The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1918-10-05

Men who drink are thus limited ID
the light native wine used Nv ali
French people. Even this Is diseout-
aged among our troops In every posi-
sible way. hope to secure the Cd
| operation Of the French government
TO prevent the sale of all liquors and
wines to our troops. Personally 4
favor prohibition in the army, but it
Is impracticable and inadvisable to
issue orders that cannot be enforced
without the cooperation of the French
government"
Slanderng Our Soldiers.
The charge of drunkenness among
our expeditionary forces is pro
German lie designed to alarm the
mothers and fathers of the boys who
have gone to France. The stories of
immortality consequent upon drunken
ness are equal. baseless.
When the recruits for the National
army were first assembled in our can
| tonments, the medical examiners sent
as many as 400 out of every 1000 men
to the hospitals to be treated for We
nereal diseases. The hospital admfs-
sion rate for yenereal diseases in those
camps has since been as low as GA
per 1000, and the rate for the men
in our expeditionary forces in France
has been as low as 442 per LOCO.
That is to say, the statistics of the
surgeon generals office show that our
soldiers in France have been almost
ten times as free from the effects of
immortality as the same sort of men
were when they were first drafted
These ISLANDERS upon the nurses and
upon the troops are typical of the
work of the German general staff. IT
has been their policy in their cam
paigns of propaganda to circulate in
an enemy country the falsehoods that
most appeal to that country's preiu-
dlces. America, in its ignorance of all
France. outside of the tourist haunts
of Paris, is easily imposed upon with
stories of French vice. The German
propaganda knows that He is plan
ming to take advantage of it for his
own purposes. He is making a drive
upon the sentiments and emotions of
American women just as he ut first at
tackled the susceptibilities of the Ttal-
ian women behind the lines in prepar-
! ing the way for the Italian defeat.
How well he Is succeeding in America
is shown by passage in that appeal
for a protest to President Wilson
which was printed in the religious
press.
1t pointed out: Throughout this
country feeling of bitterness dan
gerous in the extreme is arising and
gazing with menacing eyes toward
France. The mothers who have reared
sons strong and clean, and who have
given them with glad, aching hearts
women who have loved France and
gloritied her-are now muttering that
our boys are wanted for the profits 9f
their debauchery and not to take their
deaths in strength and cleanlinesS}
Such mothers are the victims 800
German falsehood. So is the
fWflo thus descrfbed them ana M.
tested against the "debaucherys fR
their soldier sons. The reports cf iHr
moral conditions in France ard tile
campaigns Of protest against those
conditions are equally the work bf
German agents, assisted by the prejh-
diced credulity of their American vic
tins.
Mr.. Citizen, the committee on pub
lie information wishes to warn you
against these snares. There will be
more of them. In Italy Anonymous
letters were sent to the soldiers from
their homes accusing their wives of in
fidelity. Our military censorship pre-
vents such tactics among our men, but
! similar inpostures will doubtless be
attempted. Already forged letters
pretending 10 be from soldiers In,
France have been found in the Hobbies
of New York theaters, as if aeei-
dentally dropped there by the recipi-'
ents. The letters are always in the
angular handwriting Of persons accus-
toned to using German script. So far
they have contained little but alarming
falsehoods about the alleged slaughter
! of American regiments.
Slandering the British.
In order to set US against our Brit
ish allies, several sorts Of "WhisDer-