The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1918-06-27
THE PEOPLES FORUM.
The Pirate Work.

blood boil, to think of the atrocities of
the Uboat piracy. If not sent to the
bottom of the sea with their doomed
vessel, the men are cast adrift in open
boats to breast the dangers of the deep
and not few. after fighting manfully
for their life, sink in the darkness of
night. exhausted. starving. freezing.
The poet who imagined the torments of
the Ancient Marines did not exceed the
terrible realities of the genius of the
German piracy. Vessels torpedoed,
looted. sunk and men sent adrift never
to be heard of again.
Count Luxburg, one of her own
charges d'affaires, recommended that
the ships of the Argentine Republic, in
which he was the accredited agent of
friendly power be sunk without trace.
Without doubt there are cases where
the boats of sunken ship have been
shelled, that there might be no one
alive to betraY the presence of a SUBJ
marine in the region in question.
A case of German geniality followed
the sinking of the steamship Jupiter,
May q, 1917, with the loss of 10 lives.
Six survivors got away in an open boat.
One of the crew of the sub shouted to
them, you've no home now. but there s
room for you below.
A specimen of German Kultur and
principle is seen in her treatment of the
British steamship Caithness which was
torpedoed on April 10, 1917, without
warning, 240 miles from land. Twenty
men went down with the ship, and
about 20 were sent adrift in boat, and
after IA days, without any food, the
three living men were picked up.
Nothing seems to be exempt from
her martin kultur, though British
seamen were the favorite victims.
Swedes and Norwegians came in for
their share. After the proclamation of
Unrestricted" warfare in Jan. 1917,
GermanY's favorte method of treating
Norwegian ships was to shell them
without giving the crew a minutes
grace to take to their boats. This won
ton bIutalitY-for that is all it is-has
sacrificed many lives.
She pounces on defenceless boats,
and at close range pours into them her
whitening fire often converting them
into a shambles. They have been so
extremely brutal that they have left
women to share the perlls and agonies
of exposure in open boats in mid-ocean.
Denmark contributed her quota. It
would naturally be expected that a
civilized nation, even if it adopted the
principle that necessity knows no law"
and hence assumed the right to destroy
the worlds shipping, would at least
show some discrimination in favor of
neutrals. and do her work with some
degree of discrimination. But YOU
search in vain for any such effort.
Her small scale atrocities have caus-
ed more suffering than was caused by
the wholesale massacres at which the
world stood aghast. AS evidence of
this, witness the figures as to loss of
life on British merchant vessels given
in the House of Commons on June 30
1917. 1t was stated that 9,748 non
combatant had been drown to death, of
whom 3. 1928 were passengers, while s.
920 were officers and seamen. 1t is
true that in a very few instances the
Germans had the letter of the law on
their side, as the vessels were attempt
ing to escape, but the proportion of
lives lost under these conditions was
infinitesinal. If the vessels trying to es-
cape were not legally justified they
were morally by the fact that they had
no guarantee that if they surrendered
they would meet with the human treat
ment prescribed by international law.
Think of submarine picking up a
lot of men from the sea, or from boats,
and placing them on the top of their
sub, then deliberately submerging and
leaving them to their fate This was
murder by submersion. Hospital and
relief ships did not escape the attention
of Kultured Germanys murderous u
boats. Hundreds of lives were sacrific-
ed to crafty German lust for destruc-
tion and terrorize the world.
The German government did finally Of
fer to call off its war on hospital ships
on two importent conditions, first, that
all such ships should pursue a route to
be prescribed by Germany; second, that
Spanish officer should sail in each
ship to guarantee that 1t was applied
to mo improper uses. The British
Uouarnpopt poturoIIr t~ooAoI H..