New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-30
Speak, MIR. President!

Mr.Wison is contemplating the dispatch Of
a protest to Germany against the deporta-
ton Of the Belgians is true. 1t hopes that
such dispatch will be sent by the Presl-
dent. first. because Of the little influence
that it may possibly have in Berlin, and,
second. because Of the lasting value 1t Will
have for our own country in the eyes OF
the civilized
What Germany has done in Belgium will
constitute an enduring memory of shame
unequalled in two centuries Of modern his
tory What Germany is doing is fur
Their extension Of the most shameful policy
that any nation has pursued since war
came to be regulated in some measure by
the conventions Of humanity and common
decency.
Those who criticse Mr.. Wilson for his
silence in the first hours of the Belgian
invasion criticise him for a failure TO do
what few Americans even thought should
be done in that time when all the meas
ures Of international communication were
swept away by the sudden world calamity.
To-day many Americans regret that the
voice of the United States was not heard
in the hour when the gray clad troops OF
Won Emmich began their march of death
across the neutral territory of Belgium
But fair-mnded Americans equally rec
ognize that il was something that it would
be unreasonable to expect from Presi-
dent appalled, and overwhelmed like them
selves by the sudden and terrible outburst
of war.
1t is not unlikely that those who come
hereafter and see things with calmer
vision will acquit President Wilson of any
real blame for his failure to speak in Au
gust, 1914; they will regret, but they will
not blame that America, ignorant of world
affairs and European conditions, which
stood silent and dumbstricken before the
terrible opening acts of the conflict.
But will they forgive the President or
the nation if it remains silent now, when
all is known, understood, comprehended,
when the slave-driver who goes his rounds
in the Belgian provinces is visible to the
American people, when the last thin dis
guise of political and military necessity
has been stripped from the German act
and it stands forth undetended and indie
feasible, the act of brute, the act of
race deaf to all that makes for humanity,
decency, justice in this world of ours?
The Tribune believes that the voice of
Mr.. Wilson, spoken now for Belgium,
would be heard round the world, that it
Il Loar I he
voice of Oliver Cromwell speaking for the
Vaudos victims of another tyranny and
another violence. The Tribune believes
that the Presidents voice would be call
to arms for his fellow countrymen, not,
indeed, TO war, but 10 the moral support
of the Belgian sufferers.
There is nothing left for Germany to
do in Belgium. She has destroyed the lib
erty Of the people. She has crushed
through the fact and the fiction of Belgian
neutrality. She has transformed the sa-
cred pledges that guaranteed Belgian neu-
trality into scraps of paper. She has
burned the cities, murdered the civilians,
violated the women, massacred the chill
dren. to insure her military purposes and
attain her strategic ends.
When these strategic ends were accom-
plished she plundered the people, she
robbed their banks, she seized their scanty
savings and Communicated their slender
reserves of food. She made them depend
ent upon the bounty of the neutrals for
mere existence; she made their living a re-
L r -
neutral states All that tyranny, brutal
ity, bestiality could do save one thing,
she had done before the present hour.
Now the final blow has fallen. Men,
women and children have been transformed
into slaves and the able-bodied men have
been driven from the villages TO work in
German factories as the oldtime slave
drivers raided the villages of Africa and
carried away their victims in chain gangs.
20 be sold TO their own profit and gain
What few men, the vilest Of their race
and time. did in Darkest Africa the Ger
man Government il now doing in Belgium
doing II deliberately, openly, shamelessly
There is no longer question of neu-
trality, there is no longer question of the
observation Of the attitude prescribed for
non-combatant nations. Here is no ques-
ton of war, Of international practice or
custom. Here is only the naked question
Of common humanity. The men and
women, yes. and the children, whom the
Germans are prosecuting are in the COM
mon conception Of Christianity our breth-
rem, and the eloquent appeal of Roman
Catholic Cardinal awakens equal response
in the hearts Of men of all religions and
Of all classes.
Not in the spirit Of partisanship, not in
the spirit OF anger or criticism, not 20
embarrass. to create difficulties or erect
barriers in his way. but only as Ameri.