Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-11-05
With Other Editors
German TOYS.

New York Oct. 23.-Several thousand cases of
German made toys arrived here today.-Associated
Press
Toys! For whom? For the innocents carried
down when the "Lusitania" sank? For those
eyed Belgian children who stretch forth little
from which the hands struck off by the swords
of German officers? For those French boys and
girls with pitiful sightless eyes? For those whose
little bodies rest in the churchyards of Italy who
died in pain from poisoned Hun candy? For those
other children slowly starved to death in Poland or
massacred in Armenia?
Toys? Toys made by Huns to whom innocence and
childhood but toys to be played with and then
crushed and broken? Toys whose very contact CON
teammates and leaves upon the touch of babyhood
invisible clots of blood? AS we'll bring deadly
serpent into the home to spew its venom on the
cradle Why shall befoul and faint the purity of
American childhood with reminder of the fiendish
treatment the Huns have glored in ever since that
fatefuI August of 1914? Can one even look upon
Noah's Ark Made Germany" and put from his
mind those hundreds of helpless innocents whose
siIken locks twined with seaweed? Can one hold
a German doll in her and forget the thousands
dead from famine who made glad a mothers
arms? Can boy find delight the contortions of
mechanical Hun clown and forget those brave young
men who writhed in agony when crucified castle
walls by these same Huns? Can ball colored with
the red of Huns fail suggest the flame from burst
ing grenades hurled by upIifted the attitude
of ''kamerad"?
Let those who would invite fearsome ghosts into
the home to hover round the Christmas tree buy
German toys. If one would hang the boughs with
evil and bid the wall of agonized spirits float
through the branches and fan the Pickering flame
of candles. let him buy German toys. those who
can, make merry with the product of those very
hands which this moment are eagerly filling
shells with poison gases and deadly flames and
hurting them against flesh and blood.
And what of the merchant who for sordid gain
would barter these souvenirs OF loathsome nation
and insult the loyalty of Hsping lips? What could
delight the cunning Hun, what more quickly
bring the sneeriug smile cruel faces or gladden.
heartess hearts. encourage him hope that even
tolerate his brutality and welcome what he
sell? If now when as a nation we are in
universal condemnation of Hunism yet do we hold
out hands accept his works what will he think
and with what shall he estimate the SINGER
ity Of our expressions of repugnance and horror
what he has done since the sun rose this morning:
What mitigation claim in the thought that
America yet overseas when these trinkets
fashioned? Even while the gaudy paint was
yet fresh upon these rinkets Belgian girls be-
ing dragged into slavery worse than death.
We do not lack for toys toys by trainloads made
in American factories by hands which are clean:
toys also by carloads made by our ally in Japan
where childhood is sacred, and love, hate. is
taught at mothers breasts Even were there none
far better boys and girls should go without
find pleasure in the handiwork of a nation which
made a public holiday to celebrate loss of the
Iusitana." and which in these latter days is steep
ed in the glory" of monstrosities Could our little
men who sacrifice many childish pleasure TO buy
war stamps and contribute pennies the Red Cross
and little mothers who knit so patiently with
hands that barely hold the needles, would one
Of these knowingly find any pleasure in any toy
Made in Germany" Popular Mechanics.