The daily Alaskan., 1918-03-21

TH that the word of people
 is It's oath? Perhaps for all of them. Perhaps, too, because we could not keep out. We tried. What ever may have been our record In the past. 1t can never be said of us that we brought this war on ourselves or that we failed to use every honorable method to keep out of the death grip of Europe. If We were long in coming to our decision, It was because We re- malned incredulOus. We were asked to believe something that was hard to believe.
 So we waited and hoped and stressed every point of international law to the breaking point because of this thing We would not believe. We were 6 clean and humane people. We can un- derstand individual cruelty. We have had sad experiences of the hySteria of crowds. But we cannot understand and today We hardly credit, the cruelty of a government.
 We have ourselves constructed g government that Is dIgnified. just, slow to wrath, and humane.
 l But for three years a conviction has been growing among us that one of the nations in the world war Is none of these thIngs-not dlgnified, not just not humane. Had Germany's crueltieS ceased with Belgium, she might In time have made her case before the world. | For three years In that wretched coun- try she has been covering her tracks.
 But Germany has bungled. She has dlSclaimed frlghtfulness In Belgium only to bring 1t home to the world ut i large. She has introduced Into war fare such crueltles of killing, such in- human methods, such destruction, such contempt of the laws of war as have set the world pale with horror. She has added hate to the vocabulary of war and hatred Is cOntagion.
 Yes, perSStently and In the face of the evidence, she has dIsclaimed the l atrocities in Belgium. She has been willing to shoulder the sinking of women and children In unarmed ships, She Is proud of the invention of poison gases and of liquid fire. She believes that the smelling of unfortified cities and the use of the submarine against | helpless fishing boats will, on her in- itiRtive be accepted by the next Hague convention as ethical and legal.
 But she continues to dISclalm the | atrocities in Belgium. Why should she aOt? The thousands who died in pro- teCting the advance of her army, the other thousands who were shot with | out inquiry against the brick walls Of 1 captured towns. those T9en who were oayoneted while trying to protect their women from the assaults of drunken soldiers the little children whose bod les lay unburied by the rOadside-nOne of them will ever tell the story.
 ATROCITIES ON RECORD.
 The atrocities In Belgium are true. They are matters of record. German soldiers themselves have set down the details in the diaries their government gave them. I have read some of those | diaries. Not all German soldiers turned into beasts in Belgium. There are some who record that the horrors sickened them. It is not true that the German government ordered assaults on women. But 1t did order footing and arson and wholesale murder. The result of that order for footing was a mob of drunken men, whose vic l tins today fill great graves.
 This Is a terrible accusation to bring against q people. Yet 1 know the thing of which speak. During the 1 first year of the war I went to that portion of Belgium which remained un- | conquered There l saw men, officers high in the Belgian army, who had l themselves seen that infamous advance protected by their own people-old men, women carrying children, small girls, sturdy boys, with death behind and death ahead.
 It was impossible not tc believe. The accumulation of evidence was too great. The German army had come into Belgium prepared fer opposition. They brought fire confetti, which they flung into the houses while they were occupied. More than one German diary tells of the shooting of the h. habitants as they tried to escape. Drunken German soldiers firing their guns led sober ones to believe the civil population was rising, although it was known they had no weapons, and 30 or more leading citizens were shot without hearing. Women were | attacked in public places.
 But even here there was chance l for Germany. She could say-and she has said-she did not order these things, although she did order the shooting of hostages without inquiry, and she did order the footing which resulted in drunkenness and Its thou sand resulting brutal crimes.
 | CONVICTED ON ONE COUNT.
 But on one count Germany must face the world, must be tried and sen tenced, with no possibility of acQuit'