The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1918-11-29

, Wall OIL sorrow LOT Sifl. Dul oii'S
/, gret over defeat mingled with the cry
| for bread. Ninety-seven U-boats have
I surrendered to the allies since Novem-
! Der IL. Are their guilty crews repent
I ant? Nay, they climb out or their
! holes with laughter and jokes upon
! their lips. To forgive and forget their
unprovoked war and horrible conduct
! would be to condone the crime. IL IL
more than righteousness requires, or
| than God expects. / speak reverently.
the all-merciful God cannot blot out
I their impenitent sins without violat-
| ing His very nature and destroying
the order of His universe
| / have nothing to do with the spirit
of Jonah, who was angry with the
| forgiving God. On the contrary, l
| would rejoice should the Germans,
| like the Ninevities, furnish unnistak-
able evidences Of repentance. Nine
veh's king laid aside his robe. COW
cred himself with sack cloth. sat in
ashes, and proclaimed a season OF
prayer and fasting. Very different Is
| the picture of William Hohenzollern.
dressed In uniform, strolling over the
estate of a Dutch count. with three
million dollars in gold to supply MS
comfort or nourish his suppressed
am bition. In Ninevah man and beast
were covered with sack cloth and
cried nightly to God: They turn
ed from their evil way and from the
violence of their hands" God saw
their works and changed His mind
about the evil that He had said would
| be done unto them. In the conflicting
and confusing reports that some from
Germany there is not the slightest in
dication of deep sorrow for the
| wrongs they have done other nations
They are regretful. Yes and so Is the
thief when he is caught But that
thief must restore and ask forgive
| ness and be sincere before divine
grace can save him. even then the
| law exacts its penalty. So is the bully
regretfuI after he has picked quar-
rell and gotten a whipping. Bulhes
/ have been known to plan for years
to 'get even" with one who gave
them a beating There Is no extent
/ to which they will not go--even to
| hiring others to do their fighting, and
to assassination.
| Precedent and the Kaiser
| Apart from the law of God national
precedent demands the punishment OF
| those responsible for this holocaust
of war. Napoleon was a fair fighter.
! Granting that he had vaulting am
! bition, he conducted war according
/ to the rules of the game. In the Rus
sian campaign he executed French
soldier for violating q woman S honor.
| In the dreadful strain after Llgny he
noticed the critical condition of a cap
| tive English officer and directed his
own surgeon to attend Immediately
the wounded man, thus saving his life.
He threatened the Belgian peasants
with the terrors Of hell If they neg
lected to succor the Prussian wound
ed. When his star went down in
blood and smoke. he put himself UNI
Ger the protection of British laws as
the most generous of my foes" Eng
land kept him in hopeless captivity
upon a barren rock 10 die of cancer
of the stomach. Did that deepen or
widen the channel between France
and England? Not one whit. Pre-
ceding events prompted her course
and subsequent history made old-time
enemies. allies. lf America Is mex
perienced and Utopian, surely Eng
land, with three hundred thousand
women widowed by the war and
hundreds OF thousands of orphan
children. will not forget or fail OF
all who sit at the peace table my
strongest hope is reposed III the Brit
ish, the worlds best diplomats.
Our gladness is not unmixed with
sadness. America mourns some of the
Very flower OF her young manhood
In July / estimated. or guessed, that
our casualties would amount TO ten
per cent of our forces engaged in
IEnropa Tan days sas }t4ag ts@sestMf"fls
assured Ms that one hundred thousand
would cover the casualties and We re-
ioiced with glad surprise. The au-
thentie figures disprove the govern
ments optimism. The official reports
are. Killed and died OF wounds 80
154. wounded 1895: died of dis
ease 1881; died from accident. etc,
2,204; prisoners 2.163; unaccounted
for ,l6o: total 234,1l7.On the score
of prisoners everything is in our IA
%or for we captured twenty times as
many as We lost by capture, and our
prisoners are now released. The great
ma jorty of the wounded will return
home as sound as when they left for
France and the permanently MANNED
, and crippled viii ever have our ten
derest regard and first consideration.
The dead are but little more than
one third of the dead in the Union
army in the war between the states.
/ Considering the fierce lighting of our
men from the very first up to the
hardest fighting along the Mouse and
the difficult Argonne Forest, which
continued up to the minute of ceSsa-
ton OF hostilities these figures are
not large. Our own church boys have
enjoyed a providentiai protection.
, Though Willie Word had been decor
: ialGd Tor GdithntSS anu EiltaHliS,
, March 6, two weeks before the territ-
/ c drives began. and though our men
, fought until the last shot was fired.
we have not lost one death in action
so far as present accounts show.
, Americas losses We're small in com
parison to the service she rendered.
They were only one perycent of the
, grand total and about equal to those
, of Canada which has one~thirteenth
of our population. Great Britain s
deaths were twenty times as great as
, ours and at the Dardanelles in one
vain effort she lost nearly as many
men as we lost altogether. There are
thirty F'renchmen's graves in France
for every American grave. In the
bulk disaster of the war. in which at
least eight million lives were lost
Americas dead were about the half
OF one per cent
Glory OF the Soldiers
The relative smalineSs of the com
plete sacrifice does not detract one
whit from the glory OF the American
soldiers, nor minimize the greatness
/ of their achievements. 1t was their
Willingness and readiness to die for
, the great cause, and the German s