Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1916-12-16
DEPORTATION IS
RAPED BY TEDDY
Hct Letter From Roosevelt
Read at Protest Meeting in
New York Friday.
GERMANS WRONG u. S. TOO
Former President Declares u.
S. Never Had to Stand Such
Treatment Before.
GERMANS WRONG U. S. TOO

NEW YORK, Dec. ia letter
from col. Theodore Roosevelt was
read tonight AT the meeting to protest
Niinst the Helgian deportations. He
dec!ared that Germany has trampled
under foot every device of interna-
uonal law for securing the protection
of the weak and the unOffending "and
has shown an utter disregard for all
conditions of pity, mercy. humanity
and International morality"
"Gernany's campaign OF methodi-
cally organized atrocities against the
unhappy Belgian people has culmi-
mated in the tlansplanting of more
than "A hundred thousand Belgian men
into "A condition of state slavery in
Germany. where their labor is to be
FUSED to gtd the conquest of their fell
low countrymcn," the letter said.
similar transplantings OF civilian
noncombatants, both men and women,
into slavery in Germany have already
occurred in northern France.
Wrongs To 4. :.
"The Outragcs committed on our
own people have been such as the
United States never before has been
forced TO endure and have included
the repeated killing of our men, wom-
en- and children. The sinking of the Ma
rlna and the thcmung with the at
tcndant murder of six Americans was
but the most recent in an unbroken
chain of injuries and insults which by
comparison make mere wrong to our
property interests sink into lnsignifi-
cance.
AS long as neutrals keep silent or
speak apologetically or take refuge in
the utilities of the professional pacif-
lists there will be no cessation in these
hrutalties. But surely this last and
crowning brutality which amounts to
the imposition of a cruel form of state
slavery on a helpless and unoffending
conquered nation must make our peo-
pie realize that they peril their own
souls, that they degrade their own
manhood If they do not bear emphatic
testimony against the preparation of
such iniquity.'
ChOatc Protests, Too.
Joseph II. Choate also wrote a let
Ter which was read tonight at the
meeting
The secretary of state says that
the United States government has eN-
hausted its means of diplomacy Mr..
Choate wrote. and therefore lays the
case before American public opinion
from which II will expect to draw
guidance for the next steps II any be
taken. | do not agree to that view |
do not believe we are bound to con-
tinue diplomatic relations with "A ma
ton that shall persist in such brutal
outrages"
Alton b. Parker declared that the
protest was ION behalf of helpless
humanity outraged anew by return
To methods abandoned hundreds OF
years ago and not revived even in the
most savage of the late contests in
which men have been engaged.
Looks To Future.
This country, he said, had ".oined
the whole world in abolishing slavery
of men because they were black and
now we join the whole world in pro-
test against return to this condition
of white men, long after il has been
abandoned for all men,
The treatment Of the Belgians. he
said. is the one urgent world question
of the day and the advance or the de-
icat of armies rhas tar less influence
upon the future of the world than this
one problem.