German immigration to the United States reached its peak in the mid- to late-19th century. During this time, many American-born, English-speaking citizens developed a deep resentment towards their "Dutch" neighbors, much in the same way that they came to despise the Irish (though not usually to the same degree, at least not until the onset of World War I). The following quote demonstrates some of this Germanophobia as it manifested itself in Fort Wayne, Ind.
"On Saturday night last, according to previous Dutch [German] [St. Mary's] Catholic and Sihler [St. Paul's] Lutheran notice, the faithful met at the Buzzard Roost, to nominate a candidate for Mayor, Marshal, Clerk, Treasurer, &c., and before the hour of eight, such a promiscuous crowd of lame, halt, blind, crop-eared, slit-nosed, gorbellied, blisterfaced, scurvey teethed, fetid-breathed, brandy budded, leprous, syphalitic, adulterous, lewd, perjured, murderous, Jesuitical crowd, any ten of whom would not make the ninth part of a man, never before were congregated this side of the Papist's Purgatory. The air was so impure that animal life seemed to begin to die in it, and the very tapers, that were intended to open up to view the unparalled mass of vice and filth there convened, burned dim, by reason of surrounding impurity. But we must proceed...."
John Dawson, ed. "Lager Beerjam.—Design on Free Schools," Fort Wayne Weekly Times, April 23, 1857, p. 2, col. 3-4.
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