A Lonely Road On A Winter Night

Hypnotic video. Darkness, a rural road and snow. I'm glad winter is over.

March 31, 1918. Prof. E.A. Schimler, a teacher at Northland College, was abducted by a group of masked men - some wearing Klan like hoods. They drove him to a secluded spot in the woods outside Ashland, stripped him, beat him, covered him with tar and feathers and then left him in the snow filled field. Schimler hobbled 1 and 1/2 miles back to town along a snow covered road, finally arriving at his boarding house in the early morning hours. E. A. Schimler was a U.S. citizen. He attended Dartmouth College and taught school in the U.S. before joining the language arts faculty at Northland College. The violence that occurred on the night of March 31 was the latest of many anti-German hate crimes that occured in Wisconsin during World War One. Anti-German sentiment was the work of a massive state and federal propaganda effort. Despite our large German population, the hysteria grew and all things German became vulnerable to charges of disloyalty. The next day, the Mayor of Ashland offered a $100 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of guilty parties.
"At the urging of federal officials, the State Council of Defense and the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion joined forces to suppress anti-war opinion through persuasion, propaganda, intimidation, and harassment. Public sentiment in Wisconsin went from largely anti-war in early 1917 to overwhelmingly pro-war 18 months later in what the episode's historian described as a triumph of public relations. Even libraries, which are usually champions of intellectual freedom, kow-towed to the pressure from governments and public opinion."