war) boasted that he was running “the best general store in the country,” worth at least $500 million. He auctioned off properties (writer Adam Hochschild says he did so to favored friends and fellow Democrats), and even seized the jewelry of immigrant German and Austrian women. As the draftees trained in camps across the nation in the fall of 1917, actions by civilians against Germans likewise increased, including the forced resignations and imprisonment of Boston’s and Cincinnati’s German orchestra conductors.

So how did the community react to all this? Mostly by silence. It was a community that, while very large, was internally divided (in many ways, including about the war), and it was generally caught off guard by being suddenly labeled as (at least potentially) disloyal (though there was no evidence for such for any citizen). Its only national organization, the National German-American Alliance, dissolved rapidly, even before Congress could vote to revoke its charter. The U.S. Brewers’ Association, once headed by a Pabst, likewise disappeared from view. It was a community without political muscle, with little representation at the federal level (and the few that there were there soon resigned or were defeated in the next election). The community as a whole cooperated with the draft (with the notable exception of pacifist religious groups- the Mennonites and Hutterites). Indeed the American commander in Europe, Gen. John Pershing, was from a German family which originally spelled the name as “Pfoerschin.” One of the greatest war heroes, pilot Eddie Rickenbacker, was also German American. Countless German-Americans, including some of the beer barons, bought Liberty Bonds to finance the war.

And two companies actually benefited from the war. Anheuser-Busch, which was already making diesel engines, now made them for American submarines, and financed two bombers named “Miss Budweiser”! Optics company Bausch and Lomb, founded by Germans, and which before the war had partnered with the German Zeiss company, made binoculars and other equipment essential for the military throughout, and was likewise left unmolested.

By early 1918, the effects of anti-German hysteria commonly mentioned in American textbooks were taking place: bans on German music; destruction of phonograph records and German books; and especially renaming: of German foods (“liberty cabbage” for sauerkraut, “hot dog” for frankfurter, etc.), street names, town names, buildings, companies, and personal names. The German Army, using the extra troops which had been fighting the Russians until the two Russian Revolutions, broke out of the trenches and advanced on Paris in Mar. 1918. The hysteria in the U.S. peaked as American troops entered their first large-scale combat, to halt that advance, the next month. It was on April 5th that the only death occurred: that of Robert Prager, an immigrant in the coal-mining town of Collinsville, Illinois, who was lynched by a mob of hundreds of townspeople after he wrote a letter complaining about being rejected by the local union. They first marched him down the street, barefoot and wrapped in an American flag; then beat him; and finally hanged him. Eleven of the mob would be put on trial; all were acquitted. Elsewhere, members of pacifist religious groups, in particular the Mennonites and Hutterites in the Plains states, were targeted (conscientious objectors of all sorts were treated badly). Some of the former were tarred and feathered, and two Mennonite churches were burned. Four Hutterites who refused the draft were sent to Ft. Alcatraz in California; two brothers were later moved to Ft. Leavenworth and died there of pneumonia.


By the time of the war’s end, with the Armistice (Nov. 11, 1918), the brewing industry was already a shadow of its former size and wealth (though outright Prohibition would not take effect until Jan. 16, 1920). Most of the big brewers would hold on until repeal in 1933, making near beer, ice cream (thanks to having refrigeration plants), cheese, and malt syrup (the last being the ingredient needed by anyone who wanted to make beer at home!). Coors, in Colorado, went into the ceramics business. Most of the wide array of prewar cultural institutions had disappeared by then; their meeting places were repurposed or abandoned. The original Busch Gardens in Pasadena became a public park, used for location shoots for famous Hollywood movies (such as the barbecue scene in “Gone with the Wind”). Anheuser-Busch would go on to be the giant of American brewing through the rest of the 20th century (even as its home city of St. Louis went into an economic decline), and would stay under family control until it was taken over the Belgian company InBev in 2008. Its only major rival today is MillerCoors (a merger of a Milwaukee company with Coors in Golden, Colorado). The great age of mass migration would end in 1924, when strict quotas were imposed on nationalities; it would be German Jews that would suffer most from that system when many were turned away in the 1930’s.

To sum up my story- I feel that it’s one that is too often overlooked and oversimplified. The German ethnic community was a uniquely large and diverse one within American society for multiple generations up to 1917, and it retained far more use of its language (which was also prestigious in American education as a whole) and cultural organizations than most immigrant groups. Yet it was also a very vulnerable subculture, and probably one that would have gradually dissipated within another generation- though the stark hostility of 1917-18 certainly speeded the process. At the same time I don't want to overstate their persecution- members of the radical Industrial Workers of the World union were treated even more harshly, and, in the same 1914-1919 timeframe, over 250 African Americans were lynched (including returning soldiers). Nonetheless, like the much more tragic story of the Japanese American internment in 1942-45, what I've described is a cautionary tale for the 21st century, with American society now much more openly culturally diverse than a century ago. Obviously the same the same tensions about immigration continue. Within those tensions is an ongoing language debate, too- though now of course the obvious second language is Spanish. The American majority rejected the existence of a large non-English-speaking cultural entity, German-American, once upon a time. With the dramatic growth of the Hispanic population, should we now consider official bilingualism, like our neighbor Canada? Where is the right balance, between embracing exceptional diversity on the one hand, and maintaining a strong sense of national identity on the other?


Resources:

n.a., "World War One: Anti-German Hysteria." (http://www.revisionist.net/hysteria/index.html)

Encyclopedia of Milwaukee- https://emke.uwm.edu/; various articles.

Dobbert, G.A. "German-Americans between New and Old Fatherland, 1870-1914," American Quarterly Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter, 1967), pp. 663-680.

Hochschild, Adam. “American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis.” (2022).

Juhnke, James C. "Mob Violence and Kansas Mennonites in 1918," Kansas Historical Quarterly, Autumn, 1977 (Vol. 43, No. 3), 334-350.

Knoedelseder, William. "Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer." (2012)

Ogle, Maureen. “Ambitious Brew: A History of American Beer.” (2019)

Roberts, Randy, and Johnny Smith. "War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War." (2020).



 
 
 

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