One September morning in 1918, Camas residents awoke to find a yellow obelisk standing in the center of the town’s main thoroughfare. An imitation Teutonic helmet crowned it. Clearly, art wasn’t its point. Local men built it to intimidate individuals they deemed “slackers,” anyone failing to match their patriotic fervor. Its builders claimed the column was a retort to men who had not signed up for the draft.
“Erected by the Minute Men in memory of those who refuse to support the Nation that supports them” stated the inscription on the tower. Its builders hoped draft dodgers and so-called German sympathizers, “reds” and pacifists whose hearts beat to “goose step” rhythm would fearfully view the structure and consider the consequences should their names appear painted in black on the yellow surface. The Minute Men wanted to shame any “slackers” into tossing their “sauerkraut in the ash barrel” or humiliate them so they’d sequester at home alone.
The Minute Men took their name from the citizens who fought in the Revolutionary War. However, they were likely part of a government-sponsored group called the Four Minute Men with free rein to violate the civil rights of others they believed lacked sufficient hawkishness. Under the guise of staunch patriotism, their job was pushing war-time propaganda, censorship and surveilling those with German surnames.
In April 1919, seven months after the tower appeared, the hometown paper mill, Crown Willamette, carried a photo and brief article about the edifice in its magazine, Makin’ Paper. It read: “This pillar stands not so much as a menace as an admonition and ever-present reminder to those careless and selfish few whose gasping and nearsighted nature blind them to the fact that their accumulations here would disappear before them … should the Germans gain the mastery over our country.”
