Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1918-07-11
Van Dyke Prays God to Punish
Germany

ceived a copy Of the Rice Lake Chron-
otype from her daughter, Mrs. B. N.
Webster, which reads as follows:
Nobody made this war but Ger
many. Nobody is responsible for this
war but Germany She planned it;
she wanted it; she got it; anu now
prayGod that she may get it in the
neck"
With these emphatic words, Dr.
Henry Van Dyke of the u. S. Naval
Training Station, Great Lakes, author
poet, preacher, and former u. S. min
lister to the Netherlands, took out the
gag which he said had kept him
dumb while in the diplomatic SER
vice, charged the Germans with an
appalling catalogue of blood-letting
atrocities and fired thousands of Great
Lakes blue Jackets with tOrrential
expose of Hun horrors of which he
had personal knowledge and some of
which he witnessed with his own
eyes.
1.-The first thing / want you men to
remember" said DR.. Van Dyke, sis
that the guilt of this war, with the
killing of 100000 men already and
God knows how many broken and
how many old people. women and
children outraged or starved to death
that's Germany's crime, that's Ger
many's guilt And the second thing
I IN 0fpnh ic
committing this crime, Germany has
segregated herself from the society of
civilized nations by her bloOd-thirsty
barbarisms and atrocities.
Outrages on Humanity
There is not one rule of interna-
tional law that she has not broken,
not one outrage on humanity that she
hasn't committed. There is not low
and mean and dastardly and vile
thing that an armed force can do that
the German armed force has not done.
81 have seen some things with my
own eyes of the conduct of the war.
] have seen those ruined towns and
cities of Belgium. I was there when
the smoke was still rising from the
ruins and the smell of dead bodies
buried in the cellars was heavy in
the air | have seen miles and miles
of barbed wire entanglements with
cattle caught and shot in them and
the carriOn crows gathering to their
obscene banquet.
81 have seen those Belgium men
and women sit beside me in my study
i'm The Hague and tell what had hap
pened to them and their fathers and
mothers and village priests. Good
harmless men, taken out and stood
up against the wall for some imagln-
arv or trivial offence and shot down
by the score.
Women outraged in the presence
Of their fathers or their husbands or
even of their little children, and
Young girls carried off into white
slavery. All sorts of indescribable
outrages perpetrated on the civilian
population. Wells poisoned, houses
burned for the pure pleasure OF see
ing them burn, with women and chill
dren in them-afraid to come out be-
cause they knew if they came out
they would be shot.
Tells of Crucified Infant
lone story l will tell you. There
was little boy in Belgian village,
2 or years old, just little fodder
the kind of little chap if you saw
him going along the street you would
hold out your fingers to him and he
would put his chubby hand around
YOUR forefinger and you would trot
along side by side.
This poor little fellow went out in
the street and got in the way OF
German soldier and the German sold
Ter kicked the child out of his way
and then took his bayonet and ram
med the child through, and then pick
ed the child up and took the body
back to the fathers barn and stretch
ed out the little hands and feet and
crucifed that little boy there.
THAT story was told me by the
cbild's father. I sent an attache into
the Belgium village to look into the
story. and he found it true and saw
the places on the barn door where
the nails had been driven through
those little hands and feet.
Would you like to have that hap
pen to your little kid brother or sis
ter then fight Germany with all the
fight there is in you.
Treaties Scraps of Paper
81 told you Germany had outraged
every international law. She has
broken treaties, tore them up like
scraps of paper, fired on the Red
: Cross, sunk hospital ships, fired on
hospitals.
81 will tell you another story.
When | got out of my position as
minister to The Hague l had gag
in my mouth. I couldn't speak, TO
the first thing a diplomat has to
learn is to keep silent in seven or
eight different languages. Besides,
our country was neutral. But as
soon as got out I went straight to