Trench and camp. [volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1917-1919, 1918-04-10
Predatory Potsdam Gang Flayed
By Henry Van Dyke

days of the war prevented the light of
civilization from being extinguished.
Il have sat in my office in the shadow
OF the Palace and Peace and heard the
stories told by Belgian refugees of how
their women had been violated before
their eyes by drunken German soldiers;
of their daughters carried away into
white slavery under pretense of being
servants of German officers. OF a little
child cruciffed because it stumbled in the
way of drunken soldier, and of men
and boys stood up and shot for refusing
to tell the Germans things that would
enable them to hunt down and kill the
Belgian soldiers.
Belgans WantonIy Murdered.
Il Travelled through the ruins of the
Belgian. villages while the smoke was yet
odor of the bodies murdered beneath
them. l have seen that water let in for
defense slowly recede, leaving stark and
bare the bodies of the murdered inhab-
tantS, one here with a mute arm extended
toward heaven.
Il visited a French evacuation hosv
pitaI and was shown around by the COM
mandant, who on approaching a ward
occupied by German prisonerpatients,
cautioned me not to say anything that
would excite them.
II witnessed an operation in this hos
pital and saw q splendid, rugged man
subjected to a trepanning operation by
one of the best surgeons in France, while
mandant if the man would recover, and
the official was sure that he would, as
the operation had been entirely success
full. Then he added, the man is Ger
man.
"a few months later those obncene vul
lures of Potsdam airmen flew over that
hospital dropping bombs on the building,
marked as it was with a huge Red Cross
stretching all the way across the roof,
killing doctors, nurses and their own
wounded prisoners,
Is. This Civilization?
Then when the uninjured attendants
sought to save the patients from the
flames these vultures swept over three
times at low altitude sweeping the
ground with machine gun fire
Docs civilized nation commit such
atrocities as this? Does a civilized ma
ton poison wells so that the returning
inhabitants will be poisoned? Does a
civilized nation infuse the germs of
terrible contagious disease in a then neu-
trail country to kill off the man power
before an expected war? Does a civilized
nation use gas, a weapon discarded by
the Chinese more than 100 years ago as
nhumane and barbarous, on their en-
emies?
There may be some who would sit at
a green cloth table and talk peace with
such a nation, but | would not. Not
with nation that has plunged the world
into such a war, that has on it's head the
blood of the best of earths young man
hood, and is responsible for this terrible
pentecost of suffering.
1.-THE Bible says when a man smiteS
you on the right cheek turn to him the
left Germany smote us on the right
cheek when she sank the Lusitania, then
on the left when the Arabic went down,
and followed up with a kick in the rear,
and then declared that they would sink
all ships without warming and without
any effort to save the crew.
How Semmes Acted.
"a Confederate cruiser, the Alabama,
commanded by a Southern gentleman,
Capt, Raphael Semmes, destroyed many
vessels, but never without warning, and
never without arranging to take care of
the passengers. Once he let his prizes go
because he could not take off the pas
sengers, and could not conveniently take
them to port This is the tradition and
spirit of the American navy.
"The German spy system in America
is uneXcelled for expensiveness, unscrup-
ulousness and boneheadedness If they
had not looked with such cynical con-
tempt on the American people they
might have done US greater damage.
a. speaking for myself and without
authority, favor taking every man con-
vcted by court martial of spying and
hanging him by the neck until he is dead.
instead Of taking them to North Carolina
where they can play tennis during the
CRY me q nd