Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1917-06-29
DEsERTERs POUR
into HOLLAND To
ESCAPE SERVICE

a
the German army now are swelling the
stream of refugees pouring into Hol-
land from adjourning countries. Hol-
land has become great place of ref
uge for fugitives fleeing from the er
rcrs of the German front, food hard
ships or the German military regime.
So numerous have these war refugees
become that a weekly periodical, called
THE Combat" has been established at
Amsterdam to carry on revolutionary
socialist propaganda among them. A
Society of Deserters has been formed
in Holland, chiefly by German agents,
in order to discover the names of de-
serters and exert pressure on their
families to induce them to return to
Germany. Returning deserters no
longer are shot but are sent to the
front.
The country is over-runby small
army of spies, persons of both sexes
whose work is to spy into Dutch af'
fairs. to spy upon the belligerents and
sometimes to spy upon one another.
These refugees, deserters and gov
eminent agents, added to escaping
prisoners of war of virtually every
Entente nationality, fugitive Poles and
other people of Eastern Europe, fee
ing from forced labor and other evils
have swelled the immigration food
until the problem of what disposition
to make of these foreigners has be-
come acute in Holland.
There are many decent men among
the deserters who, made desperate by
the sufferings and slaughter at the
front, or rebelling against their gov
ernemnt's system, or policy. have
shaken the dust of their fatherland
from their feet Quite a number are
convalescent men who were ordered
back to the front A great number
are undesirables to whom many crimes
are attributed. Some become SNUG
glers but wholesale Punishment from
the frontier regions now virtually has
closed this profession to them. Police
control of them is very inadequate.
Proud of it's traditional hospitality
Holland opened its frontiers freely tc
all corners but public opinion and the
government have discovered that there
are formidable dangers inherent in
this aggregation of immigrants.
What might not happen, HollanderS
often ask themselves, if Holland sud
denly became involved in the wal
with all these vast numbers of for
eigners spread all over the country
many of them of the worst or at leas
OF the most doubtful character?
Infectious disease repeatedly has
been introduced. The great exodus o
Belgians brought typhus and dyson
terry; Austro-Hungarian emigrant'
from Galicia, on their way to joiI
relatives in America, and suspected
smugglers from that province, brough
smallpox; escaped prisoners-of-wa
from infected German camps and 9th
ers occasionally introduced disease
like spotted fever and meningitis. Ii
each case the disease was quick,
checked.
Now. however, smallpox has rea
hold in parts of Germany as well a
in countries farther east, and it
pointed out how easily this and othe
scourges may be brought across tn
frontier.
The Prime Minister, Cort van de
Linden, announced a few days ag
that the increased influx and the bod
ily condition of persons entering tn
country. had necessitated more drasti
sanitary measures. Barracks are to b
erected at five different points of tn
frontier, where all Germans enterin
the country, of whom the great major
litv are deserters, will be disinfecte'
while a camp is to be erected for tn
accommodation of dangers or undesil
liable elements among deserters. A
regards the national danger, the Mil
lister for War, Major-eGneral n. Bo'
boom, endeavored to reassure publ
opinion in parliament few days az
by declaring that if Holland becam
: involved in the war, it would be mao
evident that the government was ia
, more, conversant with the position
regards foreigners. and had taken ia
more adequate precautionary measu
es. than most people thought.
pNcTTcu OFETCFR PROMOTED