Loading your reading…

"1683-1920": The Fourteen Points and What Became of Them—Foreign Propaganda in the Public Schools—Rewriting the History of the United States—The Espionage Act and How It Worked—"Illegal and Indefensible Blockade" of the Central Powers—1,000,000 Victims of Starvation—Our Debt to France and to Germany—The War Vote in Congress—Truth About the Belgian Atrocities—Our Treaty with Germany and How Observed—The Alien Property Custodianship—Secret Will of Cecil Rhodes—Racial Strains in American Life—GermaSchrader, Frederick Franklin

History

"1683-1920": The Fourteen Points and What Became of Them—Foreign Propaganda in the Public Schools—Rewriting the History of the United States—The Espionage Act and How It Worked—"Illegal and Indefensible Blockade" of the Central Powers—1,000,000 Victims of Starvation—Our Debt to France and to Germany—The War Vote in Congress—Truth About the Belgian Atrocities—Our Treaty with Germany and How Observed—The Alien Property Custodianship—Secret Will of Cecil Rhodes—Racial Strains in American Life—Germa

Schrader, Frederick Franklin

Germans -- United States; World War, 1914-1918 -- Miscellanea

Approaching this subject in accordance with this idea, we
    should classify the stories of mutilations, violations of
    women, killing of women and children, etc., as belonging
    in the category chargeable against individuals of reckless
    and criminal character, who when opportunity offers, will
    gratify their lawless passions. The stories of individual
    atrocities in Belgium, which have shocked the world, we
    found difficult to verify. While it is probable that such
    atrocities were occasionally committed, I personally came
    in contact with no instance of that character during my
    travels about Belgium; nor did I discuss this subject with
    any person who had himself come in contact with such an
    instance.

    In my opinion the verdict of history upon the conduct of
    the German army in Belgium will give little heed to these
    horrifying stories of individual crime.

Testimony along the same line is furnished by Father Duffy, chaplain
of the 165th Infantry; the War Refugee Committee in London, George
Bernard Shaw, General Pershing, General March and many others of
equal standing, and furnishes an array of evidence that is strangely
opposed to that of Mrs. Harjes, the wife of the partner of J. P.
Morgan, that she personally saw Belgian children with their hands
cut off, and of Cardinal Mercier, who stirred the heart of humanity
when he declared that “forty-nine Belgian priests were tortured and
put to death by the Germans during the occupation.” It is a matter
of record, however, that General Bissig, Governor General of Belgium
during the occupation, forbade the Belgians to keep song birds that
had been bereft of their eyes to make them sing better. The order
concludes: “The wilful blinding of birds is an act of cruelty which I
cannot under any circumstances tolerate.”

Five reputable American correspondents on September 6, 1914,
after tracing the German army in its invasion of 100 miles, sent
a message to the American people that “we are unable to report a
single instance (of atrocities) unprovoked.... Everywhere we have
seen Germans paying for purchases and respecting property rights as
well as according civilians every consideration.... To the truth
of these statements we pledge our professional and personal word.”
The statement was signed by James O’Donnell Bennett and John T.
McCutcheon, of the Chicago “Tribune;” Roger Lewis, of the Associated
Press; Irvin S. Cobb, of the “Saturday Evening Post,” and Harry
Hansen, of the Chicago “Daily News.”

No reviews yet