Heartlessness of German rule.
The rigor of the control over the inhabitants of the occupied French territory is almost inconceivable. The lines delimiting the regions occupied by the various distinct German armies are lines of impassable steel for the inhabitants. If a member of the family in one town was visiting friends or relatives in another town a few kilometers away at the time of the outbreak of the war that family has remained separated through all the long months that have since elapsed. No messages can pass except by dangerous subterranean ways from town to town.
The requisitioning of everything from food to furniture, from farm animals to the blankets and mattresses from the beds, has been carried to such an extent that the people live on nothing, amid nothing. These requisitions in the earlier days had a more or less official seeming in that quartermaster'sbonswere given for the things taken. Even then the German sense of humor too often made thebona crude jest.False receipts for requisitioned property.Thebonswere written in the German language in German script, illegible and beyond the understanding of the simple natives. Abonmight be given for a chicken when it was a pair of horses that was taken. But later, when these jests palled on the German soldiers, the requisitioning was simplified by the omission ofbon-giving. Where the villagers and peasants had tried to save something that could be buried or concealed, the searching out of these pitiful hiding places became a great game with the German soldiers. One ingenious Frenchman had secreted a few choice bottles of wine in a famous tomb on heights above the Meuse. But thesebottles found their way to special tables at the Great Headquarters.
In the spring of 1916 the army authorities devised the plan of deporting a number of men and women from Lille and the industrial towns near it to the agricultural regions further south. These French were to work in the fields and help produce food for the German army. As a matter of fact this plan had at bottom something to recommend it. The congestion in the industrialized northern region made the food problem there very difficult. Our Commission had more trials in connection with the provisioning of the great city of Lille and the lesser but crowded towns of Valenciennes, Roubaix, and Tourcoing than with all the rest of the occupied territory. Also these people had no work to do, as the great factories were still. To come south and work in the open air in the fields and be allowed a fair ration would have been a real advantage to these people. It would also have helped in the whole food supply situation.
But the horrible methods of that deportation were such that we, although trying to hold steadfast to a rigorous neutrality, could not but protest. Mr. Gerard, our Ambassador to Berlin, happened at the very time of this protest to make a visit to the Great Headquarters in the west and the matter was brought to the attention of certain high officers at Headquarters on the very day of Mr. Gerard's visit and in his hearing. So that he added his own protest to that of Mr. Poland, our director at the time, and further deportations were stopped. ButHorrors of deportations.a terrible mischief had already been done. Husbands and fathers had been taken from their families without a word of good-bye; sons and daughters on whom perhaps aged parents relied for support were taken without pity or apparent thought of the terrible consequences. The great deportations of Belgium have shocked the world. But these lesser deportations—that is, lesser in extent, but not less brutal in their carrying out—are hardly known.
No American can fail to oppose Prussianism.
I went into Belgium and occupied France a neutral and I maintained while there a steadfastly neutral behavior. But I came out no neutral. I can not conceive that any American enjoying an experience similar to mine could have come out a neutral. He would come out, as I came, with the ineradicable conviction that a people or a government which can do what the Germans did and are doing in Belgium and France to-day must not be allowed, if there is power on earth to prevent it, to do this a moment longer than can be helped. And they must not be allowed ever to do it again.
Civilization must crush Prussian system.
I went in also a hater of war, and I came out a more ardent hater of war. But, also, I came out with the ineradicable conviction, again, that the only way in which Germany under its present rule and in its present state of mind can be kept from doing what it had done is by force of arms. It can not be prevented by appeal, concession, or treaties. Hence, ardently as I hope that all war may cease, I hope that this war may not cease until Germany realizes that the civilized world simply will not allow such horrors as those for which Germany is responsible in Belgium and France to be any longer possible.
Vernon Kellogg.
Your Government Is Willing to Send You
WITHOUT CHARGE
Any Two of the Pamphlets Listed Here with Exceptions Noted
Committee on Public Information.
(Established by Order of the President, April 14, 1917, Washington, D.C.)
Series No. 1. War Information. (Red, White and Blue Covers.)
Catalogue No.
1. How the War Came to America.
Contents: A brief introduction reviewing the policy of the United States with reference to the Monroe Doctrine, freedom of the seas, and international arbitration, developments of our policy reviewed and explained from August, 1914, to April, 1917; Appendix: the President's address to the Senate January 22, 1917, his war message to Congress April 2, 1917, his Flag Day address at Washington, June 14, 1917. 32 pages. (Translations: German, Polish, Bohemian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese. 48 pages.)NOTE.—For Numbers 2, 3 and 7 described below, a contribution is required as noted. All other booklets are free.
Contents: A brief introduction reviewing the policy of the United States with reference to the Monroe Doctrine, freedom of the seas, and international arbitration, developments of our policy reviewed and explained from August, 1914, to April, 1917; Appendix: the President's address to the Senate January 22, 1917, his war message to Congress April 2, 1917, his Flag Day address at Washington, June 14, 1917. 32 pages. (Translations: German, Polish, Bohemian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Portuguese. 48 pages.)
NOTE.—For Numbers 2, 3 and 7 described below, a contribution is required as noted. All other booklets are free.
2. National Service Handbook. (Price, 15 cents)
(A reference work for libraries, schools, clubs and other organizations.)Contents: Description of all civic and military organizations directly or indirectly connected with war work, pointing out how and where every individual can help. Maps, Army and Navy Insignia, diagrams. 246 Pages.
(A reference work for libraries, schools, clubs and other organizations.)
Contents: Description of all civic and military organizations directly or indirectly connected with war work, pointing out how and where every individual can help. Maps, Army and Navy Insignia, diagrams. 246 Pages.
3. The Battle Line of Democracy. (Price, 15 cents)
Contents: The best collection of patriotic prose and poetry. Authors and statesmen of America and all the countries now associated with us in the war have expressed the highest aspirations of their people. 134 Pages. (Price 15 cents.)
Contents: The best collection of patriotic prose and poetry. Authors and statesmen of America and all the countries now associated with us in the war have expressed the highest aspirations of their people. 134 Pages. (Price 15 cents.)
4. President's Flag Day Speech with Evidence of Germany's Plans.
Contents: The President's speech with the facts to which he alludes explained by carefully selected notes giving the proofs of German purposes and intrigues. THESE NOTES PRESENT AN OVERWHELMING ARSENAL OF FACTS, all gathered from original sources. 32 Pages.
Contents: The President's speech with the facts to which he alludes explained by carefully selected notes giving the proofs of German purposes and intrigues. THESE NOTES PRESENT AN OVERWHELMING ARSENAL OF FACTS, all gathered from original sources. 32 Pages.
5. Conquest and Kultur.
Contents: A brief introduction outlining German war aims and showing how the proofs were gathered; followed by quotations from German writers revealing the plans and purposes of Pan Germany, one chapter being devoted entirely to the German attitude toward America. The quotations are printed with title or no comment, THE EVIDENCE PILING UP PAGE AFTER PAGE, CHAPTER AFTER CHAPTER. 160 Pages.
Contents: A brief introduction outlining German war aims and showing how the proofs were gathered; followed by quotations from German writers revealing the plans and purposes of Pan Germany, one chapter being devoted entirely to the German attitude toward America. The quotations are printed with title or no comment, THE EVIDENCE PILING UP PAGE AFTER PAGE, CHAPTER AFTER CHAPTER. 160 Pages.