During a most intimate and personal conversation with a banker, this German, the other day, explained his people's atrocities by saying that what is barbarism and atrocities to England, France or the United States is not barbarism at all to the Germans. In proof of this astounding statement the German gave this personal incident of his boyhood. He said that in his gymnasium there was another boy who had something that he wanted. When the opportunity came, being the stronger, he jumped upon the other boy, beat him up terribly and made him a cripple for life. On reaching his home he showed his parents what he had stolen, and he was patted on the back, praised for his might with his fists, and told that that was the method he was to follow in after life. He insisted that this sort of thing was drilled into every German boy, and for that reason it never once even occurred to him that he had done wrong. "After I became a man I settled in America, and as I came to understand the spirit of American civilization it grew upon me that I had committed a crime, and now for twenty-two years, as some atonement for my sin, I have been supporting that crippled man and his widowed mother." The modern banker has become a sort of confessor, and to the banker many sins are revealed as once to the priest. Nothing is more significant than this German confession and his philosophy of the German atrocity. In his own written letter concerning that crime of his boyhood this German adds: "Had I remained in Germany no one would ever have thought of suggesting to me that I had done wrong, and it would never have entered into my head that I was under any obligation to the man I had maimed. In the light of American civilization I understand the difference, and I am seeking to atone for my sin, but all Germans have been taught, as I was taught. The Germans, therefore, in their campaign of frightfulness, are committing deeds which from the view-point of American civilization are barbarous, but from the view-point of Germans are not crimes at all."