Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War, Volume 3: The Third Twelve Months of War
History
Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War, Volume 3: The Third Twelve Months of War
World War, 1914-1918 -- Caricatures and cartoons; World War, 1914-1918 -- Humor
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 caveman.
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 nor
justice, greed because it is greed.
ELLIS PARKER BUTLER.
[Illustration]
_"SOMETHING'S WRONG. SHE DOESN'T SEEM TO INSPIRE CONFIDENCE"_
* * * * *
It is Germany's "Kultur," her spiritual code, that is responsible for
America's entrance into the war; her gruesome sacrifice to Moloch of all
which distinguishes humanity from the brute and the savage. It is her
philosophy which has made us her horrified but resolute foe.
The fruits of her spirit stand forth alike in her speech and acts.
"Kultur is a spiritual organization of the world, which does not exclude
bloody savagery. It raises the daemoniac to sublimity. It is above
morality, reason, science," so wrote a Teutonic expounder in the first
year of the war. "We have become a nation of wrath; we think only of the
war. We execute God Almighty's will, and the edicts of His justice we
will fulfil, imbued with holy rage, in vengeance upon the ungodly. God
calls us to murderous battles, even if worlds should thereby fall to
ruins," so wrote one of Germany's poets. "Whoever cannot prevail upon
himself to approve from the bottom of his heart the sinking of the
_Lusitania_, whoever cannot conquer his sense of the gigantic cruelty to
unnumbered perfectly innocent victims--and give himself up to honest
delight at this victorious exploit of German defensive power--him we
judge to be no true German," so wrote one of her pastors. And for
hideous, ruthless deeds which violate every sanctity and deify falsehood
we need but cite her slaughter of children and the aged, her poisoning
of wells, her shooting of nurses, her sinking of hospital ships, her
brutal deportations and all the revolting sinuosities of her spy system.
ROBERT GRANT.
[Illustration]
_"WHEN I WAS A CHILD, IT WAS YOU WHO SAVED ME"_
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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