The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-11-08
German Toys.

thousand cases OF German made toys
arrived here to-day.-Associated
Press. 40
,, Toys! For whom? For the inno-
cents carried down when the "Lusi-
tania" sank? For those tear-eyed
Belgian children who stretch forth
little arms from which the hands
were struck off by the swords of
German officers? For those French
boys and girls with pitiful sightless
eyes? For those whose little bodies
rest in the churchyards of Italy, that
died in pain from poisoned Hun
candy? For those other children
slowly starved to death in Poland or
massacred in Armenia?
Toys? Toys made by Huns TO
whom innocence and childhood are
but toys to be played with and then
crushed and broken? Toys whose
very contact communicates and leaves
upon the touch of babyhood invisible
clots of blood? AS we'll bring a
deadly serpent into the home to spcw
its venom on the cradle. Why shall
we befoul and faint the purity of
American childhood with remain
der of the fiendish treatment the
Huns have gloried in ever since that
Hateful August of 1914? Can one
even look upon Noah's Ark Made
in Germany" and put from his mind
those hundreds of helpless innocents
whose silken locks are twined with
seaweed? Can one hold German
doll in her arms and forget the
thousands dead from famine who
once made glad a mothers arms?
Can boy find delight in the con-
tortions of mechanical Hun clown
and forget those brave young men
who writhed in agony when crucified
on castle walls by these ssme Huns?
Can a ball colored with the red of
Huns fail to suggest tho fame from
bursting grenades hurled by arms
uplifted in tho attitude of "kam-
erad?"
Let those who would invite fear
some ghosts into the home to hover
round the Christmas tree buy Ger
man toys. If one would hang the
boughs with evil omens, and bid the
wall of agonized spirits float thru the
branches and fan the Pickering flame
of candles, let him buy German toys.
Let those who can, make merry with
the product of those very hands
which even at this moment are eager
ly filing shells with poison gases
and deadly flames and hurting them
against our own flesh and blood.
And what of the merchant who
for sordid gain would barter these
souvenirs of loathsome nation and
insult the loyalty of lisping lips?
What could more delight the cum
ming Hun, what more quickly
bring the sneering smile to cruel
faces, or gladden. heartless hearts, or
encourage him to hope that even
now we tolerate his brutality and
welcome what he wants to sell? If
now, when as a nation we are in
universal condemnation of Hunism,
yet do we hold out our hands to &C
cept his works, what will he think
and with what measure shall he esti-
mate the sincerity of our expressions
of repugnance and horror at what he
has done since the sun rose this
morning? What mitigation can we
claim in the thought that America
was not yet overseas when these
trinkets were fashioned? Even
while the gaudy paint was yet fresh
upon these trinkets were Belgian
girls being dragged into slavery
worse than death.
We do not lack for toys; toys by
trainloads made in American fac
tories, by hands which are clean
toys also by carloads made by our
ally in Japan, where childhood is
sacred, and love, not hate, is taught
at mothers breasts. Even were
there none, far better our boys and
girls should go without than find
pleasure in the handiwork of ma
ton which made public holiday
to celebrate the loss of the "Lusi-
tania," and which in these latter
days is stepped in tho GLORY" of
monstrosities. Could our little men
who sacrifice many childish pleas
ure to buy war stamps and contribute
pennies to the Red Cross, and our
little mothers who knit so patiently
with hands than can barely hold the
needles, would one of these know
ingly find any pleasure in any toy
made in Germany"
H. H. WINDSOR.