Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-01-19


s;s,er of Mrs, Robert Wagner of this
ci,v and Mrs. Henry F. Peterson Of
davenport is in Italy helping care for
ronnded Italian soldiers. A letter
,rom Mrs Haase contains some inter-
sting comment on the war, particu-
tarly on its early stages. She is Of
German descent. but she was in Brus-
cells when the German army marched
in over and through, and that was
enough When she wrote she was
reading a Davenport paper with an
occount of the Wallace trial, and she
commented in her letter:
so the war has touched even my
far-away home with its poisonous
breath that makes enemies Of friends,
repegades Of patriots, corrupts the
sense of justice into distrust and mar
v-mindedness, distorts common
sense into casuistry.
at was my fate-perhaps ] should
say luck-tO witness the beginning OF
his war in Belgium l saw the ava
Ianche OF the kaiser's soldiery in their
cunniugly invented dirty field-gray
uniforms. pour into the city Of Brus-
sells | saw il passing for days through
lis silenced streets. leaving behind,
brazenly installed in the famous city
hall and grand palace, as well as in
The palais des Nations, the Prussian
military and civil governors OF cap
tured and enslaved Belgium.
when I saw that invasion; those
endless lines Of German soldiery and
all their military equipment in its
scientific and fiendish completeness;
when | law awake at night and began
10 realize that the bloody Attila had
indeed been reincarnated in the odious
nerson of the kaiser, whom formerly
we used TO put down as vain fool,
on occasions when he posed before
the world in his well-studied parts as
painter, composer, artist, peacemaker
and many other roles; when terror
stricken refugees, witnesses and vic
tins of the monstrous drive OF civil
iaus before the advancing German
armies, arrived to confirm the incred-
ible rumors of the horrors Of Louvain
Aerschott, Termonde, Dinant-
Then was the veil Of delusior
through which l and many others had
been wont TO look at Germany, mod
ern Germany, torn from my eyes.
saw clearly what / had sometimes in
stinctively surmised; that she is moi
only the creation but, alas, also the
creature of the mad Hohenzollerr
kaiser. For, would those simple, slow
witted German peasants and workmeI
whom ! had seen on travels in Ger
many allow themselves to be used by
the kaiser as the weapon, the too
with which unhappy Belgium was tt
be slain-could they have perpetratet
the crimes with which Belgium's sol
and skies were REDEEMED in those me
morable August days of 1914, if the!
had not surrendered to their kaise
their conscience and individuality?
"A Friseher, Frohlicher krieg.'
But he had promised them, as on
promises to a child some game o
amusement. "frischer. frohliche
Krieg." Was cynicism more sicken
ing and terrible ever expressed b.
human tongue? Joseph Fort Newton
calls Germanys crime moral insanity
Has this moral insanity spread, fror
the mad HohenZollern Wilhelm, owe
the whole German people? Was Ger
man blood so ready to absorb tn
poison? And German-American bloot
though changed many times under tn
greater spirit and broader life of GU
democracy, did it, too, possess tn
faint that made Germany succumb t
the contamination of pan-Germanism
When the first alarm of this worl
was sped around the globe, was
the blood inherited from parents G
grandparents, whose cradle had stOO
on the soil of what once were tn
small Germanic countries-SaXon.
Saubia, Wuertemberg, Hanover-th
soil that is now stained with the ours
of deCadence which began with tn
lie of the Ems-telegram and the FraI
co-Prussian war-Was it this whlc
made German-Americans blind to tn
crimes Germany committed on neutr;
Belgian soil? This, which made thel
obstinately refuse to be enlighter
as to the truth? But there were lrisl
Americans who likewise persisted
an incredulous attitude towards II
actual happenings on the Europea
continent And what was it that or
ated such unquestioning sympathy IL
Germany. and so completely effact
IRON the minds of Americans the dal
ger which had long threatened Il
whole civilized world from Prussia
militarism?
4 Significant Check.
Il think ! have an answer TO the
questions, at least partial one. He
IN my hand is the reproduced pilot
graph of the $4,000 check Whit
electrified the decrepit old New Yol
Staatszeitung into new life at the b
ginning of the war and made it OF
Of the kaiser's tools with which
belabor the American mind for Il
purpose Of winning the sympathies
a naturally generous and unsophis
Gated people II will not be long b
fore more checks OF this kind Will
brought TO the light OF day. For the
were more tools than one necessa
for the molding of public opini
in the United States, in favor
peace-loving, modest Germany
~basely attacked by her envious neig
bors after they had SO treacherous
"encircled" her, they with "perfidio
Albion at their head" And was t
famous peace-kaiser to lose his Amt
lean nation? In times of peace I
United States was a useful, profitat
iriend, but in a war she might
come dangerous foe. The talmt
ncrediblei) Hochs to the kals
shouted In the United States even a
er the sinking of the Lusitania we
heard also in far-off London, VIII
we were happily enjoying the XII
hospitality Of John Bull.
L But the instrument chosen by