Читать книгу History Of German Immigration In The United States - George von Skal - Страница 9

After the Revolution a period set in during which comparatively few Germans came to the United States. The French revolution and the Napoleonic wars acted as preventatives to emigration. This may appear contradictory at the first glance because, as a rule, troublous times are apt to drive people to seek new homes. It is, however, quite natural. The events that led to the French revolution filled the German people with a new hope. The belief that absolutism, restrictions and serfdom would be done away with, became general. Why go to foreign shores if the happiness that might be found there was almost certain to arrive at home? And after the long wars had broken out the state needed every able bodied citizen at home, while at the same time the ports of the Continent of Europe were closed to navigation and the seas were no longer highways of commerce, but the scene of never-ending strife between France and England, making it difficult and perilous for merchant vessels to cross the ocean. It is true that German immigration never ceased completely, but it was not numerous enough to make a strong impression nor even to strengthen the already existing German settlements sufficiently to prevent their Americanization by slow but sure steps. Thus for nearly forty years the German element in the United States remained stationary as far as the number of newcomers was concerned.

But the Germans remained by no means idle. They continued to spread in the way we have indicated and carried their characteristics into new regions. They took part in the conquest of the great western territory that had been purchased from the French Government. There were, in fact, many Germans among the bold spirits who forced their way through primeval forest and over pathless mountains with the firm purpose to extend the frontier of the colonies farther toward the setting sun. Their names have been forgotten, with few exceptions, but it is known that the large majority of the settlers who followed in the footsteps of the conquerors and advanced along the banks of the Ohio River, making Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana habitable, were of German blood. They also did a large share of the winning of Tennessee. Here, as everywhere, and at all times, the German settler did the real work. He did not look for fame or glory, he did not seek adventures and the spoils of war and the chase, but he cleared the soil and tilled it until it was changed into fertile fields and gardens. Valuable as the pioneer's work was, his methods could never have opened the land to civilization. His log cabin served him more as a place of retreat in times of need than as a permanent home, while the German immediately began to produce and to improve, preparing the country for peaceful and permanent habitation by the millions who were to follow soon. All during this period the German proved his value for the land of his adoption and never ceased to be one of the most important factors in its development.

The Napoleonic wars had hardly ended when the immigration from Germany began to increase again. The great bulk consisted, as before, of peasants who came to find new homes on virgin soil. But withal a great change was discernible, for there arrived also a large number of men of the highest accomplishments and education, not as leaders of the masses or with them, but on their own accord. Again it was persecution that drove them from the Fatherland. They had to go because they had been foolish enough to believe that the German people did not rise against the great Napoleon for the sole reason of replacing their princes and princelings upon the thrones the conqueror had taken away from them.

They had really believed that these princes owed some little gratitude to the people and should recognize the fact that they should be given some part in the government. They were mistaken; the princes were determined to continue their rule of absolutism, and persecuted relentlessly everybody who dared to disagree with them. Thus political persecution, in place of the religious persecution of former years, drove untold thousands of the very best and ablest Germans across the Atlantic. These political refugees gave the German immigration, beginning about 1818, its peculiar character; the movement lasted until well in to the second half of the Nineteenth Century, but may be divided into two periods, the first one extending until the German revolution of 1848, during which it was rather limited as to numbers, and the second one comprising the arrival of the revolutionists in large masses. There is another distinction which has not been taken note of by historians generally. The Germans arriving after the revolutionary movement had failed were united by one distinct idea that had already been transformed into action. Their object may be called visionary, unclear and premature, but it had crystallized in the desire to unite the German nation under a liberal, preferably a republican government. Between the Napoleonic wars and the revolution Germany passed through a period of romanticism which filled a large part of the youth of the German people with an in distinct longing for something, the nature of which they did not understand and really did not wish to know. Thus many came to America who were searching for things unknown and had no other reason to expect that they would find them here but that they did not know anything of the country. Among them was the poet, Nikolaus Lenau, who expected to find in America not only human perfection but everything else he was yearning for. He returned to Europe after a short stay, disappointed and embittered. Many others were not so fortunate, and thousands who did not know why they had left their homes perished in misery. In the same category be long, though different in character, the different attempts to found colonies of German noblemen who were planned to bring to life again the conditions under which knighthood flourished in the Middle Ages. They came to nothing, though some led to the establishment of important German settlements, as New Braunfels in Texas. The romanticism has exercised no in fluence upon the American people, and this could not have been expected because its exponents did neither find a fertile soil nor were they strong enough to make converts to their ideas. In this respect the year 1848 forms a dividing line, because by that time the aimless dreaming had been replaced by a frequently extravagant and highly imaginative but withal healthy idealism, which strove for concrete objects.

It is our main purpose, however, to trace the influence that has been exerted by German immigrants upon the development of the American people. And this influence was quite strong during the period under consideration by the political refugees. Liberal ideas had not yet taken root in the masses of the German people which were busy healing the wounds the long wars had left behind through hard work. The universities were then, as always, the centers from which the spirit of liberty began to spread over the country. The princes and their hirelings knew this and persecuted relentlessly professors and students who were suspected of liberal leanings. Thousands of the noblest and best spirits were compelled to flee in order to escape imprisonment or death. For the first time men who had already won renown in the field of letters and in science or who had prepared themselves for such careers came to America in large numbers. Their influence made itself felt. The German press which had survived the long interval but showed few signs of high ideals and rather catered to mediocrity, entered upon a new period of healthful activity. Bookstores were established where the newest and best German books could be bought. New schools were founded and old ones remodeled. In short, the new German immigration did not longer place its material welfare at the head of its desires and did not satisfy its hunger for spiritual nourishment with what religion could give but it cultivated the sciences, letters, music and the fine arts. Of the large number of eminent men who emigrated during this period only a few can be mentioned, and if their prominence is unquestioned, they were but typical of the many who cannot be named here.

The best known of all of them is Franz Lieber, born in 1798 at Berlin. Hardly more than a boy he fought against Napoleon at Ligny and Waterloo and later studied law. The active part he took in the movement for political liberty caused his banishment from Prussia, and after a short stay at Jena he went to Greece to take part in the war for freedom. There he found so little of the spirit he had expected that he returned to Prussia, where he was immediately arrested and thrown into prison. His relatives succeeded after a while in procuring his release, but he was ordered to leave Germany. After a few years in England, where he eked out a miserable existence with literary work, he came to America in 1827. Here he started a swimming school and later on translated a German encyclopedia into English. This occupation brought him into contact with many prominent men. His gifts and his knowledge were soon universally recognized. When Girard College in Philadelphia was founded the German Lieber was chosen to prepare the course of instruction. In 1835 he was called to the University of South Carolina as Professor of History and International Law. There he remained until 1851. He left because he could not and would not remain quiet in the conflict that began to separate the North and the South. It was well-known that Lieber was bitterly opposed to slavery, but he might have retained his position if he had kept quiet. His conscience did not allow this, and on July 4, 1851, he delivered his celebrated "Address on Secession" which has become a classic. He was immediately discharged and went to New York. After a few years of rest he became Professor of History, International Law and Political Economy at Columbia College. At the outbreak of the Civil War Lieber was too old to fight, but placed his services at the disposal of President Lincoln. In many speeches and pamphlets he argued for the cause. Following the wish of General Halleck he prepared the manual for the conduct of the army in times of war, and during the entire war he was constantly consulted by the President on questions of international law and the laws of war. He was recognized as an authority on such questions by the whole world and several of his books have become standard works, especially those on "Political Ethics" and on "Civil Liberty and Self-Government."

Karl Follen was not as fortunate as Lieber. He also had taken part in the wars against the French Emperor, had studied and later taught law at German universities. Of an inflammable temperament, with almost fanatical love for liberty, he threw himself into the agitation for political freedom with all the ardor of a born poet. His songs and his speeches aroused the enthusiasm of teachers and students. When the Russian Kotzebue was killed by the German student Sand, the fact that Follen belonged to the same society as the murderer gave the Government the welcome opportunity to order the arrest of the young professor. He fled in time, for in the event of his capture he would have been condemned to death. In Switzerland he found a refuge but only for a short space of time, for the German Government demanded his extradition. Follen fled to America in 1824 and was fortunate enough to meet Lafayette, with whom he had become acquainted in Paris. Through his assistance he secured employment as teacher of German at Harvard University. Pollen's individuality made a deep impression; before many months had elapsed he was surrounded by a large circle of admirers, composed not of students alone, but of men who represented all that was best and highest in the life of the nation. Before the term for which he had been engaged was ended Follen in the meantime had secured complete mastership of the English language a chair as Professor of the German Language and Literature was created for him. But his love of liberty drove him away as it had done once before. The movement for the abolition of slavery could not leave a Follen uninterested. With fiery eloquence did he represent the Anti-Slavery Society before the Massachusetts Legislature and on other occasions. But the time was not ripe for the sentiments he so ably preached, and when the term of his professorship had elapsed he was not reappointed. Follen now became a minister of the Unitarian church to which he belonged, but died, at the beginning of a splendid career in his new field, at the burning of the steamship Lexington in 1840, twice a martyr for liberty and freedom of thought and speech.

Dr. Karl Beck had come to America with Follen and for the same reasons. He first taught school at Northampton, N.H., established a school at Philipstown and finally was called to Harvard as Professor of Latin. There he remained for more than twenty years. Friedrich August Seidensticker and his son Oswald came in 1845, when the father, after having been kept in prison for many years, was pardoned on condition that he would leave Germany. Oswald Seidensticker became one of the most valuable historians of the German-Americans. Beginning with 1833 quite a number of Germans with similar antecedents settled in the neighborhood of Belleville in Illinois. They tried farming and succeeded in a measure, some more and some less. Unused to the spectacle of seeing men of superior education engage in this occupation, the people called them "Latin Farmers." Quite a number of them distinguished themselves. Georg Bunsen introduced the Pestalozzi system of education into the United States; Julius Hilgard became Chief of the United States Coast Survey and his brother Eugene, Professor of Chemistry in the Smithsonian Institute. Both were acknowledged authorities in their respective fields. The creator of the Bureau of the Coast Survey and its first superintendent was another German, Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler.

There were in fact many practical men among those who came here before 1848. The great Johann August Roebling had left Germany to join a communistic colony, but soon became tired of it and took up his profession as engineer. He built the bridges over the Monongahela at Pittsburg, over the Niagara, the bridge connecting Cincinnati with Covington and the Brooklyn Bridge. During this period Germans entered the ranks of the great American merchants and bankers. Johann Jakob Astor, the son of a poor butcher at Waldorf near Heidelberg, became one of the richest men of the country and was the first one to hoist the American flag at the shore of the Pacific Ocean, at Astoria. The second time the Stars and Stripes were raised over the coast of the Pacific, a German was again responsible for it, Johann August Sutter, born in Baden in 1803, and he succeeded in winning the territory he had taken possession of for the United States, while Astor had failed. August Belmont came to New York in 1837 from Frankfurt. Many other commercial enterprises were started by Germans, and not a few of them are still in existence. In fact, in every branch of human activity the German immigrants began to appear in the front rank.

This list could be extended for many pages. It will, however, suffice as proof of the claims made for the German immigration during this period. No other country has sent to the United States so many men of high attainments at one and the same time, and when they were so much needed. They repaid freely with their work and their knowledge the hospitality extended to them when their own Fatherland drove them away.