The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-09-10

Just what numbers Of hardy sea-
men perish miserably when deserted
by the iron sharks we have no means
of knowing; but we know they are
large from the scores of instances
in which only one or two boats reach
land to tell how they separated from
comrades who are never heard from.
The Towergate was sunk in a roar
ing tempest two hundred miles of
the Blasquet Islands, west of Ireland
in March and saw the single boat
load of survivors five days later at
Limerick. Emaciated, hollow cheek
ed, unshaved, their clothing hanging
disheveled about them, they told in
hoarse whispers of the others who
had quit the wreck with them and
who were by that time derelfct
corpses halfway to the ocean bed.
They themselves had struggled lion
heartedly for three days and three
nights against the gale, and on the
fourth day, when in sight Of land,
had fallen spent and hopeless in their
boat, trusting to that Providence
which did in fact eventually rescue
them.
A case which stands out in my
memory was that of the Marina, a
horse transport, attacked in a No
vember hurricane. Two boats laden
with American muleteers, fought the
wild elements for thirty-six hours.
After nightfall on the second day
they found themselves. driving be-
fore a bowling wind into the rocky
bay of Ballinskelligs. the most no.
toriously cruel of the Irish fjords.
Their last red flares strove to pierce
the spindrift at 10 o'clock. Their
doom seemed sealed. But at IL
nwFf gh
miralty tug which had been search
ing through the storm nosed it's way
between them and the raving surf
not a quar1~S of mile off, and lifted
the exhausted young men, now weak
as infants, out of the very jaws of
an awful death.
All honor, say I, to the gallant and
interchangeable British navy, which
night and day. year in and year out,
has been intrepidly hunting down
these jackals of the sea. Britain's
pride in her seamen has been a thou
sand times we'll won by a fearless
skill and hardihood which shed hon.
or upon all mankind!
FraiI Boats Are Abandoned.
Here, again, could give you
catalog of arresting instances in
which the Germans abandoned frail
life boats to the fury of the elements
far from land. l could picture to you
the aged skipper of the Galgorm
Castle, with his brave wife by his
side, praying fervently and fighting
earnestly through a night and day of
demoniac tempest from which his
other life-boat never survived.
could tell you OF the crippled Fell
tria, whose boatsmen throughout the
night tried to shelter themselves in
the sinking vessels lee, and in the
morning found but twenty men re-
naming out of seventy three. could
describe the icy tempest which smote
a life-boat of the Ainsdale so that
in ten hours one-fifth of its occu-
pants were frozen dead.
But you will not catch the full
infamy of this German practice of
deserving open boats until you hear
that in countless instances the sub
marines refused, land that with base
mockery), the pleas Of these life
boats for towage. After destroying q
Belgian relief ship, for example, the
submarine savagely denied a prayer
for towage which it could have given
with ease and safety-and as a re-
suit a ships officer died from ex-
posture. In only one of my cases did
the Germans tow life-boats toward
land and then they submerged
without warning. leaving the life
boats to cut their towrope in the
nick of time to escape being drawn
down into the depths.
Submarine Is Permanent.
Now, before taking up the pas
senger cases. let me say that / do
not for a moment deny that the
submarine will have a prominent
place in the ornaments of all ma
tons; but what / do say. and what
/ hope l am proving to you. is that
in the hands of white men it win be
far less abominable than the Huns
have made it. Do you think that an
American submarine will ever rake
with shell fire a helpless boat that
has surrendered and sought mercy?
Can you believe that bur U-boats
will ever torpedo without warning an
unarmed vessel which they could
easily give time to get its life boats
out? Will Yankee sailors ever de-
liberately follow a. ship until night
fall to enhance the awfulness Of its
destruction? Can you imagine white
men denying with jeers to tow to-
ward land tiny boats adrift alone,
hundreds of miles out at sea?
The thing is unthinkable. And IL
you are asked precisely what Ger
many's submarine guilt consists of,
remember these four points. The
facts / have given simply mean that
the inhuman Prussian policy of
Schrecklichkeit, abandoned in F1and-
ers at the shudder of protest from
a. nauseated world, is still in rank
and poisonous bloom on the lonely
waters of the sea, where the prin-
cipal witness is the silent but un-
forgetting heaven above!
Is War Against Women.
But, to me, the dumbfounding, the
Supplying, thing about the subma-
rines is that they attack passenger
ships and kill women and children.
Rough work by man against man is
more comprehensive; and most men
do not care to protest even If their
opponent does fight foul. But war
against women. and foul play at
that, is the consummate quintes-
sence Of savagery. The Germans
themselves seem to recognize this,
for in only one Of the passenger
cases l handled did the submarine
have the nerve to hail the boats aft
er it had wrought its deed of shame.
You remember that the big Cum
arder Laconia was torpedoed on a
stormy February night at 10:30
o'clock. She listed to port. and No. s
life-b boat scraped it's way down the
starboard side, and struck the water
leaking like a basket, but supported
by its air. tanks. With its nineteen
people it drifted, full of water, away
from the other boats, plunging gid
Oily up and down the twelve-foot
swelIs in the chilling drizzle of rain.
Its occupants sat in icy water up to
their waists; and an elderly Chica-
go lady and her daughter were fore
ed to stand up, on account of their
feminine short stature. Not long aft
er midnight a Manchester business
man succumbed to the ordeal and
sank back forever. At 1880 the elder
American lady gave way and died.