Professor Scholl, himself a teacher of German, continues: "A little attention to the context of the sentences quoted shows that these Germans demand the privilege of coming to America, getting citizenship on the easiest terms possible, while maintaining intact their alien speech, alien customs, and alien loyalties. That is 'assimilation,' the granting of equal political rights and commercial opportunities, without exacting any alteration in modes of life or 'Sittlichkeit.' 'Absorption' means Americanization, a fusing with the whole mass of American life, an adoption of the language and ideals of the country, a spiritual rebirth into Anglo-Saxon civilization, and this has great terrors for the members of a German alliance.
"A glance back over the whole scheme will show how cleverly it was made to unite the average recent comeoverer with his beer-drinking proclivities, with the professor of German, who had visions of increased interest in his specialty, and the professor of history, who hoped for larger journal space and ampler funds, and the readily flattered wealthy German of some attainments, into a close league of interests, which could be used at the proper time for almost any nefarious purpose which a few men might dictate.
"Add to this the emphatic moral and financial support of the German-language press as one of the most powerful agencies of the organization, and we have the stage set for just what happened a little over three years ago."
The Alliance, long before the war, had been active in extending German influence. Among other affairs, it had arranged the visit of Prince Henry of Prussia. Its president, Dr. C. J. Hexamer, whose headquarters were in Philadelphia, had received special recognition from the Kaiser for his efforts--efforts which may be briefly set forth in a speech addressed to Germans in Milwaukee by Hexamer himself:
"You have been long-suffering under the preachment that you must be assimilated, but we shall never descend to an inferior culture. We are giving to these people the benefits of German culture."
The outbreak of war made the Alliance an exceedingly important, if unwieldy, instrument for shaping public opinion. It promoted and sponsored a so-called National Embargo Conference in Chicago in 1915, working hand-in-glove with Labor's National Peace Council in an attempt to persuade Congress to pass a law forbidding the export of munitions. At every congressional election, particularly in such cities as Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, the hand of Prussia was stirring about. When O. B. Colquitt, a former governor of Texas, decided to run for the Senate in late 1915, he corresponded with the editors of the _Staats-Zeitung_ and a New York member of the Alliance for support from the German press and the German vote in his state.