Peter Victor Deuster

Peter Victor Deuster (February 13, 1831 – December 31, 1904) was a German American immigrant, newspaperman, diplomat, and Democratic politician who represented Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States House of Representatives for three terms from 1879 to 1885 and later served as American consul at Krefeld, Germany, during the presidency of Grover Cleveland. Over the course of a long public career, he became a prominent figure in Wisconsin’s German-language press and in Democratic Party politics at the local, state, and national levels.

Deuster was born in Düren, in Rhenish Prussia, on February 13, 1831. He pursued an academic course at a college in Düren but left before graduating, having departed for the United States at a young age. In May 1847 he immigrated with his parents to the United States, and the family settled on a farm near Milwaukee in what was then the rapidly growing German immigrant community of southeastern Wisconsin. Having left formal schooling early, Deuster completed much of his education on his own, notably in a printing office, where he acquired the skills that would shape his career as a journalist and editor.

By 1852 Deuster had established himself in Milwaukee’s German-language press, founding a newspaper called the Hausfreund. The paper was later taken over by George Brumder’s Germania Publishing, an important institution in the German American press. In 1854 Deuster moved to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he edited a local newspaper and simultaneously held several public and administrative posts, serving as deputy postmaster, deputy clerk of the circuit court, clerk of the land office, and notary public. He returned to Milwaukee in 1856 and became editor of the Milwaukee See-Bote (later Seebote), a German-language Democratic daily newspaper originally founded by Archbishop John Henni as an anti-radical organ. Deuster became proprietor of the paper in 1860 and used it as a platform for his political views. Under his leadership, the See-Bote took a strong stance against German radicals and radicalism, denounced the emerging Republican Party and its freethinkers and abolitionists, and sharply criticized figures such as Carl Schurz, whom Deuster described as “a political mountebank.”

During the American Civil War, Deuster emerged as a prominent Copperhead voice in the German-language press. Through the See-Bote he opposed the abolitionist influence on the Lincoln administration, defended General George B. McClellan against his critics, and published inflammatory attacks on emancipation and abolitionism. He warned his immigrant readership that such policies would lead to a “Negrocracy,” in which free white laborers would be forced to compete with what he called cheaper “black cattle,” and he derided the abolitionist Milwaukee Herold as part of the “German Nigger Press.” Deuster and the See-Bote were widely blamed for inciting the anti-draft riot that took place on November 10, 1862, in Port Washington. The commander of the German-majority Union Army of South-east Missouri went so far as to forbid circulation of the See-Bote in areas under his control. The paper described President Abraham Lincoln as “the most incapable of statesmen and the most irresponsible of the butchers of men,” though Deuster occasionally defended Lincoln when he believed the president was being harried by more radical Republicans. Unlike some other Copperhead editors, however, Deuster publicly mourned Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, expressing fear that the event would unleash a policy of “retribution and revenge” under Radical Republican leadership.

Deuster’s prominence as an editor led naturally into elective office. In 1863 he was elected as a Democrat to the Wisconsin State Assembly, succeeding fellow Democrat John M. Stowell. During his term he served on the standing committees on state affairs and federal relations, but his legislative service was marked by attacks from political opponents who cited the controversial editorial positions of the See-Bote. He was not re-elected and was succeeded in 1864 by J. C. U. Niedermann, who was elected on the National Union Party ticket. At the same time, his brother Joseph Deuster was also active in Democratic politics in Milwaukee, serving at various times as a member of the Common Council, sheriff, and sergeant-at-arms of the State Assembly. There is no documented evidence, however, to prove that Peter and Joseph were related to John H. Deuster, another Prussian-born Democrat who settled in Milwaukee and became active in politics. In 1870 Peter Deuster expanded his journalistic interests by purchasing the Chicago Daily Union. That same year he was elected to the Wisconsin State Senate from the Sixth District, which included the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 8th Wards of the City of Milwaukee and the towns of Franklin, Greenfield, Lake, Oak Creek, and Wauwatosa. He defeated incumbent Charles H. Larkin, a former War Democrat running as an independent, by a vote of 2,178 to 1,704. Deuster did not seek re-election in 1872 and was succeeded by fellow Democrat John L. Mitchell.

Deuster advanced to national office in 1878, when he was narrowly elected as a Democrat to the Forty-sixth Congress from Wisconsin’s 4th congressional district, which then comprised Milwaukee, Ozaukee, and Washington counties. He succeeded retiring Democratic Representative William Pitt Lynde, winning 11,157 votes to 11,022 for Republican former Assemblyman Leander Frisby and 1,351 for Greenback candidate and former National Union Assemblyman Truman H. Judd. As a member of the Democratic Party representing Wisconsin, Deuster contributed to the legislative process during three terms in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents during a significant period in American history. He was re-elected to the Forty-seventh Congress with 17,574 votes to 15,018 for Republican former Assemblyman Casper Sanger, and again to the Forty-eighth Congress with 9,688 votes to 8,320 for Republican former Assemblyman Frederick Winkler and 1,922 for former Republican Assemblyman George B. Goodwin, who ran as a “trades’ assembly” candidate. During his House service from March 4, 1879, to March 3, 1885, Deuster served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings, overseeing aspects of federal spending on government structures. His congressional tenure coincided with debates over civil service reform, federal appropriations, and the evolving role of the federal government in economic and social affairs.

Throughout his time in Congress, Deuster remained closely tied to the newspaper business. During his campaign for re-election to the Forty-eighth Congress, he was publishing The Daily Journal in Milwaukee. As part of that venture, the young journalist Lucius W. Nieman acquired an interest in the paper and took over its management after Deuster’s successful re-election. Under Nieman’s leadership the paper grew substantially and was eventually renamed The Milwaukee Journal, which became one of Wisconsin’s leading newspapers. Deuster’s own congressional career came to an end in 1884, when he was unsuccessful in seeking re-election to the Forty-ninth Congress. In that race he received 15,967 votes, losing to Republican Isaac W. Van Schaick, who garnered 16,783 votes; the Union Labor candidate, Alderman and former Socialist Assemblyman Henry Smith, received 1,296 votes, and C. E. Reed received 226 votes.

After leaving Congress, Deuster resumed his newspaper interests in Milwaukee. He continued to publish the Seebote and also issued a German-language weekly titled Telephone, maintaining his influence within the city’s large German-speaking community. His public service continued in appointed roles. In 1887 he was named chairman of a federal commission charged with diminishing the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, reflecting the federal government’s broader policy of reallocating Native American lands during that period. On February 19, 1896, President Grover Cleveland appointed Deuster as United States consul at Krefeld, Germany, a post he held until October 15, 1897, when a successor was appointed. Returning to Wisconsin politics, Deuster was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 1898. In a six-way race he lost to Republican Jesse Stone, who received 180,038 votes to Deuster’s 126,206. Other candidates included Populist Spencer Palmer with 8,267 votes, Prohibitionist Willis W. Cooper with 7,846 votes, Social Democratic Party of America candidate Edward P. Hassinger with 2,535 votes, and Herman C. Gauger of the Socialist Labor Party with 1,543 votes.

Peter Victor Deuster spent his final years in Milwaukee, remaining a figure associated with the city’s German-language press and Democratic politics. He died in Milwaukee on December 31, 1904, and was interred in Calvary Cemetery. His career, spanning journalism, state and national legislative service, and diplomatic office, reflected both the political influence and the internal controversies of the German American community in nineteenth-century Wisconsin.