Father Stocker wrote over 1,000 editorials and articles during his time at The Guardian, and his editorship was not without controversy. During World War I, because of the Swiss-German heritage of the Subiaco monks, he and The Guardian were subject to suspicions of disloyalty by many locals. Stocker responded by writing an editorial condemning the German Empire and showing strong support of the United States:"Why should we be suspected of disloyalty? We are all American citizens, and most of us were never Germans in the political sense. It was from Switzerland that the abbey got most of its members until the monastery could produce American-born recruits. We appeal then, to our fair minded fellow-citizens to discontinue the unjust whisperings that would make us traitors."In addition to his editorial work and his responsibilities at the abbey, Father Stocker was a prolific writer on various subjects, his best-known piece being one on liberal education published by the National Catholic Educational Association. By the 1920s, however, his health was failing, and Stocker was suspicious of physicians, despite his nickname being "Doctor Stocker." He eventually gave in and visited a physician, but died in the doctor's office in 1922. He was replaced by Father George H. McDermott, a diocesan priest.
