The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1918-09-27

stories OF French vice. The German
propaganda knows that. He is plan
ming to take advantage Of 1t for his
own purposes. He is making drive
upon the sentiments and emotions Of
American women just as he at first at
tackled the susceptibilities of the Ital-
ian women behind the lines in prepar-
ing the way for the Italian defeat.
How well he is succeeding in America
is shown by passage in that appeal
for protest to President Wilson
which was printed in the religious
press.
4 !, 1t pointed out: Throughout this
country feeling of bitterness dam
! gerOus in the extreme Is arising and
gazing with menacing eyes toward
France. The mothers who have reared
sons strong and clean, and who have
given them with glad, aching hearts
women who have loved France and
glorified her-are now muttering that
/ cur boys are wanted for the profits of
their debauchery and not to take their
deaths in strength and Cleanliness"
Such mothers are the victims of a
/ German falsehood. So is the writer
who thus described them and pro-
tested against the "debauchery'' OF
their soldier sons. The reports Of inn
moral conditions in France and the
campaigns of protest against those
conditions are equally the work of
German agents, assisted by the preju-
diced credulity of their American vic
Tins.
Mr.. Citizen, the committee on pub
lie information wishes to warn you
against these snares. There will be
more of them. In Italy anonymous
/ letters were sent to the soldiers from
their homes accusing their wives of in
| fidelity. Our military censorship pre-
vents such tactics among our men, but
similar impostures will doubtless be
attempted. Already forged letters
pretending to be from soldiers in
France have been found in the Hobbies
of New York theaters, as if acci-
dentally dropped there by the recipi-
ents. The letters are always in the
angular handwriting of persons accus-
toned to using German script. So far
they have contained little but alarming
falsehoods about the alleged slaughter
Of American regiments.
SIandering the British.
In order to set us against our Brit
ish allies, several sorts of whisper
ing propaganda" are being used.
There is the story that American sol
dierS are Keeling around the streets Of
London, drunk. 1t has been disproved.
There is the charge that while we are
| stinting ourselves to save grain the
English are using it to make whisky
although we are saving and shipping
chiefly wheat, which is little used in
distilling, and the figures from Eng
land show that the English liquor
traffic has been decreased by the war
almost as much as ours. And there Is
the report that millions of British sol
diers are held in England while the
allies are 'doing their fighting for
them"-a falsehood that is sufficiently
discounted by the fact that the British
empire has 100000 men in the field
and a half million in her fleet; that
of the British troops in France 70I per
cent are English, per cent Scotch, 9
per cent Irish, and 16 per cent Cana
dams, Australians, etc.; and that tise
casualties among these troops have
been 76 per cent English, 10 per cent
Scotch, 6 per cent Irish, and 8 per
cent Canadian, Australian, etc.
! The German mischief-makers who
first supplied arms for the revolt in
Ulster against home rule, and subse-
quently shipped arms for the revolt Of
the home rulers-theSe same prOmOt-
ers of disunity are now furnishing
the Irish in America with any story,
any argument, any SANDER that can
arouse anti-English prejudice among
us. On the Pacific coast, in the same
way, they are rafting the dry bones of
the yellow peril. The average organ
of publicity that was prO-German be-
fore our declaration of war, no mat
ter how pro-American it now pretends
to be, almost invariably uses the anti
British and the anti-Japanese appeals.
And just as the Zimmerman note tried
to unite Mexico and Japan against us,
so the enemy of our unity alternates
denunciations Of the yellow peril with
appeals for a declaration of war
against Mexico.
Should Be on Guard.
The German !sympathizer who tells
you the story of how discharged
Japanese servant boosted that the
Japanese would soon Gown America"
invariably couples it with lying ac-
count Of how all Washington is saying
| that "the next war will be with Great
Britain about the Panama canal" On
the Italian frcnt, before the successful
German drive, counterfeits of Milan
newspapers were circulated, contain
ing accounts of how bread riots had
been suppressed in north Italian towns
by British soldiers imported for that
DurDOSe after Italian trOODS had re-