The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-04-25
HUNS GUILTY Of
CHARGED GRIMES
OUTR' :OUS BRUTALITY is IN.
FLlC D UPON PEOPLE OF
E eNCE AND BELGIUM
WOMEN : CHILDREN ARE M|STREATEO
Shocking eories Related BY Victims
Eva : Quotes Proclamations
Eat Are Posted
II. c. EVANS
~(Copyrighted 1919

Somewhere in France have be-
fore me seventeen proclamations is
sued by the Germans in Belgium and
France. These proclamations rere
set in type, printed on paper about
eight by fourteen inches and posted
in the public places of the captured
towns.
Similar proclamations we've printed
and posted in all towns captured by
the German army. In spite of their
precaution these seventeen were cap
tured or have been struggled out, pho
tographed and given to the world.
They bear upon their face self convic-
ton of extortion, brutality and muir
der.
Before l left home German-Ameri-
cans who were loyal to Uncle Sam re-
fused to believe in the published bru-
~talities of the German officers.
"Of course" said a %well-known Des
Noines citizen to me-, whom | know is
ready to give his all, even himself,
to our country. "Of curse any army
will commit atrocities. Many dis
graceful things were done during ou~
civil war by the soldiers on both sides.
| am sure, however, that German of.
ficers have not been guilty of the
crimes charged. The Germans differ
from us in form of government. and
they have the military spirit, but as
men they are as human as other
men"
was loathe to believe the charges
myself, and in my writings and public
speeches made no charge as to in
human acts by the Germans. | pic
tured the horrors of war in general,
believing that many of the tales of
brutality were untrue or exaggerated.
| had been in Germany during the
war and had heard the stories denied
there, and | could not bring myself to
the belief that they We're true.
am now prepared to state, from
the things ! have personally seen in
France, from the things | have heard
from the mouths of many creditable
witnesses. INC from reliable documen-
tary evidence l have examined, that
there has been no exaggeration of Ger
mar atrocities-in fact, the half has
never been told.
have seen French towns and vii
lagos where every house was burned
to the ground.
have talked with French women.
wives and young girls, who were out
ragged by German soldiers and who
gave birth to children by reason of the
O%utrages.
Three hundred thousand French
people, including these and other
women, old men, broken and wounded
soldiers and children, have been sent
out of northern France by the Ger
mans into Switzerland and from there
brought to southern France.
The tales of horror and tragedy that
fall from the lips of these three hun.
dred thousand may be exaggerated,
but if one-tenth of them are true,
then the truth is one hundred times
worse than has ever been published.
sat in a French home with one
of these women and listened to an in
terpreter as he told her story. She
was the wife of a farmer. Their home
was in northern France. She is the
mother of seven children by her hus-
band and one by a German officer.
She is forty years old. a Christian,
and still beautiful in spite of the Geth-
semane through which she has passed.
Let no man tell me that this beautiful
mother willingly yielded to the en-
braces of a foe that had invaded her
country, killed her husband and ruined
her home. Such a statement. by
whomsoever made, is a damnable lie.
If one wanted to dwell upon the hor.
rors Of this accused G~erman-made
war he could find no better Illustration
than the tragedy Of this one family.
The farm seized by the German army
and barracks built all over it; the
father away In the French army and
later killed at Verdun; the oldest boy,
Is years, sent a prisoner to Germany;
the mother and Sly children in a ref
ugee camp. where two of the children
died: the other outraged and in the
valley of the shadow at childbirth