July 24, 1863, The Missouri Republican,
“Spirit of the German Press.”

The Neue Zeit pokes fun at the attempts of the Democrat, the Union, the Evening News, and the Westliche Post to claim General Blair for their respective parties. The Neue Zeit thinks what party General Blair may select, or what political progress he may make, is more unimportant than the actions of any other man. He is too insignificant. The Neue Zeit grows also funny in commenting on the Republican's article on negro substitutes, and wishes to know what is to come next if the Republican advocates the arming of negroes, negro substitutes, negro equality, and emancipation?

The Westliche Post reopens the anti-Gamble agitation. It says:

In another column our readers will find a report about the terrible execution of Union men in East Tennessee by the rebel Colonel Keith, who must be a monster, for he spares neither old age nor infancy. But it is not merely from Tennessee that we have to report these revolting scenes; from a part of Missouri also there comes to us the dying groans of murdered German Union men, and the piteous cries of the despairing families, from whom their fathers and protectors have been taken away and murdered by the bloody hands of the rebel monsters, who, thanks to the leniency with which they are treated by the Gamble government, roam at will through the country. They are shot down by assassins while in the fields attending their farms. Every German whom these wretches caught on their murder and plunder expedition was the welcome arm of their guns no matter who and what he was; sufficient for them that he had a German face, and must therefore necessarily be an opponent of slavery and secession. It is revolting to think that such outrages can occur yet; but why can they occur? Because these murderers are ever and ever encouraged and favored by the wicked and criminal regard and leniency with which the Gamble dynasty treats the secesh rabble all over the State. How long is this state of affairs to continue? How long, we ask, will the Union men of Missouri look calmly on, when their brethren and fellow-patriots are thus coolly murdered on their fields? How much innocent blood must still be spilt, merely to retain that clique at the helm of the State which, has seized it and directs it with Russian arbitrariness? Does not the blood of the murdered demand energetic action at last? Are the people no longer capable of indignation, or has their courage been exhausted by two years of fighting and battle?

We celebrate the victories over the rebels in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Maryland and in the mean while the enemy plunges the dagger into our own heart. Are we more secure in Missouri because victories have been gained at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, as long as the crafty enemy watches for us behind every bush and as long as we have a government which has no other thought than to spare and favor the slaveholders' aristocracy and to protect their property, but which has no sympathy with the poor Union men who are murdered in their corn-fields? But, besides this miserable government, we have here also a United States military command, which has been sent here, and has promised to protect the Union men in their rights. If this command does not want to expose itself to the suspicion that it is nothing but the blind tool of the rebels' friend, Gamble; if the man who is the chief of this military district is a true Union man; if he is an anti-slavery man, as his friends boast him to be, he must know what it is his duty to do, and must take the strongest measures against such unheard-of outrages, which call to Heaven for revenge. And to Washington he should report that as long, as Gamble's advice and influence control the policy of Missouri, as long as Gamble's will is decisive when military commanders are to be removed or appointed, and as long as he can appoint officers arbitrarily, the bushwhackers will keep the State in excitement, and the slaveholders' aristocracy will trample on the rights of the Union citizens. And this will last until the people arise in manly resolve and cast off the Gamble yoke.

visits since 02/04/2004
page revised 05/25/2006