The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-09-10


other was just gasping out his life
The four other sailors were all
wretchedly wounded. These inoffen-
s!Ve workingmen were slaughtered
while trying frantically to do any
thing the submarine wanted.
l can name you case after case
where a harmless sailing ship has
heaved to and signalled obedience,
like a small dog that turns over on
his back and holds up his paws, and
then has been mercilessly raked with
shrapnel till 1t was a CHASTITY inferno
of blood. Whenever the submarines
dared to do so they treated steam
ships in the same way.
Attempt To Seek Safety Fatal.
Any attempt to seek safety seems
to awake the homicidal mania in the
submarines. On a dismal February
day, / saw the dismembered frag-
ments of the captain of the Anglo
Californian carried ashore in a gun
nybag, and the mutilated corpses of
eight Of his men. Their crime con-
sisted in having tried to run away
from destruction! In the Eavestone
case, the submarine deliberately
turned it's gun upon the life-boats
when they were we'll away from their
sinking ship, and shot down the cap
tain and four men. And, so in the
Rowanmore case, and others.
Drown Victims From Sub Deck.
When the firing failed to produce
murder, owing to distance or to the
roughness of the sea, the submarines
show their cowardly spite by COM
hitting other denominations. They
seized a life-boat Of the CairnhilI
and placed its nineteen men On the
submarines deck. They then threw
overheard from the life boat the
food. water, sails, and finally the
bandana handkerchiefs full OF little
treasures the simple hearted seamen
sought to save. To point their
hideous joke, they even filed the
watercask with salt water. The de-
scription reminded one of the Ioath-
some tomfoolery of a troop of play
full Ourang- outang grillas. When
they returned to the submarine they
went below and submerged instant
ly, leaving our boys floCndering in a
stormy sea, $50 miles from land, with
no refuge but that Quilted life-boat
Take Pictures Of Victims.
This submergence trick has been
done repeatedly Then there was
the case in which the submarine off,
GERS amused themselves by taking
to send home to their
sweethearts while twelve men were
drowning, and in another an Ameri-
can merchant officer was taken back
on board and made to touch off the
bombs which destroyed his own YES
sci.
Remember, I am making none of
these statements idly. They were all
sworn to before me by our
fellow citizens in the name of ALI
mighty God. and / know them to be
the naked truth.
Often heroic actions by the victims
occurred. While the Saxonian was
being shelled a young Pennsylvania
sailor reached the ladder to the boats
at the same time with the boatswain;
and although shots were whistling
them he stepped CALAMITY
aside and let the elder man go first.
When they were both on the ladder
a shell burst behind them and killed
the boatswatn instantly, while our
brave American boy escaped with
only a few painful wounds. This
hero's name is James Weygand; and
never did Mrs. FrosC and visit a
hospital bedside more gladly than
his.
Now turn to the cases where no
is given but where these
craven monsters creep up and as
sassinate a ship without the faintest
premonition. The probability is al
ways in such cases that the ship
sinks like a death-trap, almost at
one carrying most or many of her
marines to death by suffocation be-
meath the waves.
The Bandon was torpedoed on
black winter night, and sank in six
ty seconds, so. that out of thirty-two
men, only four lived to tell this tale.
The Vedamore sank in five minutes,
losing half of her crew of fifty; and
there are scores, If not hundreds of
cases where ships have. sunk in less
than ten minutes. The mate of the
Biserta, with his arm broken, told
me how she sank in two minutes,
and out of his twenty-six comrades
only eight were left on the surface.
The ship was split clean in two, so
that the bow and stern doubled
toward each other like a jackknife,
and sank like a rock. When no
warning is given therefore, torpe-
doing Is tantamount to cold-b looded
Submarines Can Give Warnfna,
You may say that the submarine
1are not give warning, for fear 1t
might be fired upon: but in many
Eases the vessels have neither gun
nor wireless, and the weather condi-
lions are such that the submarine
IAN observe this perfectly we'll. Yet,
t deliberately chooses the stroke in
silence like a dagger in the back.
Why, even a rattesnake signs before
t strikes.
A feature of these MEANINGLESS
are the boiler explosions
which occur in one case out of two
md beget horrors worse than shrap-
1els. / saw a magnificent Scotch
chief engineer from the Salmo fright
fully scalded about the head and
.orso, so that he died in agony at the
Queenstown hospital. Time after
lime, / listened to these engine-room
stories of the most sickening char
lcteF, where fine men, often Ameri-
cans, were blown into ribbons. or
boiled to death in live steam.
The Lucilline. carrying naphtha,
was struck without warning at 2
o'clock at night; and her crew
stumbled on deck into dazzling moon
light only to be overcome by the
laphtha fumes, so that fourteen of
them persisted miserably. Another
ship, a horse transport was torpedoed
Jour times in succession, the torpe-
ices exploding among the lifeboats
which were being taken to. Could
be imagined more unmanly
and inhuman?
Say War Is Not Cricket.
The Germans may say sneeringly
that war is not like cricket: but /
retoFt that the German war is not
even like football. II is conducted
IN cynical contempt Of even the low
est standards OF human beings!
Now when the submarine has
its dastardly work, where
does II leave such victims as survive
the Smelling and the laundering?
Tossed in tiny boats at the mercy Of
the most cruel ocean In the world!
Two, three, and even four hundred
miles out upon the boundIess wastes
49, a a. -