The Tupelo journal., 1918-05-31
GRADUATING EXERCISES
TUPEL.O HIGH SCHOOL

in the law of the survival Of the
fttest." The old, the infrm, the
weak and the helpless, must be cast
aside to make room for the young, the
vigorous, the strong and the power
full. The great body of the German
people believe this and the distinc-
tion between the German military
machine and the German people was
not well founded. They were all one.
The German people were back OF the
German government and the German
military machine. They were as
much one as the two arms constitute
parts of the body. To crush one you
must crush both.
They preached in their pulpits n
taught in their schools, colleges ana
universities the doctrine of hate force.
We will leave out the hate but ]
them a double portion of force. 'Ihey
can't be reached in any other way.
Force is the only law they recognize
and we must crush them with over
whelming force.
He cited a number Of instances u
German brutality that had come I'M
der his w observation. one OF
these was a little Belgian girl about
six Years of age, both of whose hanos
had been cut off at the wrists by a
German soldier for no other cause
than pure deviltry and as crueiy oy
example. He described in a tragic
wav how they rounded up the IN
babitants of conquered territory ana
selected we'll and physically fit young
men Young women, and middle aged
men and women and packed them IN
an ordinary freight car without regard
to their sex and sent them back into
Relgium or Germany to work on
farms or in munition factories. he
said this was called by the newspa-
pers deportation, but characterized IL
&c nothing less than human slavery
its worst form in which men and wo-
men were treated as mere cattle. he
said that these people were some
times kept in these freight ears as
long as two days at a time where they
had been massed regardless OF sexes.
He described very realistically the
old men and women, children ana
diseased folks in one Frnech town
hat the Germans had been forced TO
evacuate and into which the troops.
with which he was connected, ad-
vanced. He showed that before the
Germans evacuated the town they
had assembled all the old, decreplt'
diseased and helpless people from a
farce area back of this town and that
these people had been assembled and
left there not only to get rid of them
but also as military expedient to I'M
nede progress of the allied army.
The Germans knew our army was
merciful and sympathetic and hoped
bv assembling these diseased fee
bic and old folks and children to I'M
nade our progress when we stopped to
minister to them. But the Red Cross
was there to take them off our hands
and they did not accomplish their
purpose in this instance.
In another evacuated town into
which the British force with which
the speaker was connected, advanced,
no showed how the Germans had
poisoned all the wells of the town, and
when the British arrived the people
had been absolutely without water and
food for tw~enty-four to thirty-slx
hours.
The most horrible and pathetic IN
cident described by Lieut.. Parke was
the public a~ssaulting and o~utraging IN
the public streets of the captured
town by whole platoons of German
soldiers of Belgian girls and women as
~recounted by a Belgian priest who
had escaped from the town. Wnen
+ba American consul demonstrated
with the German commander about
this outrage, he simply said they were
drunk. Lieut.. Parke tragically re-
marked "the whole German nation IS
drnnk.n The German officer didn't
give any command for the outrage
hut he sanctioned it by not punlsnlng
the offenders.
The speaker said that the Germans
had designedly and purposely de-
stroyed churches with cannon shot'
and bombs from areoplanes, because
they thereby hoped to destroy n
morale Of the French people VINO ~
very religious. they manned and
mutilated children, and outraged ana
assaulted women because all the aliied
people love children and revere Wo-