"Whatever may be the motive it can not be admitted that citizens may be compelled to work directly or indirectly _for_ the enemy _against_ their brothers who are fighting. "The Convention of The Hague has consecrated this principle. "Nevertheless, the occupying power is forcing thousands of men to this monstrous extremity, which is contrary to morals and international law, both these men who have already been taken to Germany and those who to-morrow will undergo the same fate, if from the outside, from neutral Europe and the United States, no help is offered. [Sidenote: The women of Belgium have kept back their tears.] "Oh! The Belgian women have also known how to carry out their duty in the hour of danger; they have not weakened the courage of the soldiers of honor by their tears. "They have bravely given to their country those whom they loved. * * * The blood of mothers is flowing on the battle-fields. "Those who are taken away to-day do not go to perform a glorious duty. They are slaves in chains who, in a dark exile, threatened by hunger, prison, death, will be called upon to perform the most odious work--service to the enemy against the fatherland. "The mothers can not stand by while such an abomination is taking place without making their voices heard in protest. "They are not thinking of their own sufferings, their own moral torture, the abandonment and the misery in which they are to be placed with their children. [Sidenote: The rights of honor and conscience.] "They address you in the name of the inalterable rights of honor and conscience. "It has been said that women are 'all powerful suppliants.' "We have felt authorized by this saying, Mr. Minister, to extend our hands to you and to address to your country a last appeal. "We trust that in reading these lines you will feel at each word the unhappy heartbeats of the Belgian women and will find in your broad and humane sympathy imperative reasons for intervention. "Only the united will of the neutral peoples energetically expressed can counterbalance that of the German authorities. "This assistance which the neutral nations can and, therefore, ought to lend us, will it be refused to the oppressed Belgians? "Be good enough to accept, Mr. Minister, the homage of our most distinguished consideration." (Signed by a number of Belgian women and 24 societies.) The United States Government did not fail to respond to this touching appeal and to others of a similar nature. The American Embassy at Berlin promptly took up the burning question of the deportations with the Chancellor and other representatives of the German Government. In an interview with the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Grew was handed an official statement of the German plans, which is, in translation, as follows: THE GERMAN MEMORANDUM ON BELGIAN "UNEMPLOYMENT." [Sidenote: More German camouflage.]