Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-02-22

farming returned 6 per cent; manu-
featuring s per cent, financing ~
per cent and war returned mucl
greater gains than any Of these.
The speaker proceeded to picture
the fatherland as gigantic thief bent
only upon plundering his nelghDOr.
The fine iron mines OF Belgium anu
northern France proved the bait tnat
caused Germany to wage THIS war:
Her own mines would be exhausted
within 10 years and with the loss OF
her mines she would sink to a third
or fourth rate power.
Returns From France Saddened.
DR.. Hills continued in part as FOL
lows:
Every American who has passed
through France and the edge OF Bel
GUM this year has returned home a
permanently saddened man. German
cruelty and French agony have cut
bloody cash in the heart, and there Is
no Dakin solution that can heal the
wound. Here in my hand rests a re-
production of an iron coin given as
token to each German soldier. At the
top is a German portrait Of Deity, ana
underneath are these words: The
| Good Old German Cod To encourage
the German soldier to cruelty ana
atrocity against Belgians and French,
| the Deity holds weapon in his right
hand. and to dull his conscience anu
steel his heart to murder, the token
holds these words, 'Smite your enemy
dead. The day of judgment will not
ask you for your reasons 10 THIS
native characteristic Goethe was re-
ferring when he said: The Prusslan
is naturally cruel; civilization will IN
tensify that cruelty and make him
savage The German atrocities OF the
last three years simply illustrate
! Goethe's words, for we must confess
that German efficiency reached us
highest point in the discovery OF new
and horrible devices for torturing old
men. helpless women and little chill
dren.
For three years German-Americans
have protested that the stories OF Ger
man atrocities were to be disbelieved
as English inventions, Belgian lies
and French hypocrisies, but that day
has gone by forever. The photographs
of dead and mutilated girls, children
and old men tell no lies. Jurists rank
high two forms of testimony-the tes-
! timony of what mature men have seen
and heard and the testimony of chill
dren too innocent to invent their
statements, but old enough to tell what
they saw.
For the first time in history the
Germans have reduced savagery to a
science; therefore, this great war for
peace must go on until the German
cancer is cut clean out of the body.
| Are Now DOcumented.
1.-THE cold catalogue of German afro
cities now documented and in the gov
eminent archives of the different ma
tons makes up the most sickening
page in history Days spent upon the
records preserved in southern Bel
GUM, northern France or in and about
Paris, days spent in the ruined villages
of Alsace and Lorraine, leave one nau-
seated, physically and mentally. It is
one long, black series of legally doc
umented atrocities. Every solemn
pledge that Germany signed year
and a half before at The Hague con-
vention as to safeguarding the Red
Cross, hospitals, cathedrals, libraries,
women and children and unarmed cit
liens are scoffed at as scrap of pa
per- These atrocities also were COM
mitted not in a mood of drunkenness
nor an hour of anger, but were organ
| (Continued on Page Fifteen1