Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1917-09-24
GERMAN ATROCITIES
People Of United States Should be Far
Better Informed.

tFroM the Christian Science Mohitof.f
The Rev. Newell Dwight Hills.
speaking in Plymouth Church. Brook
lyn. from the historic Henry Ward
Beecher pulpit. last Sunday morning,
to a congregation described as pack
ing the edifice, and from the text,
Babylon the Great Is Fallen" ven
tured upon consideration of certain
phases OF the war which. for obvious
reasons, are oftener avoided than
courted as topics for general public
discussion. The task of avoiding
these topics is, however. becoming
even more difficult, in the estimation
OF thousands of high-minded public
speakers and publicists, than the task
OF handing them in a manner accept
able to their audiences. That atrocl-
ties OF a nameless character have been
deliberately and Systematically perpe-
trated upon the people of Belgium and
France. at the instance of Germans
in authority, and with the knowledge
and the approval of the German Gov
eminent, is a fact that cannot be
changed by the combined conyen-
tionalities of all the social systems on
earth. II is beginning TO dawn upon
the thought of moralists, that if
through the operation of convention,
through some false sense of the fit
ness of things, the very hideousness of
the German atrocities in Belgium and
France shall be permitted TO shield
these outrages from public exposure
and. condemnation, then one Of the
most significant and enlightening
clues TO the causes of the war viii be
lost
DR.. Hills spent two months of last
summer on the western front, the
greater Part of his time being devoted
to the gathering of testimony with re-
gard TO German atrocities, corrobora-
tive of that published in detached
form, from time to time, in the
United States. For three years, DR..
Hills said, German-Americans have
protested that the stories of German
atrocities were to be disbelieved as
English inventions, Belgian lies, and
French hypocrisies. But" he added,
that day is gone forever When the
representatives of the nations assem-
BILE for the final settlement, there will
be produced photographs, with other
legal proof, making the German afro
cities far better established than the
scalpings OF the Sioux Indians on the
western frontier, the murders of the
Black Hole of Calcutta, and the crimes
0f tho mich Ipnilicifi0n -
On the Henry War Beeeher pulpit,
while DR.. Hills was delivering a SER
mon-address WHICH greatly moved his
large congregation, there was the ma
teriaI which the minister had gather
ed during his visit to Europe. This
collection included authenticated rec
ords and photographs covering about
thousand cases in which old men
and women, girls and babes, were the
victims of unspeakable militaristic
savagery While there is no doubt, at
this late day, with regard to the re-
liability of the testimony gathered,
under the auspices of the allied gov
ernments and by scores of impartial
private investigators, many of them
AmeTlcaHS, yet the RECOMMENDATION
made by DR.. Hills at the close of his
remarks, that an American commits
sea, composed of representative citi-
zens, be sent abroad to make a thor
ough examination of the evidence, and
to report thereon, is worthy of atten-
ton.
The people of the United States
should be far better informed, and
much more strongly impressed than
they are, regarding the nature, extent,
and deliberate purpose of the German
atrocities. Unless they are more full
ly informed on this subject than they
are today, they will not be qualified
later to pass intelligently upon tho
basis of peace.