Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1918-09-14

these chapters exclusively for this news
paper)
During the first few months of the
war German people had been systemat.
ically melted against the hated Eng
landers" p but after a while, when Brit.
ain began to take German prisoners it
became evident that ill-treatment of the
British war prisoners would meet with
immediate reprisals by the Englanders,
The French, knowing the German better
than anyone of her allies, had made it
| plain to the German bully, (the big cow
ard) that barbarism inflicted on the
helpless prisoners of war$would at once
bring retaliation two-fold.
But the Russians and later Italians
Jared badly. And then came the Ameri-
cans. When the first American prison
7rs reached ,Germon territory the news
was flashed everywhere and the people
wre made to believe that a large number
of Americans had been taken. Although
the original number was about 40 or
so, the people of Berlin for a long time
were told that 10000 Americans had
been taken.
For nearly three months this small
number were made to travel from CITY
to city, and the occasion of the visit
of this same group was each time her.
aided as though new group was just
captured. Thus the German officials
gave the impression to the people that
fifty times as many Americans had been
captured as they had actually taken.
But this fraud soon was exposed. Peo-
pie who had visited the cities through
whose streets the Americans had been
paraded had occasion to see the same
group several times.
Americans Ill-Treated.
Then came the ill-treatment of the
Americans. l was told bv more than
one officer that the treatment meted out
to these Americans was shameful. How
ever, another German official whose
home I often visited remarked to mr
that the terrible treatment handed out
to the British prisoners early in the
war cannot be duplicated to these Am
orleans with impunity. He bitterly
complained to me that many of these
American prisoners were Of German
blood and that it was difficult then
from Americans Of non-German blood
and that if the military authorities in-
sisted in their brutality it would cer-
tainly tend to bring the men Of German
blood in America closer with the native
and non-German elements. | was amaz-
ed to observe that even this friend s
protest against the cowardly ill-treat-
ment of war prisoners was based on
purely selfish, immoral and material
considerations.
Fraudulent Propaganda Papers.
Shortly before the last German often
sive in March l was engaged by the
Herr Brun s Propaganda bureau to tran
slate a set Of circulars into Turkish
which was later to be prined in a Berlin
printing office and dispatched to Tur-
key from which place they were going
to be mailed into Egypt for propagah-
da purposes. One of these propaganda
cureulars was supposed to have been
written by a well-known Indian Moslem
" holyman" who narrated terrible
story of how the British in India had
massacred the Mohammedans and appor-
toned their young women to the British
and other non-Moslem Indian garrisons.
called the attention of one Of our
Turkish Attaches to these fraudulent
circulars and demonstrated to him that
by consenting to such flimsy frauds the
Turkish Embassy at Berlin was becon-
ing party to such lies\, To my utter
sorrow I discovered that our Embassy
had long ago become thorough disciples
of their German masters.
l returned these documents unfinish-
ed and told Herr Brunn in language
unmistakable that I would rather die
before becoming party to such disEep-