World War I and Ethnic Chicago-- Part 3: Anti-American and Anti-German Sentiment

The Tribune reported that a soldier and his brother had stopped for a drink in south suburban Crete, in Will County.  The locals, "all Germans, hooted and jeered" and called the young man, in full uniform, "a tin soldier."  The soldier and his brother were beaten badly "almost into insensibility" but they were the ones arrested and held in jail for a night.

More often, it was the Germans who were on the receiving end of hostility though.  The private Chicago Athletic Association fired 18 waiters, cooks and dishwashers "of German extraction."  Some members tried to keep Henry Bauer because he had a son in the U.S. Army.

The Chicago Music College notified staffers that they would be fired if they participated in a concert sung in German.  Women in the South Shore Country Club organized a "Use Nothing German" campaign, pledging to rid their households of anything marked "made in Germany."

Cooter