Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-04-19
GERMANS MUST
REALIZE CRIME
Columbia University Head
Makes Reply to Protest
of German Professors

| New York, Apri, 19.-Acknowledg-
ment of Germany's wrongdoing and
contrition by her scholars and sa-
wants for the "thirty-one kinds of
crime committed by the Germans
during the war must be indicated
before German scholarship and Ger
man science can be rehabilitated in
the eyes of university men of France,
England and America, Nicholas
Murray Butler, president of Colum-
bia University, says in reply to a
recent protest made by German pro-
fessors against "the outrageous ac-
ton" of the French high command
in ordering German educators to
leave the University of Strasborug,
within "a hours.
> DR.. Buffers letter was sent to the
rector of the University of Upsala,
open letter of protest from the fac
ulty of the University of Leipzig, ad-
dressed to the universities of Swift
zerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway
and Sweden, together with a letter
from the University of Heidelberg
Heidelberg Academy, stating that
those institutions joined in their OBJ
jections to the treatment accorded
their fellow savants. The neutral
nations were requested to forward
| the German protest to scholarS III
allied countries:
Clean Hands Necessary
Reminding the protesters that "it
is an established principle in Eng
land and the United States that any
one who comes into a court of equity
seeking relief must come with clean
hands" DR.. Butler declared that the
allied peoples have not forgotten
Germany's amazing prostitution of
scholarship and science to national
lust" and that before public sympa-
thy can be expected the people of
the allied nations want to know what
measure of protest, If any, the rec
tor and Senate of the University OF
Leipzig recorded against "the in
human treatment of the scholars of
the University of Louvain and
against the wanton and barbarous
destruction of the liberty OF that
university.
DR.. Butler cites "31 atrocious Of
fenses' committed by German arm
les and German agents during the
war. indisputably proved by inter-
national commissions, such as en-
slavement of women, putting to
death of hostages, starvation OF
civilians, pillage, wanton devasta-
ton, poisoning of wells, bonn pard-
ment of hospitals, sinking of hos
pitai ships and destruction of relig-
ious, charitable, educational and his
toric buildings and monuments.
Acknowledgment of wrongdoing
on the part of the German govern
ment, the German armies and the
German people, and contrition for
that wrongdoing, are the first and
necessary steps in the rehabilita-
ton before the world of German
scholarship and German SCIENCE
says DR.. Buffers letter.
Await Some Action
"It is probably within the truth
to say that the universities of
France, England and the United
States are awaiting with deep In
terest and no small measure of anx-
iety, some sign that German scholars
and men of science realize the en-
ornlity of the offenses, public and
private, that have been committed
by Germans and in the name OF
Germany during the war now end
ing, and some evidence that these
scholars and men of science feel
sincere regret for them.
I'VE have not forgotten the amaz-
ing prostitution of scholarship and
science to national lust marked by
the formal appeal to the civilized
world made by German professors
in September, 1914. That appeal
was an unmixed mass of untruths,
and the strain which it placed upon
the intellectual and moral integrity
of German scholars and men of sell
ence will forever remain one of the
events of the war which German
militarism and Prussian autocracy
forced upon the peaceful and liberty
loving nations of the world"