The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-11-15

What are the causes that have been drawing one Western States after an- other into the whirlpool of this terri ibIe conflict in which more than two thirds of the whole human race is now engaged?
 The ware arose out of a quarrel be- tween Russia and Austria That France. long the pledged ally of Rus- sia, should join Russia, that Germany should join her pledged ally, Austria, was easily to be explained.
 But why did first England, then Japan and later Italy, none of whom had any part in the original dispute between Russia and Austria over Ser bia, also take their place among the enemies of Germany?
 Why. did Portugal follow?
 Why has the United States also, a nation that has hitherto stood aloot from all European disputes, now ranked herself with the enemies of Germany? And why-for this is an- other equally 'momentous question why considering the enormous losses which all the nations concerned are suffering in the lives of their citizens losses which now amount to mill 21OAS OlA CdSlA oA00 eIhd 5o OAA AAASA Oe1<9- ing-why do not the hostile powers endeavor to make some sort of peace? :?
 Nothing they will gain by the War in territory or in trade can possibly compensate them for what they have already sacrificed. Yet England, France, Russia, and Italy are as de- tormined as ever to persevere with a war which has inflicted awful suffer tngs upon all of them, and in joining them, the United States of America, the impartial because the distant and detached judge of Europe, the very power which lately suggested negotia- tions for peace, now by throwing her weight ,on the side of the Allies ex- presses her approval of their deter imitation.
 The answer to these questions is simple.
 It is to be found in the conduct of the German government at the begin aing of and during the war, and par- sicularlyin the methods by which ac-
 Ilal warfare has been carried on by her.
 There was at the beginning of the var much controversy as to which of
 he powers was or were responsible Or causing it; and the circumstances which we in England hold to be de- cisive and conclusive as to the respon- sibility of the two Central Powers are still denied by those powers. But about the facts of Germany's conduct at the very beginning of hostilities and in their subsequent course there is no controversy, no doubt possible.
 They are all admitted. some of them are even gloried in, by the German government.
 It invaded a peaceful neutral state, whose neutrality Germany had guar arteed. It offered no defence and no excuse for it's action except it's own military advantage. This the German Chancellor admitted, owning that it was a wrong, a breach of international law. The German armies entered Belgium, massacred thousands of in- nocent Belgian civilians, entitled by international law t6 be protected as non-combatants, doing this in order to strike terror into the Belgian popu- lation and so prevent attacks upon their troops.
 When their armies entered France, their military authorities similarly put to death large numbers of French non- -combatant civilians, and permit ted shocking outrages. upon French women.
 Their naval authorities then pro- ceeded to sink, by submarine torpe- does, merchant ships carrying hun dreds of civilian passengers, many o1 ithem subjects of neutral states. Twelve hundred thus perished in the vesse called the stLusitania' two hundred of whom were American citizens. This also was a thing never done in wal S<- I,xy frnfa "a tiopa1 law.
 | After promising the Americans to desist from this form of war cruelty | they lately told the American govern ment they would resume it, and with | in the last two months many merchant and passenger vessels have been thus | sunk without warning, neutral ship: as well as those of be11igerents, ane
 many of their passengers and crew drowned. es,4't Even hospital ships, carrying: tht wounded and the sick, with their doc tors and nurses, have been thus des troyed.
 l In Belgium and France, as well al
 in Poland, the German officers have carried off many thousands of work CTS, men and women, and forced then to work in slavery, sometimes in theil war factories, sometimes in making Notifications to be used against tht 1 Belgian fcrces themselves This alst
 is strictly prohibited by internationa
 law.
 l So, too, is the poisoning of wells, s'
 is the useless destruction of propert. and historic monuments, yet the re treating German armies both il
 France and in Africa have commit ted these offences, and have ever tried to spread infectious disease famong their enemies.
 And all the world knows the prev iiously unheard of severity with whicl Ithe German government has treated it's prisoners.
 l What does such warfare as thl mean for mankind?
 | Tn old times war was conducted
 with great harshness. Little disttnc ton was made between regular armie 'l and the civil population. Fifteen hun
 dred years ago captives were ens1aV ed and axyaz, fIraa hl1ndred years aRt