The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1915-06-18
N. v. DITTLINCER
WRITES OF WAR
FROM GERMANY
Former Cape Man Says Teu-
tons Cannot be Starved
by the Allies.
SOLDIERS TILLING
SOIL IN BELGIUM
In Letter to- Tribune He SAYS
Wheat Flour is Given Sick
and Soldiers.

int ITlbuHe Is JUST III receipt OF
letter from an old Cape citizen, N. V.
Dittlinger, who is Familiarity known to
the industrial trades of Missouri and
the Southwest.
T Mr.. Dittlinger was born in Cape Cir
ardeau and is brother of Mrs. Otto
Eckhart and A. Dittlinger, prominent
residents of this city.
Mr.. Dittlinger moved from Missouri
to Texas, and was one of the found
ers of the Dittlinger Lime Works in
New Braumfels, Tex. A few years
ago he closed out his business in Am
erica and sailed to Europe and has
since spent the greater part of his
time in Germany. The following let
ter has been recently received:
Berlin-C harlottenburg, May 20
Tribune:
| sent you a card, but owing to the
war picture on it, | suppose you did
not get it, fo- it wasn't very compli-
mentary to the warning nations who
are against Germany.
I want to thank you from the bot
tom of my heart for the sending of
your paper to me. 1t certainly con-
tains snappy good stuff all the time,
and especially now is like balsam on
wound for me during these hard and
cruel times. You can't realize how
much l appreciate your paper, espe
cially just now, where one don't get
much news from the United States.
This was is worse than Sherman's
saying about war-it's not only A.
but damnation ,besides-only one can't
tell yet to a certainty which nation
it Will be. The United States, with
its Y. NJ. c. A administration is per-
petrating upon itself an irreparable
crime by permitting manufacturers to
furnish munitions of war, thereby en-
abling France and Russia to continue,
while, on the other hand they would
have cried enough long ago, for they
are the ones who are losing so eX-
tremely in life and property. Our adj
ministration wears its pants out at the
knees praying the war may end soon,
and on the other hand, are the indirect
cause Of this awful. suffering being
continued Consistency in this ease is
really the virtue of fools.
England started out with the idea
that they would sit back and let
France and Russia exhaust themselves
in order to xiii their future competi-
ton and at the same time Germany
and Austria would be so completely
crippled that she then would be the
GlpTeme power Of the world. She eX-
pected to accomplish all this without
making any sacrifices herself; she
played them all against each other an!
wanted to stand by and do little moro
than to say, sick 'em Tige." She has
a beautiful plan mapped out to starvc
Germany into submission, but her cal
culation has miscarried completely;
thanks to the thorOughness of the Ger
man Agrarian Association here. 1t
has taken the question of food supply
for the nation in hand, and you would
be surprised to see how perfectly
everything works. There IS no such
thing, as lot of spectators taking
hold of any article of food and corner
ing the market on same. The govern
ment ascertains how much is on hand
in the country and then fixes maxi
mum price above which it can not he
retailed for. The only article which is
liable to fail short here before another
crop is made might be wheat flour,
therefore the precaution has been
taken that every we'll person ,GusC eat
black bread, and is allowed ration
of four pounds per weck-no more, nor
less. The wheat flour is reserved for
the sick, of which there are many, es-
pecially the wounded.
The black or so-calleG az" bread is
made of part rye and part potato flour
and is very nourishing, but a little
hard to digest, and when an American
is compelled 10 eat it, as have been
compelled to do since February 1, l
can assure you he soon learns to sing
Home, Sweet Home" to perfection,
even if he don't know one note from
another. l would love to write YOU
something about the real war, some
real facts as they exist, not false
hoods, such as l see are published in
the leading papers of the United
States. When the true facts are re-
corded in history about this war
it will look quite different to the
American nation from what it does,
now. The fact that we permitted Eng |
land to engage the Japs to enter into