The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1915-06-01
Sinking of the LuSitania.
Memorable Statement By Gen. Lee Recalled



batants. The man who made that statement
was one of the greatest soldiers of the worId
Robert K. Lee, of Virginia. man who boS
been held by great authority to be with
Marlborough and Wellington, one of tho
three greatest English speaking generals who
have ever lived. Before Lees time and nm
to the present that dictum has held good
Unquestionably at moments when men have
been maddened, almost to the condition NJ
animals, by furious assaults, most terrible
things have happened in captured cities
The Spanish fury in Antwerp and the storm.
ing of Badajoz are cases in point But for
any nation deliberately and in cold blood
to take the lives of number of non-com-
batants for no military reason whatever has
been held to be without the bounds of civil
lied warfare.
War is hideous anomaly. The war of
Christian nations is one of the grim:nest
satires on the teaching of the New Tesla
ment. At the same time war in the past has
been carried on with a certain amount of
even stately courtesy, and everybody vii! re-
member the extraordinary scene when Count
d Autroche and Lord Charles Hay, standing,
hat in hand, at the head of the French and
British guards, each requested the other side
to fire first. The men who fought in these
wars made rules which robbed war of some
of it's brutality and among these laws were
the laws with respect to merchant shipping.
When the famous Lord DundonaId placed in
the hands of the British admiralty secret
device for destroying the enemies ships it
was put aside by that admiralty on the
ground that it was immoral, even in war.
In this way it came about that the seamen
and statesmen of past generations determin-
ed that no mercantile ship should he sunk
unless conditions absolutely necesstated it,
and that no mercantile ship should be sunk
at all until every person on board it had
been removed to place of safety. These
r,,IO n Inv ma Tyh N hErbt;
then, as now, in the moment of their coun-
try's fate. No danger threatens any belig-
erent power today such as threatened Eu-
rope when AlVa was in the Lowlands, when
Turenne and Luxembourg commanded the
armies of the grand monarque, or when
Napoleon was marching VIGOROUSLY from
Lodi to Austerlitz. During the whole of that
period, however, the spirit which animated
fighters was the spirit of Count d'Auteroche
Gentlemen of the English guard please to
fire first"
We regret that in the present war all this
tradition should have been thrown over
board by the German government, and that
there should have been introduced in its
place the doctrine of ''frightfulness." The
doctrine of 'frightfulness'' is simply the at
tempt to win by terrorism instead Of by
sheer force of arms During the months the
war has lasted we have hesitated to speak
of any of these things, and we have hest
tated because we did not wish to judge
hastily. When millions Of men are engaged
in a struggle to take one anothers lives
things are done which could hardly be spok-
en- of at other times. The suggestion of fear
or the intOXicatOn of blood communicates it
self to them, and they are moved to do the
most hideous acts through that same mes
mersm which has before now found its
voice in the awful cry of a routed army,
''SauWe-qui+peut."
When the first terrible stories of atrocities
ca14 h
improper to PREJUDICE the case. When the
destruction of Louvain and the demolition
of Rheims cathedral took place we satisfied
ourselves with recording the fact. At the
very worst, some great buildings had been
destroyed in nearly all wars. Until the war
was over and it was possible to properly
weigh the accusations involved in this act
we felt it was wiser to say nothing. When
the air raids began to take place and when
bombs were dropped on defenseless hamletS
and country towns We realized that 1t was
possible for men engaged in such Work 10
make mistakes, and though it was difficult
to see how such mistakes could keep occur
ring we still suspended Judgment When
the bombardment of fishing villages took
place by battleShips miles out at sea we
could only trust that a mistake had been
made in trying to find fortified positions.
When Germany allied herself with power
which preached the unthinkable horrors OF
holy war" we in no way associated her
with Turkey. Even when the submarine
campaign was entered upon, and the using
of poisonous gases was resOrted to, althOugh
the first of these was against all rules OF CIV
ilized warfare, and the latter contrary to the
agreement of the power indulging in 1t, we
waited for the German government to Jus,
tify it's action When the civilian P. Frye
was sunk We accepted the German state
ment of an error of judgment. When the
"Falaba" was torpedoed We agreed to the
Washington policy of not judging without
absolute evidence. The sinking of the Lu-
sitania' is morally speaking, worse tn2H
some other things which have occurred.
is that, in the most indefensible ana nloS'
defiant manner, it sums up the determine
ton of the German government to set tHe
imperial seal on .'frightfulness.