who had migrated. The traditional American indifference and good
nature became a shield for the Machiavellian editors who now began to
write not for the benefit of America but for the benefit of Germany.
Political scandals, odious comparisons of American and German methods,
and adroit criticisms of American ways were the daily pabulum fed to
the German reader, who was left with the impression that everything in
the United States was wrong, while everything in Germany was right.
Before the United States entered the Great War, there was a most
remarkable unanimity of expression among these German publications;
afterwards, Congress found it necessary to enact rigorous laws against
them. As a result, many of them were suppressed, and many others
suspended publication.

German pastors, also, were not infrequently imported and brought with
them the virus of the new Prussianism. This they injected into their
congregations and especially into the children who attended their
catechetical instruction. German "exchange professors," in addition to
their university duties, usually made a pilgrimage of the cities where
the German influence was strong. The fostering of the German language
became no longer merely a means of culture or an appurtenance to
business but was insisted upon as a necessity to keep alive the German
spirit, _der Deutsche Geist_. German parents were warned, over and
over again, that once their children lost their language they would
soon lose every active interest in _Kultur_. The teaching of German in
the colleges and universities assumed, undisguised and unashamed, the
character of Prussian propaganda. The new immigrants from Germany were
carefully protected from the deteriorating effect of American
contacts, and, unlike the preceding generations of German immigrants,
they took very little part in politics. Those who arrived after 1900
refused, usually, to become naturalized.