The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-11-20
WHEN MERCY SEASONS JUSTICE

a
Christian Science Monitor: The
communication which DR.. Solf. the
secretary of state for foreign affairs,
for the moment, In Berlin has adj
dressed to Mr.. Lansing, is study
in contrasts. 1t is the contrast be-
tween Philip sober and Philip drunk,
between a Germany drunken with the
lust Of victory and a Germany sober
ed by the terror Of defeat. 1t seems
almost incredible that the man who
sent the appeal should be speaking
in the name Of the nation which con-
temptuously violated its solemn
pledge to Belgium as SCRAP OF
paper" which marched across the
fcountry it was pledged to defend.
burning and ravaging as 1t went and
numbering and outraging it's people;
which. in the course OF four years,
during which it believed no reckoning
was possible, committed every con-
ceivable infamy it could dream of in
northern France, bombarding cathed-
rails, burning towns, removing every
imaginable sort of private property.
from the machinery of the factories
to the furniture of private houses,
cutting down orchards and fouling
water supplies, enforcing loans and
deporting the population like cattle.
| nation which trained Big Bertha
on Paris churches, numbering the
people worshipping in them for no
purpose at all save that of frightful-
mess; which sent it's aeroplanes over
English villages to slaughter women
and children; which sunk great un-
armed liners in the high seas and
packet boats in the narrow seas;
which not only declined to interfere
to prevent the Armenian massacres,
but actually encouraged them In the
interests of clearing that people from
the path of the Baghdad railway;
which stretched out it's hand to At
rila, and hung it's native subjects like
cherries from the trees. or logged
them into shapeless masses; which
filled it's foreign Offices with promot-
ers of arson and treason, its consul
lates with organizers of crime, and
its banks and commercial offices with
armies of spies. There is the indict-
ment, or a fraction of the indictment,
of the allied nations against Ger
many And because the allies de-
mand that Germany, shall surrender
in way which will place repeti-
ton of her manifold treacheries and
atrocities out of her power in the
immediate future, DR.. SOlf talks of
terrible terms"
DR.. Soils appeal is, indeed, exactly
what everybody, who understood Ger
many, expected would come when
Germany was beaten. 1t is, in short,
an appeal for a mercy and consid-
Grafton for herself, she has never
shown to others. 1t. is an appeal in
the name of the German people, who
rejoiced oper the sinking of the Lusi-
tania, and struck medals to commem-
crate the crime, for be it remembered
that the Lusitania medal was not a
government medal but was the work
of private industry, and as such, 1t is
an appeal for reconciliation from the
murderer to the family Of his VIC
tins; it is an appeal for conformation,
on the lines of the pope's suggestion
that all nations were very much
alike in the present struggle, for this
is the only basis which makes con-
donation a possibility; it is an APP
peal for the friendship of other ma
lions with Germany, for the friend
ship, for instance of the French men
and women whose wives and daugh-
tiers and children were dragged to
German factories and into the Ger
man mines, to make ammunition to
slaughter their husbands and broth
ers, at price to themselves of every
known indignity and outrage; it Is an
appeal for brotherhood to those Bel