The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-08-13
GERMANY HARDEST HIT.

AlIlOSC oAANO CAO b wv Wa "0o>~-~'
the allies have sought to starve Ger
many into submission by an elaborate
blockade of German ports maintained
by the allied fleets. And almost since
the great war began, the blockade has
been a partial failure, very largely
due to the fact that the United States
continued to sell foodstuffs and raw
materials to the little neutrals which
surround Germany. In this way sup
plies have seeped into Germany from
Norway, Sweden, Holland, Denmark,
Switzerland and Spain.
The right thing, the logical thing,
the properly.timed thing was for this
country to shut off those supplies.
If any basis for the action was needed,
it was abundantly supplied by the
figures showing the enormous in
creases in the exports from this coun-
try to the neutrals.
+ And, singularly enough, the greatest
exports were in precisely the things
needed by Germany-food for her PEG.
pie, metals and cotton for her mum.
ton factories.
The president has now started the
machinery which will keep all these
things for ourselves and for our allies.
We will no longer supply the neutrals,
so they in turn can supply Germany.
There is every evidence that this is
one of the hardest blows struck at kai-
serism since the war began. The
headlines in German papers tell the
story: "Wilson's brutal methods in
starving Little neutrals," "Neutrals in
Wilson'S thumb-screws," "How Wilson
assaults neutrals.''
& Germany's sudden tenderness over
little neutral nations is one of the
most, grimly humorous things Of the
wahss.,e
Germany, which paid no attention
to the neutrality of Luvemburg, which
destroyed Belgium because that un-
happy land tried to preserve her neu-
trality, which has constantly bullied
supplies from Holland and Denmark,
which has compelled Norway to trade
fish for coal-this militaristic, ruth
less, kaiserthum pretends to weep
over the woes of the neutrals.
The real trouble is that the editors
see the handwriting on the wall. They
see a Germany which can no longer
depend upon meat and flour and fats
and metals and cotton being sneaked
across the borders. They see a Ger
many which will have to face the
fourth winter of the war entirely de-
pendent upon her own rapidly dimin-
ishing resources. They see a Ger.
many, which while making every ef-
fort to feed and clothe the armies at
the front, will have to take with both
hands from the scanty store of the
people back home. They see a Ger.
many in which the seeds of rebellion
and discomfort will thrive, because of
a Germany underfed, underclothed
and underheated.
If the truth were in them, they
would not weep crocodile tears over
the neutrals for whose rights they do
not care snap of the 1Inger. They
would tell the German people that
the American embargo, plus the allied
blockade means the most serious stu
alton Germany has had to face since
the war began. And their headlines
would be: wilson's brutal methods
of starving Germany" Germany in
Wilson's thumbscrew" :
But, of course, If they did that,
there might arise even in the disci-
plined, lackey minded, superior loving
Prussians. the thought that after all
the war was failure, defeat newt
able, and the time opportune to crave
from the allies the best peace terms
they would be willing to grant as
boon