The first incident that shocked the American people into a realization of the true character of "the German people" was the sinking of theLusitania, and the drowning of its great company of women, children and other non-combatants. And then, while England and America were laying their streaming dead in long rows on the dock at Queenstown, "the people" of Germany were literally dancing with joy! The German people called it a glorious "victory"! "Were some women and children lost? Well, they should not have sailed on theLusitania. They were warned,—by the German Ambassador himself!"
And the beautiful city of Frankfort-on-the-Main gave all its school children A HOLIDAY, in which to indulge in unrestrained rejoicing over the sinking of theLusitania! In Frankfort, if you were to throw a banana peel on the street, or in the Palm Garden, you would fiercely be arrested, and savagely fined 5 marks for the atrocity.
And some of "the people" of Germany struck a joy medal in celebration of theLusitaniavictory. A reproduction shows that it was a charming and soulful work of German art.
And the submarine reptile who sank theLusitaniawas decorated (with the "Order Pour la Merite"), and promoted, by the man whom young Hagenbeck of Hamburg characterized as "our dear, good, kind Emperor."
Faugh!
"Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,To sweeten mine imagination!"
Last week it was reported by wounded British prisoners, exchanged and sent from Germany via Switzerland, that "as we lay in the train, crowded and helpless, many German women came up to the cars and spit upon us." I have already cited the story of a Canadian prisoner.
During the past three years I have read every scrap of eye-witness information that has come before me in print recording observations in Germany, by war correspondents and others. My reading covers many newspapers, magazines, books and official publications of various kinds. Through all this mass I have looked in vain for expressions from the common people of Germany of some disapproval of German cruelties and atrocities on land or sea, or of sympathy for the victims of German cruelty. Find just one, if you can. I can not. Not once have I seen an expression or sentiment of that kind reported from Germany. The callousness of the women of Germany toward the ravishment, wounding, torture and ghastly mutilation of their sisters in Belgium, France, England, Servia, Poland and Armenia is astounding, beyond belief. But we are learning a lot these days.
Germany deliberately permitted the atrocious Turks to murder about 1,500,000 helpless Armenians; and so far as we know, not one person in Germany, high or low, has uttered one little protest against that colossal crime. Can you beat it! As the world knows very well, Germany absolutely controls Turkey, and drove her into the war; and Germany is guilty of complicity in the death of every non-combatant Armenian of that whole two millions of helpless persons who were slaughtered, or drowned, or starved on the deserts.
The ghastly murder of Edith Cavell, the nurse, and the Apache-like slaughter of Captain Fryatt "go" in Germany. The forcible abduction and enslavement of 5,000 young women, boys and men of Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing, and all the younger women of Noyon, France, just before the latter was recaptured by the British, is all right in Germany. In the New YorkEvening Worldof July 27 you will find in an interview with Louis Raemakers, the Dutch cartoonist nemesis of Germany, a fearful account of what the German officers do with the girls of France, Belgium and Servia. There are photographs by the score of dead children in Servia "upon whom the most frightful crimes had been committed before they were slashed to death across the body," and "woman after woman whose breasts had been cut off."
I believe that if the German soldiers were to kill and eat their prisoners, in the name of "Germany," the German people would accept it as justified by the "attack" on Germany, and the utterly false formula that "Germany is fighting for her life."
The military ring has by hard and continuous lying made the German masses believe that "The Allies wish to destroy Germany"; whereas the Allies wish to do nothing of the kind. All they wish to do is to secure the safety of the world against the barbarians of Berlin.
After the war is over, will the men and women of America and England and France enjoy traveling in Germany, eating in German hotels, promenading in the Thiergarten of Berlin, and fraternizing with German army officers fresh from the war? Can they tell the ravishers of helpless women, and the murderers of children and old men, from the other men of Germany? No; they can not. The trail of the serpent will be over them all.
After this war how will Americans relish the sound of the German language, and the teaching of it in their schools? Will they patronize German operas as of yore? Of what will the strains of the "Blue Danube" waltz remind them?
How will American men of science now regard the nation whose scientists invented poison gas, and sent bacteria of glanders and anthrax for horses and cattle, into friendly Rumania,under the privileged seal of "diplomacy"? We can give all the details of that episode, from official sources.
Except by rare flashes of side light, the people of America have had few opportunities to learn what the Allies really think now of the German Germans. The catalogue of a dealer in second hand books ordinarily is the very last place in which one would look for expressions of opinion of nations and people. But in war, always look for the unexpected. Book Catalogue No. 767, of Henry Sotheran & Co., London, contains this, soberly set forth on page 21:
Beneden(Pierre Joseph van: Univ.Louvain, Belgium)Animal Parasites and Messmates.18 woodcuts, post 8vo, 2s. (pub. 5s.).Belgium came to know viler human parasites from German universities than the filthiest bloodsuckers of the insect world.
Beneden(Pierre Joseph van: Univ.Louvain, Belgium)Animal Parasites and Messmates.18 woodcuts, post 8vo, 2s. (pub. 5s.).
Belgium came to know viler human parasites from German universities than the filthiest bloodsuckers of the insect world.
And on page 28 this item appears:
Hartman(Robert: Univ.Berlin)Anthropoid Apes, with 63 woodcuts, post 8vo, cl. 2s. (pub. 5s.).These would suggest the University-bred German officers who defiled with their own filth the French houses in which they were billeted.
Hartman(Robert: Univ.Berlin)Anthropoid Apes, with 63 woodcuts, post 8vo, cl. 2s. (pub. 5s.).
These would suggest the University-bred German officers who defiled with their own filth the French houses in which they were billeted.
We will add that they also suggest the ethics of the wolverine, whose favorite habit it is systematically to defile all the food in a miner's cabin which he can neither eat nor carry away.
All the world now knows that the Allies, of whom, thank God, America at last is one, never will cease fighting the mad-dogs, the wolves and wolverines of Germany until they are thoroughly whipped. Be the time long or short, the Allies will outlast the Teuton and the Turk, and will dictate the terms that both shall accept. America is ready to throw into the scale one-half of all that she possesses, if need be, to secure that end.
And then what?
When Germany is thoroughly beaten, as assuredly she will be, what shall be her punishment for her crimes?
The only sensible and correct policy to pursue toward a dirty-fighting enemy is toget him down and keep him down! No greater mistake could be made than for the Allies to become "magnanimous" to brutal Germany when the time comes to hand her what is coming to her in final settlement. We want no sissies nor weak sisters representing us at the peace conference, pleading for easy terms for Germany. Any man who cannot guess how much Germany would be "magnanimous" to the Entente alliesif she should win, is a colossal idiot. Think of the size of the cash indemnities that Germany would exact of America, England and France if she could win!
It would seem that no matter how rapacious or egotistic are Germany's intentions, always and everywhere there is a garrulous German ready to blab them out in public. If Germany had the chance, she would utterly ruin all of the Allies. There is no conceivable insult or injury that she would not visit upon them, just as she has upon the conquered districts of Belgium and France.The United States would be called upon to pay an indemnity of just about $20,000,000,000; and quickly, too!Make no mistake about that!
We have been reading German anticipations of the taking of British East Africa and the Congo Free State, to join them to the (late lamented) "German colonies" for the making of a vast African empire under the "dear, good, kind Kaiser" of Belgian fame. This is well known to the English; and the answer is thatGermany's lost African colonies are already lost to Germany forever and a day!To give back to Germany any one of those African colonies would be criminal folly, and of a certainty it would breed no end of future trouble in Africa. Knowing this, the Boers of South Africa will see Germany in hades before any influence on earth can persuade, or force them, to hand back one foot of "German" East Africa,—a colony that was armed to the teeth long prior to 1914, and that started fighting immediately that war was declared in August, 1914!
Even if overweening magnanimity should beg that "German" Southwest Africa be given back, the dictates of humanity would sternly forbid it. After the brutal murder by Germany of 208 of the leading natives of the German capital at Walfish Bay for no reason whatever save the innate German brutality of the new governor, and the poisoning of the wells of Swakopmund, it would be a high crime against the native population ever again to place them within the power of any German governor.
No; decidedly not. Germany will not be given back a single foot of any one of her former African colonies. The close of this war will be no time for mushy sentiment toward the dirtiest fighters on earth.
The war should not and will not end until Germany has surrendered every foot of invaded territory now occupied by the Teutonic allies, and agreed to pay to Belgium an indemnity of about $5,000,000,000 with another $5,000,000,000 to France, or the equivalent thereof, and the return of Alsace and Lorraine. The delivery to England of her cowardly navy as a pledge of future good behavior is really immaterial. The German navy is chiefly a scuttling navy, great only against unarmed ships and fishing boats, but never willing to meet any foe on equal terms.
When the peace terms are written, England should take back Heligoland, as a German bond to keep the peace. The giving away to her only enemy of that immensely valuable island was one of the greatest blunders in statecraft that England ever committed. Now, there is only one way to redeem it,—make Germany surrender Heligoland before any German ship is permitted to sail the seas.
All the world now knows that the preservation of a Slavic Balkan barrier now is absolutely necessary to the peace of Asia.
And what will be the attitude of Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians and Russians after the war, toward the mad-dogs and wolves of Germany? For the sake of "business" and "trade" and "cheap goods" will we fraternize once more with the red-handed murderers of ten thousand Belgian and French civilians, the ravishers and enslavers of 100,000 Belgian and French women, the sinkers of theLusitania, and the murderers of Captain Fryatt and Nurse Cavell? Will we buy goods made by blood-stained German hands, that have dragged Belgian and French girls from their screaming mothers? Will we buy and use goods made on stolen Belgian machines, of materials stolen from France? Will we patronize the German "science" that produced chlorine gas for British soldiers, or the German artillery artists who have gleefully pounded the Cathedral of Rheims into ruins?
Will we not hear with the swan song ofLohengrinthe dying shrieks of theLusitaniawomen and children as they struggle in the icy waters?
In view of the records of the past three years, what two words are more loathsome and detestable than "German kultur"?
The only logical conclusion of Germany's career of crime and dirty fighting is, at the close of the war, the contempt, the aversion and the loathing of the civilized world, anda universal policy of non-intercourse. Let Germany go and live with Austria, and the loathsome Turk, in a hell of their own. Can any American not of German birth ever again desire to visit and travel in the land of the criminal Kaiser who started the war, the land of the murderers, ravishers and traitors whom the war brought to the surface? We cannot conceive it possible.
And after the war is over, the less we hear in America of the German language and of German literature, music, art and science, the better for all concerned. The German idols one and all lie in the mud, in fragments,—cast down and smashed by the mad-dogs of Germany,and no one else! Americans of German descent may build monuments to their memory, but never again can they be set up for Americans to worship.
Through her crimes and her dirty fighting, Germany has earned the contempt and aversion of the world, and it will be paid to her as long as civilization endures. Whole libraries will be written about the brutalities of the German Germans, the cowardice of their navy, the blunders of their alleged statesmen, and the carnival of lies of the Kaiser and his advisors.
Men who fight honorably take their punishment like men, get over it, and often become friends again. But not so when one party is "a dirty fighter," a gouger, and a hitter below the belt. Even the youngest American schoolboy despises the unfair fighter, and loathes the sight of him.
After this war is over, no man outside the Teutonic-Turco mad-dog influence will be so poor or so mean as to look upon a German German with real respect, much less with admiration. The world will cheerfully go naked and hungry ere it accepts food and clothes made in Germany. Americans with self respect will refuse to buy German goods, or to trade in stores that offer them for sale,—not indeed to "punish" Germany, but because the source is so loathsome and offensive. Germany, Austria and Turkey already have the contempt, the scorn and the hatred of the whole world, and after the war they should be ostracised and shunned for a thousand years.
It will be only the most sordid and mean-spirited people of America, England and France who will again buy of Germany because her goods are cheap. It is now time publicly to declare in America the existing aversion to Germany, in order that all importers may be made to know and understand the intentions of the public, and thereby avoid loading their shelves with goods that they can not sell to Americans. Let signs go up now reading: "No German goods sold here."
It is now time to drop the German language from every school in America, finally and forever. It is ludicrous folly to permit the language of America's only real enemy to be taught in our schools. Never again will Americans need it. We can well do without the language of brutality and tyranny.
One of the few good services rendered by this German-made war concerns South America. It has shown Brazil, Argentina and even Mexico exactly where they stand with respect to the Monroe doctrine. If Germany should win this war, then should all the nations of South and Central America pray to God for deliverance; for with Germany in the saddle, their peace and prosperity would be gone forever. With perfect clearness of vision, Brazil now sees this, and has the indomitable courage to act the part of a great and self-respecting nation, bent upon preserving the rights of her people.
Argentina sees the light, but hesitates to take up her share of the white man's burden; and Chili says: "Let George do it!"
If there is now even one Central or South American state which can not see that the United States,—with the moral support of the British navy,—has for years stood like a rock between them and the most rapacious and cruel people on earth, then that state is hopelessly blind. And for this service the United States has not asked anything but common friendship,—and sometimes has failed to receive even that!
The Central and South American republics should now set their houses in order in regard to their future dealings with the German "influence," and German commercial aggression. They should take warning from the condition of Italy before the war, when German capital and German greed held the banks, railroads, and sea commerce of Italy literally by the throat. Do Argentina, Chili, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia wish that condition to obtain with them? After the war, Germany will make a tremendous push to secure commercial supremacy in South America; and let South America beware! The time to build dykes is before the floods come, not after.
Saith the Psalmist with inspiration from the same God whom the German Kaiser piously and persistently claims as his silent partner,
"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God."
And to pan-Germany, Turkey and Austria we transmit that solemn promise of Holy Writ of what is in store for them, in punishment for their high crimes against humanity.
After the war, nothing can save them from existence in a hell of national poverty, and world-wide scorn and aversion, all of their own making.