Omaha daily bee., 1918-11-23
Punishment OF Wilhelm
New York Times

Many ill-considered opinions have been ex-
pressed as to the penalty that ought to be in
ficted upon the dethroned German Kaiser by a
world into which he has brought so much
misery. The feeling is almost universal that
his crimes transcend the provision of criminal
law, for he is the worlds greatest criminal and
even the most terrible statutory penalties fall
miserably short of his desert. The weakest
suggestion is that he be extradted to England
to be tried there under the murder indictment
brought against him in the Lusitania case To
begin with. no extradition writ would be honor
ed. But suppose he were tried, found guilty,
and executed. Would not that end his suffer
lngs? Retribution would cheat itself if so soon
his sufferings were ended.
Why should not every civilized human being
pray that this of altogether unspeakable
sin may live forever to undergo through the un-
ending years of time those mental fortunes, far
surprising any conceivable physical pangs,
which we may be sure are affecting him at this
moment3 Remorse he may not feel we cannot
well know the mental and spiritual nature of
this incompatible malefactor. But he must feel
the immeasurable difference between his present
despised state and that high position from which
he has fallen. Excruciating as that torment
must be, it is only the beginning. He knows
that earth's millions detest him. loathe him,
hate him with hatred never before visited
upon mortal man. They will shun him. or seek
him out only for hot reproach and reviing. The
guilt OF ten million murders rests upon his soul,
for he is the man, the one man. who might have
stopped the war before it began; he was the
greatest exemplar, preacher, and practitioner of
that theory OF rule over men out of which the
war was born. Thou are the man" is what
the world has said to him from the beginning.
So let him live, let him live through such days
OF anguish and nights of sleepless torment that
he will rage furiously against any who, speaking
from a sense of pity and belated loyalty, may
cry out Long live Wilhelmr' Lucretia's prayer
for the punishment of Tarquin, as Shakespeare
has given 1t form, BELTS the case of him who
was the German kaiser:
Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have of Times help to despair.
Let him have time to live loathed slave
Let him have time beggars sort to crave
And time to see one that by aims doth live
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.
Time without limit unending time spent in
that is the punishment appropriate to the crimes
of Wilhelm of Hohenzollern, for sins altogether
INCAPABLE sins that appall, that outrun expert
ence and overpass the powers of imagination.
Leave him as he is, that is the worst the world
can wish him. This man felt himself to be the
greatest on EARTH he is now the meanest He
has come down from his high place where he
dreamed of extending over all nations the su-
preme power he welded over one. He has
come down to condition from which the
wretchedest would flee in horror. Is he not in
way of punishment which the most memorable
would hold to be fitting and adequate? Yet
some men say there is no Godl