Tag Archives: Patriotism

20th Century, German Americans, History, Intercession, Judgment & Counter-Judgment Cycle, Minnesota, omnipresent history, U.S. Constitution, World War I

Political Suppression in Minnesota 1917

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Meintz was tarred and feathered for not supporting War Bond drives.

1917

“Anti-German hysteria runs rampant during the war. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety is given sweeping powers to bully German Minnesotans, suppress the right of free speech, break strikes, and even remove elected officials from office.” *

Our Constitution is designed to protect us from both tyranny of the majority or tyranny of the minority.

“In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.” – Speech, Constitutional Convention June 29th 1787 **

To offer some more specific historical context, read the excerpt from Matt Reicher’s article on the MNopedia site. 

“The U.S. entered World War I on April 6, 1917. Minnesota legislators worked quickly to pass war-related laws before the end of their spring session. As a result, the Sullivan bill saw very little debate. It passed both houses and was signed into law by Burnquist on April 16, 1917. The MCPS took control of many of the state’s regulatory, public safety, and military functions.

Throughout its tenure the MCPS provided useful services. It distributed food, controlled the prices of goods, and conserved fuel. However, it is best known for its use of secret surveillance, intimidation, and other extreme tactics in the name of protecting Minnesota’s citizens.

Ensuring clear-cut loyalty to America eventually overtook the MCPS’s other efforts. Commissioners regarded any lack of patriotism as rebellion. Political beliefs were irrelevant. Governor Burnquist maintained that there were only two parties during the war: “loyal” and “disloyal”. He and the MCPS praised the former and tried to eliminate the latter.” ***

As defined by the American Psychological Association, ambiguity is “a perceptual object that may have more than one interpretation. **** One problem with loyalty litmus tests is that they often force emotional ambiguity upon society. Citizens face the dilemma of feigning outward compliance to the law, but inwardly rejecting its divisiveness and lack of subtlety. 

It is significant that this bifurcating mania existed towards our State’s most populous ethnicity during the run up to World War I. 

“The largest flow of German immigration to America occurred between 1820 and World War I, during which time nearly six million Germans immigrated to the United States. From 1840 to 1880, they were the largest group of immigrants.” ***** Additionally, “German Americans compose a plurality in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Midwestern states.” ****** 

Lord, hear our prayer! In the era of WWI, we allowed a consensus opinion to beat down the rights of German Americans solely on the basis of their race. In offending them, the largest and most populous group of Minnesotans, we have offended You. We have treated citizens as suspects: in social circles, in their work life, in their property, and in their faith. Have mercy!

Will You restore to German Americans the damages done to them in this chapter of history? Will You forgive our fears that overcame wise law during the Great War? Will You forgive us from literally erasing their names from the persons, places, and things of Minnesota? Will You forgive the MCPS and Minnesotans from “piling on” of shame over imagined offenses, instead of dealing solely with real guilt of actually breaking the law through collaborating with an enemy during wartime?

On the other hand, will You forgive the judgments of German Americans towards the MCPS and the State? Will You free them from the weight of maintaining the offense of their humilations? Will You remove this historic offense up, out, and onto the Cross of Christ? Only You can bear our sins, and change us into overcomers!

In our present and future, will You help us slow down our destructive reactionary responses to war and rumors of war through the gateway of our fears? 

Your Word says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear is by suspicion, but he who fears is not grown up in love.” 1John 4:18 Aramaic Bible in Plain English ******** Will You help us to trust our neighbors, and honor the rights, privileges, and duties of their citizenship as much as our own? 

Will You protect us from societal damages through the means of group and identity politics? We cherish our race, or our subculture, but You have called us beyond our ethnicities as individuals! Our worth to You is not based one our “ism”, “hyphen”, our other marker; we are worthy because You have called us worthy!

Further, will You heal Your Church to be cognizant that our first citizenship is in Heaven? Will You free us from the Enemy’s triggers, and the bait of ethnic-based offense? We relinquish our rights to maintain an ethnic offense and declare the Jubilee of Your grace towards all people of Minnesota now and always. Maranatha!

* http://www.mnhs.org/about/dipity_timeline.htm

** https://thefederalistpapers.org/founders/james-madison-quotes

*** ibid http://www.mnopedia.org/group/minnesota-commission-public-safety

**** http://www.apa.org/research/action/glossary.aspx

***** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans#World_War_I_anti-German_sentiment 

****** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans

******* Find primary sources of the Minnesota commission of Public Safety. http://invention.si.edu/minnesota-commission-public-safety-main-files-1917-1919

********* http://biblehub.com/1_john/4-18.htm

 

 

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19th Century, African American, Black History, Civil War, government, History, Intercession, Jesus, Minnesota, Politics, war

Civil War Troops  

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1861
“Governor Alexander Ramsey is in Washington when the Civil War breaks out. He rushes to the White House and is the first to pledge troops for defense of the Union.
Slavery has never been legal in Minnesota, but not everyone feels the issue is worth going to war over. Yet when war comes, most of Minnesota is gripped by patriotic excitement. Flags wave as troops are sent off to a long and bloody battle that tears America apart.

In Fillmore County, patriotism is so high that men ‘leave their reapers in the field, their grain uncut, their stacks half-built’ to gather in Preston for a recruiting drive. Thousands of troops train at Fort Snelling before leaving for battle.

More than 100 black men from Minnesota enlist in the Union Army. If captured by Confederate troops, black soldiers are not treated as prisoners of war but as escaped slaves. (The 1860 census lists a total African American population in the state of only 259 men, women, and children.)” *

Only 259 black Minnesotans in 1860 Jesus! Wow! Will You visit this piece of history Jesus with you healing presence? Especially for these 259 American citizens? Will you honor the 100 who enlisted to fight slavery? Will You remember their bravery to future generations?

As Your friend, I bless these 259 African American children of God in the name of Jesus. I bless them, their generations backwards and forwards, and their dwellings. Holy Spirit, will You remove the curse the enemy has tried to put on them through the heritage of slavery, of being the vanquished? Jesus, through Your omnipresence will You send these words to them?
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39

As to the patriotism of Minnesotans’, thank You for the love of this place that would make men choose to lay down their lives and fortunes for the sake of defending the most vulnerable Americans. Thank You that our state was the first to lend a hand to the black freedom! Jesus will You temper our patriotism and idealism with honesty and forbearance? Will You take our love of state and country, and place it in proper perspective with the love of Your kingdom? Will You clear the channels starting in this generation of the extremes of patriotism, or the nihilism manifesting as ambiguity towards human suffering?

Will You bring Your wisdom to our heritage? Protect my house and this present generation from harsh judgments of our forbearers! We are often in the same boat as they! We hate to see and hear of the suffering in Muslim nations: Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, etc., but does this mean we should engage in war to correct what we perceive as injustices? Will we raise the status of your daughters’ behind the burqa by slaying their men, or praying for their men?

There is a difference between self-defense and aggression; will You show this boundary to us? Even under interrogation by Pontius Pilate, You often chose to stand firmly and silently. Jesus, bring Your marvelous wisdom to this state of Minnesota! We need You to guide us, and guide our zealousness into paths that bring Your dominion of grace, safety and truth!

http://www.mnhs.org/about/dipity_timeline.htm

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