Newport daily independent., 1918-01-07
GERMANS BUTCHER BABY
 AND MURDER PARENTS
(Continue1 from page D.

l French surgeon who examined the stump said unequivocally that the operation had been performed by a skilled surgeon. The boy could give no more of an explanation that that he had been put to sleep and when he awakened he was in a hospital, with his right arm in bandage. When the bandage was removed he discovered that he had no right hand. The record of this case is in the French archives"
 Sitting with us while we were talk ing was an American who occupied an official position in Belgium when the war came. He said that every thing the Belgian officer had narrat- ed was undoubtedly true, for he had heard of similar atrocities while still in Belgium.
 "The Germans are now trying to cover up their tracks," he added "They are obtaining counter-affida- wits from the terrorized inhabitants of the destroyed cities of northern France which they still hold, and from Belgians they have completely in their power. I'll give you an illustration of the case.
 "In one of the French villages first +a Irovo hx, +bo C Cor,,,,rc fo,,~+oo,, oe II, foremost citizens were shot on the pretense that German soldiers had been fired upon in that village. We now know that in nine cases out of every ten where these executions were ordered there had been no sniping by the inhabitants and that the killing of 1 prominent men was part of the sys- tenn of frightfulness. When the Germans at last saw their mistake. and that the entire world was shocked by their methods, and they had lost the sympathy of neutrals, they set About correcting the mistake In doing this, they made a second blun- der just as fatal to their cause, for they went about it with their custo- mary brutality In this particular instance the widows or next nearing relatives of the fourteen murdered men were forced under the vilest threats to- sign affidavits that they knew their husband, or brother, or father, as the case happened to be, was guilty of the offense charged against him. These affidavits were taken two years after the executions, showing that the counter-evidence thus obtained was an after thought.
 "The matter did not end there, tho the Germans thought it closed. The fourteen surviving relatives went se- cretly to French notary and made another set of affidavits in which they not only repudiated those given to the Germans but swore to the threats and the force employed by the Germans in obtaining the false evi- dence The last set of affidavits was then smuggled through the lines to the French authorities and added to the mass of evidence France is ac- cumulating against the enemy. Enough of this evidence already has been published by the French govern ment to convict the Germans of the atrocious crimes ever committed by the soldiers of warning power, or by the savages of wild tribes. You can no think of any parallel, or anything approaching a parallel, in the history of the world. Attila, the Hun, was gentleman in comparison with these accomplished German officers, and the worst feature of it all is that the common German soldier is as eager i nthe work as the officers above him.'
 And the amazing feature, he might have added, is the citizens of the United States tolerating the German propaganda in their own country.