There undoubtedly were, though I did not happen to see them, numerous cases of unprovoked cruelty and other evidences of barbarity that are bound to happen in any war of invasion. The fact that I, personally, did not happen to see them, and have found scarcely a non-partisan observer who did, is neither here nor there. I merely state the fact as one of the many bits of evidence which should be taken into consideration. I have no case for Prussian militarism in so far as applied to inanimate objects. The German system of destruction in the early part of the war was utterly without excuse or justification; the wreck and desolation, the hunger and suffering of the larger portion of Belgium are utterly beyond the comprehension of those who have not been there. Certainly words cannot convey the impression. The suffering, particularly during the weeks following the fall of Antwerp, was so awful and on so large a scale that the senses refused to grasp it. It has been said that in the Civil War Sheridan was commanded, in pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, to leave the countryside in such condition that a crow could not live on it. A sparrow could not have existed in many parts of Belgium. At the same time it is true that because of the tortures endured by the Belgian people, because of the pain and horror of the war of invasion, much of it unavoidable, the American public, because its sentiment is so strongly anti-German, has been willing to believe anything of the race against whom runs its prejudice. Truly remarkable is the rapidity with which atrocity stories have been created and the relish with which they are swallowed by drawing-room gossips. Those who have seen the war do not find it necessary to talk about what does not exist. Mr. Arthur Ruhl, who has seen and carefully studied all sides of the war, applies the term "nursery tale" to the average atrocity story. Mr. Irvin Cobb, John T. McCutcheon, and others who have been on the ground also took them with a grain of salt. Curiously enough, the closer one got to the actual fight, the less bitter was the feeling between participants, the greater their respect for one another, and the less credulous their belief in the enemy's barbarity. An American who was recently discharged from seven months' service with the British army tells me that during this time the only knowledge he had of personal atrocities was through the British and French newspapers. And there are well-known stories of opposing trenches so closely situated that the soldiers taught each other their respective national airs, and the choruses of their camp tunes. To return to another form of alleged outrage, we have the ancient argument on the case of Rheims.