Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-02-22
DIR. HILLS PAINTS
HORRORS TEUTON
WAR ATROCITIES
CONTINUED From Page c -

lied by so-called German efficiency
and perpetrated on a deliberate, cold,
precise, scientific policy of German
frightfulness. 1t is not simply that
they looted factories, carried away ma
chinery, robbed houses, bombed ev-
cry farm house and granary, left no
pillow or reaper, chopped down every
pear tree and plum tree with every
grapevine and poisoned all wells! The
Germans slaughtered old men and ma
irons, mutilated captives in ways that
can only be spoken of by men in whis-
pers; violated little girls until they
were dead;. finding a calfskin nailed
upon a barn door to be dried, they
nailed a babe beside it and wrote be-
meath the word, 'Zwei;' They thrust
women and children between them
selves and soldiers coming up to de-
fend their native land; bombed and
looted hospitals, Red Cross buildings
violated the white '1ag-while the
worst atrocities cannot even be NAM
ed in this mixed audience.
mo one understands the German
people as well as the kaiser. Our pres
ident, ina spirit of magnanimity, pa
tience and good will, distinguished
between the kaiser and the Prussian
government, and over against them
put the German people. But Germans
chambers Of commerce, Hamburg's
board of trade and certain popular as
semblies would have none of this, and
in the fury of their anger passed res
olutions, saying: What our govern
ment is, we are. Their acts are our
acts. Their deeds and military plans
are our plans Knowing his people
through and through, the kaiser called
his soldiers before him and gave them
this charge: Make yourselves more
| frightful than the Huns under Atilla
See that for thousand years no enc
! my mentions the very name of Ger
many without shuddering.' Why dc
the German people say they feel SC
terribly because the authors of the
world call them Huns and 'barbar-
ians? Who named them Huns?
Their kaiser Who christened them
barbarians? Their kaiser. Who lik-
ened the German soldiers to blood.
hounds held upon the leash by the
kaiser's thong as they strained upon
the leash with bloody jaws, longing to
tear their French and Belgian prey!
With bloody fingers the kaiser said
I baptize thee Hun" and "barbar-
ian." Let the kaiser's words stand
| For a Thousand years no man shall
speak the word Hun" without shud-
dering'
Philosophy Of Atrocities.
1.-THE German philosophy has de.
humanized Germans officers and men
| Pulling his iron token out of his peck
et-that exhibited Deity as a destroy.
ing soldier-the German officer and
6riyate reads the words beneath
'Smite your enemy dead. The day Of
judgment will not ask you for your
reasons Having, therefore, full lib
erty to loot, these Germans became
the wild beasts.
when the German army in Lor-
raine was defeated by onehalf its
number, it fell northward, passing
through French towns and villages
| where there were no Frenchmen, nj
guns, and where no shots were fired
During July and August we went slow.
ly from one ruined town to another
talking with the women and the chill
Idren, comparing the photographs ant
the full Official records made at thu
time with the statements OF the poor
wretched survivors, who lived In eel
lars where once there had been beau
Itiful houses, orchards, vineyards-bu
1how was only desolat.on.
"In Gerbevillier. standing beside
their graves, l studied the photograph