The issue was clearly drawn between liberty and tyranny. The Germans were now the Bourbons, the Allied Powers were the true descendants of Lafayette and Washington. The land of Lafayette lay next to the Menace and her fair breast had been the first to bear the scars of war. The land of Washington, however, lay far across the Atlantic, and one of her guiding principles had been to avoid taking part in the affairs of Europe. Some of her sons, loving Lafayette’s country for what she meant to the world, volunteered in the French army, joined the French flying corps, worked in the hospital service; but the great republic across the sea proclaimed herself a neutral, although the hopes of her people lay on the side of France and England. But Germany knew no law, either that of Christ or man. The Sermon on the Mount, the merciful provisions of the Hague Conventions, might never have been given to the world as far as she was concerned. See what some of her writers, men supposedly human, dared to say. “Might is right and ... is decided by war. Every youth who enters a beer-drinking and dueling club will receive the true direction of his life. War in itself is a good thing. God will see to it that war always recurs. The efforts directed toward the abolition of war must not only be termed foolish, but absolutely immoral. The peace of Europe is only a secondary matter for us. The sight of suffering does one good; the infliction of suffering does one more good. This war must be conducted as ruthlessly as possible.” And another German said, “They call us barbarians. What of it? The German claim must be: ... Education to hate.... Organization of hatred.... Education to the desire for hatred. Let us abolish unripe and false shame.... To us is given faith, hope, and hatred; but hatred is the greatest among them.” This was indeed a strange religion for a nation that was supposed to have heard of the Sermon on the Mount; a religion that might have been made by Satan himself, with hate for its foundation instead of love. Yet this was the German religion; if any one dare to deny that the words of these writers truly represent Germany let him look at Germany’s acts, let him think of the treatment of Belgium, the bombing of unprotected cities and towns, the enslavement of women and children, the destruction of hospital ships and of Red Cross camps, the murder of Edith Cavell, the sinking of the _Lusitania_! The submarine captain who fired the torpedo that sank the _Lusitania_ was a true son of Germany. He sent non-combatants to their death in the sea as ruthlessly as might a demon of darkness. There was no humanity in him, nor in those who commanded the deed. But there is no act of evil that does not bear its own just consequences. The innocent men, women and children who went down with the _Lusitania_ called forth the hate of the world on the Huns, and set America on fire with indignation. For every victim there Germany was to pay a thousandfold in time.