The daily progressive-miner. [volume] (Ketchikan, Alaska) 1915-1919, 1918-08-23
CRUELTY,
GERMAN
INSTINCT
BY L. p. Jacks
In the Atlantic Monthly.

III tuc e1IlduIlC MOululy.
We know but little of German treat
ment of prisoners of war-little, that
is, compared with what we shall know
hereafter, but enough, alas, to be as
sured that, when the full story comes
to be written, the world will read one
of the blacklist pages of it's history.
1t will be a story of cruelty carried
to lengths of which, heretofore, we
had deemed human nature incapable.
l will mention three instances, and
they are typical of hundreds that are
we'll authenticated, of thousands that
will be made public hereafter, and of
many more of which the record has
persisted with the victims who might
otherwise have preserved it.
A British officer wounded at lie
Cateau, after nameless sufferings
both in transit and in hospital, and af-
ter seeing the deaths of many of his
companions through neglect and tor
ture, was at length sufficiently re-
covered to stand on his feet, and was
under orders for removal to another
locality. He and a number of others
in similar condition were drawn up
in the station, waiting for their train.
Presently a passenger express drew
up at the platform, which was crowd
ed to the edge by the wounded men.
When the train stopped, woman put
her head out of the window of first
class carriage, spat in the officers
face, and without saying a word, drew
back into the carriage and closed the
window.
On another occasion, the same Off
Ger was one of number of others,
lying on stretchers, who had been
gathered together in a small shed.
Presently it began to rain heavily
outside. Whereupon the attendants
took the trouble to carry them all out,
left them in the rain for three hours,
and then brought them back again.
Subsequently one of the officers, who
was suffering torments of thirst call
ed out for water. A nurse came and
said, "Ah, you want water. Well you
shall have some" She went out, re-
turned in a moment with the water,
took 1t up to the officer. poured it on
the ground under his face, and hand
ed him the empty glass.
A boy officer of 10 had been taken.
wounded, about the same time as the
witness mentioned above. Either
then or during his transmit to Ger
many, he had been deprived Of all his
clothes, except his socks, and had been
given a Red Cross blanket to cover
him. With his wounded arm suspend
ed by piece of string round his neck
a sling being refused him, and the
blanket wrapped round his body, he
arrived, filthy, exhausted and famish-
ed, at his destination. Before detrain-
ing, the Red Cross nurse in charge or
dered him to give up the blanket as
this was the property Of the Red Cross
and not of the military hospital to
which he was going. He represented
that he ha dnothing else to cover him.
But the nurse insisted, made him take
off the blanket and left him naked
In that condition he walked with the
others through jeering crowd from
the station to the hospital.
These are small things in compar-
ison with the general background of
horrors but they are unique, and pro
foundry characteristic. Moreover, small
though they are, they form one piece
with the monstrous crimes which the
German government has committed,
lone after another, against internation-
al decency and human right.