The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1917-09-20
THE PROOF.

Rev Newell Dwight Hills, pastor OF
the plymouth church at Brooklyn, N.
Y. has returned from a visit to France
and Belgium where he was sent as
delegate by the American Bankers AS
sociatiOn to ascertain exactly what
truth there is to the statements con-
corning German atrocities. The Rev
ercnd has begun a series OF six lee
lures and will tell just what he learn
ed. He has secured thousands OF pho
tographs showing how the German
soldiers killed old men and defense
less women in Belgium and in part
of France. He learned from eye wit
nesses how the Kaiser's soldiers mu-
tilated their captives in ways that can
be spoken of by men only in whispers
and violated little girls until they
were dead. Finding a calfskin placed
on a barn door to dry, they nailed a
babe beside it and wrote beneath the
word "Zwei," meaning two, he says.
He produced a portion of a diary TAX
en- from dead German soldier in
which he related seeing a woman COW
cred with blood with her breasts cut
off. She was delirious. DR.. Hills
further says:
"In Gerbeviller, standing beside
their graves, l studied the photo
graphs of the bodies of Is old men
whom the Germans lined up and shot
because there were no young soldiers
to kill; heard the detailed story of a
woman whose boy of IA, being nearest
the age of a soldier, was first hanged
to a pear tree in the garden, and when
the officer and soldier had left him
and were busy setting fire to the next
house, she cut the rope, revived the
strangled boy only to find the soldiers
had returned, and while the officer
held her hands behind her back, his
assistant poured petrol on the boy s
head and clothes, set fire to him, and
while staggering about, flaming
torch. they shrieked with laughter.
When they had burned all the
houses and retreated the next morn
ing, the project of Lorraine reached
that Gethsemane and photographed
the bodies of 80 aged men lying as
they fell, the bodies of women strip
ped and at last slain.
In the village stood the ruined
square belfry into which the Germans
had lifted machine guns, then forced
every woman and child, ETA in mum.
Der, into the little church and notified
the French soldiers that if they fired
upon the machine guns, they would
kill their own women and children
After several days hunger and thirst
at midnight these brave women slip
ped little boy through the church
window and babe their husbands fire
upon the Germans in the belfry, say
ing they preferred death to the indig
mites they were suffering. And sc
these Frenchmen turned their guns
and in blowing those machine guns
out of the belfry killed 20 of theil
own wives and children.
''In hundred years of history
where shall you find a record of any
other race, who call themselves civil
lized, who are such sneaking towards
that they could not fight like men o.
play the game fairly, but in their chat
tering terror put women and little
children before them as shield?'
All this was undoubtedly done I'm
der the direction from the high Ger
man authorities who sought to pu
such fear into the hearts Of the foe
that they might pray for an early
peace. This brutality undoubtedly is