John Adam Rittinger

In December 1875, Rittinger and Dr. Aaron Eby – a Canadian-born Pennsylvania German – purchased Walkerton, Ontario's German-language newspaper from its founder, John Klein.[17] Rittinger and Eby's partnership over the Walkerton Glocke lasted until June 1878.[17] Rittinger, a staunch conservative[6] and member of the Conservative Party,[18] continued work at the Glocke while Eby, an advocate of the Reformers, left to form his own competing newspaper.[17][note 4] In 1882, Rittinger renamed the Walkerton Glocke to Die Ontario Glocke and expanded it from four to eight pages. In his role as publisher and editor, he was both a popular writer and a shrewd businessman. He built the Glocke's subscriber count from around 350 in 1878 to between 1,300 and 1,400 in 1883. By 1891, the newspaper was debt-free, even after having acquired a new steam press in 1883 for $1,600 (equivalent to CA$44,000 in 2021).[19] Affectionately known by locals as the "Glockemann" (the "Bell Ringer"),[4][16] he knew nearly every subscriber personally.[20]

The Glocke featured an editorial column written by Rittinger, mostly focusing on domestic political issues. After he became the sole owner, the newspaper leaned Conservative in its political commentary, especially favouring its high tariff National Policy, opposition to both prohibition and nativism, and a strong focus on individual freedom. When he disagreed with the party, he made his opposition known, especially with regard to the Conservative's opposition to German-language instruction in Ontario schools.[21] To remain politically active in the community, he was president of the Conservative Association in Bruce County and was a member of the executive committee of Berlin's Conservative Party organization.[16]

Rittinger's father Friedrich died in 1897, with Rittinger succeeding him as a partner in the Rittinger and Motz printing firm.[2] Die Ontario Glocke amalgamated into the Berliner Journal on 1 July 1904, and Rittinger moved back to Berlin to work as its new editor.[22] Though the content of the two papers was identical, the Glocke continued to publish under its original masthead so as not to offend longtime subscribers.[23] Due to a declining German-language readership, the remaining local German-language newspapers were also consolidated into the Berliner Journal – including Stratford's Canadische Kolonist in July 1906,and both New Hamburg's Canadische Volksblatt and Waterloo's Canadischer Bauernfreund in July 1909.[24][note 5] By the early twentieth century, the assimilation of the local German community into the English majority had progressed quickly. While many locals no longer spoke German with the same fluency they once had, the popularity of Rittinger's editorship maintained much of the paper's appeal.[26]

The Rittinger family home in 2021, where Rittinger died in July 1915.

Scholar Herbert Karl Kalbfleisch writes that after the Glocke amalgamated into the Journal and Rittinger became its editor, "[a] distinct improvement in every department becomes evident".[27] The newspaper's political slant shifted from conservative to independent, though Rittinger still engaged extensively in contemporary politics through his editorial column. He presided over an expansion in the readership of the Journal, adding six hundred new subscribers in the year following the amalgamation.[27] With an average circulation of 5,154 for the year ending 31 December 1909,[28] the paper was the most widely read German publication in all of Canada.[29] Circulation numbers never reached the same peak, usually declining each year, and fell to 4,419 for the year ending 1914.[28]

In 1914, Rittinger suffered an injury to his right hip. A resulting illness led to his death on 29 July 1915, dying at his Berlin home at 132 Queen St. N. His body was interred in Walkerton next to his son Frederick.[6] The day after Rittinger's death, The New York Times ran an obituary characterizing him as "one of the best known German journalists in Canada".[30] His death came before a sharp decline in German-Canadian journalism; the Canadian government banned German-language publications in 1918.[31] Kalbfleisch writes: "Fate spared [Rittinger] the trials and disappointments of the most critical years of the First World War, and called him away just before the edifice, which he had so painstakingly helped to construct, toppled into ruin."[31]

Rittinger published his first humorous letter to the editor in the 22 January 1890 edition of the Glocke, signed under the pseudonym "Joe Klotzkopp".[20][note 6] The name translates to English from the Pennsylvania German as either "Joe the Blockhead"[16] or "John the Blockhead".[1] He published occasional letters through November. After their disappearance, subscriber demand led to their resumption the following year,[20] with Rittinger continuing to write and publish them for the next twenty-five years.[16]

The letters uniquely and humorously combine the Pennsylvania German dialect with phonetic reproductions of English words.[4] The dialect was common among the Germans of nineteenth-century Ontario, and German-language newspapers across Upper and Lower Canada and Nova Scotia regularly published letters using it.[35] Rittinger originally learned High German,[16] and acquired the dialect later in life.[35] His character Joe Klotzkopp is "a poor, but easy-going farmer", living with his wife Särah Klotzkopp near Neustadt, Ontario, in Bruce County.[36] The letters describe contemporary Upper Canadian life,[35] injecting humour into the rural life of German Canadians,[33] while using levity to impart serious moral lessons.[37]

Scholar Gottlieb Leibbrandt writes that the letters are of particular interest to scholars as "superb examples of German-Canadian comic literature in dialect."[1] Researcher Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek suggests that because the letters are restricted thematically to contemporaneous issues, their value to modern scholars resides in studying their style and use of language, along with "their humoristic and ironic mode of narration."[35] Scholar Hermann Boeschenstein writes that the letters mediate between European and Canadian cultures, and that "Rittinger proved ... that immigration can be conducive to the exchange and dissemination of valuable experience and ideas".[38] Leibbrandt, Tötösy de Zepetnek and Kalbfleisch agree that Rittinger's writings rank him among the greatest of Canadian humorists.[39] Kalbfleisch remarks that Rittinger's "wit and humour were ever present adjunct to his racy and picturesque style", especially within the Joe Klotzkopp letters.[37] He compares Rittinger's work to that of Thomas Chandler Haliburton and Stephen Leacock, and ultimately concludes that "[h]ad he written in the English language his reputation in Canada would now be secure."[40] By comparison, scholar E. W. Herd characterizes the letters as "naïve and popular". He opines that their humour is more easily appreciated by a Pennsylvania German reader, while "for other readers the parody is not so obvious, and the humour loses its spice".[41]

The letters remain relatively inaccessible to the public, both because they have never been published in a collection and because most German readers are unfamiliar with the Pennsylvania-German dialect they use.[42] The originals as published in the Glocke and Journal are available in the Waterloo Region Record's archives,[43] while Boeschenstein collected several in his 1980 book Heiteres und Satirisches aus der Deutschkanadischen Literatur (Light Satiric Pieces from German Canadian Literature).[44] Kalbfleisch translated 80 of the original 120 letters which the Record ran in a series from March 1966 through 1967.[45] Kalbfleisch includes an 1893 letter opposing Canada's temperance movement in his 1968 book The History of the Pioneer German Language Press of Ontario, 1835–1918.[34] Leibbrandt includes the 1909 letter "Mad Donkey Hotel" alongside Kalbfleisch's English translation in his 1980 book Little Paradise.[46] Hayes includes Kalbfleisch's translation of the final April 1915 letter in his 1997 book, Waterloo County: An Illustrated History.[33]