The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1918-02-23

~
in all of them, as Andre placed the
kunckles of his we'll hand on the table
and leaning down a face which was
suddenly dark and hard, gave us, in
q voice which thrilled with suppressed
passion, his views of peace as ex-
pressed above.
He means 1t, because in two weeks
his arm will be well and he is going
back to the war, where HE DOES
NOT INTEND TO TAKE AMY
PRISONERS.
He would feel Inundated and dis.
graced if any peace which it would be
possible to arrange now should pre-
vent him from going back into the
fight in which he has been twice
wounded.
The face of his plump and mother
~ wife had become set like wax, and
her arched eyebrows had jumped In
to straight line.
The hollow-chested woman, Renee,
stood rigidly, and we have never be-
fore seen a tint of actual green
spread beneath clear skin as 1t did
beneath the skin of her face; and her
wide eyes widened, and the lines
deepened in her forehead, and the
tightly compressed lips became color
less.
The dull young woman came In
with the coffee cups in time to hear.
She held the cups motionlessly for
a moment, then set them down and
went out, DULY heavily, without hav-
ing looked up.
The young woman had been one Of
the daughters in that 18 months of
German occupation, and the hollow
chested Renee is her mother, the sis
ter of Andre.
She had not been a heavy woman In
the first place, not even what might
be called a plump one, but ishe had
lost 30 pounds of weight in that year
and half of agonizing slavery.
The other daughter died since their
release, died OF her abuse and her
degradation.
| Tongue Cut off,
1t is rather shocking to see a one
eyed man cry! Andre has brother,
Michel, who was prisoner VI the
| Germans, and who escaped after un-
told suffering and privation: and
| Michel, who might as we'll have died
for all the use he will be in the world
| from now on cannot properly !2]l
about the hideous permanent injuries
he received or the unbelievaoly inhu.
man treatment which he endured, re.
cause HIS TONGUE WAS CUT OUT.
They did this to him because
' he asked for drink Of water n
French, in place Of German!
Useless Peace.
There is no willingness in this fam
lily to conclude useless peace, and
live placidly in a world where the
Prussian may prepare again to do his
grastly will.
There is no possibility in this fam
lily of a broad and generous charity
which can acknowledge brotherhood
of humanity with the Hun after the
war. ~
They hate, and they will hate as
long as they live, and they have a
right to hate. =.
No, more than a right, a duty. :
AS you look into the faces of these
people who have gone through such
awful horror, as you meet one after
the other of them and acquire an act
ual knowledge of what the iBOche has
meant by his boldly proclaimed inten.
ton of PanGermanizing the world,
something more than mere logical
knowledge that such things must not
be permitted surges up in you, and
grips the heart, and sends the darker
blood tingling in the cheeks and into
the eyes.
Passion comes, as it must come!
We of America went into this war
as a matter of principle: ITO make
the world safe for democracy" we
said.
1t was like following a precept from
a copy book such as "Now is the time
for all good men to come to the aii
of the party" or ITO the stars
through labor or Virtue is its own
reward" or some other high-sounding
Spencerian principle.
We have met hundreds of fine, good
American soldiers, volunteers, who
have explained as their reason for
coming into the war that they did so
because every man should he willing
to offer his life to preserve liberty
and freedom" or because Prussian
miiitarism threatened the world"
It is rather miraculous that we have
done so much inspired by cold ethics,
and it is tremendous tribute to the
high morality of the American charac-
ter that this is so.
Here is big and worthy thing
to be accomplished, you have said,
and everybody must help; so you at
home, almost unanimously, save your
food, and buy liberty bonds, and send
your sons far across the sea, to fight
for the cause of Justice
], There is something majestic In
that, something estatically uplifting In
the spectacle of a great nation, far
from the scene of this colossal emo
t!onal tragedy, rising en- masse in re-
Spouse to the sacred call of duty,
;! answering an aDDeal to the highest
and best promptings of the human
soul ss
i But by and BY, when the facts that
you know with your mind become
truths burned on your heart, when you
! learn more and more through the
loved ones whom you have sent here
to struggle between the God of right
! anil Devil of might. when they tell
Won of the awful things, the impos-
sih,e things, the atrocities, unhuman,