Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-12-10
GERMAN WAR
PRACTICES GONE
OVER IN REVIEW
Kaiser Indicted With Most
Horrible Inhumanities Civ
ilization Has Ever Seen

Some OF the blacklist pages in all
history, comprising documentary
record of deeds that make one de-
spair of the future of the human
race" are found in a book named
German War Practices" which has
Just been issued at the Government
Printing ofGce by the Committee on
Public Information for free distribu-
ton. 1t is edited by Prof. D. C. Mum
ro, Of Princeton, and other scholars.
The dumfounding evidence which
this book presents to the jury of
mankind is drawn mainly from Ger
man and American sources, and in
cludes official proclamations and ut
terances of the responsible heads of
the Imperial German government, let
ters and diaries Of German soldiers.
quotations from German newspapers,
and material drawn from the archives
of the State Department which lay
bare the story Of inconceivable Ger
man atrocities.
The purpose of the book is to show
that the system of frightfulness, it
self the greatest atrocity, is the def
mite policy of the German govern
ment, so sinister that German SOL
diers have themselves at times re-
volted. Individual acts OF wanton
cruelty and barbaric destruction are
cited only to illustrate the operation
of the remorseless system.
The book supplements the Bryce
report which was tho official eI1rVaV
of the path of horror, ruin and death
left by the German army on the lands
of innocent and defenseless people.
The book is supplemental also to the
official reports by the Belgian Com
mission and the French Minister of
Foreign Affairs, and it reveals more
of the damning German war philoso-
ply as expressed in the German
White Book and various official ut
terances, extenuating revolving crimes
on the grounds of expediency and
the advancement of the "Kultur"
which now mocks it's name through
out the entire civilized world. The
humanity of German soldiers was so
torn by the system of brutality that
they cried out in letters to Ambassa-
dor Gerard, one expressing his pro-
test against the slaughter of the Rus
slams in the Masurian lakes and
swamps by saying, There is no God
there is no morality, and no ethics
any more; there are no human beings
any more, but only beasts"
Overwhelmed With Horrors
The illuminating reports of Brand
Whitlock, minister of Belgium, tell of
miseries inflicted upon the Belgian
people. Mr.. Whitlock saying: "One is
so overwhelmed with the horror of
the thing itself, that it has been, and
even now is difficult to write calmly
and justly about it,"
Herbert Hoover, writing for this
book of his experiences in Belgium,
says: "The sight of the destroyed
homes and cities, the widowed and
fatherless, the destitute, the physical
misery of the people but partially
nourished at best, the deportation of
men by tens of thousands to slavery
in German mines and factories, the
execution of men and women for pal
try effusions of their loyalty to their
country, the sacklng of every re-
source through financial robbery, the
fattening of armies on the slender
produce of the country, the denuda-
tion of the country of cattle, horses
and textiles; all these things we had
to witness, dumb to help other than
by protest and sympathy. during this
long and terrible time, and still these
are not the events of battle heat, but
the effects of grinding heel of a
race demanding the mastership of the
world. All these things are known
to the world-but what can never be
known is the dumb agony of the
people, the expressionless faces of
millions whose souls have passed the
whole gamut of emotions. And why?
Because these, free and democratic
people, dared plunge their bodies be-
fore the march of autocracy."
Frederick c. Walcott's description
of devastated Poland comprehends
the monstrous woes inflicted by the
Prussian system upon those defense
less people.
In a statement prepared for the
book, Vernon kellogg said: "T went
into Belgium and occupied France
and I maintained while there
u steadfastly neutral behavior, but /
came out no neutral / went
in also a hater of war, but came out
a more ardent hater of war; but, also
I came out with ineradicable convic-
tion, again, that the only way in
which Germany under its present rule
and its present state of mind can be
kept from doing what it has done is
by force of arms.
The books gives excerpts from
the diaries of German soldiers of
which these are specimens: I'm the
night of August 1919 the village of
was punished for hav-
ing fired on German soldiers by being
burnt to the ground by the German