The Hanged Prussian

[porphyry]

On April 3 of 1918, Robert Prager, an American citizen of German origin, denied work as a coal miner in Maryville, Illinois because the other miners thought he looked like a spy, spoke out at a socialist meeting against Woodrow Wilson. The next day he was kidnapped by a mob from his house at 208 Vandalia Avenue in Collinsville, wrapped in an American Flag, made to kiss it, and to run up and down the street waving two hand-held flags. He was taken into protective custody by the police. The next day there was a demosntration against him in front of the City Hall in Collinsville, and the mayor ordered all the saloons closed to calm things down. Hundreds of people who had never heard of him in this way came to learn of him and hate him at once. That evening a mob of between 300 and 400 people broke into the city hall, and marched Prager out to Mauer Heights on the St. Louis Road and hung him from a tree.

This act caused a sensation and was widely reported. Here are some contemporary newspaper reports:

http://web.viu.ca/davies/H324War/Prager.lynching.1918.htm

I had never heard of this incident, but ran across it by accident looking around the web for Ponsonby's book on WWI propaganda. The strange thing is that the street we just moved onto is known as the Mauer Heights neighborhood. So he was hung on the corner one block from where I am sitting to type this. I would say that the tree was long ago cut down.

Comments

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

You believe what some retired Russian officer says?

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Yes, because it's supported by the Venona Intercepts, and is consistent with Oppenheimer's known political leanings. Eisenhower of course had access to the Intercepts, and perhaps even more evidence than has yet become uncovered by historians, and hence the US government's revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance was a fairly mild and reasonable reaction to his Communist sympathies and probable treason. Oppenheimer was fortunate he didn't do time in prison: the main reason why he (and others like him) were spared was probably to avoid revealing how much of the Soviet secret communications we had been reading.

It's a known historical fact that Eisenhower strove as much as possible to avoid a hysterical reaction to the discovery of Communist penetration of the government under FDR and Truman; in fact, Eisenhower was politically-inimical to some of the anti-Communists, particularly Senator McCarthy. Under neither Truman nor Eisenhower was there any mass deputization of sedition-finders, nor tolerance for illegal private measures against accused traitors.

By contrast, under Wilson there was an active persecution of anyone who was even suspected of opposing American participation either in World War I (after Wilson's declaration of war had changed reality by making being pro-war good, whereas before that declaration Wilson had boasted of America being "too proud to fight") or in the Archangel Expedition against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. People were not only lynched, with no legal consequences to the murderers, but the US Government's own deputies arrested people on the flimsiest grounds, beat confessions out of them, and imprisoned or deported them. (Since in some cases they were being deported to the Soviet Union, this could amount to a death sentence).

Wilson was much more oppressive during and after World War One than were Truman and Eisenhower during and after the Korean War. For that matter, he was much more oppressive than were FDR and Truman, during and after World War II. Wilson was, in many respects, one of the least "liberal" of American Presidents.

Why are you desperately trying to avoid this conclusion?