New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-08
Why They Do 1t

American people as TO the meaning OF
what the Germans have done and are
doing in Northern France. The devasta-
ton and destruction Of property and of
lives are not incidents of war. They are
not mainly directed TO achieve certain
strategic results. They are the ultimate
expression Of scientific barbarism and of
savage calculation.
The German professors, the German
publicsts and the German soldiers long
ago warned US Of what they intended to
do when once more German armies en-
tered France. From Bernhard up or
down the scale, as one may care to express
it, there was the same declaration that
France was so to be dealt with that she
should never again cross the German path.
The German attack upon France has
failed to destroy France. The German in
vading armies are already retreating, but
the present policy of the German soldiers
is so to destroy France as to leave open a
pathway for later invasion and so to Grip
pie France that she may not be able TO
recover her strength before Germany is
again ready TO attack.
1t is not TO the present but TO the future
that the destruction in France is now
directed. The Germans are not turning
Northern France into desert merely or
primarily to impede the advance of vic
torious Allied armies. They are endeav-
oring to cripple France for half century
at the least, TO prevent another such re-
covery from war as France had in 1870.
They are deliberately, nrethodically, leu
tonically laying waste the fields, destroy
ing the trees, dynamiting the mines, wreck
ing the canals, in the hope and with the in
tent that France shall never again recover.
The policy of determination with regard
TO the populations Of the invaded districts
has been carried forward from the begin
ming of the invasion. At first we had
murder, then starvation, then that slavery
which cost thousands of lives and will
leave a permanent mark upon the health
of at least one generation of French wom-
en- and children of the invaded district.
We have had German ruthlessness de-
signed to intimidate population for the
period of the war and for the purposes of
the campaign, but it is necessary to rec
ognize that the present ruthlessness is
directed to the future, is designed perma-
nently to weaken nation whose conquest
by arms has been beyond the German
power in the present war. Germany ex-
poets TO bleed France as white as possible
in this war and TO attack her again as
soon as possible.
We are now in the presence of one of
! the supreme atrocities of human history
the deliberate effort to murder a nation
the effort TO destroy the women and chill
dren, TO obliterate every piece of machin-
cry incident 10 human life and industrial
progress. We are seeing a ruthless scien-
= tific barbarism writing its handiwork over
what was once the fairest corner Of
n Europe.
Every monument of the French past
within the German grasp or within the
reach Of German artillery is being de-
stroyed. Every factory has been Quilted
of its machinery, every little detail in the
farm life Of the peasant turned into ruin.
Everything that could possibly contribute
TO destroying not the present but the fut-
ure Of France has been done.
Let us recognize scientific barbarism for
what it is worth. Let US recognize that
there is for this spirit no answer save that
of defeat; no peace by negotiation now
will protect the world from a new recur-
renee Of German invasion, and it is only
when there is set forth within the German
frontiers a lasting evidence of what Ger
man methods lead to that we shall have
an assurance Of no future repetition in the
world of what we are now seeing.
The German people must pay in kind for
the ruin Of the French villages and the
French cities. There must be returned to
the French manufacturing districts that
machinery stolen out of France. There
must be returned 70 the little people and