In defence of Carlo's patriotism

I put up a previous post where Carlo's patriotism was being called into question, his views on an issue (pay rises for Public Servants) were dismissed on the grounds that he was a 'foreigner'.  Read the post, here.  I* came across another great article on the same issue in the Under the Clocks column in the Herald of July 28, 1916. The article is called Essay on Foreigners. The basic gist of the article, defending Carlo,  can be summed up with the last line - Fancy calling a bloke a foreigner when he has an Australian son what went to Grammar and answers to the name of Puss! - referring to Carlo's son Enrico  or Puss, who went to Melbourne Grammar and enlisted on April 28, 1915 and served in Gallipoli. Sadly, Puss was Killed in Action in France, only one day after this article was published.

The Herald July 28, 1916

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242381805

ESSAY ON FOREIGNERS
Foreigners, Pa says, was Invented by a judicious Providence for to make us realise how much better it is to be Britishers. Pa travelled about a good bit in his young days, and he could of got naturalised in most any country in Europe if he had wanted to. But he was a like a bloke in some poetry he is always saying over to hisself - "In spite of all temptations to belong to other nations, he remained an Englishman." In the days when, nothing was reckoned to be any good In Australia unless it come from Abroad, and women, who Pa says are born freetraders, didn't mind if a thing was made in Germany, so long as it was cheap, foreigner wasn't such a dirty Insult as it is now. There was a thing happened only last Tuesday, which shows how people feel about it. At a meeting of public servants one bloke spoke out of his turn. He says, Will this here blocking of our rises in screw help the sale of these here war loan bonds? Up jumps Mr Catani, who is chief engine-driver or something, and says. Put him out!  Pooh, you! says the bloke. You're only a foreigner, he says. This Mr Catani, he was born in Italy, whose motto is freedom or nothing. He is one of ourselves, Pa says, and his son is Puss Catani, one of the lads that made Australia proud of them when the Southland went down, and they didn't care 2d so long as they didn't crab their chances of getting to Gallipoli. He got there all right, and Pa reckons he will get to Berlin, too, some day. Well, when the bloke says Foreigner, everyone got the pip with him, and for a little while it looked as if there would be a brawl. So the moral is, that if you want to call a man a foreigner nowadays the only safe place to, do it is in a internment camp, where you are sure of your mark. Fancy calling a bloke a foreigner when he has a Australian son what went to Grammar and answers to the name of Puss!

* When I say, I came across it, in reality it was actually my fellow Carlo aficionado, Isaac Hermann,  who alerted me to this article.