WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ★^759The Anti- German Crusade
German- Americans bore the brunt of forced Americanization. The first
wave of German immigrants had arrived before the Civil War. By 1914,
German- Americans numbered nearly 9 million, including immigrants and
persons of German parentage. They had created thriving ethnic institutions
including clubs, sports associations, schools, and theaters. On the eve of the
war, many Americans admired German traditions in literature, music, and phi-
losophy, and one- quarter of all the high school students in the country studied
the German language. But after American entry into the war, the use of German
and expressions of German culture became a target of prowar organizations.
In Iowa, Governor William L. Harding issued a proclamation requiring that all
oral communication in schools, public places, and over the telephone be con-
ducted in English. Freedom of speech, he declared, did not include “the right to
use a language other than the language of the country.”
By 1919, the vast majority of the states had enacted laws restricting the
teaching of foreign languages. Popular words of German origin were changed:
“hamburger” became “liberty sandwich,” and “sauerkraut” “liberty cabbage.”
Many communities banned the playing of German music. The government
jailed Karl Muck, the director of the Boston Symphony and a Swiss citizen, as an
enemy alien after he insisted on including the works of German composers like
Beethoven in his concerts. The war dealt a crushing blow to German- American
culture. By 1920, the number of German- language newspapers had been
reduced to 276 ( one- third the number twenty years earlier), and only 1 per-
cent of high school pupils still studied German. The Census of 1920 reported
a 25 percent drop in the number of Americans admitting to having been born
in Germany.
Toward Immigration Restriction
Even as Americanization programs sought to assimilate immigrants into
American society, the war strengthened the conviction that certain kinds of
undesirable persons ought to be excluded altogether. The new immigrants,
one advocate of restriction declared, appreciated the values of democracy and
freedom far less than “the Anglo- Saxon,” as evidenced by their attraction to
“extreme political doctrines” like anarchism and socialism. Stanford Univer-
sity psychologist Lewis Terman introduced the term “IQ” (intelligence quo-
tient) in 1916, claiming that this single number could measure an individual’s
mental capacity. Intelligence tests administered to recruits by the army seemed
to confirm scientifically that blacks and the new immigrants stood far below
native white Protestants on the IQ scale, further spurring demands for immi-
gration restriction.
How did the war affect race relations in the United States?