Amid a national rejoicing, a waving of flags and ringing of bells, such as are evoked by a great national festival, the Germans celebrated the _Lusitania_ murders--the entire nation suddenly slumping into a barbarism worse than that of their ancestral Huns. The Hun was again triumphant, gloating over his unspeakable crimes, his plunders and piracies, his orgies of crime and lust--a spectacle to make the Genius of Humanity veil her face and weep tears of blood. It is a comfort to know that the Allies have killed or rendered harmless several million of these modern barbarians, and that many of their carcases have gone to enrich the soil of France and Belgium. In this way a dead Hun may help to undo some of the evil which a living Hun has wrought. If two or three of their bodies could be planted in every shell hole which their guns have made in France and Belgium, though the inoffensive soil might sicken, yet in the course of years the poison of the Hun would disappear, rendered innocuous by the beneficient alchemy of Nature. JOHN BURROUGHS. _Tryon, N. C. February 12, 1918._ [Illustration] _Restitution and Reparation_ It is with good reason the Prussian covers the thick bone of his head with a helmet, for into it ideas of right and justice can only be battered with a club. The tough, club-resisting helmet is the arch-symbol of Prussianism. From its earliest days Prussia has taught its neighbors the Prussian theory of right and justice by means of a club. When the Prussian wishes to educate his neighbors to an appreciation of Prussian ethics he puts on his helmet, picks up a club and slugs the neighbor on the head. The Prussian theory of right and justice is this: “What is mine is mine. What is yours is also mine if I want it.” This idea is deep buried beneath the thick bone of the Prussian head. He holds it with stolid stupidity and deep, prehistoric crudity, like a pig or an idiot. He cannot understand that there are any rights higher than Prussian greed. “If I want it, it is mine because I want it.” It is the logic of the primitive human animal, the cave-man. Cornered and accused of his thefts he clings to his loot like the pig that has stolen a carrot. When asked to disgorge he is shocked by the suggestion. “But they are mine! I wanted them, so they are mine!” he says. Right and Justice answer, “They are not yours; you stole them.” “Maybe so!” says the Prussian. “But just the same they are mine--I stole them a long time ago.” The logic of the Prussian fills ten thousand volumes. It is written in hundred-line paragraphs and six-inch words. It can be condensed into two short words--piggish greed: piggish because it knows neither right or justice, greed because it is greed. ELLIS PARKER BUTLER. [Illustration] _The Only Possible Position for Traitors_