Today -100: May 30, 1918: This great city is unwilling to endure any longer their language

Headline of the Day -100: 

Although I prefer the version in the NYT index:

If the food situation in Germany is bad, it’s even worse in the ethnic-German parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they blame the Slavic regions of the Empire for not sending food.

The NYC Board of Education votes unanimously to have no more classes in beginning German for the duration of the war. They say that with the “best” American teachers now being so anti-German that they can’t teach the course with enthusiasm, it would be left in the hands of German-born teachers, which would interfere with the teaching of “Americanism” to the pupils [As atrocious as current political language is, I am thankful not to have to hear the word Americanism repeated ad nauseum]. Abolishing the teaching of German will make a dent in the spread of Pan-Germanism “by shaking possibly the morale of the German people as they come to realize that this great city was unwilling to endure any longer their language, and that it desired thus to break off more completely the possibility of intimate relations with them through the medium of language.” Interpretive dance is quite another matter.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.