The Price of Loyalty in Kennewick
Mayor Sherk forms a Vigilance Corps to monitor local residents for signs of 'disloyalty' toward the U.S. war effort.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The United States has been at war with Germany for nine months. Now that every citizen has made up his mind, it is about time to begin 'mopping up' around home that the public may know who are the disloyal ones. If there is any citizen in this community who doesn't want America to win the war, he should be known in the community for what he is—an enemy—and should be dealt with as an enemy. We don't mean that he should be lined up against a wall and shot, or tarred and feathered. But he should be interned or isolated insofar as the good will of the community is concerned. The Kennewick Vigilance Corps, a branch of the American Defense Society, has been organized to classify citizens as 'loyal' or 'pro-German.' Mayor George W. Sherk accepted the responsibility as head of the city to lead this effort. This organization should serve as a clearing house for rumors, not to intimidate citizens, but to ensure that loyal residents of German descent are not unfairly maligned by false accusations.
“There is no delightful twilight zone of neutrality where a man can rest on the indifference of a passive citizenship and watch the war from the sidelines.”
This piece captures the intense, fearful atmosphere of 1917, where community policing and 'loyalty checks' became a sanctioned civic duty. It serves as a reminder of how quickly civil discourse can fracture into suspicion during wartime, a pattern that echoes in various forms of modern digital-age social polarization.
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