IN AMERICA 141
tened to a Vorleser whom they employed to read to them and
lead them in discussions. The Turner, a group dedicated to the
cause of physical culture and conviviality, staged spectacular pub
lic exhibitions of their athletic skills and frequent parades, march
ing through the streets of New York with banners bearing the
inscription, "Liberty, Welfare and Education."^3 May festivals
featuring singing, speeches, and dancing were attended by large
crowds from the German sections of the city.
Contemptuous of what many refugees regarded as the low cul
tural level of a new and raw country like the United States, some
of the most tactless and opinionated among these newcomers
manifested an intolerance toward their American neighbors which
could only end in bitter controversy and antagonisms. The Ger
man Forty-eighters were divided into warring factions which
quarreled violently over ridiculous and trivial differences of opin
ion and policy, lived in narrow cliques, and occasionally were so
boorish in their intercourse with neighbors that native Americans
were genuinely disturbed. Thus was provided a measure of justi
fication for some of the nativist reactions of the Know-Nothing
movement of the 1850's, one of whose aims was to protect the
institutions and customs of the American Republic from further
European immigration.
A New York saloonkeeper may be cited as an extreme example
to illustrate the utter defiance of American customs manifested by
some of the most intolerant newcomers among the radical Ger
mans. To parody and ridicule the ceremonies of the church and
to express his contempt for the clergy, the owner of the saloon
had erected a pulpit at one end of his place of business from which
he addressed his customers each Sunday morning on the tyranny
and superstitions of organized religion. Such intolerable and tact
less conduct was a rare exception and revealed a lunatic, extremist
fringe among the German immigration which did great damage
to the German-American group as a whole. Fortunately the forces
of Americanization were so strong that even the radicals settled
(^3) New York Tribune, August 19, 1851.