1.4.3 We Are All Canadians, No Matter Which Origin Immediately After the Beginning of the War in September 1914 Some German-Cana

1.4.3 We are all Canadians, no matter which origin Immediately after the beginning of the War in September 1914 some German-Canadians felt that Canada should not be involved in Britain’s war and that German-Canadians’ taxes should not go to the war effort. Count Alfred von Hammerstein, who had founded the Alberta Herold and then made his name in the early 1900s exploring Alberta’s North for oil in what would be called the oil sands, came onto the political scene in February 1915 with the Canada First Movement, an attempt to remove all foreign influences from politics which might endanger the good relationships among the various ethnic groups in Canada, among them Canadians of German, Austrian, French, English or American nationality, and to stay out of the War.1 The principles of the Canada First Movement included: equality of all citizens, no matter whether they were of British origin or not; election of representatives who represented the Germans’ traditional ideals of honesty, integrity and hard work in government; employment of naturalized citizens in high and low positions in government. Canada should not be forgotten over the war in Europe; the government should create work; Canada should be able, after the war’s end, to make its own decisions on peace or war. The Movement promoted a single Canadian identity: there should no longer be French-Canadians, English-Canadians, German-Canadians or foreigners, but only “Canadian citizens.”2 Von Hammerstein said that he was willing to run for office in the next Dominion election to lend a voice to the Germans in the House of Commons if his offer found a sufficiently large echo among the Germans in the province. Moral and financial support would be necessary to launch this initiative; the Germans in all western provinces should stick together and make the election of a German to the Federal Government possible. “Gut und Blut für Canada selbst” was a motto that von Hammerstein selected for this fight. Between February and May 1915 he travelled across the province Hammerstein trying to explain the Movement. Although he was strongly supported by the remaining German-language newspapers, the Alberta Herold and the Courier, his efforts met with little response from the rather reluctant Germans in the province. In spite of strong endorsement and wide publicity given by the Alberta Herold the reaction to his initiative was somewhat lukewarm: For instance, at a meeting of German voters held in Edmonton’s German Club, von Hammerstein outlined the Canada First Movement. $1,603 was collected from the persons present.3 At a full-house meeting in Bruderheim in mid-April, according to the Herold, $975 were collected, other individuals donated $25. The Ortsgruppe Bismarck had collected $6.75. In May $9 dollars were raised in Strathcona, $10.75 in Leduc. In one of the last issues of the Alberta Herold before its demise, on May 13, 1915, von Hammerstein published a blistering front-page attack on Edmonton’s English-language papers that had launched “hysterical attacks” on him and his movement. Apparently the Northern News in Athabasca Landing— where von Hammerstein was well-known and where he had worked when he arrived in Canada—had demanded that he be hanged for launching his Canada First Appeal. But the worst newspaper when it came to defaming his efforts, in his opinion, was the Edmonton Journal. On May 13, 1915 von Hammerstein’s name was mentioned for the last time in the remaining German-language papers before the war’s end (but he would be active in organizing the German community in Edmonton in the late 1920s and again at the outbreak of the second world war). Von Hammerstein died in St. Albert in 1941. 1 DC, Feb. 17, 1915, 4. 2 AH, May 13, 1915, 1. 3 DH, March 25, 1915, 1. .

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