The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1917-12-20
CRUELTY CALLED
'EMANAT|ON OF
HIGH KULTUR'
General Won Bissing's Defense OF
German War Practices Is
Significant.
INNOCENT NOT TO Be SPARED
Governor General Of Belgium Declared
They Must Suffer With the Guilty
Irwin Cobb Tells Of Respon-
sIblIity Of kalser's High
Command.

The Committee on Public Informa.
tIon, appointed by the president, and
consisting Of the secretary Of state,
secretary Of war, secretary OF the
navy, and George creel, official censor,
has made public mass Of evidence
dealing with German war practices
which shows the kaiscr's leaders In the
field and In command Of captured
points to be directly responsible for
the beastliness which has character
lied the operations Of the "Huns," In
The present conflict. Quotations from
the pamphlet follow:
This interview was reproduced In
the Berllner Tageblatt Of November
20. 1914
Mr.. +. G. Walcott OF the Belgian re-
lief commission tells in the Geograph-
ical Magazine for May, 1917, Of meet
Ing Gen Won Bernhard:
"As ! walked out, Gen. Won Bern
hardl came into the room, an expert
artllleryman. professor in one Of
their war colleges. | met him the
next morning, and he asked me II |
had read his book, Germany In the
Next War
~ said had. He said: DO you
know. my friends nearly ran me ont
OF the country for thatT They said,
'You have let the cat out of the bag.
said, no. have not. because nobody
will believe It. What did you think
OF ltT
81 said, General. did not believe n
word Of II when read II. but now
feel that you did not tell the whole
TRUTH and the old general looked
actually pleased"
Speaking on August 90. 1914. at
Munster. of the extreme measures
which the Germans felt obliged to take
against the civil population OF Bel
gium. Cen Won Kissing said:
"1he innocent must suffer with the
srullfv. In the repression Of
fnfamy, human lives cannot be spared,
md II Isolated houses. fiourishing VII
lagos. and evcA entire towns are ami
hi'ated. that Is nssuredly regrettable,
but It must not excite ill-tlmed sent-
mentality. All this must not In our
eyes weigh ms much as the life Of a
single one OF our brave soldiers-the
rigorous accomplishment Of duty is the
amanation of high kultur, and In
that. the population Of the enemy
countries can learn lesson from our
army"
officers Encouraged Atrocities.
Gen. von Kissing after his appoint
ment as governor general Of Belgium,
repeated in substance the above opin-
ion to n Dutch journalist. The inter-
view is published in the Dusseldorfer
Anzelger of December 8, 1914
Irwin s. Cobb states his conclusions
on the responsibility Of the higher Ger
man command for the atrocities:
"But was an eyewitness to crimes
which. measured by the standards OF
humanity and civilization. impressed
me as worse than any individual ex-
cess, any Individual Outrage. could
ever have been or can ever be; be-
cause these crimes indubltably were
fnstlgated on wholesale basis by or
der of officers OF rank, and must have
been carried out under their personal
supervision, direction, and approval.
Briefly. what saw was this: ! saw
wide areas Of Belgium and France In
which not a penny's worth of wanton
destruction had been permitted to oc'
cur, In which the ripe pears hung un'
touched upon the garden walls; and
saw other wide areas where scarcely
one stone had been left to stand upon
another; where the fields were raw
aged; where the male villagers had
been shot In squads; where the mlser
able survivors had been left to den ID
holes. like wild beasts.
taking the physical evidence offer
cd before our own eyes. and huttress
ing II with the statements made to us
not only by natives, but German sol
dlers and German officers, we coult
reach but one conclusion, which wa'
that here. in such and such place
those 10 command had said to th'
troops: Spare this town and thes'
people And there they had said
waste this town and shoot these peo
ple.' And here the troops had discrlm
inately spared, and there they had In
discriminatory wasted, In exact nc
eordance with the word Of their supe