The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-01-14
WHTTLOCKsS STORY
OF DECORATIONS
Minister of Belgium Declares 1t Is
Difficult to Write Calmly and
Justly in View of the
Huns Gratuitous
Cruelty


of Belgians and the forced labor en-
torted By the Hun" military lead
ers, tchich excited the indignation of
the ciUilized world, haze been thus
officially set forth:
The plan of setting forth the essen
tial facts of the deportations and
forced labor of Belgians is set forth
by the committee on public fnforma-
ton as follows: the documents, that
is. to say, small fraction of those
which could be cited, tell the story. and
only such comments are added as are
needed TO enable the reader to easily
| grasp the connection of events.
''The deportations were the
most vivid, shocking. convincing, single
happening in all our enforced observa-
ton and experience OF German dis
regard of human suffering and human
| rights in Belgium. Vernon Kellogg
In Atlantic Monthly, October, 1917.
A summary of the whole situation.
down to January 1917. can be OBJ
! tanned by reading continuously the re-
port of Minister Whitlock, taken from
the files of the state department. This
tells of the brutality of the deporta-
| tons.
Legation of the United States OF
America, Brussels, Jan. 10, 1917.
'The Honorable, the Secretary Of
State, Washington.
"Sir: I have had it In mind. and I
might say, on my conscience, since
| the Germans began to deport Belgian
| workmen early in November, TO pre-
| pare for the department a detailed
report on this latest instance of bru-
tality, but there have been so many
obstacles in the way of obtaining evil
dence on which a calm and judicious
opinion could be based, and one is
so overwhelmed with the horror of the
thing itself, that it has been, and even
now is, difficult to write calmly and
| justly about It. I have had to content
myself with fragments of dispatches
/ have from time to time sent to the
department and with doing what /
could, little as that can be, to a1levi-
ate the distress that this gratuitous
cruelty has caused the population of
this unhappy land.
WhitIoek Opposed Belgian Idea.
'Tn order to understand fully the
situation, it is necessary to go back to
the autumn of 1914. At the time we
were organizing the relief work, the
Comite National-the Belgian relief or
ganization that collaborates with the
commission for relief in Belgium
| proposed an arrangement by which
the Belgian government should pay
| to its own employees left in Belgium,
| and other unemployed men besides,
| the wages they had been accustomed
to receive. The Belgians wished to
do this both for humanitarian and pa
| triotic purposes; they wished to pro-
vide the unemployed with the means
| of livelihood, and, at the same time,
to prevent their working for the Ger
mans. I refused to be connected in
any way with this plan, and told the
/ Belgian committee that it had many
| possibilities of danger; that not only
would it place premium on idleness,
but that it would ultimately exasper-
l
was adopted, and has been continued
/ I'm practice, and on the rolls Of the
! Comite National have been borne the
names of hundreds of thousands
! some 100000, believe-of idle men
receiving this dole, distributed through
the communes.
1.-THE presence of these unemployed,
i -
| to German cupidity. Many times they
| sought to obtain the lists of the Gao
meurs, but were always foiled by the
claim that under the guarantees COW
ering the relief work, the records Of
| the Comite National and its various
suborganizations were immune. Rath-
er than risk any interruption of the
ravitaillement, for which, while loath
| to own any obligation to America, the
| Germans have always been grateful,
since it has had the effect of keeping
| the population calm, the authorities
never pressed the point, other than
/ with the burgomasters Of the COM
munes. Finally, however, the mill
tary party, always brutal, and with an
| astounding ignorance Of public opin-
ion and of moral sentiment, deter
mined to put these idle men to work.
General Won Kissing and the civil
portion of his encourage had always
been and even now are opposed to this
| policy, and I think have sincerely done
what they could, first, to prevent its
adoption, and secondly, to tighten the
rigors of its application.
German Promises Worthless.
In the early days of the German ad-
vance into Belgium, the people had
learned to fear the worst This was
particularly true in Antwerp. In or
der to alleviate their fears and to OBJ
tain guarantees which might hasten
| the restoration of settled conditions,
Cardinal MERCER secured from the
German government at Antwerp prom
! ises, and in circular letter dated Oc-
| tober 18th, 1914, asked the clergy Of
l