TaÌˆgliche Omaha tribuÌˆne. [volume] (Omaha, Nebr.) 1912-1926, 1917-02-05
ENGLAND \ GERMANY LIKE NATIONS GONE MAD.

1t may be madness, we may not approve, but we should at last en-
deavor to understand Germany and Great Britain are like two naton
gone mad, intent upon slaughtering warriors and noncombatants alike
regardless Of rules and rights Of neutrals. Whether that Strengthening is
done by the slow process of starvation or semi-tarvaion, according to the
disputed rules of International law or by the illegal method of ruthless sub
marine retaliation is, in the end, the same to those who are hungry. The
latter, however, strikes us.
In answer to that the Germans point to the mental picture of the
mother and child whinpering for food, and say to US, you don't have Il
get in the way Keep away. With us it is grim necessity, not choice
Your women and children are not crying for food
would you do otherwise? Would you regard disputed rules il ti
existence Of the United States were at stake? Is there one American who
would stop at anything to preserve his country, to keep his mother, wife
or child from death or lifelong ia-health through starvation?
"And If others whom you have no intention, no desire to harm, unnec
cessaray get in the way and Intentionally or umenionauy had the efee
would you refuse to fight further, and accept a foreign yoke? i ask woule
you as an American with country, mother, wife, child, at stake?
HUNGRY STOMACH HAS NO FINE LEGAL CONSCIENCE.
That is the psychology of the German mind and the German masses
to-day as I have learned to know it during the two and a half years Of
war. These questions have been put to me time and again. I am not de-
Tending it. but merely trying to explain it to those who tell me the Ger
mans have gone mad. We may condemn it, but we also understand it
A hungry stomach has not a very fine legal conscience. There is often
a wide degree of privations, Of under-nourishment Of actual suffering
between enough to get along on" and actual starvation.
The German is proud There are few beggars in Germany. He will
not readily admit that he is hungry And the Germans to-day prefer say
ing their cause is just" rather than to give the British any satisfaction
that might be in mOtvatng any act on the ground Of stern necessity
Germany did not come to her decision lightly Long has she hesitated
between America and her own people One must have been among the
German people to have talked with all classes, as ] have, to know how they
have dreaded the hour that might mean a break with America, perhaps
add the United States as a active enemy to the large number already
against her.
They knew that America was already the ally Of the Entente in The
matter Of finances and munitions and war matrials-that America. in
which almost every family in Germany has relatives or friends. The Ger
man peoples, the plain, simple masses, never have been able to grasp that
They knew that international law sanctions that attitude to their enc
my. It was legal. After the first months of bitterness they accepted It,
with resignation to tae inevitable and unalterabe.
The bitterness turned into sorrow and the sorrow into grief. And stu
they did not want the United States as an active enemy. EspeciaIy was
that feeling strong in the Socialist working classes "We have enoupb
enemies" I have heard again and again.