The saddest result of the Ruhr occupation is the flood of newspaper stories, cartoons, and editorials in every European country, directed against the abuse of military power in the relations of the army of occupation with the civilian population of the Ruhr. An invading army invariably gets itself involved in difficulties, and goes from one doubtful proceeding to another. That is in the nature of the thing. Public opinion hates abuses of military power and verdicts of court martials, no matter how great the provocation or how just the cause of prosecution. The moral indignation of the world was a powerful factor against Germany during the World War; and within the same decade as the Marne and Verdun it is tragic to see in the most reputable newspapers of Stockholm, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Rome, and London, over the signature of bishops, university professors, journalists, and historians, stories like the following, which I have taken from the London “Observer” of May 6, 1923. Thousands of innocent persons lie in the gaols, closely crowded together, six or ten in a single cell, often without separation of the sexes--gray civil servants put in with criminals, woman officials (e. g., five from the Wiesbaden post office) with prostitutes; often punished by withdrawal of food for days together and always under the control of Moroccan warders. Many have waited for months without examination, being left entirely ignorant of the reason of their arrest; others have been condemned to years of captivity or forced labor ... and all this invariably without preliminary trial, by administrative order, for no crime but that of “criticizing” the administration, or at most of obeying the orders of the German Government instead of those of French military authorities.... It is thus that, among many other examples, the Traffic Inspector Gottfried of Ludwigshafen was carried off to twenty years’ captivity in the French colonial mines. Of course our minds go back to the days of the World War when the Germans did things of this kind, and we might argue that it is natural and just for their civilian population to have a taste of what their military authorities inflicted upon French and Belgian civilians. But during the war we flattered ourselves that we were better than the Germans and would not have stooped, had we been in their place, to make war upon the weak and unarmed. It is more than a question of ethics. It is a question of weakening the excellent case we had against the Germans by dragging ourselves down to their level. Right-minded men the world over intensely abhorred the German abuses of military power in Belgium and Northern France. It is permitted therefore for warm friends and admirers of France to question the wisdom of a policy that lays the French army open to charges of abuse of power, vandalism, brutality, and unjust verdicts of courts martial. No matter how great the provocation, the impression is always bad.