Sample Solution

This quote is significant because it shows how Anti-German sentiment affected more than the German-American population in the United States. In the name of patriotism, musicians no longer played Bach and Beethoven, and schools stopped teaching the German language. Americans renamed sauerkraut “liberty cabbage”; dachshunds “liberty hounds”; and German measles “liberty measles.” CITATION Cincinnati, with its large German American population, even removed pretzels from the free lunch counters in saloons. CITATION This quote shows the extent of anti-German sentiment in the twentieth century society and how it strayed from simply the political atmosphere of the war. Furthermore, there seems to be a critical tone of the writer. It almost calls out the irony of eating liberty cabbage and rejecting sauerkraut simply because of its name. The writer’s choice to write “quasi-patriotic” questions the authenticity of Americans’ patriotism and mocks their childlike behaviors. We see a lesser-biased side of newspaper and similar media as the war continues. It is possible that many newspapers were misguided by their emotions at the start of the war. Once the war continued, newspapers like these gained courage to write against one-sided accounts, though such instances were rare.

On October 1918, the Barrington Courier praised a German soldier that volunteered to fight in the army:

He bravely laid down his life for the cause of his country. His name will ever remain fresh in the hearts of his friends and comrades. The record of his honorable service will be preserved in the archives of the American Expeditionary Forces.