Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-10-01

Hon. Harold NJ. Sewall of Bath. has
received an almost unbelievable letter
from a responsible and trusted friend
of long standing in Europe. 1t i'm
pressed upon Mr.. Sewall certain of
the wars horrors SO forcefully that he
believed that all Americans should
share the knowledge which had come
to him from reliable sources. He &C
cordingly sent the letter with his en-
dorsement to The New York Sun,
which, after some elaboration, de-
cided to publish it. Below we are
giving The Suns editorial, Mr.. Sewalrs
letter and the letter of his friend, Mr..
Howard COPELAND, who was employed
by the American embassy in London
in the work of bringing Americans
away from Paris:
"Copland's Letter to SewaIl."
After serious consideration, The Sun
has decided to print and to print con-
spieuously, the revolving story related by
Mr.. Howard COPELAND to his friend, Mr..
Harold NJ Sewail, of Maine. and by Mr..
Sewall, forwarded to us with the letter
pretiXed, and with the further private re-
mark, Il know of no man whose testi-
mony is worthy of greater credence.
Mr.. COPELAND was employed officially
~
bringing Americans away from Paris.
MIR. Sewall, who certihes unreservedly to
the trustworthiness of Mr.. Copland's
testimony is, as many of our readers
know, man not only of honorable repu-
tation, but also of keen intelligence and
large worldly experience. He has served
the American government as Vice-Consul
at Liverpool, as Consul-General in Sa-
moa at the time of the memorable crisis
there. as attache of the commission
which negotiated the Berlin treaty in 1889,
and as the United States Minister to Ha
wall who received the transfer of the SOW
ereignty of the islands and afterward act
ed as our Governments special agent I'M
til the territorial organization was COM
plete He is a lawyer and a diplomat;
| about the last person either to be de-
ceived as to the veraeitv of q friend or
| to be moved in his own person to unnec-
| essary excitement over doubtful tale.
The persistence of these reports alleg-
| ing the inhumanity and even the I'M
Speakable bestiality of some of the Ger
man soldiers who passed through Bel
GUM has left many Americans perplexed-
| They do not know what to believe. The
charges, such as those brought here by
| the Belgian commissioners, are often
| specific. The official denals have been
mere generalities of denial, and could not
well be anything else. The exculpatory
statement signed by some of the Ameri-
| can newspaper correspondents, which we
| printed a week or more ago, was negative
| in its character and signified nothing one
| way or the other. The charges and coun-
ter charges put forth by the press bu-
reaus of the several belligerents are
printed In the current news for what
they are worth; they are at least labelled
with the tag of national interest.
| From private sources, mainly British,
we are constantly receiving reports of
atrocities on the part of the Germans and
we are as constantly declining to utter
| them because they are either vague and
unverifiable or because they are plainly
prompted by war hatreds, or again be-
cause they lack the guarantee of names
known to us to be responsible.
| In this instance we have the shocking
| statements repeated by neutral Ameri-
can who heard them from eye-witnesses;
who was led to credit them against his
own previous ideas of what was posi-
BILE; whose responsibility is sufficiently
guaranteed and who has no partisan mo-
tive that we can imagine for putting
| falsely on any of the governments now
at war the shame of such misdeeds.
We accordingly regard the letter of
Howard COPELAND to exMinister Sewan as
one which it is proper for The Sun to
print exactly as It was written; and we
submit it to the attention of Germany
representatives here, in order that 1t may
be put to the test of truth primarily for
the sake of that great nation herself.