American School Children and Foreign Propaganda.—The tendency in some directions to picture GeorgeIII as “a German King,” in order to shift upon the shoulders of a historical manikin the responsibility for the American Revolutionary War, has gone so far as to attempt to blind the unthinking masses to the truth about our war of independence; but it should be remembered that if the responsibility rested wholly with this alleged “German King,” then Washington, Jefferson and Franklin deceived the American people and the Declaration of Independence was a lie. In that event we have lived 140years of our history under a delusion and a fiction. It is eminently to the interest of English propaganda to create and strengthen this impression, and it is regrettable that no organized opposition has developed to the attempt to inculcate into the minds of our school children the conception that but for this German King we should still be a contented colony of the British crown.

How is this fiction fostered?

Largely through the medium of certain important book publishers, who print school books, though the public is ignorant of the fact that the majority of these publishing houses are financed either by British or American circles closely intermarried or financially related to English houses.

The movement to rewrite the history of the United States in the interest of England is so widespread and persistent that the chairman of the Americanization Committee of the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce, in November, 1919, published an expose of his discoveries and conclusions as to the extent of the British propaganda, in which he said:

To work among aliens to build up respect and loyalty for the United States while a stupendous plot is under way to destroy the very thing which we are pleading with these aliens to preserve is wasted effort.

In view of the efforts to burden the shoulders of GeorgeIII with the offenses that led to the Declaration of Independence while exonerating the English people of any guilt, by representing him as a “German King” to the uninformed minds of our school children, it is pertinent to quote Lord Macaulay’s description of GeorgeIII:

The young king was a born Englishman; all his tastes, good or bad, were English.... His age, his appearance and all that was known of his character conciliated public favor. He was in the bloom of youth; his person and address were pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no vice; and flattery might without any glowing absurdity ascribe to him many princely virtues.

We find nothing in Macaulay to warrant the conclusion that George, a born Englishman in the third generation, was not complete master of the English language, as has been alleged; and, moreover, if he can reasonably be called a German, because of his German ancestry, it follows that the same allegation can be reasonably preferred against President Wilson, and that, because of his even nearer English ancestry, he is really an Englishman and not an American—an imputation which his partisans would declare an absurdity on its face.

A further proof of the vicious misrepresentation which describes GeorgeIII singly and alone responsible for the cause of the Revolution is contained in the words of our forefathers themselves. They must have known whom they were fighting, who tyrannized over them and who were trying to subjugate them. And this is what they said to the world:

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated inquiry.... Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.