Note 260-3 — Chapter III

There has hitherto been little to rejoice over in the condition of German emigrants. The greater number of them had received so little education that they were by no means in a way to oppose the weapons of attack of Anglo-Americans. The glorious literature of their old home scarcely existed for them. Almost the only national peculiarity which they held to with any tenacity was the disposition to a want of union among themselves. Hence they were necessarily de-Germanized in a few generations, after a toilsome and quarrelsome period of transition. How seldom, even in Ohio, did German names occur in the list of public officials, while in New York the number of German names on the poor list is very considerable. The situation, however, seems to have improved in modern times, and the national coherency and political power of the mother country have gone hand in hand with the revival of attachment on the part of the emigrants to the land of their nativity. How beautifully was this attachment manifested during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71!