It is said that it takes a long time to catch a lie. It depends, however, upon how many get after it and how swift and powerful they are. German lies have been counted upon as a considerable part of her fighting forces. She has spent millions of dollars and used thousands of men in this service. Is it not strange that one little, almost insignificant looking Dutchman, hardly heard of before the war, has been able almost alone to defeat the money and the men used by Germany to hoodwink the world? But this Dutchman, Louis Raemaekers, working for the _Amsterdam Telegraf_, had for years seen through German ideas and aims. He says, "Germany has never made any secret of her ideas or her intentions, She has always been frank, as selfish people often are. I have seen through the German idea for more than twenty years. A generation ago, I saw, as every one who cared to see did, what it was leading us to; in fact, Germany told us." And he adds about the German people: "There is only one way to reach the modern German. Beat him over the head. He understands nothing else. The world must go on beating him over the head until he cries 'Enough'; or the world can never live with him." Knowing Germany, and that German victory meant the loss of all that is really worth while in this world, the loss of liberty, and the destruction of any government that is what Lincoln said all governments should be, "of the people, for the people, and by the people"--Louis Raemaekers fought Germany with his pen and his brush, and fought her so well that the German government offered a large reward for him dead or alive, and a leading German writer said he had done more harm to the Prussian cause than an armed division of Allied troops. The _Cologne Gazette_, in a furious article dealing with Raemaekers, declared that after the war Germany would settle accounts with Holland and would demand payment with interest for the damage done Germany by his cartoons. [Illustration: CIVILIZATION UNDER THE LASH Taken from "Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War," by permission of The Century Company.] Some of the Dutch people feared Germany so greatly that they succeeded in bringing Raemaekers to trial for having violated the neutrality of Holland. German influence was strong in Holland, and Raemaekers was hated by many of his own people; but the better sense of the Dutch triumphed, and he was acquitted. One of his first cartoons represented Germany in the form of the Kaiser, wearing a German uniform and spiked helmet, with a foot upon the body of Luxemburg and a knee upon the prostrate form of Belgium, whom he was choking to death. He holds an uplifted sword in his hand and is saying, "This is how I deal with the small fry."