New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-12-06
A NIGHT WHEN THE FATE OF THE
CITY WAS IN THE BALANCE.

to his Belgian hostages that night, we would
hate TO destroy any part OF your beautiful city,
but you know what we might have 10 do
The influential men Of Brussels went from
corner 70 corner, haranguing the mobs, beg
giag the people to 60 home, assuring them that
the Germans had not reiterated The police
cleared all the public squares. The Germans
trained three machine guns on the Place dc la
Station. The garrison slept that night on its
arms. Along toward midnight an incident oe-
Cured which might have set of the spark
German officer came back to his hotel very
drunk, and shot up" the lobby with his auto
matte pistol. Fortunately. by that hour the
populace had gone to bed Had it happened
four hours earlier this tiny break in discipline
would probably have precipitatcd the riot
small thing to bring slaughter, burnings and
reprisals, but, then, the immediate cause OF
this whole war was police case
That, it turned out was to be the climax OF
fears for Brussels; somehow she has avoided
ever since such disaster as affected poor Lou
vain But the unemployed are still there, hud
ding in the slums and tenements OF Brussels
as they huddle in every tenement and every
farmhouse of poor Belgium. Only they have
grown much hungrier, much less hopeful.
much - ore duled and deadened; the spirit for
rio osrhaps, is not in them. Only the hnal
desperation OF hunger will bring it out.
THE BLIGHT UPON THE EUROPEAN
PEOPLES
OF course this war is horrible beyond any
previous conception have had OF war. anc
the heaped up trenches of the dead. the human
wreckage in the base hospitals, the epic SUI
ferings Of the men in the line do not comprise
all its horrors. Worse, 10 any man Of sympa-
thetic spirit, is the blight OF misery over the
European peoples whom the army has LEFT
behind. But there is still nobility left in wal
even such brutal, wholesale, mechanical war
as this. There was a kind of exutation in the
way the Begians dismissed the thought OF
their own losses. II reminded one OF the spirit
which the Californians showed after their COM
paratively minute disaster in San Francisco.
There il wasn't etiquette for a man TO men
ton that he was ruined. So, too, with Bel
GUM. The people wouldn't talk on that sub
ject farmer who spoke some English sat
near his doorway near Aries and spoke with
me-candidly and cautiously-on the war.
II suppose it will be a hard winter for you
here" l said.
"Oh. certainly" said he, and turned the
subject to matters which interested him more
my news from Mons. But / came back to
the subject and held him to it, brutally.
Il expect starvation" / said. Certainly"
he replied my crop is gone. So are my cat
tie. There's only little grain in town.
have two sons in the army"-and he went on
talking Of his sons, obvous to his own hun
CRY future.
NOBODY WINES IN BELGIUM.
THOUGH STARVATION is IN SIGHT.
Belgian gentleman concerned in getting
food for the people, has been doing heroic ser
vice for the American Commission for the Re
lief of Belgium. The German authorities let
him visit London in order to help the work.
Six months ago this man was a real indus
trial factor His business radiated from Bel
GUM all over the world. One day, he said, as
mere parenthesis in sentence, "of course.
my business is ruined forever" and he con-
tinued to set his mind to the problem Of get
ting -four ships through the canal. He men,
of property and influence. such as ! was last
July" were waiting in line with laborers and
mechanics to get one bun day from the mu-
nicipal authorities.
You see Belgium has run the logical course
of the loser in this war; only : has run il
faster. When the confiagration started
said, in our folly: 1T can't last long. Il is
going to cost s5oo0o,000 day. There isn't
enough money in the world to keep it running
more than few months" We overlooked the
obvious fact that money is merely the. me-
dunn Of exchange. We have found since that
the problem Of struggling through will resolve
itself in the later stages into this: Have we
the food to keep our people alive; have we
the raw material to make the necessities of
war" In the later stages money is no good
Belgium has nearly reached that later stage;
she will probably reach it absolutely by Christ
mas. Industry stopped. whereupon only the
and the saving had any money.
Then came the stage when even money would
not purchase food. because the food was not
there. shipwrecked crew, wrecked on a
sandbar. would have no use for a million dol
lars; II would get them no food.
Belgium is the ssndbar Money is rapidly
becoming no good. The six or seven million
people left inside her borders are going to
starve, rich and poor alike, unless the unaf-
ficted part of the world, and mainly America.
sends food, food and more food The respon-
sblity for the state Of affairs does not mat
ter. A hungry stomach knows no politics, and