Seattle police arrest an Austrian, a German, and a Hungarian for defaming flag shortly after U.S. declares war on April 6, 1917.

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On April 6, 1917, the same day U.S. Congress declares war on Germany, three aliens are arrested in Seattle for defaming the United States flag. Joe Slim, a 35-year-old Austrian, observes a parade in Pioneer Square recruiting men to join the war effort. Slim “scoffed and used profane language” toward the American flag as it passed by. Informed of his behavior, Seattle Police Department Sergeant C. G. Carr and Patrolman P. W. Morris arrest him for “defamatory remarks regarding the American flag and the soldiers enlisted under it.”

That evening Jules Christenson entered the Puget Sound Hotel at 718 6th Avenue S. Adam Keinath, a 40-year-old German, and P. M. Basch, a 35-year-old Hungarian, were sitting in lobby and spotted a small U.S. flag in his buttonhole. They “upbraided him for a sucker, a fool and what not for wearing the colors, winding up with, ‘And we suppose you are going to fight for it too.’”

Christenson responded by giving each a “stinging blow in the face” and then informed the police of their remarks. The police immediately arrested them and incarcerated them in the city jail. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reported that the fate of the three aliens was pending investigation by the government immigration bureau.

Sources:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 7, 1917, p. 2.

By Greg Lange, February 25, 1999