New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-08
The Hun


The announcement that an American
medical officer has been murdered and
three others wounded in a German air at
tack upon an American hospital on the
French coast will surprise American peo-
ple merely because distance has so far
served to supplement their faith in human
nature and make it impossible for them to
believe that even Germans would do the
things they have been charged with doing
Yet there is nothing new in this German
attack upon a hospital far removed from
the scene of operations. 1t is only few
DAYS ago that German planes attacked
an American hospital at Vaudelaincourt
behind Verdun. and murdered hospital
nurses and killed and wounded number
Of soldiers already wounded on the battle
field. Yesterday came news that the at
tack had been repeated. The truth is that
this is the sort of thing the German does.
He rapes women, tortures old men, MUIR
6ers children, burns villages, enslaves
populations. attacks hospitals, because in
the German mind this is method of max
ing war which promises profit to the Ger
man cause.
The reason why all talk of peace is fu-
tile and sometimes approaches sin is that
II is impossible for men and women to live
at peace with a people who do the things
that Germans do. The Canadian people
Lesitated to believe the French and British
accounts of German atrocities until Cana
dian soldiers reported that some of their
wounded had been crucifed before Ypres.
The British troops hesitated to believe
what French rumors told and Belgian re-
norris asserted with reference to German
methods of making war until British SOL
diers occupied districts in France that had
been held by Germans-until they saw
what Germans had done to the women and
children and the old men of the districts
of Artois and Flanders.
We had our first contact with the Ger
man method in the Lusitania. We have not
vet had sufficient contact to supply Amer
lean evidence to the mass of the Amerl-
can people. That is coming. We have thou
sands of American soldiers in Europe,
and we shall have many more thousands.
Their letters will go to every corner Of the
United States, and these letters from the
men at the front and in touch with the
German will serve to educate the people Of
the United States as to the kind Of thing
the German is in the world of to-day.
The British call the German Hun. The
\. French call him Boche. Both names are
the expression of the mingled horror and
contempt Of a civilized people in presence
Of the barbarism of people who do the
sort of thing the German does. To the
Frenchman a Boche is kind of animal
who does things that the German has done
in all the defenceless villages of the North
of France. To the Englishman a Hun
means a kind Of beast who does the things
that have been done in Flanders and in
Artois under the eyes of the British SOL
ders.
We in the United States are going to
know the German as he is presently. The
voices which now clamor for peace with
reconciliation will fall to silence when the
Germans have murdered enough of our
women nurses and our men physicians and
tortured enough of our soldiers to create
in America the kind of conviction that sim
liar methods have created in France and
in England The difficulty in the Ameri-
can case has been one of bringing nome
to the mass of the common people far
removed from Europe the plain fact of
what the German was doing. To them the
war remained remote struggle between
nations. It will not long remain remote
struggle now that the Germans have taken
to numbering Americans, now that they
have taken to making war upon our hos
pitfalls, now that they have adopted toward
us the tactics Of terribleness familiar to
all the big and little nations Of Europe. 1t
will not be long now until every American
voice is raised in support Of war which
strikes at this German peril.
It is hard not TO be passionate. 1t is
IL - bo oalro Union THINGS are done like