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Anti-Germanism in Minnesota Schools,1917–1919 La Vern J. Rippley At the outbreak of World War I,President Woodrow Wilson rallied the American people by assuring them it was the“war to end all wars”and the“war to make the world safe for democracy.”The hope of making the world safe for democracy badly faltered at home in Minnesota as wartime creates an atmosphere where loyalty and patriotism may threaten or override constitutional safeguards.The establishment of the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety within days of the U.S.declaration of war created an institution with sweeping powers to define and enforce loyalty as the commissioners saw fit.LaVern J.Rippley concentrates on the Commission’s anti-German eJorts,especially in the area of education. In a nation at war so concerned with being “100% American” that sauerkraut was renamed“liberty cabbage”and hamburger called “liberty sausage,”and in a state with Germans as its largest ethnic group,the Commission found many opportunities for intervention. The Commission insisted on English-only instruction and sought to root out“German sympathizers”in the schools.Public schools,as well as private and parochial,were all suspect and possibly subject to the Commission’s review.Tolerance was not a virtue in the heated atmosphere of wartime America. Of all the cases handled by the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety during its brief oIcial life,more than 56 percent concerned members of the state’s German population.The seven-man commission,which some historians have called dictatorial and fascist,was “an interim agency” designed to take swift and decisive action toward “suppressing disloyal outbreaks and possible disturbances of order in communities where the German element was predominant ” during World War I.1 The Minnesota commission, modeled in a limited way on the National Council of Defense created by Congress three days after United States’ entry into World War I,was the first such state agency established in the nation.On April 10, 1917, only four days after the declaration of war, the Minnesota sen132 ate voted unanimously to create the commission.The lower house followed suit four days laterwith only two dissenting votes;Governor Joseph A.A.Burnquist signed the bill into law;and on April 23 the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety met for the first time.2 Empowered to perform “all acts and things necessary or proper so that the military,civil,and industrial resources of the state may be most eIciently applied toward maintenance of the defense of the state and nation, and toward the successful prosecution of such war,” the commission could do explicitly almost anything. It could seize or condemn property, require anyone to appear before it or its agents,demand that district courts issue subpoenas,examine the conduct of public oIcials, and advise the governor on actions against such oIcials.3 The commission was headed by Governor Burnquist and Attorney General Lyndon A. Smith, a banker from Montevideo,who were ex oIcio members. The other members, all appointed by the governor,were Charles H. March, a lawyer and for a time vice-chairman,from Litchfield;John Lind of New Ulm, a three-term United States congressman (1887–93),and a past governor (1898– 1900); John F. McGee, a former Minneapolis judge and attorney for the Chicago GreatWestern Railway;CharlesW.Ames,general manager of theWest Publishing Company which printed lawbooks; and Anton C.Weiss, a conservative Democrat and publisher of the Duluth Herald. John S. Pardee was chosen as secretary and AmbroseTighe,the man who had drafted the enabling act for the legislature,as counsel.Commissioners served without salary and at the pleasure of the governor.4 The commission addressed itself to problems in a wide area and issued 59 specific orders.These concerned such war-related subjects as food production, marketing,labor and industrial peace,iron-ore output,fuel,the welfare of soldiers , prevention of waste, forest fires, and the price of milk. Each week the agency processed an average of 18 sacks of mail and answered 300 letters; it mailed more than 21,000 pieces of German-language literature to persons on its address lists.Over 700 state newspapers received from the commission English or foreign-language materials about the war and the eJorts to win it, and between September 8, 1917, and December 28, 1918, the government body published and distributed its own oIcial weekly newspaper,Minnesota in the War. Frightened by pro-German sympathizers among the German element in Minnesota when...

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