The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1917-06-21
.U.BoAr WAR IS MURDER.
Day by Day American Official Has
Seen Graveyards on Irish Hill
side Filled With Victims 4
of German Barbarism.

q " XII ~
Washington, June 14.-"The cut
marine war grows more barbarols .,
cry day. It has now reached Id
plane of deliberate murder for ever
ship sunk and will so continue to tn
end 1t is not the fault of thu Ger
mans that every torpedo does nc
produce Lusitania massacre"
That is the kaiser's unrestricte
warfare in the words OF the man VIII,
probably knows more about the hui
man side of the sea tragedy than an,
other American.
He is Wesley Frost, American con
sui at Queenstown, the port on tn
southwestern coast of Ireland where
all the Atlantic ocean lanes to Brit
ain come together. Off the shore.
of Queenstown the thousands o.
ships which feed Britain pass da,
and night.
| Frost is in Washington for rest
For more than two years he has beer
in attendance at the funerals of mer-
chant ships struck down by the un-
der water terror. 1t has been his
task to collect the evidence as to six
ty-five sinkings in which Americans
were imperilled or slaughtered. He
has seen the cemeteries on the Irish
hillsides dotted with fresh mounds.
He has heard the shrieks of mothers
for their murdered babies; seen men
stark mad with the tortures of hun
ger and thirst, brought in from days
and nights in foodless lifeboats.
1t is with difficulty that he can be
induced to talk, but when he does. the
full throated indignation of this clean
cut young American is almost terrible
in its intensity.
"The German guilt is double" said
Frost today. "In the first place, no
civilized government would have re-
sorted to such methods, even when it
was sinking ships occasionally with
out numbering non-combatants. Now
that the arming of American mer-
chant ships and the effectiveness of
the patrol makes it impossible for
the submarines to risk giving warn
ing. they would drop it if they were
white
Now that the submarines have been
driven to attack ships submerged-us-
ing the torpedo almost exclusively
the murder roll is bound to grow,
Frost explained. Most ships when
struck by torpedo 60 down in two
or three minutes, which gives no OPP
portunity of escape to those below
decks.
The submarines are now so fearful
OF exposing themselves to deck guns
of slowly sinking ships that they sell
dom come up to question the escap-
ing crews of passenger ships. Out of
six passenger ships sinkings investi-
gated by him this happened in only
one case-that of the Laconia, which
was sunk near midnight.
Hideous as this assassination from
ambush is, it does not equal the wan
ton crimes committed in the days be-
fore ruthless" warfare-when the
submarines came to the surface and
attacked with gunfire.
The warning given in these cases
vas simply the beginning of the at
ack, and sailors were often killed by {
he warning shots, Frost said. This =,
sort of warning was given only to
ave the expensive torpedoes-worth {
y 900 apiece-of which submarine
AN carry only few. When the ship
rave signs of surrender the firing (
stopped and a boarding
,arty from the submarine destroyed {
Ter with bombs. The crew took to {
heir boats. Unless picked up they
we're left to certain death by starva- {
ion or drowning, as these attacks +
ook place one hundred and fifty and !
wo hundred miles off shore. I,
In only one case did the submarine a
'ffer to assist the victims by towing !
heir boats toward the land. The :
of these crews who were 7
licked up by patrol boats were terri 2
lie. Many of them were never picked I
p. the men probably went mad and I
capped into the sea. The case of the e
British freighter with a. 9
rev of sixteen men, five of whom :
'ere Americans, the Germans delib- z
rately Quilted the lifeboat and threw =
he provisions which the men had n
laced in the boat into the sea,
mptied the water keg of fresh wat i
+, and. to make their job complete,
lied it with salt water. The boats .
ais were taken off and that was :
ractically the only hope of gettingi
, land if the wind were favorable.
he was attacked one hundred and !.
fly miles out at sea- p
While the Germans were indulgingi :.
/ these pfanksL with the lifeboat . s
Dmbing party was wreeking the ship 4
I'd the men were kept standing Oh .,
le deck of the Submarine. The Gerxt Z
an eyfficefa searrhed them MosA7se