Alien Corn

"We are being persecuted here in America today. Although the German-Ameri-cans represent 25% of the voters, our representation in government is far below that figure." Thus last week in Chicago did thin, baldish Dr. Walter H. Silge address the members of the German-American National Alliance. Although the doctor was not on the air, his remarks were typical of the propaganda that the G. A. N.A. broadcasts daily over Station WHIP in Hammond, Ind.

The G. A. N. A., which claims the affiliation of 372 Illinois German-Ameri-can societies, is full of patriotic protests. Even while it sprays the German-Americans of the Middle West with a paraphrase of the sales talk the Nazis used on the Sudeten Germans, it boasts of its "Americanism." It urges all German-Americans to get together to protect their race against the "internationalists." G. A. N. A. also denounces in Goebbelsey phrases Great Britain and its U. S. sympathizers "from the White House down." Excerpt translated from a bit of German poesy recently aired over WHIP:

We want to fight all the lies

Which daily hostile fly about us.

We want to unchain the barriers

By asking equal rights. . . .

Owned by the Hammond-Calumet Broadcasting Corp., of which Dr. George F. Courrier, a Methodist minister, is chief stockholder, WHIP does a lot of religious broadcasting. Welcoming the estimated $1,000 a week that G. A. N. A. pays for time, WHIP's director, plumpish, blonds Doris Keane, asserts: "Our programs are 100% American." Among commercial touches on the G. A.N>A> show are occasional plugs for Dr. Silge, who is a Chicago optometrist. Says Dr. Silge: "The newspapers may call us fifth columnists, but they can't prove it because it isn't true."

Keeping tabs on the G. A. N. A. are a civic committee and a self-appointed squad of businessmen, while the station in turn has spotters watching "certain Hammond businessmen." With everybody claiming to be helping the F. B. I., Hammond has taken on a fine Balkan atmosphere.

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