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

Rians who saw their fellow citizens
standing before the firing platoons,
for no other reason than that they
had resisted the outrage OF their
! neutrality by the ally sworn to de-
fend it. and who witnessed their
, wives and daughters being driven to-
| ward the allied ranks as firing
screen for the German regiments
marching behind them. Such an ap-
peal may be made to Mr.. Wilson. but
| it will be made in vain. 1t Is made
partially, no doubt, with the idea OF
causing dissension In the ranks OF
the allies, but 1t will be found that
the snare is set in vain before the
| eyes Of the president. DR.. Soil ap-
peals to the president as the spokes-
man OF the allies, and there Is only
one answer that the president can
return to him., in the name Of the
allies, and 1t is this, that such sub
terfuges will not do.
Now this does not mean, In the
least, that the allies are going to
treat Germany as Germany treated
them. They are not going to take
advantage Of their power to bomb
German hospitals or to murder Ger
man children. They are going to
protect the German wounded and to
assist the German children. But they
are not going to be mesmerized into
believing that the appalling catalogue
of German crimes is the work Of one
man, now a fugitive. and fugitive
solely by reason of his failure. When
the German armies appeared to be
marching to victory, the German
people associated themselves with
the kaiser and proclaimed his great.
ness. This paper. like every other
paper, no doubt, Is in possession OF
dozens of letters from private Ger
man citizens, filed with abuse OF the
allies and of every one who supported
them, and filled with eulogy and de-
tense of the German kaiser and the
German government, and the German
government measures. 1t is useless,
therefore, at this time of day, for the
German people to attempt to dis
sociate themselves from the German
government Their guilt is written
down in millions Of private letters.
The crime of the kaiser and the
crown prince, 1t must never be lost
sight of, was their failure. not their
successes, AS has been pointed out
dozens of times in these columns, the
kdlSGI uluSSll 10 llCACl lAS PSAoOAA
fication of the German ideal OF kul-
tur. The manifestoes of the German
professors, the utterances of the Ger
man commercial classes, are an I'M
impeachable evidence of this. Is
there any human being who imagines
that King George or President Poin-
care could have called the bankers,
the shipping magnates. the railway
and steel kings of the French repub-
lie and the United Kingdom together,
as the kaiser did at Potsdam, in 1914,
and obtained their individual prom
Uses to support war of aggression?
King George and President Potncare
represent the type, Of peaceable de-
mocracy, which composes the nations
of which they are the chiefs, as COM
pletely as Mr.. Wilson, represents the
spirit of the United States. Mr.. Will
son could never have been guilty of
the crimes of the German royal fam
lily, because Mr. Wilson Is the type of
American citizenship which revolts
from these things. What made these
horrors a possibility in the mouth
and in the hands Of the kaiser was
that he was the type Of German train
ed kultur which stood in front of his
palace in the nights OF, the last days
of July, 1914, raging for war. and
which when war came. and the afro
cities followed. supported and de-
Tended every one of these atrocities