This was to a considerable degree an idealistic migration and as such
it had a lasting influence upon American life. The industry of these
people and their thrift, even to paring economy, have often been
extolled; but other nationalities have worked as hard and as
successfully and have spent as sparingly. The special contribution to
America which these Germans made lay in other qualities. Their artists
and musicians and actors planted the first seeds of æsthetic
appreciation in the raw West where the repertoire had previously been
limited to _Money Musk_, _The Arkansas Traveler_, and _Old Dog Tray_.
The liberal tendencies of German thought mellowed the austere
Puritanism of the prevalent theology. The respect which these people
had for intellectual attainments potently influenced the educational
system of America from the kindergarten to the newly founded state
universities. Their political convictions led them to espouse with
ardor the cause of the Union in the war upon slavery; and their sturdy
independence in partisan politics was no small factor in bringing
about civil service reform. They established German newspapers by the
hundreds and maintained many German schools and German colleges. They
freely indulged their love for German customs. But while their
sentimentalism was German, their realism was American. They considered
it an honor to become American citizens. Their leaders became American
leaders. Carl Schurz was not an isolated example. He was associated
with a host of able, careful, constructive Germans.

The greatest quarrels of these German immigrants with American ways
were over the so-called "Continental Sabbath" and the right to drink
beer when and where they pleased. "Only when his beer is in danger,"
wrote one of the leading Forty-eighters, "does the German-American
rouse himself and become a berserker." The great numbers of these men