Metropolis weekly gazette. (Metropolis, Ill.) 1???-19??, 1918-08-02

That it is the intention OF Germany
to hold Belgium, thus gaining posses
sion of the channel ports and robbing
England Of its control of that portion
of the sea which lies between her and
the continent, is no longer left in
doubt. Baron Won Kissing. the first
German governor of conquered Bel
GUM, who stood high in the favor OF
the kaiser, and presumably expressed
his royal masters ideas, wrote. in HE
Testament" shortly before he died,
rs follows:
Anyone who knows as | do now how
important Belgium is to Germany POI
liticaily. economically and strategicai
~, would see how grieyous mistake
we should make were we to conclude
a peace which does not leave US mas
ters Of Belgium; for, whatever hap.
pens, Belgium cannot be allowed to re.
main under Ffanco-British influence
but ON the contrary, must be Used tc
enhance our power"
Holland Fears an Attack.
Holland remains a neutral nation
Germany has declared no war on her,
but the troops of Holland are mObi-
lized on the border, and engineers
stand ready to cut the dikes and flood
the country, because Holland knows, as
does the world, that Germany plans,
as soon as she finds it eXpedient, to
take Holland. The mouths of the
Rhine empty into the sea through Hol-
h.. u ~,
man trade Germany holds that the
actual ownership of the entire river
from its source to the sea is essential
to Germany. die Yacht am Rhine"
obsolete as it is on the upper reaches
OF the river still means something ia
The North, and Germany has set her
heart on controlling the river from the
Alps to the sea, of terrifying its
mouths, and making it in reality rs in
song the German Rhine
Real Policy of Conquest.
Are German plans, as thus exposed,
but the empty vaporings of irrespOn-
Sble braggarts? Ask the deported-
workmen of Belgium, who have been
sent away to make room for the set
Element of Germans on the frontier7
Ask the inhabitants of Posen, who
have suffered under German perseeu-
ton for generations. Ask those sturdy
Frenchmen Who still remain in Alsace
in spite of the German efforts to drive
them out. Ask the survivors of two
years of German occupation of Poland
whether or not deliberate starvation
and deportation do not mean that their
land must not be numbered with ma
tive inhabitants but must be given up
for German occupation. Ask the Ar
menians those few OF them who re-
main, hiding from the bloody Turks
officered by Germans.
Every nation which has felt the
weight of Prussian power will an
swer in the same way. Their only
answer is that Deutschland ueber
Allies" means exactly Germany above
domination, persecution,
and gripping when determination is
impossible
That is why America is in the war.
She sees Germany's plans to extend
her power until no one can resist it.
Protected, perhaps, for the time being,
by her isolation and her latent power,
from the immediate threat of German
conquest, America cannot sit idly by
and see nine-tenthS of the world over
run by Prussianisn, knowing. as she
now knows. that her turn may come
later. America must fight. and must
fight TO the finish, which means the
downfall Of Prussian autocracy and
the quenching forever of the Prussian
lust fer conquest.