Cameron County Clerk Records: Fill & Download for Free

No.While Michael Grainger's answer is interesting, I disagree with it. The way I was taught, the "three branches" of government are the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary. To put it simply, the legislative makes the law; the executive executes or enforces them; and the judiciary interprets and applies the law.So, a practical example to illustrate this. The US Supreme Court, in the Brown vs. The Board of Education (Topeka) ruled that segregation was unconstitutional. That was the ruling about the law. Later, President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock to enforce that ruling. After that, the Legislature (Congress) made various follow up laws, like the Civil Rights Act and so on. The Civil Rights Act has been ruled on by various courts since, and enforced in various ways through executive orders from the White House.(So, for the record: the whole fuss about Obama's executive orders is ridiculous. Issuing such orders is part of his job, because the executive orders help him to enforce legislation.)The American Constitution clearly sets out specific powers that each of the three branches holds. It clearly sets out the way the three powers interact, and how each branch can overrule the others. So, the President can veto legislation from Congress, and Congress can override the veto, and so on. It lays out the impeachment process. It gives you all the rules.In many ways, American "separation of powers" is really a combination of "enunciation of powers", and "separation of personnel". You see, in the USA, you can't be in more than one branch of government at a time. In the olden days os 2008, when the iPhone was little and the iPencil was a mere glimmer in the eyes of the postman, a certain Barack Obama was the Senator for Illinois.Being in the Senate, he was in the legislative branch. However, when he won the Presidential election, he essentially became a member of the executive branch. I don't think he was technically in the executive branch of government until he was sworn in, in January 2009; however, as President-elect, it was clear that he was going to join the executive. As such, he resigned his seat... because it would be illegal for him to be in the executive branch and in the legislative branch at the same time. You will also note that a certain Ms. Clinton, Senator for the state of New York, resigned her position as Senator in January 2009 when she became the Secretary of State. In both cases, it's not that they're lazy Democrats who didn't want to work two jobs; they are legally not allowed to work in both branches of government at the same time.Now, let us take a quick trip across the Pond. We hop in the old Concorde, and fly over to London, England.Firstly, there is no separation of personnel. The executive in the UK does enforce and execute the law, but it also acts as the major policy making body. As part of that, the members of the executive have to be members of the legislative.Let me repeat: the members of the UK executive branch have to be members of the legislative branch. If you are the UK Prime Minister, you have to be an MP.If the sitting Prime Minister were to lose their seat, then they could not long be PM... even if their party won the most seats. All of the members of the Cabinet must be members of the legislative. So, they either have to be a sitting MP, or they have to be in the House of Lords.That is a work-around of sorts; a PM can simply make his friend Lord Knobface of Cockermouth and then appoint them into the Cabinet. As a sitting member of the House of Lords, they would therefore be eligible to join. I believe it happened twice under Tony Blair, who appointed an old professor to the Lords - Lord Irving - and made him the Lord Chancellor. Then, when people got upset, he appointed an old flat-mate to the Lords - Lord Falconer - and made him Lord Chancellor instead.This neatly brings me onto another, related, point. The Lord Chancellor is a position that doesn't really appear in the US. You see, in American, the President appoints Supreme Court Justices, and some other members of the judiciary. Those appointments are made with Senator approval.Not so much in the UK. It used to be that the PM appointed the Lord Chancellor, and (s)he appointed the judges. I think that's changed in the last few years, but still. In the past, at least, there was no approval process. No oversight at all.Incidentally, the Lord Chancellor is a brilliant good example of the complete, glaring lack of the separation of personnel. He was the head of the Judiciary - so, he was in the judicial branch - while also being a member of the legislative - because all members of the House of Lords are. And, as the Lord Chancellory is a Cabinet post, he was in the executive branch too. He was literally in all three branches of government at once.So, there is no separation of personnel. But is there a clear enunciation of powers?Well, no. I mean there is... no. There's not. No. Not at all.I can't really stress how much this doesn't exist in the UK. If I were to erect a neon sign that stretched the length and breadth of Britain, a neon sign that was so bright it was visible from the Moon, I still couldn't overstate how much the UK lacks a clear enunciation or oversight of powers.The unwritten constitution means that the exact powers delegated to people isn't always clear. But where it is clear, the power is very, very much given to the PM.Amongst other things:The Prime Minister is the head of the Cabinet. In theory, all of the members of Cabinet are equal, but in practice the PM is widely acknowledged to be in charge. There is even a phrase for this: "primus unter pares" - first amongst equals.Collective Cabinet responsibility means that, in theory, the Cabinet must make decisions unanimously. In actual fact, the PM appoints the Cabinet, so if you don't agree with him (or her) you get your ass sacked. For examples, see Robin Cook and Claire Short - who resigned after disagreeing with the decision to invade Iraq - and several hundred members of the Conservative Party that Thatcher unceremoniously binned because they didn't do as they were told.The PM also sets the Cabinet agenda. So, if he decides that the Cabinet are not going to talk about an issue, then it's ignored. And... there's nothing really you can do about it.The PM also controls his party in the House of Commons. There are the Party Whips, who tell people how to vote. Unlike the US, the Whips have real power too. If you don't do as you're told, Frank Underwood shouts at you. In the UK, if you annoy the PM enough, he can "deselect" you - meaning that you can no longer stand as a party member for your party. You basically get fired from your political party. If you're popular, you might get reelected... but you're unlikely to get back into Cabinet as an independent. The UK doesn't really have independents who caucus with a party. Of course, that doesn't matter really; most people vote by party, so if you're in a traditionally Tory/Labour area, being deselected means you get voted out at the next election.So, the PM can bitchslap the executive branch into submission, and he controls the House of Commons. But that's alright, isn't it? There's always the House of Lords - the other part of the legislative branch. They'll stop him, right? Umm...No, they won't. Since the 1911 Parliament Act, the House of Commons has been able to override the House of Lords. The Lords cannot block or veto bills. It can delay them a bit, and that's it.There's always the Head of State! The Queen could refuse to sign it, right? Umm...No. There have been a few cases in history - including the Glorious Revolution, and the selection of George I as the King - where the Parliament chose the King. It's not entirely clear, due to the lack of a codified constitution, but it's probably true that the House of Commons could overrule the Queen, or even force her to abdicate. Let's not forget that King Edward the VIII was forced to abdicate because people didn't like the fact he'd chosen to marry a... to marry a... God, I can barely type it. He was forced to abdicate because he had insisted on marrying a... divorced... American *shudder*. (Historians are still divided on which of those two - the divorce bit, or the American bit - was more upsetting to the British Establishment).But can the Judiciary stop the PM? Excuse me while I giggle.No. Without a codified constitution, the PM can simply pass a single bill, and it has the same force as a constitutional amendment. David Cameron has already announced that the Tories will change or repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act, which was the closest thing to a Bill of Rights. Cameron could, if he wanted, pass a law tomorrow announcing that all English people had to wear funny hats and speak only in Cockney accents, and the country would have no legal recourse. Or rather, they'd 'ave no legal recourse, guv'nor. And finally...If changing the law isn't an option, or if it's just too much effort, the PM can simply ignore the judges. The UK is bound by EU law, and the new Supreme Court makes rulings on laws to try and keep things constitutional and groovy. A while ago - three years, I think - the Supreme Court announced that refusing convicts the right to vote is a violation of EU law. The government announced that they accepted the ruling but disagreed, and would be taking steps to change the law. They have since done nothing at all. That would be like if the US Supreme Court were to decide that gay marriage was constitutional, and then some random county clerk were to simply refuse to issue licences anyway. It just couldn't happen in the US, right?So, does the UK have separation of powers?No. It doesn't. Parliamentary sovereignty is an accepted, central part of the constitution. The Parliament can do almost anything it wants.In practice, that means the Commons does what it wants. As I said, the Commons can overrule the other parts of the government. And between his control of the Cabinet and the Whip system, that means the PM is in charge, with few limits on his authority.The biggest 'separations of power' in UK politics are the EU, and the devolved institutions in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those don't really fall under the PM's purview.In theory, the PM is still in control. With a single Act of Parliament, the devolved institutions could be abolished, or the UK could leave the EU. In practice, that wouldn't really be possible. I mean, leaving the EU wouldn't be a good move, and removing the devolved institutions would lead to the other nations rebelling, seceding, or both. The minute the Scots sobered up and the Welsh put the sheep to bed, they'd collectively go mental.But really, that's still unlikely. In theory, there are few checks on the PM's power; in practice, there are probably even fewer. And even the devolved institutions or the EU can't do much. The government has spent years ignoring the EU ruling about convicts I mentioned, and nothing has happened; the Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon said that if the new Labour leader cannot quickly demonstrate that he has a chance of winning the next election, the Scots will try for independence again as the only choice to avoid continuing Tory government.So, considering that... how much faith do you think she has in the separation of powers in the UK?

I found this source:Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II could still vote, kind ofDenshoThursday, October 20, 2016 - 11:30amBy Natasha VarnerOriginal caption from the War Relocation Authority: San Bruno, California. Here a line is seen waiting to enter the building where they will cast their votes for Councilman from their precinct. A general election for five members of the Tanforan Assembly center Advisory Council is being held on this day. This is the first time Issei have ever been able to vote because of American Naturalization laws. June 16, 1942.Credit:Dorothea Lange/National Archives and Records AdministrationNearly 75 years ago, 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were stripped of their rights and property under the guise of national security.They were packed into trains and buses and moved from their West Coast homes — to temporary holding stations at fairgrounds and racing tracks, and then to permanent camps in remote parts of Idaho, California, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas and Arkansas. Though several cases challenging the legality of this imprisonment made it all the way to the Supreme Court, only a single ruling favored the Japanese American petitioners.It might come as a surprise, then, that they retained a key tenet of citizenship for the duration of their incarceration: the right to vote. However, between racially motivated interventions and inadequate voter education, this right was only nominally intact.Absentee voting had existed in some form since 1652, but World War II marked the first and only time in US history that states had to make large-scale arrangements for an incarcerated civilian population to cast votes in absentia. The result was a hodgepodge of rules and regulations that effectively disenfranchised the Japanese American electorate.One of the first questions to confound wartime voting planners was where exactly the civilian incarcerees should vote. In California, the state with the highest population of displaced Japanese Americans, the constitution stipulated that residence had to be “of choice” in order to qualify for voter registration. It was plain to all that the prison camps were anything but residences of choice. As a result, Japanese Americans were instructed to vote in the precincts where they’d lived prior to incarceration. Other states with camps, fearful of the influence these “enemy aliens” might have on local elections, enacted similar regulations.By August 1942, the Wartime Civil Control Administration released a policy statement announcing that “qualified citizen evacuees” — the people held in camps — were entitled to the same absentee voting rights as any other citizen who was unable to be present at his or her registered polling place. But states and counties were left to grapple with what exactly those absentee voting rights were in this unprecedented scenario.Alice Fujinaga of Seattle and other incarcerees at Tule Lake concentration camp have their absentee ballots notarized, November 2, 1942.Credit:Francis Stewart/National Archives and Records AdministrationEven as the logistics of voting and other basic facets of civilian incarceration were being sorted out, an editorial in the newly minted Tanforan Totalizer urged residents, many of whom were living in old horse stalls at that race track-turned-prison, not to let their “civic consciousness atrophy”:“As citizens who hope to return eventually to normal roles in the American scene, it is highly important that we exercise all such rights and privileges of citizenship as will make our return seem less another abrupt transition than a continuation of accustomed practices.”Civic duty aside, many Japanese Americans felt that they had no choice but to cast a ballot. Election laws stipulated that voter registration would automatically expire if an individual failed to vote in even a single election cycle. However, as incarcerees prepared for the impending midterm elections, they had limited awareness of the issues and candidates due to lack of access to news sources. To make matters worse, new voting regulations prohibited electioneering in the camps.From Utah’s Topaz concentration camp in November 1942, Doris Hayashi wrote in her diary, “I haven’t been able to do any reading on these issues so it was rather blind voting for me.” A fellow prisoner, Charles Kikuchi, had a similar experience: “I did not know much about the local issues, so I left most of them blank. … California politics are so distant to me now. I wonder how my interest in such things will be with the passage of time.”Japanese Americans enter the Recreational Hall at Tanforan Assembly Center on June 16, 1942.Credit:Dorothea Lange/National Archives and Records AdministrationThough 2,000 absentee ballots were sent to voters in multiple relocation centers in the fall of 1942, Kikuchi wrote, “A Los Angeles report claimed that less than 100 Nisei voted in that city, but this figure seems much too low. There must have been over 100 L.A. Nisei voters in this camp alone that cast their ballots.”The discrepancy that Kikuchi noted points to yet another impediment to voting rights for wartime incarcerees. At least one report mentioned poll watchers challenging “every ballot sent in by anyone with a Japanese name” on the false grounds that Japanese Americans held dual citizenship with Japan and therefore could not vote in US elections. It’s impossible to know how many ballots sent from the camps were thrown out due to race-based meddling at the polling stations. But what is clear is that the opposition was colored by the same currents of racism and bigotry that led to Japanese American incarceration in the first place.Ballot box interventions were likely influenced by the Native Sons of the Golden West, a group that sought to strip all non-white Americans of their citizenship. This white supremacist organization had stoked anti-Japanese American sentiment in the decades leading up to World War II, and was a major proponent of mass incarceration after Pearl Harbor.In 1942 and '43 the Native Sons joined forces with the American Legion to sue San Francisco County’s registrar of voters, Cameron H. King, in an attempt to remove Nisei names from the voter rolls and to prevent them from voting for the duration of the war. As reported in the Rohwer concentration camp newspaper, they contended that “dishonesty, deceit, and hypocrisy are racial characteristics of the Japanese” and that this made them “unfit for American citizenship.”The parties argued their case, Regan v. King, in California’s Federal District Court. Representing the Native Sons, former California Attorney General U.S. Webb made the brazenly bigoted argument that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made entirely “by and for white people.” The federal district judge rejected the Native Sons’ plea, but the case moved up to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. There it was quickly dismissed on the precedent of the 1898 Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision that had determined US citizenship for all American-born individuals. Relentless in his efforts to advance the case, Webb attempted to bring it before the Supreme Court, but they refused to hear it.The American Civil Liberties Union saw parallels between this case of racist nativism and their own fight for black voting rights. In response, they lent support to the defense and spurred the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) into action once the case reached the 9th Circuit. African American lawyers also served as counsel to the JACL in their drafting of the amicus brief that helped overturn the case. This alliance would carry over into post-World War II civil rights advocacy that eventually led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Also: Despite history, Japanese Americans and African Americans are working together to claim their rightsThe landmark case also firmly established the rights of all Americans to birthright citizenship. As defendant Cameron King later wrote, “Japanese ancestry is immaterial” when it comes to citizenship rights and “they are entitled to exactly the same rights as all other citizens.” King went on to note that “the law makes no discrimination against any citizen because of ancestry."By the time of the 1944 presidential election, Japanese Americans had been imprisoned for a full two years. Once again, questions arose about where the incarcerees ought to register to vote. The Wyoming Attorney General issued a statement announcing that his state’s voting rights would not be extended to those incarcerated at Heart Mountain. With other states sharing his view, it was ultimately determined that all incarcerees should again register in their precincts of origin since they did not meet the legal requirements for establishing domesticity in the states where they were imprisoned. But once again, complicated rules would have made it inordinately difficult to cast a ballot.Among other regulations added in 1944, The Poston Chronicle reported that in applying for an absentee ballot, individuals needed to “make clear that the voter means to keep the state of California as his permanent home and will return when able.” Voters were also required to return ballots within a narrow window — “not more than 20 and not less than 5 days before election day.” Considering that California was not hospitable to returning Japanese Americans and the inconsistency of mail service, these rules would have stacked the odds against those wanting to vote.California’s Attorney General Ted Hass also acknowledged that the voting law might be enforced arbitrarily. As reported in The Gila News-Courier, “probably the different county clerks will act in different ways upon receipt of such applications [for voter registration]. Some may take the mistaken view that the evacuees are no longer legal residents of the state.”Though the courts had struck down the overtly racist appeals to deny Japanese Americans the right to vote, restrictive rules like these quietly excluded them from fair participation in the electoral process.While the circumstances of Japanese American incarceration were unique, this type of race-based voter disenfranchisement echoed throughout marginalized communities in America, most notably in the Jim Crow South where black citizens were routinely kept off the voting rolls. The desire to obtain fair and equal access to voting rights was central to the Civil Rights Movement. And activists like Yuri Kochiyama and William Marutani drew upon their own experiences of injustice during the war years to support the struggle for black civil rights.African American demonstrators outside the White House, with signs “We demand the right to vote, everywhere” and signs protesting police brutality. March 12, 1965.Credit:Warren K. Leffler/Library of CongressIn one of the crowning achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Author Ari Berman notes that the act “quickly became known as the most important piece of civil rights legislation in the twentieth century and one of the most transformational laws ever passed by Congress.” Theact ended some of the most egregious forms of discrimination that had plagued black voters, and improved voting equity for other minority groups through amendments enacted a decade later. But even that did not eradicate the practice of voter discrimination in its entirety. Congress renewed the act in 2006 (and several times before then in 1970, 1975, and 1982) after hearing testimonies that proved the continued, widespread presence of racial discrimination at the polls.Even so, the Supreme Court decided to invalidate key parts of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 on the grounds that, as Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, it was “based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day.” Though voting discrimination might not be as overt as it was during World War II incarceration or in the Jim Crow South — though the case has been made that, indeed, it is that bad — the threat of widespread race-based voter disenfranchisement is once again a reality.

For most people in Britain the very thought of “London at war” means just one thing – the Blitz. That extraordinary drama so dominates the idea of wartime London that it is hard to imagine the city and its people affected in any special way by the war of 1914-18. Of course, the Londoners must have shared in the misery and sacrifice of that greatest of all British wars, many will know there was some bombing of a kindergarten nature and that the tremendous bombardments on the Western Front were at times audible in the capital. But these would seem to rank as sideshows, a puppeteer’s dress rehearsal for 1939 to 1945, especially the cataclysm of 1940-41.The truth is much more interesting. From the moment war was declared at 11pm on Tuesday 4 August 1914 London became the hub of an ever-enlarging leviathan of total war. The Londoners almost without exception were caught up body and soul in its maw. The war utterly dominated the city’s life. It changed everything – not just for those four-and-a-quarter years of the most destructive war that human history had ever witnessed but for generations after. Even in the twenty-first century Londoners still live with many of the consequences of the First World War.The war had this impact because London occupied a far more dominating place in both nation and empire in 1914 than it did even twenty-five years later. The national and imperial war effort was directed from London in almost every theatre of war. A large part of the nation’s munitions were manufactured there. Almost every British soldier on his way to active service moved through it and most spent some time there. Soldiers in their hundreds of thousands from Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the USA saw something of the sights of London, from St Paul’s to the AlhambraTheatre, from the Houses of Parliament to the brothels of the Waterloo Road. It was to London that the wounded were brought bleeding from France and Belgium, even from Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, and to London that refugees from the war-torn territories sought respite and perhaps to start a new life. And it was London that epitomised the wholehearted commitment – and from time to time the fearful stresses and disturbances – of a nation under nerve-breaking strain, daily affected by the shifting fortunes of total war. Small wonder that this strategic centre of the British and Imperial war effort was considered a legitimate target for military aggression; and small wonder too that the very notion of ‘civilian’ should be blurred when so many adult Londoners were effectively mechanics in this great machine of war.From the war’s outset, London men proved among the most enthusiastic volunteers to join the fighting services. Who were these early volunteers? Most were working men, if only because the large majority of young men in London were of the working class. But for many reasons the lower middle classes and above were over-represented among volunteers, especially in London. The volunteering rate among industrial workers of eligible age nationally has been estimated at 28%, while 40% of men employed in financial services, commerce, the professions, hotels, restaurants, theatres and so on – all jobs largely represented in London – joined up. This difference seems to have had little if anything to do with class disaffection or any enduring resentment against a nation and society which had done so little for the poor in times of peace, but other reasons are not hard to find. Workingclass men in London were in general less well-fed and less fit than middleclass Londoners, and some (like engineers, skilled dock workers and others) were less dispensable to the war effort. Indeed the physical condition of the London working class was so poor in 1914 that many failed to meet the exacting standards then enforced – requirements would later be reduced, and reduced again and again as the struggle dragged on. So in September 1914, at a recruiting meeting in London’s East End, 150 men volunteered but only fifteen passed the preliminary medical inspection; the rest were sent home. The lower middle classes could be similarly affected but of course in general were better fed. It is likely that the over-representation of middle-class employment in London was one factor in generating a relatively high recruitment rate there among men of eligible age – 14.3% (107,000 recruits) by 12 November 1914 compared to 10.2% in England, Wales and Scotland overallNot all London men of military age were eligible to fight. A significant part of London’s population growth was made up by migration. London’s draw on young people of working age had never abated in the countries of Britain and the provinces of England. But for thirty years and more, London had attracted increasing numbers from Europe too. The largest of these minorities was made up of Russians and Russian Poles, mainly Jews, who clustered most of all in the East End of London. In 1911 they totalled some 68,000, not counting those born in Britain since their great emigration had begun thirty years before. The next largest migrant group by far was the German-born, over 30,000 in the County of London and 5,000 or more in the outer suburbs, two-thirds of them men; another 10,000 or so Austro-Hungarians, mostly Austrians, might be added to the German-speaking minority in London. They all far outnumbered the French, London’s oldest-established European minority, 14,000 of them in the County of London in 1911, and the Italians, around 12,000. All of these foreign-born communities had increased in number since 1901 and in all likelihood continued to do so in the few years immediately before 1914 .That year London was a more cosmopolitan city than for centuries past. The Germans, for instance, were long-established in both the East End and West End, with suburban communities at all points of the London compass. Charlotte Street, west of Tottenham Court Road, was the main West-End artery, known as “Charlottenstrasse” and famous for its restaurants and clubs. In the rest of London there were a dozen German churches, a Salvation Army German Corps, a German Hospital, two German-language newspapers, a great German Gymnasium at King’s Cross, and associations for every interest-group from amateur theatricals to chess-players, cyclists to military men. German merchants and traders, stockbrokers and bankers, had carved out an important niche in the City; the German governess had become a necessity in many upper-class homes; and the German waiter among proletarian migrants, and bakers and barbers among tradesmen, had become what seemed like irreplaceable fixtures in London’s economic life. With their high rates of intermarriage with English women and their readiness to stay in London rather than return “home”, no foreign community was more integrated than the Germans. August 1914 would change all thatOutside Buckingham Palace, around 11pm on Tuesday 4 August 1914. At first the London crowds were muted and far from enthusiastic for war. But Germany’s invasion of Belgium made British intervention an inescapable matter of honour for most. Here a jubilant crowd demonstrates solidarity with King and nation at the moment war is declared© Imperial War Museums (Q 65496)Anti-German riots, May 1915. Following the sinking of the liner Lusitania which saw the loss of over 1,000 lives, rioting and looting broke out all over London, the worst of it in the East End, as here on Chrisp Street, Poplar© Mary Evans/PharcideThe war began a process of eradication of German influence from London life, an influence honourably exerted over many generations that had given much to metropolitan culture. Everywhere German-born Londoners were thrown out of work, from lowly German waiters to Theodore Kroell, popular manager of the Ritz in Piccadilly since 1909, to Prince Louis of Battenburg, First Sea Lord, forced out of the Admiralty by the press, jealous enemies and “a stream of letters, signed and anonymous”, calling for his dismissal. German surnames became anglicised or abandoned: the orchestral conductor Basil Cameron changed his name from Hindenberg, the Merton-born writer Ford Hermann Hueffer became Ford Madox Ford, and the House of Commons was assured there were no clerks employed in the Treasury of German or Austrian nationality: “One British-born clerk, who had a name of Teutonic origin, has changed it since the outbreak of War”There were adjustments everywhere. In the Reform Club, as in the rest of clubland, notices were posted asking members not to bring alien enemies as guests. In Sainsbury’s, “German sausage”, a big favourite with the Londoners prewar, was quickly renamed “Luncheon sausage”. In Bermondsey, where “We were not without a large share of aliens in our midst”, shop fascias were transformed from “Schnitzler, et cetera” to “The Albion Saloon”, or “The British Barbers of Bermondsey”. The study of German was abandoned atToynbee Hall, the university settlement in Whitechapel. Pubs changed their names, so that the King of Prussia, formerly popular in London, now became a rarity (one in Tooley Street became the King of Belgium); and local residents across the metropolis campaigned for the Teutonic taint to be removed from their street names often, after much delay, with success – Stoke Newington’s Wiesbaden Road becoming Belgrade Road, for instanceAll this was productive of much misery. Among the large number of prosecutions of Germans for failing to register was a trickle of press reports from September 1914 of the suicide of Londoners who overnight had become enemy aliens: Joseph Pottsmeyer, 52, a gramophone packer from Hoxton, sacked from his job and unable to get another, found hanged in his room alongside a note expressing admiration for England; John Pfeiffer, assistant manager at the Holborn Viaduct Hotel, who shot himself in the eye and then, with extraordinary determination, the temple; and four weeks later an Austrian couple, recently married and only in their twenties, who took poison “it is believed… from fear of internment and separation.” There would be many othersNot all London men of military age were eligible to fight. A significant part of London’s population growth was made up by migration. London’s draw on young people of working age had never abated in the countries of Britain and the provinces of England. But for thirty years and more, London had attracted increasing numbers from Europe too. The largest of these minorities was made up of Russians and Russian Poles, mainly Jews, who clustered most of all in the East End of London. In 1911 they totalled some 68,000, not counting those born in Britain since their great emigration had begun thirty years before. The next largest migrant group by far was the German-born, over 30,000 in the County of London and 5,000 or more in the outer suburbs, two-thirds of them men; another 10,000 or so Austro-Hungarians, mostly Austrians, might be added to the German-speaking minority in London. They all far outnumbered the French, London’s oldest-established European minority, 14,000 of them in the County of London in 1911, and the Italians, around 12,000. All of these foreign-born communities had increased in number since 1901 and in all likelihood continued to do so in the few years immediately before 1914.That year London was a more cosmopolitan city than for centuries past. The Germans, for instance, were long-established in both the East End and West End, with suburban communities at all points of the London compass. Charlotte Street, west of Tottenham Court Road, was the main West-End artery, known as “Charlottenstrasse” and famous for its restaurants and clubs. In the rest of London there were a dozen German churches, a Salvation Army German Corps, a German Hospital, two German-language newspapers, a great German Gymnasium at King’s Cross, and associations for every interest-group from amateur theatricals to chess-players, cyclists to military men. German merchants and traders, stockbrokers and bankers, had carved out an important niche in the City; the German governess had become a necessity in many upper-class homes; and the German waiter among proletarian migrants, and bakers and barbers among tradesmen, had become what seemed like irreplaceable fixtures in London’s economic life. With their high rates of intermarriage with English women and their readiness to stay in London rather than return “home”, no foreign community was more integrated than the Germans. August 1914 would change all that .Outside Buckingham Palace, around 11pm on Tuesday 4 August 1914. At first the London crowds were muted and far from enthusiastic for war. But Germany’s invasion of Belgium made British intervention an inescapable matter of honour for most. Here a jubilant crowd demonstrates solidarity with King and nation at the moment war is declared© Imperial War Museums (Q 65496)Anti-German riots, May 1915. Following the sinking of the liner Lusitania which saw the loss of over 1,000 lives, rioting and looting broke out all over London, the worst of it in the East End, as here on Chrisp Street, Poplar© Mary Evans/PharcideThe war began a process of eradication of German influence from London life, an influence honourably exerted over many generations that had given much to metropolitan culture. Everywhere German-born Londoners were thrown out of work, from lowly German waiters to Theodore Kroell, popular manager of the Ritz in Piccadilly since 1909, to Prince Louis of Battenburg, First Sea Lord, forced out of the Admiralty by the press, jealous enemies and “a stream of letters, signed and anonymous”, calling for his dismissal. German surnames became anglicised or abandoned: the orchestral conductor Basil Cameron changed his name from Hindenberg, the Merton-born writer Ford Hermann Hueffer became Ford Madox Ford, and the House of Commons was assured there were no clerks employed in the Treasury of German or Austrian nationality: “One British-born clerk, who had a name of Teutonic origin, has changed it since the outbreak of War”.There were adjustments everywhere. In the Reform Club, as in the rest of clubland, notices were posted asking members not to bring alien enemies as guests. In Sainsbury’s, “German sausage”, a big favourite with the Londoners prewar, was quickly renamed “Luncheon sausage”. In Bermondsey, where “We were not without a large share of aliens in our midst”, shop fascias were transformed from “Schnitzler, et cetera” to “The Albion Saloon”, or “The British Barbers of Bermondsey”. The study of German was abandoned atToynbee Hall, the university settlement in Whitechapel. Pubs changed their names, so that the King of Prussia, formerly popular in London, now became a rarity (one in Tooley Street became the King of Belgium); and local residents across the metropolis campaigned for the Teutonic taint to be removed from their street names often, after much delay, with success – Stoke Newington’s Wiesbaden Road becoming Belgrade Road, for instance .All this was productive of much misery. Among the large number of prosecutions of Germans for failing to register was a trickle of press reports from September 1914 of the suicide of Londoners who overnight had become enemy aliens: Joseph Pottsmeyer, 52, a gramophone packer from Hoxton, sacked from his job and unable to get another, found hanged in his room alongside a note expressing admiration for England; John Pfeiffer, assistant manager at the Holborn Viaduct Hotel, who shot himself in the eye and then, with extraordinary determination, the temple; and four weeks later an Austrian couple, recently married and only in their twenties, who took poison “it is believed… from fear of internment and separation.” There would be many others .In addition, sporadic violence against German shopkeepers in the poorer trading streets of London began immediately after the declaration of war. Before 1914 was out it turned much worse. That October saw the first serious outbreak of collective violence by the Londoners, beginning at Deptford and widely copied in other parts of south London for a few nights after. The crowds of 5,000 or so were so fierce and persistent that the police had to call out the military for assistance – butchers’ and bakers’ shops were wrecked and looted, shopkeepers and their families fleeing to friendly English neighbours for protection. These alarming riots had been triggered locally by the arrival in south London of Belgian refugees fleeing from the fall of Antwerp and arriving in London with little more than the clothes they stood up in .Worse was to come. On the afternoon of Friday 7 May 1915 the great Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed off Queenstown, Ireland, with the loss of 1,198 lives, including many women and children and 124 US citizens. The sinking shocked and horrified the world. The news reached London with the evening papers. It was received as a culmination of atrocities, the horrors of the German invasion of Belgium widely aired in the British press. Over the weekend of 8 and 9 May serious anti-German rioting broke out in Liverpool, the Lusitania’s home port. Then, beginning in Canning Town, West Ham, and other parts of east London on 11 May, and building to a London-wide conflagration on Wednesday the 12th, a frenzy of violence fell upon Germans in London. Over the next six days, every Metropolitan Police division from Harrow to Croydon and Hayes to Romford experienced violent disturbances. At least 257 people were injured, including 107 police officers, regular and special, beaten for standing between the Germans and the crowd. There were 866 arrests. By great good fortune no one was killed. Shops thought to be run by Germans or Austrians had windows smashed and doors broken down. Interiors – staircases, cupboards, ceilings – were ‘hacked to pieces’. Provisions and property were carted away by the barrowful. The looting and violence extended to homes as well as shops.This would prove the worst outbreak of violence against the Germans in London, though sporadic outbreaks followed many air raids later in the war. But official action against them through the internment of men, including men well beyond fighting age, and the repatriation to Holland of thousands of German men, women and children continued throughout the war. The results were plainly apparent. In 1911 the census had recorded 31,254 Germanborn residents of the county of London, excluding all or most of the outer suburbs; in 1921 the number had fallen to 9,083. The comparable figures for Austrians were 8,869 and 1,552 In addition, sporadic violence against German shopkeepers in the poorer trading streets of London began immediately after the declaration of war. Before 1914 was out it turned much worse. That October saw the first serious outbreak of collective violence by the Londoners, beginning at Deptford and widely copied in other parts of south London for a few nights after. The crowds of 5,000 or so were so fierce and persistent that the police had to call out the military for assistance – butchers’ and bakers’ shops were wrecked and looted, shopkeepers and their families fleeing to friendly English neighbours for protection. These alarming riots had been triggered locally by the arrival in south London of Belgian refugees fleeing from the fall of Antwerp and arriving in London with little more than the clothes they stood up in .Worse was to come. On the afternoon of Friday 7 May 1915 the great Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed off Queenstown, Ireland, with the loss of 1,198 lives, including many women and children and 124 US citizens. The sinking shocked and horrified the world. The news reached London with the evening papers. It was received as a culmination of atrocities, the horrors of the German invasion of Belgium widely aired in the British press. Over the weekend of 8 and 9 May serious anti-German rioting broke out in Liverpool, the Lusitania’s home port. Then, beginning in Canning Town, West Ham, and other parts of east London on 11 May, and building to a London-wide conflagration on Wednesday the 12th, a frenzy of violence fell upon Germans in London. Over the next six days, every Metropolitan Police division from Harrow to Croydon and Hayes to Romford experienced violent disturbances. At least 257 people were injured, including 107 police officers, regular and special, beaten for standing between the Germans and the crowd. There were 866 arrests. By great good fortune no one was killed. Shops thought to be run by Germans or Austrians had windows smashed and doors broken down. Interiors – staircases, cupboards, ceilings – were ‘hacked to pieces’. Provisions and property were carted away by the barrowful. The looting and violence extended to homes as well as shops.This would prove the worst outbreak of violence against the Germans in London, though sporadic outbreaks followed many air raids later in the war. But official action against them through the internment of men, including men well beyond fighting age, and the repatriation to Holland of thousands of German men, women and children continued throughout the war. The results were plainly apparent. In 1911 the census had recorded 31,254 Germanborn residents of the county of London, excluding all or most of the outer suburbs; in 1921 the number had fallen to 9,083. The comparable figures for Austrians were 8,869 and 1,552