Divided by a Common Language: The Babel Proclamation and Its Influence in Iowa History.

The minister, Rev. John Reichardt, served the Zion Evangelical German Reformed Church in Lowden, a German-language congregation in a town where the majority of people were of German heritage. His crime: maintaining pride in his German cultural roots and failure to abandon the language of the enemy.2 The anti-German sentiment during World War I reached a point where “people speaking German on the street were attacked and rebuked.”3 Iowa Governor William L. Harding legitimized such expressions of prejudice and war-time fanaticism when he issued “The Babel Proclamation” on May 23, 1918.4 Antagonism toward Germans and their language escalated nationwide, but Harding became the only governor in the United States to outlaw the public use of all foreign languages. Harding understood the connection between communication and assimilation. He was convinced that destroying the vital bond of language within ethnic communities would force assimilation of minorities into the dominant culture and heighten a sense of patriotism in a time of war. Harding’s understanding of immigrant assimilation offers insight into subsequent efforts to superficially create unity through language legislation.