The Devils Lake world and inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1915-1920, 1918-07-03
By CLARENCE I. SPEED
Secretary Of the War Committee Of th
Union League Club Of Chicago.

tai one. 1t has been carried out with
remarkable s%ingleness of purpose
from generation to generation Of
Hohenzollern rule. from the time
of the Great Frederick until to-
day. Germany's atrocities are not
accidental. They are a deliber-
ate, well thought out part Of this
Hohenzollern policy, which was to
break down the resistance Of her op-
ponents, not only by 1hting and de-
feating their armies but by killing,
tofturing and terrorizing the civil
populations.
The German rulers committed them.
selves to the doctrine Of the survival
Of the fttest. Through generations Of
teaching they made the German peo-
pie believe that they, and they alone.
were the fit.
We have the words of the German
rulers and German warriors and Ger.
man leaders of thought for all Of this. |
More than that we have the perform
ance Of German officers and German
armies in conquered lands to prove it.
Let's start with Frederick the
Great in presenting the evidence.
This monarch, who earned his SOU
briquet through despoiling his neigh.
bors, rather than through any real
qualities of mind which he showed.
said, in q letter to his minister, Rad.
twill:
III there is anything to be gained
by 1t, we will be honest; If deception
Is necessary, let us be cheats. One
takes what n can, and one is wrong
only. when obliged to give back"
This philosophy, applied to present
conditions, means that Germany was
right when she took Belgium, and will
be wrong only IL she is not able to
hold it.
From Frederick the Great to Bis
marck is a long jump in the matter
Of time; but we find the Prussian pol.
icy unchanged. Speaking before the
military committee of the Prussian
Chamber Of Deputies in 1862 Bis
marck said:
: "Not by speeches and resolutions
Of majorities are the great questions
Of the time decided. but by iron and
blood"
Then, with blood and iron, Prussia
went out and despOiled Denmark Of
territory in 1854, beat and robbed Aus
tria in 1866, and finally, in 1870,
brought France to her knees and took
her richest provinces.
Here is what the present kaiser told
his troops when, in 1900, they were
about to depart for China to put down
the boxer uprising:
"Use your weapons in such a way
that for a thousand years no Chi.
nese shall dare to look upon q German
askance. Be as terrible as Attilla's
Huns."
Coming on down to the present wal
we find a German minister accredited
to a neutral state far across the sea-
one which one would think should be
free from the entanglements OF, world
politics I writing home to his govern
ment, in a state paper, advising the
sinking Of two ships from this neutral
nation, in such q manner that no trace
be left. Dead men, he believed tell
nc tales.
It was Baron Luxbarg, minister pleni.
potentiary to Argentina, who wrote
this amazing dispatch on May 10, 1917 :
"Igbeg that the small steamers Oran
and GuaZO . which are nearing
Bordeaux be spared if posi-.
BILE, or else sunk without a trace be.
ing left"
This telegram was intercepted in the
United States and published. 1t sent
q thrill of horror around the world.
Chancellor Won Bethmann-Hollweg is
a true disciple of Frederick the
Great, Bismarck and his royal master.
In a public speech on January 81. 1917.
he said:
"When the most ruthless methods
are calculated to lead us to victory,
swift victory, they must be employed
So they were used, and are being
used today. They include sinking OF
hundreds of neutral ships, the burning
of cities, the deliberate devastating
Of the fair lands Of France, the ravish.
ing Of women, the enslavement of
workmen and the murder of little chill.
dren.
Horrors such as these are told in de.
tail in ".The Prussian System" by F. G.
,Walcott, who, for a long time, was en-
gagged in behalf Of America in trying to
, get food to the Poles whom the Ger
mans were deliberately starving by
the hundreds of thousands so that they
might not cumber the land which the
Germans intended to occupy.
Knowing all this, can the American
!, people talk Of any peace by negotia'
: ton? Can they stop this war until
this mad dog Of nations is freed from
the military rulers who teach frightful
ness from the cradle, and will only
. seize q respite hoy to prepare them
selves for further conQuests2