That Zeppelin Story
Source: Harrisburg Telegraph. May 02, 1916, Page 8.
Sunbury people the other night saw “a strange light in the sky” and straightway the energetic correspondents rushed to their trusty typewriters and battered out a dispatch for the “city papers” quoting nameless but “prominent” citizens to the effect that it was feared the occurrence might mean that a German Zeppelin was hanging over the town. Now with all due respect to the importance of Sunbury on the map of Pennsylvania, why should the Kaiser desire to smash it in preference to some town engaged in the manufacture of munitions for the Allies, and if he did so desire, how could he bring a Zeppelin to bear upon it?
The truth is that we are rather silly sometimes and our newspapers occasionally encourage us in our foolishness by repeating for the public the nonsense in which we indulge in private conversation. Very few Sunbury people believe the Zeppelin story and nobody else does. Yet it finds place in otherwise serious journals. We have made a great bugaboo of Germany. We have accredited the imperial government with everything but omnipotence, and we haven’t stopped so very short of that. Germany is to the eastern States what Japan is to the west, and both must smile at the furore into which they have thrown us without so much as raising a hand against us.
