The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1915-05-14

Inasmuch as The Messenger does not,
commonly. essay to print other than
local news, it may be enlightening for
us to state that the following item
taken from current metropolitan press
dispatches, refers to the sinking of the
great ocean liner Lusitania, which was
torpedoed by German submarine off
the coast of Ireland, last week, with a
loss of life totaling more than 1900.
No immediate warning was given the
officers of the doomed ship. there was
no opportunity for escape, and among
the innocent, non-combatant victims
who went down to death in the dark,
cold waters, almost within sight of
shore, were 125 American citizens and
hundreds of women and children. The
dispatch referred to, in depicting scenes
in the morgue at Queenstown, Ireland,
said:
"Germany's war toll has fallen heav-
lily not only on her admitted enemies
but on many subjects Of neutral ma
tions. In the morgue are two little
children, babies, clasped tightly in each
others arms, united in death. Mothers
clasp tightly to their still forms their
Understanding babies-that they chung
to despairingly as the undertow from
the sinking liner carried them down to
death in the cold waters of the ocean
at the very entrance to st. Georges
channel when they felt certain that in
a few hours they would greet their
loved ones,"
Now, then, sweeping aside all the
artificial sophistries, pro and con, that
would qualify the sinking of this ship
according to the rules Of so-called civil
lied warfare, considering it only in its
naked horror, looking upon it with the
eyes of humanity, it was simply hell
ishly diabolic. 1t will matter not to
the average mind, trained to regard the
defenceless with consideration and the
weakness of women and children with
chivalry, what the fine spun theories of
experts on international law may be,
they will regard that power that stole
out into the highways of commerce and
sent this unarmed ship and its vast
burthen of helpless non-combatant wo-
men and children to their doom, with
out one chance of escape, with scarcely
time for an appeal to divine mercy, as
murderers whose fiendishness stands
absolutely without parallel in the an
nails of civilization. No exigency Of war
can justify measures so diabolically
ferocious and no man, with a mans
soul, could participate in such slaughter
and thereafter endure the conscious
ness of his own depravity. Like Mac
beth. he would be constrained to say,
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash
this stain clean from my hand? No,
rather this, my hand, will the multitud-
nous seas incarnadine, making the
green one red" And yet, we cannot
conceive in our heart that the German
people, admirable as we know them to
be in many respects, could authorize or
approve this horrid massacre that
hencefortl ~ Nero. Caligula
and Lucretia D0 p the devilish
theysnaVl Been accorded
corded as the arch 6ends of all human
history. We are rather inclined to at
tribute it to the imperialistic and mill
tary system which is dominant in that
which today threatens civili-
cation with extinction or servitude, and
will not endure long enough. though
It lasts thousand years, which God
forbid, to outlive the infamy attached
TO the sinking of the Lusitania.