Our new foreign languages titles include three German titles: The Gordon Journal (which was not in German, but you can read about that in the previous post), The Nebraska Staats-Zeitung, and the Cedar County Wachter. Other titles were the Polish Gwiazda Zachodu : the Western Star and the Italian American Citizen.
Here is a photo that I found of the Members of the German American Press Association of Iowa, which included some members from Nebraska, including Charles Weiss (who I was going to point out by his lovely mustache, but then realized that that was not going to narrow it down – he’s second row from top, third from the left). We will get to Charles in a minute.
We digitized two papers that were entirely in German, the Nebraska Staats-Zeitung from Nebraska City and the Cedar County Wachter.
Nebraska Staats-Zeitung
Launched on April 4, 1861, the Nebraska Deutsche Zeitung was the first German-language newspaper in Nebraska, serving to attract European immigrants and support Unionism and Republicanism during the Civil War. Upon Nebraska becoming a state in 1867, the newspaper dropped the word “Deutsche” and added the word “Staats” to become the Nebraska Staats-Zeitung. The paper was published weekly on Fridays. The Staats-Zeitung was politically aligned with the Republican party until 1890, when it broke with the party, coming out in favor of tariffs supported by the Democratic party and against prohibition.
In 1912, when Val J. Peter, publisher of the Tagliche Omaha Tribune, began buying up German language papers across the county to build his newspaper empire, one of his first purchases was the subscriber list for the Staats-Zeitung. However, the title kept publishing under the editorship of L. H. Rohmeyer, publisher of Auburn, Nebraska’s Westlicher Beobachter. In a 1914 editorial, Rohmeyer wrote, “As German-American citizens, we declare our fealty and loyalty to our adopted country under any conditions that may arise in the future growing out of this conflict.” Despite Rohmeyer’s stance, like many German-language papers during World War I, the Staats-Zeitung ceased publication for good in 1915.
Cedar County Wachter
The Wachter (which means Watchman in German) ran August 28, 1898 until August 22, 1917. The editor and publisher for the entire run of the paper was one Charles or Chas or Carl or Charlie Weiss, who had previously worked at German-language newspapers in Omaha and moved to Hartington solely to start the paper. He was very active in the community, including the Knights of Columbus and Sons of Hermann.
He was, however, not without controversy. He often got into disputes with other editors over publication notices and business practices. He was even arrested and held in contempt of court for threatening a judge.
But the biggest controversy, and the one that lead to the paper’s downfall, was a dispute with Richard L. Metcalfe of The Omaha Nebraskan who published articles and advertisements against Weiss and The Wachter, accusing them of being anti-American and promoting Kaiserism.
The Hartington Herald of August 15, 1918 reported that, “Acting in conformity with the growing sentiment against the use of the German language, The Wachter suspends publication.” It goes on to praise Mr. and Mrs. Weiss as patriotic and loyal people and to commend their sacrifice. Other German language newspapers in Nebraska and across the country faced similar fates, but The Cedar County Wachter was a dramatic representation of this trend.
Gwiazda Zachodu and American Citizen
I’ll just briefly touch upon our two other foreign language papers. Our Polish paper is the Gwiazda Zachodu : the Western Star. The Western Star was founded in 1905. It served the Polish American community of about 10,000 individuals centered mainly around the South Omaha Stockyards. Following World War I and the re-establishment of an Independent Poland, readers were asked to invest in loans and bonds supporting the Polish government. During the rise of Naziism, it regularly mocked Hitler with satirical poems and articles. It survived Victory in Europe, only to close abruptly on June 29, 1945 citing only “conditions beyond our control.”
The other European language paper we digitized was the American Citizen. In the years surrounding World War I, there was an explosion of Italian-language papers in Nebraska. The American Citizen, was started in Des Moines but moved to Omaha in 1924. It was the Official organ of the Order of the Sons of Italy, dedicated to Americanization, Education, and Problems of Peace. Interestingly, almost all of the Italians who settled in Nebraska settled in Omaha, and even more interestingly, they almost all came from one town in Italy – Carlentini, Sicily. The paper became increasingly bilingual as the years went by, and it last published in 1985 (although per Library of Congress rules, we can only digitize up to 1963).
And yes, if you were going to ask if the American Citizen was crazy about Christopher Columbus, the answer is yes. The publication usually ran 4 or 8 pages, but on Columbus Day the issues greatly expanded, running 20 pages in 1945 all the way up to 36 pages in 1958. And also, yes, the paper was filled with super creepy drawings of Columbus.
Next: The Powder Keg