loyalty considered suspect. Government propaganda urged residents to be on constant alert for enemy spies. The war raised the unease of native-born Americans about the numerous immigrants in the country. "Every German or Austrian in the United States, unless known by years of association to be absolutely loyal, should be treated as a potential spy," the Collinsville Advertiser newspaper reported on December 29, 1917. Because Germany was opposed to Great Britain and France, nationally ethnic Germans in the United States, having previously been perhaps the most-respected immigrant groups, increasingly faced anti-German sentiment. Examples of anti-German sentiment were street names being changed and German-language classes dropped in many communities. Groups ranging from the All-Allied Anti-German League to the Boy Spies of America reported any activity they thought suspicious. In the coal fields of southern Illinois, miners administered extralegal justice against real and perceived enemies: in a kind of charivari, they tarred and feathered some men, and drove others out of town through mob harassment. A Lutheran minister from a Collinsville-area church was forced to leave the community because he reportedly would not renounce his German citizenship. Throughout the nation, harassment of German immigrants and those of German descent peaked during early 1918. Lynching of Robert Paul Prager Prager's application to join UMW Local 1802 was rejected on April 3, 1918. After the union meeting that evening, miners paraded Prager near saloons in Maryville, then warned him to leave that town. Prager was angered to have been rejected by Local 1802 and losing his job. The next morning, he wrote a letter to the Maryville miners, complaining that he had been treated unfairly by Local 1802 President James Fornero. "I have been a union man all times and never once a scab [strikebreaker]," Prager said. He denied accusations that he was a German sympathizer. He wrote, "I am heart and soul for the good old USA. I am of German birth, of which accident I cannot help." On the afternoon of April 4 he posted copies of this letter near the Maryville mine and nearby saloons. Leaving work at the end of the day, the Maryville miners were enraged to see copies of Prager's letter. A contingent of about six Maryville men went to Prager's Collinsville home in the 200 block of Vandalia Street, bringing along dozens of men who had been drinking in a nearby saloon. The men arrived at Prager's