Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-01-11
CHANGES MIND AS
TO TEUTON CHIEF
Mrs. William Haase. Sister Of Dav.
export Woman, Calls Kaiser Bloody
Attila in Letter.
WITNESSES BELGIAN INVASION
Although Of German Descent Actual
Conditions in Europe Have Caused
Her To Denounce Ruler.

Face to face with actual conditions
In Belgium, Mrs. William Haase,
daughter Of the late Otto k1ug,
Davenport, and sister Of Mrs. Henry
+. Petersen of the same city, has
changed her mind about the kaiser.
In letter received by Davenport rel
descent, writes from Italy where she
is caring for wounded Italian soldiers.
that "the veil of delusion" has drop
ped from her eyes and that she sees
the ruler Of the Teutons as bloody
Attila.
Among other things she writes: ut
was my fate-perhaps / should say
luck--to witness the beginning Of his
war in Belgium. / saw the avalanche
OF the kaiser's soldiery in their cum
ningly invented dirty field-grey uni
forms pour into the city of Brussels.
l saw it passing for days through its
silenced streets. leaving behind, braz-
emily installed In the famous city hall
and grand palace, as we'll as in the
Palais des Nations, the Prussian mil
itary and civil governors Of captured
and enslaved Belgium.
When i Saw
when I saw. that invasion; those
endless lines of German soldiery and
all their military equipment in its sci
entific and fiendish completeness;
when I lay awake at night and began
to realize that the bloody Atilla had
indeed been reincarnated in the odious
person Of the kaiser, whom formerly
we used to put down as vain fool
on occasions when he posed before
the world in his well-studied parts as
painter. composer. artist, peace-kaiser
and many other roles; when terror
stricken refugees, witnesses and VIC
Tins of the monstrous drive Of civil
ians before the advancing German
armies, arrived to confirm the incred-
ible rumors of the horrors of Louvain.
Aerschott, Termonde, Dinant-
Then was the veil Of delusion
through which I and many others had
been wont to look at Germany, mod
ern Germany, torn from my eyes.
saw clearly what had sometimes in
stinctively surmised; that she is not
only the creation but, alas, also the
creature of the mad Hohenzollern
kaiser For, would those simple, slow
witted German peasants and wOrkmen
whom l had seen on travels in Ger
many allow themselves to be used by
the kaiser as the weapon, the tool
with which unhappy Belgium was to
be slain-could they have perpetrated
the crimes with which Belgiums soil
and skies were Redeemed in those
memorable August days Of 1914, If
they had not surrendered to their
aiser their conscience and individual
ity?
~We, Too, Are With You"
1.-THE red letter day in our London
calendar was the day when we could
at last grasp the hands Of our English,
Belgian, French and Italian friends
and say: we, too, are now in the
great alliance for the combat and kill
ing of modern Minotaurus, Prussian
militarism'
THE kaiser's 'frischer, frohlicher
lrieg' is not yet finished. The Ger
nan Michel has not yet freed himself
rom the hypnotic spell that was cast
i Don him while he was taught the art
If how to stab Belgium in the back
and to jump, like a bloodthirsty tiger,
at the throat of France for the pur-
pose of bleeding her white That
was the 'frischer, frohlicher Kreig'
Fhich Michel was told to fight for
kaiser and Deutschland uber allies.
The German Michel whom Heinrich
Heine tried so hard to rouse from his
lethargy is no longer the same. He
',as gone through Prussian training.
He has been fed on the honeyed ideas
of pan--Germanism. he has 1mbibed
super-man; even his little boys in
school now are learning that they will
be super-men when they grow up.
THE loquacious bombastic Wilhelm
ii had found submissive medium in
the German soldier when he hypno-
tized him in this war In spite of the
promise that the 'frischer, frohlicher
Kreig' should be over by Christmas,
1914, the kaiser's medium is still dog
gedly fighting on.
In Bleeding Italy.
I'm the Cadorna hospital up there on
the hillside there has been renewed
great activity since the Austro-Ger-
man Bulgar- Turkish offensive on the
Italian front. The excellent surgical
and medical treatment for which the
Ospedale Cadorna Of Palanza is
known, has saved the life and limb of
many brave son Of Italy. Not few
of these men have sojourned in the
United States as laborers on construc-
ton work, road building. or as trades
people"