The daily Alaskan., 1918-02-19
Report of German Disregard Of Human Rights on File in
 State Department.
OVERWHELMED WITH HORROR
Minister to Belgium Declared It Was Difficult to Write Calmly anI Justly In View of the Huns Gratu-
 itous Cruelty.

Ot Belgians and the forced labor s7- tOrted by Me Hun" military lead CTS, which ercited the indignation ot the civilized wOrld, hare been thus 1 officially set forth:
 The plan of setting forth the essen tial facts of the depOrtations and forced labor of Belglans Is set forth by the committee on public infOrma- ton as follows: the documents, that which could be cited. tell the story, and | only such comments are added as are needed to enable the reader to easily grasp the connection of events.
 "The deportations . were the most vivid, shocking convincing, single happening in all our enforced observa- ton and experience of German dis regard of human suffering and human rights In Belgium. ."-Yernon Kellogg tn Atlantic Monthly, October, 1917.
 4 summary of the whole situation, down to January, 1917, can be Ob- taIned by reading continuously the re- port of Minister Whltlock, taken from the files of the state department This tells of the brutality of the depOrta- tionS.
 Legation of the United States of
 America, Brussels, Jan. l6. 1917.
 "The Honorable, the Secretary of State, Washington.
 Sir: I have had 1t in mind. and might say on my conscience, since the Germans began to depOrt Belgian wOrkmen early in November to pre- pare for the department detailed report On thlS latest instance of bru- tality, but there have been so many obstacles in the way of obtaining evil dence on which a calm and judicious opinion could be based, and one Is so overwhelmed with the horror of the | thing itself, that 1t has been, and even now is. difficult to write calmly and justly about It. have had to content myself with fragments of dispatches I have from time to time sent to the department and with doing what l could. little as that can be, to allevl- ate the distress that this gratultous cruelty has caused the population of thIs unhappy land.
 WhltIock Opposed Belgian Idea.
 "In order to understand fully the situation. 1t Is necessary to go back to the autumn of 1914. At the time we were organizing the relief work, the COmite National-the Belgian relief or ganization that collaboratcs with the commission for relief In Belgium proposed an arrangement by which the Belgian government should pay to It's own employees left in Belgium, and other unemployed men besides, the wages they had been accustomed 10 receive. The BelgIanS wished to do this both for humanitarian and pa trIotic purposes; they wished to pro vide the unemployed with the means | of livelihood, and, at the same time' to prevent their working for the Ger mans. refused to be connected h any way with this plan, and told the Belgian committee that It had many | possibilities of danger; that not only ! would 1t place q premium on ldleness' but that 1t would ultimately eXaSper- ate the Germans. However, the policy | wns adopted. and has been continued in practice, and on the rolls Of the | ComIte National have been borne the names of hundreds of thousands | some 100000, I belieye-Of Idle men | receiving this dole, distributed through ! the cOmmunes.
 "The presence of these unemployed, however, was q constant temptation to German cupldity. Many times they eorcht to obtain the lists of the cho- meurs but were always foiled by the pInim that uader the guarantles GOV | ering the relief work, the records or the Comite National and its various suborganizatIons were immune. kath- er than risk any Interruption or the rayitaIllement, for which, while loath to own any obligation to America, the Germans have always Seen gratetul' since 1t has had the effect of keeping the population calm, the authorities ! never pressed the point, other than
 with the burgomasters of the com
 munes. Finally, however, the mill tary party, always brutal, and with m astounding ignorance of public opln- lon and of moral sentiment deter mined to put these idle men to work.
 "General vOn Blssing and the civil
 portion of his entourage had always been and even now are opposed to this policy. and think have sincerely done
 what they could, first, to prevent Its adoption, and secondly, to tighten the rlgors of its application"
 German Promises Worthless. In the early days of the German ad- vance into Belgium, the people had learned 10 fear the worst. This was
 particularly true in Antwerp. In or der to alleviate their fears and to ob-
 tain guaranties which might hasten tbe restoration of settled conditions, EWW1