Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1915-08-20
Atrocities in the Scholars War.
(From the Scientific American.

NfIoHl inc oclcntl.lc Americana
Among the atrocities charged to
the German account during the pre-
sent European war are the numerous
executions of persons held as hostages
for the good behavior of the communi-
ties from which these victims we're
taken. and, again, the Wholesale kill
ing OF non-combatants in certain COM
munlties where sporadic "sniping" had
occurred. Assuming that these cases
ol vicarlous punishment have fire.
quently happened, and assuming also
that the general public views such
measures with righteous Indignation.
we cannot help fceinC that something
of the same sort, with the roles revers,
ed, has occurred in the treatment of
the so-called enemy" members of the
various scientific and technical socic-
ties.
An editorial in Il recent number of
The Engineer admits that at has al
ways been one of the boasts of science
that it did not recognize the bounda-
ries created by geographcrs or poll
ticlans, and that even differences of
race and language did not imply n
divergence of interests when the
claims of science were ut issue
which wholesome sentiment is follow
W ny OiiC VI Al III Is
thousand pities that this great tradi-
ton has been broken, but it can be
honestly said that it is not the fault
of Great Britain or her allies. The
truth is that the way in which Ger
many has chosen TO wage war, culmi-
mating in the wholesale murders which
accompanied the sinking of the Lusi-
tania,' has put her people outside the
pale of civilization, and even sane
minded engineers and clear-t thinking
scientists have realized that it is no
longer possible TO allow the nation
alities now at war with us to claim
even the kinship implied by member
ship of the same technical society,""
The same editorial urges all British
scientific and technical societies TO ex-
pei their members who are citizens of
hostile countries; as, indeed, many of
these societies have already done.
Is this reasonable? 1t is altogether
possible that the persons who could
be justly held responsible for the pre-
sent war might be counted on your
fingers-perhaps the fingers of one
hand. We are not prepared to name
them or to state their number more
definitely, but certain it is that the
average citizen of any one of the
the victim of circumstances not of his
making.
AS to German scholars, we know
that some of them have proclaimed in
tense partisan sentiments i'm regard to
the struggle; bue we feel sure there
are many others who look upon it
merely as an unspeakable nuisance,
for which German politicians and mill
tarists are at least as much TO blame a
anybody else. Surel-' in philosophical
Germany there are still philosophers
who look down from a serene height
upon the squabbles of misguided hu-
manity.
The great European war is, in fact.
senseless and infamous. Would it not
coming of the learned societies
in the belligerent countries to show
their detestation of it by ignoring it's
existence just as far as possible?
The wholesale EMULSION of "enemy"
members by the British societies is,
we believe, not only unjust and puerie,
but is also seriously inimical to the
success of the task which will pre-
sently arise of renewing those CO.
operative relations among the various
peoples of the earth upon which the
progress of knowledge is so dependent.
We are glad to learn that a more
temperate plan has been followed by
the Astronomical Society of France,
which, of its one hundred and fifty
seven enemy" members, has definite
ly expelled only one, who was sig
natory to the address "To the Civiliz-
ed World" The rest have been sus-
pended, pending action in each case,
on its own merits, to be taken after
the close of the war.