The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1917-11-02
GERMAN VENOM
IS HEAPED ON
YOUNG SINGER
MOSCOW FRIENDS LEARN OF THE
BARBAROUS TREATMENT OF
AN ARTIST
VICTIM OF BARBAR|TY
REACHES HOME A PHYSICAL
WRECK AFTER RUNNING THE
HUN GAUNTLET

Moscow friends have called attention
to the case of Edmund M. Knudson
of Minneapolis, who as a wonderfully
gifted boy singer was well known to
number now living in Moscow who
J watched his career with intense in
terest
The story of the infamies heaped
+, upon this boy in Germany where he
went to complete his musical educa-
tion makes the blood boil even at this
distance. 1t is graphically told by
Tribune. 1t is a matter of sincere
regret that the story is too long to
reproduce in full-it gives such a
clear insight into the German system
of barbarity that it would be a good
antidote for much of the poison scat
tered abroad by pro-Germans and
pacifsts in this country.
Success as a Singer
Edmund X. Knudson of Minneapolis
is the American boy | saw. He has
not been fighting in France; he has
been singing opera in Germany-as
leading baritone at the municipal opera
house in Barmen. How he was re-
garded by the people of this West
phalian manufacturing town of 200,
600 population is indicated by his
statement, that the last time he sang
Escamillo in Carmen" there the aud
ience made him repeat the Toreador
success in Barmen that he had secur-
ed five-year contract as leading bari
tone at the Royal Opera house in
Wiesbaden, to start at an annual sal
ary of 10000 marks and guaranteed
a yearly increase until it should
reach 100000
Today he is a hollow-eyed patient
in the River Pines Sanitorium for
tuberculosis at Stevens Point, Wis.
His health was shattered by inhuman
treatment received at the hands of
the German military system, and af-
ter in credible neglect and delay fol-
lowing his arrest and imprisonment |
upon charge of which he was abso-
lutely innocent, he was helped back |
by friends to America to die; his |
health gone, his career gone and his .
magnificent voice gone perhaps for
ever
Thrown Into Prison
After telling of his career and much
about the conditions in Germany as
the war with the United States ap-
preached and of his inability to get
out of Germany and back to America.
Mr.. Knudson tells of the "turnip riot
in Barmen. He was an innocent by
stander in the crowd when he was ar
rested and thrown into prison. Of
his prison experience he says:
Instead of being taken before any
body to explain my case, which could
easily have been ended by the testi- :
nony of the intendant of the opera
house, | was thrown into prison in an
unfinished barracks, which was abso-
utely without heating apparatus OF
any kind; and this was the middle of
he coldest winter that Germany had
known for years. | was there for two
weeks, with no chance to 'c6mmun- +
cate with my friends, with no pro-
ection from the cold and damp and
With insufficient and horrible food;
essence instead of coffee, a little war
bread and a sort of thin, soupy goul-
lsh stuff which was served up twice
tyAday and in which a chemist might
lave found faint traces of meat.
"I had practically disappeared from
,iew; no one knew where I was, and l
ould not communicate. I had no ex- 4
ra clothing and no bedding but cou-
lie of thin, much-used and filthy
blankets. Two weeks of that finished
ne. 1 had cold when went in and
was a wreck when l came out. 1t
S only by Gods mercy that I am /
live today; no one thought I could I
ver reach France, much less America ]
gain.
Innocent Prisoners Sentenced {
"In the meantime other prisoners, {
10 more guilty than I was, were hav-
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