Robert Prager

Robert Paul Prager (February 28, 1888 – April 5, 1918) was a German immigrant who was lynched in the United States during World War I due to growing anti-German sentiment. Prager initially worked as a baker in southern Illinois before taking up work as a laborer in a coal mine. He eventually settled in Collinsville, a hub for mining activity.

During a period of heightened anti-German hostility, Prager applied for membership in the Maryville, Illinois, local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America but was rejected. Following this rejection, he angered local miners by posting copies of a letter around town in which he criticized the union's local president and expressed his dissatisfaction with the decision.

A mob of 200 to 300 men forced Prager from his home in Collinsville, making him walk barefoot and wrapped in an American flag along Main Street, where he was beaten and harassed. Although the police initially took him into custody, the mob regained control, seizing him from Collinsville City Hall and accusing Mayor John H. Siegel of being pro-German. Unable to find tar to carry out a tarring and feathering, as had been done to other victims, the mob's leaders instead used a rope to hang Prager to death at a prominent bluff outside the town.

Eleven men were tried for Prager's murder, but all were acquitted. Rumors circulated that Prager held socialist beliefs, which were viewed with suspicion at the time. Members of the mob alleged that he was planning to blow up the coal mine, but no evidence supported these claims, and Prager had not been charged with any crime.

Biography Robert Paul Prager was born on February 28, 1888, in Dresden, Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1905 at the age of 17. Initially working as an itinerant baker, he was sentenced to a year in an Indiana reformatory for theft. By the time the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, Prager was living in St. Louis, Missouri.

Prager demonstrated strong patriotism for his adopted country. The day after President Wilson's war speech on April 2, he filed his first citizenship papers to begin the naturalization process. He registered for the draft and attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy, as aliens were promised citizenship upon successful military service. Prager also displayed an American flag from his window at all times. When his St. Louis landlord objected to the display, Prager reported him to the police. He found a length of manila rope in one of the cars and announced that Prager should be hanged. Although some men were initially reluctant, no one in the crowd spoke out. He also provided a full account to a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A grand jury for Madison County, Illinois, was convened to hear testimony in the case. On April 25, they indicted the five men previously charged, along with seven others, for the murder of Prager. Additional suspects included: Charles Cranmer, 20; James DeMatties, 18; Frank Flannery, 19; Calvin Gilmore, 44; John Hallworth, 43; and Cecil Larremore, 17. The 12th man to be indicted, George Davis, was never further identified or located and was not prosecuted. The judge refused to allow the defense counsel to attempt to demonstrate that Prager had been disloyal. The defense was based on three principal claims: no one could identify who had committed the crime, half of the defendants claimed they had not been present at the murder, and the others claimed they had been bystanders. This defense was used by Joe Riegel, who had previously confessed his involvement in the incident.

In its closing statements, the defense argued that Prager's lynching was justified by "unwritten law," which does not tolerate unpatriotic speech. After five days of statements and testimony, the case went to the jury on June 1, 1918. After deliberating for 10 minutes, the jury found all the defendants to be innocent. The prosecuting attorney dropped charges against the four policemen and George Davis, the defendant who had never been found.

A week after the trial, editor and publisher J. O. Monroe wrote an editorial in the Collinsville Herald, saying:

A New York Times editorial stated, "The new unwritten law appears to be that any group of men may execute justice, or what they consider justice, in any case arising from the war." The Chicago Daily Tribune editorialized: "The lynching of Prager was reprehensible enough in itself, but the effort to excuse it as an act of 'popular justice' is worse." The St. Louis Star noted that men were acquitted of lynching while American troops fought for democracy abroad: "We must save our own soul as a nation. We cannot let ourselves go in such a way as was done in the Prager outrage and hold up our heads as civilized people. We are battling for right and humanity and should exhibit those qualities ourselves or be open to the charge of hypocrisy. We cannot successfully battle the Hun if we are to become the Hun ourselves."

Woodrow Wilson responds The excessive post-World War I paranoia and vigilantism against "enemy aliens" (particularly Germans) across the United States—potentially incited by the Sedition Act, the Alien Act, and the Espionage Act(s) of late 1917—led some communities to place even German brewers under suspicion. In the case of the young German immigrant, Prager, his lynching aroused condemnation from President Woodrow Wilson.